Who do you like to play in games?

[rooster707]

I recently realized that ever since I finished Fallout 4, most of my characters have been copies of that one - a redheaded, slightly-too-pale woman named Karen. (I’m not entirely sure why.) Anyway, it made me curious about how other people tend to design their characters. Are you guys like me, making more or less the same character over and over, or do you like to try something new each time?

[Lord Raziere]

I recently realized that ever since I finished Fallout 4, most of my characters have been copies of that one - a redheaded, slightly-too-pale woman named Karen. (I’m not entirely sure why.) Anyway, it made me curious about how other people tend to design their characters. Are you guys like me, making more or less the same character over and over, or do you like to try something new each time?

Well my head canon is that I actually have one character, a red-headed girl named Ensara who is actually just traveling to different worlds, but the nature of her travel is that every time she arrives, all her other powers from other worlds are locked away and she has to gain and wield the power of the world she is in before she can leave. and that there is a specific term for the type of being she is- a Crosser, someone who crossovers from world to world, but always starts off in a new world unable to access other world's powers and has to build themselves back up again in that specific world using that worlds rules.

kind of odd that you do something similar, but I guess its to provide a form of consistency. but I do make other characters from time to time. its just that the name and the appearance is consistent in anything with customization elements.

[Olinser]

Third person games I always play female.

If I'm going to stare at a butt for a couple dozen hours of gameplay damn straight its going to be a woman's.

[Kitten Champion]

I usually play female characters in games as well. Why? Mostly because they tend to have more and better options design-wise than their male counterparts on any given character creator, and designing your character is usually the most creative input you'll actual have in any given game.

From there though, I have no specific preference. Depends a lot on what's available within the creator, an unusual hair-style will usual catch my attention. Though I fundamentally must keep any design within the canon aesthetic, I hate when my character looks too different from the NPCs of the same race/faction/whatever.

[rooster707]

kind of odd that you do something similar, but I guess its to provide a form of consistency. but I do make other characters from time to time. its just that the name and the appearance is consistent in anything with customization elements.

I suspect I just spent so much time playing her in FO4 that she just became my new default. (Whereas before if I was impatient and wanted to get into the game I would just hit the randomize button, or go with Generic White Guy #7.)


Third person games I always play female.

If I'm going to stare at a butt for a couple dozen hours of gameplay damn straight its going to be a woman's.

I 100% agree with this on a number of levels.

[Dorath]

Third person games I always play female.

If I'm going to stare at a butt for a couple dozen hours of gameplay damn straight its going to be a woman's.

The Arin Hansen philosophy on gaming.

[Vitruviansquid]

I always play the heavy armor, big sword guy at first.

Big swords and heavy armor are just cool.

It is always a good thing to be just stronger than the enemy in a straight up fight. The ultimate form of mobility is being able to be where the enemy is because you can beat him if he wanted to fight you. The ultimate defense is getting rid of the enemy.

I also always play a female character because... Eh, I dunno. Probably something deep seated in my psychology that Freud would have a lot to say about.

[Shoreward]

Play women more often than men because, as noted above, they usually have better design options. Beyond that, my first character in any game tends to be a driven and intelligent do-gooder who tries to hit the maximum number of allies and diplomatic options. They're not the same character each time but they share a similar personality, sometimes diverging due to story moments.

After my first playthrough, all bets are off. Heck, I don't tend to wait that long before making a wholly new character to explore some option I missed.

[Cespenar]

I try to differentiate them. As much as I agree with the previous posters about aesthetics, the same visual type of character twice in a row is going to chafe a lot for me.

[snowblizz]

Ultimately the only person I can play is me.

More often than not the visuals tend to get irrelevant as looking at the same character for ages makes me tune it out anyway.

The things one mostly interacts with are the choices the game presents and I tend towards doign the same thing because that's what I'd probably do in the situations.

This also means that games that think they create replayability by mutually exclusive options tend not be finished because in such cases I tend to like neither option.

[danzibr]

I always play the heavy armor, big sword guy at first.

Big swords and heavy armor are just cool.

It is always a good thing to be just stronger than the enemy in a straight up fight. The ultimate form of mobility is being able to be where the enemy is because you can beat him if he wanted to fight you. The ultimate defense is getting rid of the enemy.

