Suggestions for a character behaviour

sauropasquini 2017-11-23 09:34:16 UTC #1

Hello to everyone, Maybe I can use some of your suggestions to develop the right behaviour on one of my characters.

This is my webcomic:

A youth baseball team is facing their own differencies in order to become a good team. Each team member have his/her characteristics and behaviours.
One of them, Marsilio, is an alien that I would define as a good/good alignment. He is always positive on everyone and everything. Even when a team member insult him to not being good at playing, and left the team to join the rival team, Marsilio stayed positive about him, smiling, being happy for his success and simply positive for the good.

In the last panel of chapter 1, Marsilio returns home, to his dad, caliming how happy he is to play baseball and to have friends that help him, declaring, however, that he still have to learn a lot to play good.
The father ask him why is not using his telekinesis powers to be better, and Marsilio, according to his character, said that he won't use them, because it's not fair. Good.

So, now we know he can be greater that how he is, but also that he will not use his powers in game.
I initially wanted this powers to be in him, to be able to use them, somehow, in the future of the story.

All season 2 will be focused on normal matches, facing a game rule each chapter, developing all characters.
I was not planning to use his powers here.

In Season 3 Marsilio will be selected for the national team, facing international teams, maybe even an alien team.

But the question is: What event will convince Marsilio, according to his natural beavhiors, to use his powers in game?
What will let him to become hungry, what will force him to use them? And will he use them openly or in a subtle way, not to be discovered?

Any idea?

anim8or2000 2017-11-23 11:10:45 UTC #2

I'm not very good understanding how sports work but how about this for an idea?

how about a player being signed for a professional team. this player uses their natural talent with baseball and works hard to further his skill. he does not consider it showing off that he can always hit a home run or pitch crazy balls that outwit the batsman he is using all his natural abilities

our alien ponders this for a few matches: is it cheating if i can telepathically improve the trajectory of the ball? if i was super strong and could hit a homerun everytime, is that cheating? What if superman played baseball instead of being a superhero? ( for context watch the conversation between clark and Jonathan Kent in Donners superman)

then the team faces a problem. the clubhouse will be repossessed unless they make a large cash payment to the bank/loanshark etc. the best way to raise the money, is to win the crucial game. for the best of intentions the alien uses his abilities to help the team win the game

the alien is then tempted to join the big league by an unscrupulous promoter.
does he sign up to the team or stay with his current team? lets not forget there will be a lot of cash for him and his team who will trade him to the new team.

does he confess to his coach how he helped the team win the game?
if he does join the new team, hes going to have to raise his game. will training very hard be enough for him like our example player? or will he be tempted to use his abilities again?

will a massive paycheck and rock star lifestyle corrupt this players moral compass?
will he end up doing adverts for cars and branded sportswear made in sweatshops and not signing certain brand trading cards because his agent says he shouldn't'

sauropasquini 2017-11-23 11:29:59 UTC #3

Wow! Nice idea. Summarizing it up, you set up an ethical reason to use the powers, even if this conflict with his original idea not to. Good.
In this story I'm speaking about boys aged 15, so no money is involved. I will think about something ethical to force him to use the powers, or at least to feel the doubt!

Thank you!

Vanzish 2017-11-23 15:18:15 UTC #4

What if he keeps advancing and the desire to win gets bigger, so he feels this peer pressure, he feels that he has the means to help him and his teammates win? He gets selected for the national team, which is a big deal and that's when the competition is strong.

You could make him start off by being subtle, using his powers just a little, which grants him good results, causing him to consider or even rely on his powers as a 'sure to win' method. Maybe at one point he gets overwhelmed and overuses them, which brings dire consequences? Maybe risking his team being disqualified.

sauropasquini 2017-11-23 15:38:44 UTC #5

This is also a great idea, thank you!

shazzbaa 2017-11-23 15:44:38 UTC #6

This is one of those things where you want established desires that are in conflict! So, if a character is established as wanting to play fair, and then he's suddenly feeling tempted to play unfairly in order to win, that's going to read as cheap drama and feel forced. BUT if there's something else that we know is super important to the character, that we know he would do anything for, then it rings true and feels like a legitimate conflict.

I think anim8or's suggestion of "the clubhouse is going to be repossessed" is a plausible idea for that reason -- Marsilio cares about his team and his friends and wants them to be able to keep playing -- that's established important to him, so his desire to play fair and his desire to keep playing with his team come into conflict -- would he sacrifice playing fair in order to keep playing?

This is a choice that's going to say a lot about his priorities -- what he thinks is the most important. If he believes using his powers is cheating, then what would be more important to him than not cheating? Winning clearly isn't more important than not cheating. But is staying on the team more important? Is pulling his weight on the team more important? If the other players are doing well in the upcoming games and he keeps on nearly ruining it for them, would he start, just a little bit, using telekinesis to compensate for being worse than the other players? Being on the team is so important to him -- is it important enough that he might use his powers to avoid being kicked off? That sort of thing!

Those sorts of questions are questions only you can answer -- what is the most important thing to Marsilio?

I think something else to keep in mind is whether you want this to feel like "cheating" or not in the story, and if you want this to feel like a temptation or not. The suggestions made so far tend to treat it as cheating -- Marsilio's intentions are good, but he is still breaking his rule, as if it is a "necessary evil" that he's using because something else is more important to him. That's going to feel like a temptation, like your character has "given in to the dark side" so to speak. If you want him to feel comfortable using his powers, then I think you have to do more.
A good example of this is anim8or's suggestion of pointing out that there are people who can do what you can do without using powers -- so is it really cheating for you to use your powers? is that really unfair? Because then you can end up with a character who, instead of breaking his rule and being tempted to cheat, changes his mind and stops seeing it as cheating.

I'm not sure which way you want that character to go, but I think it's an important thing to think about when you're deciding how to handle this story piece!

Hopefully this all made sense, please feel free to ask if I worded anything in a confusing way. xD

sauropasquini 2017-11-23 20:52:04 UTC #7

Thank you @shazzbaa, your way to think opened my mind.

What's important for Marsilio is to be fair and to have fun. Victory is not enough to let him force this beavhiour.
Nor to save the team or the message that is passing will be that you can cheat, if the intention is good.

Maybe I can concentrate on using the powers to avoid a cheating from someone else. I'm thinking about another character, a bully that will get inside the team in the future of the story. His character is more "cheating is good" so maybe Marsilio can realize that Sandrone desire to win has to be stopped, using his powers ...