Sci-Fi/Fantasy versus Rules

[Infinity Blade]

Below are the rules for posting in a Sci-Fi/Fantasy versus thread.

1.) If you hardly know anything about any of the fictional characters (or really, any entities, for that matter) in a versus matchup, then conduct research on the characters to post your judgement regarding the topic; at the very least, base your opinion upon reading previous comments made in the thread by more knowledgable posters (if they exist). Tempting as it may be, it is not encouraged that one makes a judgement based simply on say, the results of the poll, all the more so if very few people have actually voted in the poll. If you cannot be bothered to do this, then do not post your opinion of the topic until you can be bothered to do so.

2.) There’s nothing wrong with not being a fan of, or even disliking, a fictional character. There’s nothing wrong with expressing such sentiments. There is, however, something annoying about character bashing, all the more so the more you do it. If you are going to invoke your aversion towards a fictional character, don't be a whiny little child or an edgelord about it. This also applies to fandoms as a whole.

3.) In case the issue ever comes up, racism towards human cultures, especially on threads pitting real-life historical or present day warriors/armies against each other, has no place on this board. This is even more serious and problematic than the fictional character bashing mentioned above.

[creature386]

On using your own characters in matchups:

A lot of members here like using their own characters in vs-scenarios. There is nothing wrong with this per se, but SpaceBattles and deathbattlefanon tightly regulate the use of characters made by their users and for a good reason.
Picture how a kid might describe his favorite superhero. "He can fly and he is stronger than Superman and he has laser eyes and he can shoot plasma and he can freeze people by touching them and and and …“
Unfortunately, a lot of characters created by people who don’t do this sort of stuff for a living aren’t much better than the above example and characters of this flavor just aren’t interesting in debate threads.

That doesn’t mean you can’t use your own characters in debate scenarios, just make sure they meet three criteria.

1. Have their powers and limitations be concrete.
A lot of self-made characters don’t have stories featuring them and if they do, they are either incomplete or too confusing/too over-summarized to provide any feats. Even worse, it’s difficult to picture how a character fights without having samples to look at.
This does not mean self-made characters can only enter matchups if they appear in stories. Take ScottishWildcat’s fictional superhero Daniel Lyons for example. We have no story and only a very short profile by SW to go, but what we know is already very concrete. He is basically a twelve year old boy of average physique with the ability to control animals the way Aquaman controls aquatic creatures. While details like the range of his abilities are fuzzy, we at least have a very good idea of his weight class.
If your character is too comic-book-like though in terms of how many laws of physics they violate (flying faster than light, pushing planets etc.), we need feats. It’s okay if they’re just part of a profile.
Nigh-omnipotent characters almost certainly need stories that feature them so that we can gauge whether matchups with them can be interesting at all.
As a rule of thumb, the more grounded a character is in reality, the less explanatory work you have to do.

2. Don’t be a munchkin.
Even if a character has concrete powers and limitations, a character specifically created to be as powerful as possible so that you win vs-debates isn’t very interesting. It’s okay to create a character solely for the sake of matchups, but in this case, put more effort in making them interesting than making them a guarantee that you win.

3. No Mary Sues.
A common problem is that many self-made characters are so bland or so over-glorified that no-one but the author could possibly care for them. That’s why deathbattlefanon has strict anti-Mary Sue rules. There are no clear criteria on what makes a character a Mary Sue and what doesn’t, so it will be up to me and Infinity to judge. The important issues here are overpowerdness and authorial investment. It should be obvious why an overpowered character is boring. Likewise, authorial obsession with a particular character doesn't make for fun debates.
That being said, this point isn’t a common problem on this forum. There are only two characters here I can think of that would qualify at most, so regard this as a minor rule.