I also always play a female character because... Eh, I dunno. Probably something deep seated in my psychology that Freud would have a lot to say about.
Phew, thought I was the only one (that plays a big dude). I often name him Guts.

[Maryring]

In western RPGs, I find that I often end up playing a female spellcaster if the game allows for it. However, in building/survival games, I usually go for a guy. What is consistent is that if there's a moral choice available, I'll aim for the good actions. I just can't really do evil.

Though in tabletops it's... a big variety. Psionic bards, spellblading knights and giant wrestlemonks all make appearances on my character list.

[factotum]

As far as physical appearance goes, I tend to go for dark-skinned female with white hair if that's an option...no idea why I do that, I just like to play someone who looks as far distant from my real self as possible, I think. Character type? Anyone who gets to take out enemies from range without risk of getting hit myself--I particularly like summoner characters for this reason.

[NRSASD]

I play short, swarthy diplomatic/stealthy rangers. Always trying to do right, but not above a little larceny here and there. Not really sure why haha.

[Tvtyrant]

I usually play sickly or deformed males who are ruthless and obsessed with power and revenge. If they are casters they throw away their souls for stronger magic, if rogues they employ torture and are openly in favor of theft and slavery, if Paladins they believe in Eugenics and Genocide. My Druid was attempting to find a way to restore the primal chaos to its perfect original form.

Probably says something bad about me to be honest.

[Mikemical]

I try to not go all murderhobo in games, unless the enemies are past redemption.

In MGSV, I stuck to being a heroic Big Boss, not creating nukes and dismantling a few here and there, never invading first. The one time I snapped was doing Mission 30: Skull Face; after getting stunlocked to death by the damn walkers and just went crazy with the grenade launcher. Died and did a No Traces infiltration immediately afterwards.

In Skyrim I go after bounties since those who have had a bounty put on them definitely did something heinous to deserve a price on their heads.

In Fallout, I always play high-charisma characters so in FO4 I went around doing hold ups on enemy camps and turning raiders/ghouls/deathclaws against each other.

As for physical description, I gravitate towards a certain type in games where you can make your own avatar: Young male with auburn Leon S. Kennedy-type hair and green eyes.

[Cespenar]

I usually play sickly or deformed males who are ruthless and obsessed with power and revenge. If they are casters they throw away their souls for stronger magic, if rogues they employ torture and are openly in favor of theft and slavery, if Paladins they believe in Eugenics and Genocide. My Druid was attempting to find a way to restore the primal chaos to its perfect original form.

Probably says something bad about me to be honest.

Eh, at least you're channeling those feelings into the games. :smalltongue:

Though I'd appreciate a warning beforehand if you mean to try the last one IRL.

[Aotrs Commander]

Slight bias towards female characters in RPGs on computers, slight bias towards male characters in tabletop, though this is not a particularly conscious decision, that's just how it usually pans out. Though usually, if there is a choice in the former and I make a rare second playthrough, I'll typically switch it up and play the other.

I tend to usually go for a "lawful good" (sic) playthrough the first time through a game (lawful good gets all the XP as I always say - or at least it did in the old Infinity Engine games), and if I do a second, then usually the crazy evil one where I abuse the game as much as possible. (Exception: Planescape: Torment, where my "evil," "sole-abuse the game mechanics" playthrough actually panned out as neutral but left me finishing at level 64.)

Definite caster (sic) over non-caster bias in computer games (and strong tendancy on tabletop), because special effects.

Beyond that, it's pretty variable, different character for every game.



(Though you could pretty fairly accuse me of playing most games with a bias towards "what decision gives me the best result" over anything else...)

[johnnnrussel]

I like I like

[Pronounceable]

Whatever they got for default is a go. Or mash the randomize button for about 10 seconds. Get me to the game right now, you dolt designer, I don't have time to waste on cosmetic crap that I'll start filtering out in half an hour anyway; especially if you also made me try to figure out what the hell I should be doing with all those options and classes and builds and loadouts and assorted **** blindly for like 10 minutes before you asked what my avatar looks like. Games grow on trees these days and my time does not.

Unless you're Champions Online, in which case you've only stayed installed for your pretty princess dressup screens instead of your actual gameplay for years.

[Sajiri]

I almost always play female characters these days, and if height or race is a choice, I tend to go for shorter ones. Probably because I am a short female irl and I feel weird playing tall characters.

