Viewpoint Someone needs to take the lead.

[Crow]

"Let's do a Persona RP, but NO ONE is the Wildcard!"

"Let's do a JoJo RP, but NO ONE gets to have a name that can be shortened to JoJo! Not even unintentionally!"

And other variations of 'we're doing this fandom RP, this main character-exclusive ability is very important to the spirit of the series, but we will not include it because it's heavily tied to being a main character and we can't have that'.

I say that if that's a problem, just don't do the RP and do a different, maybe original idea that doesn't rely on this. Even if fate harkens towards a chosen one, everyone is the hero of their own story. That's the best balance to the 'main character' problem some may suspect will pop up. Heck, wanting to be to gun but not getting it could lead to a good character arc.

That, or just getting the GM to do it. These roles are leader-type roles generally, and who better to play the leader than the guy driving the goddamn plot?

Anyhow, how would you deal with these problems?

 

[Onmyoji]

Hmm... Because in groups it's not uncommon to encounter power play mentality, I'm inclined to think that a "unique main character-only ability" should be available to no one OR to everyone, depending on the purpose and style of the rp.

If this ability is indeed unique and essential (like Wild Card) then GM character / NPC can be using it, letting other character demonstrate their uniqueness in another way. As you said, each character is the hero of their own story. But that story shouldn't clash with game world (unless that's the purpose of the rp. I only mean canon-compliant ones). So I'd say I'll correct my previous statement to "no one but GM/NPC" if the ability is essential.

If everyone, then there should be some rules that would limit abuse of the ability (since it's supposed to be unique for a reason, making it not unique defies its purpose). In that case the rp will already not be canon-compliant by default and the GM can set their own rules for it.

It is also possible to designate a player to use it, but unless that player is a co-GM or it's a group of close friends, there might be conflicts "why them not me".

 

[Crayons]

Main characters in anime are always ridiculously OP compared to all the other characters, in order to make them "special". RP really doesn't need that "special" character because all the other charcters then become useless. That's kind of the point in anime - all the other characters are useless so MC gets to shine!

So take Bleach. Ichigo is a human/shinigami/vizard/quincy/fullbringer with all the benefits and none of the drawbacks of each. He is a monster. Yet each of the shinigami captains have cool and unique abilities of their own. If you put Ichigo!Proxy in there the captains and VCs are worthless no matter how cool they are. But without Ichigo all the captains become the top level fighters in the universe. It's more balanced. No one has to argue about who gets to be the special MC!Proxy.

I don't think this is about leadership at all. Leadership is a personal quality, not to do with the amount of powers loaded onto them.

 

[Owlbear]

The issue is though that a lot of the time those "main character-exclusive abilities" aren't included is because they're really strong.

Heck, a lot of the time it's not even as essential to the "spirit of the series" as people think. The Jojo example you used is a pretty good example of it. I mean, Diamond is Unbreakable would still have undeniably been true to the spirit of Jojo's Bizarre Adventure had Josuke been named Tommy.

 

[nerdy tangents]

I actually have seen this work just not necessarily in the way you might think.

I did a Buffy AU years ago which did offer Slayer as one of the roles. Which is very much a “protagonist specific position central to the plot.”

The reason the roleplay worked however is because the Slayer wasn’t a leader in any capacity. It wasn’t a story about the slayer with a host of side characters. She was treated the same as everyone else.

So it was a true ensemble cast with storylines built around character interactions and whoever was available at any given time (I played one of the baddie characters and had a blast coming up with shenanigans for my character to get up to)

I think that’s how these sorts of things work best. If you are in a combat specific roleplay than make sure your protagonist proxy is of a similar power level to everyone else and you should be fine.

Now if you want someone to act as a catalyst for action within the roleplay then that’s just the GM. It isnt really a specific character or players responsibility.

 

[Murdergurl]

"Let's do a Persona RP, but NO ONE is the Wildcard!"

"Let's do a JoJo RP, but NO ONE gets to have a name that can be shortened to JoJo! Not even unintentionally!"

And other variations of 'we're doing this fandom RP, this main character-exclusive ability is very important to the spirit of the series, but we will not include it because it's heavily tied to being a main character and we can't have that'.

I say that if that's a problem, just don't do the RP and do a different, maybe original idea that doesn't rely on this. Even if fate harkens towards a chosen one, everyone is the hero of their own story. That's the best balance to the 'main character' problem some may suspect will pop up. Heck, wanting to be to gun but not getting it could lead to a good character arc.

That, or just getting the GM to do it. These roles are leader-type roles generally, and who better to play the leader than the guy driving the goddamn plot?

Anyhow, how would you deal with these problems?

I think it is completely feasible to play in a given fandom and not having to be any of the main characters (or even supporting characters). In fact, when pertaining to fandoms, this is my ideal. Take Star Wars for instance. I would be less inclined to join an RP where the players were taking the roles of canon characters, and would be more likely to join one where we all had to make OCs. Use the setting everyone is familiar with, but make them create original characters to RP as. I'm not familiar with JoJo or Persona, but I imagine that if the group is creative enough they should be able to adapt the setting to a bunch of OCs. Pokemon, Harry Potter, (insert superhero fandom here), Hero Academy, etc. they can all be done without having to include any character from their respective series/movie/game. In my opinion, RPs are BETTER this way. Any and all my characters that are made for a fandom are made in this manner.

 

[Jannah]

I think it is completely feasible to play in a given fandom and not having to be any of the main characters (or even supporting characters). In fact, when pertaining to fandoms, this is my ideal. Take Star Wars for instance. I would be less inclined to join an RP where the players were taking the roles of canon characters, and would be more likely to join one where we all had to make OCs. Use the setting everyone is familiar with, but make them create original characters to RP as. I'm not familiar with JoJo or Persona, but I imagine that if the group is creative enough they should be able to adapt the setting to a bunch of OCs. Pokemon, Harry Potter, (insert superhero fandom here), Hero Academy, etc. they can all be done without having to include any character from their respective series/movie/game. In my opinion, RPs are BETTER this way. Any and all my characters that are made for a fandom are made in this manner.

This is actually the only way I do fandom RP's so it's certainly not impossible.

 

[Sara Sidereal]

can't relate, I am the main character in all roleplays and in real life