I usually have a few characters I remake in different games, the names often vary. Usually either a pale skinned, dark haired, blue eyed woman, or a tanned skinned, blonde haired brown eyed woman. There are a few other appearances I use but those are the most common for me. As for how the character plays, I tend to go through phases of what type of characters I want to play, but they're almost always lightly-no armored, agile characters. I never play heavy armored ones. At the moment though I tend to be favouring traditional magic users in games. I often play the same type of characters until they become a canon thing for me when I turn them into a dedicated character for RP/Tabletops/something like that. Such as my PSO2 character Novia was recreated in a specific campaign so now I dont remake her in video games anymore.

I tend to prefer playing younger characters (not child, just someone who looks as though they've only just reached maturity) as I usually like to play RPGs or MMOs, and I imagine a character starting at lvl 1 would be younger looking, I then (if Im able) like to adjust their appearance during gameplay to look as though time is passing (make hair longer, add scars, make features more mature if able).

This is all of course assuming I get to make my own character, as I rarely enjoy playing characters that I didnt create myself. Aloy from Horizon Zero Dawn was a noticeable exception for me recently. She was the badass young woman on her coming of age journey, and I did get to have some control over her personality.

[BeerMug Paladin]

I also think the clothing options for female characters tend to be more diverse. So I tend to be biased towards female characters.

If we're talking about those games with the detailed character creators, I usually just mess with the options until I wind up with something which personally amuses me.

Waffle-iron Face. A woman (I think it was a female) I played briefly in a Mass Effect game. She had a vaguely Asiatic appearance, with a little bit of roundness to her. Then I gave her very colorful scars all over her face and changed the proportions a bit to help accentuate all the strange patterns. The game showed me a much more awesome looking character shortly after who looked a lot like her right after I started the game. He kinda reminded me of Edward James Olmos. He died shortly afterwards.

Freezer Burn Man. Similarly, I covered his face in pockmarks and all sorts of pimples and freckles, then I made him look like a fairly thin black man of about late 40s, only all his skin was a deep blue in color. He woke up from cryogenic suspension with freezer burn.

Weepy Goldman. This fellow's proportions and face were manipulated to make his default expression look like crying. I gave him ears that were very large and slightly floppy. My friend's nephew (4) came into the room at one point and asked why the character was crying. His skin color was shiny, uber-reflective gold. Saints Row mob boss. Everyone just lets him be the big bad crime lord because they feel bad for him.

This is the sort of thing I do when I get ahold of those in depth character creators. So, nothing really consistent or probably really interesting. It's just whatever nonsense thing I feel like doing at the moment.

[Wraith]

Without realising it, I now see that I've played the same green eyed, pale-skinned, vaguely-Japanese woman with long black hair for the past... 15 years or so?

Baldur's Gate 2, Neverwinter Nights, Mass Effect 1-3, Fallout 3, 4 and New Vegas, Warframe, Sharune, Starbound... It's always her, whether warrior, thief, priest, sniper, ninja, space pirate, engineer or sorceress. Usually as a Stealth Sniper, though.

Usually with a name starting with "Kae", come to think of it - Kaela or Kaeala, depending on how much of a fantasy setting it's in.

[houlio]

I almost always play male characters, although if I think the game warrants a second play through I’ll usually make a female character.

My male characters almost all invariably end up being slightly uglier versions of Keanu Reeves, with glasses if they are available. I think the only exception to this has been Stardew Valley where I made my guy have long brown hair and a beard. My female characters vary a great deal.

I usually prefer to play as a gish or rogue type character. I usually find being a fully involved in any single thing a bit too boring, and mixed play styles tend to be hilarious and hectic. This is perhaps best exemplified by the Vanguard class in ME2.

Personality wise I’ll always go for maximum snark, but I think that’s more for my own entertainment. If I have to read/listen to a novel or two worth of dialogue, I’d prefer it to have some levity.

[Mx.Silver]

I tend to randomise a lot of aspects of character creation in games. Usually if it's something they wouldn't have had control over I tend to leave it chance to at least some degree (so things like gender and most aspects of physical appearance that aren't hair-styles, tattoos, or piercings).

[Spore]

I am very superficial with things like those. I usually play the beefiest guy I can find. Unless the male options are all terrible because the devs spent disproportionate time on female models. They I'll play a middle sized woman.

(Because of this my female characters often have a lot more personality since male characters are usually just wish fulfilment rather than characters.)