Do you 'self-insert' in videogames?

[DementedSheep]

Generally no, I like to play characters different from myself. Though I do make the most of them female not necessarily because I have to play as my own gender but because I suck at creating decent looking male characters. Suck at drawing them too, male feature are harder to get right than female for me.
Occasionaly I?ll model a character after myself for the lulz though. I did that with my first character darksouls because it amused me to watch myself die brutally over and over again...hmm maybe I should be worried about that

 

[Starik20X6]

Yeah all the time. It makes the experience a lot more personal when I'm the one interacting with the characters, they call me by my own name and such.

 

[ace_of_something]

I don't know why I have a tendency to make my characters black and of average height/build. I think it's cuz I like the idea of the character being someone else. Since I am frustratingly tall, pale, blonde, and blue eyed.... well.

 

[Jedoro]

Of course. I love the idea of being myself in the game world, acting and reacting how I think I actually would in the situations I play through. Hell, I'll focus on this so much, it actually blocks my access to achievements. Fallout: New Vegas: I refuse to finish the game allied with Caesar's Legion. Spec Ops: The Line:

Spoiler

I absolutely refuse to kill the soldiers at the end.

It's like it's not even an option for me, to be honest. My moral compass, is that character's moral compass, and he (and sometimes she) will never do anything I wouldn't do.

 

[Reaper195]

Ish? I depends on what games I'm playing. If I'm playing something like Mass Effect, or Grand Theft Auto, where the character has a voice, a personality, back story, etc, then no. Why would I 'insert' myself into a character who is already a full fleshed character? If I'm playing something like Fallout 3, or Skyrim, or Fable, where your character is more or less moulded by the gameplay actions, then occasionally. If I'm playing a First Person shooter and whatever I'm playing has no voice (I.E. Halflife, Crysis 2, All the CoD games except Black Ops 1/2 (Which were both disturbingly good compared to the 'official' CoD series by Infinity Ward)) and no character...I consider it fuckin' lazy on the developers team. I prefer to see a story with fleshed out characters. Not have to make my own stuff up and 'interoperate' shit along the way. THat's the pinnacle of lazy ass writing.

 

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

The characters rarely look like me. I'll usually be a silver haired elf or brown-bearded human male (actually this is a lot like me!), or if female, red hair and green eyes and all of the above with above average height and dark-tanned skin (somewhere between mediterranean and indian). It's just an affectation really that I like.

In terms of role-play, I'll usually go for the chaotic good approach. I do right, but on my terms, because f**k the po-po. Not a fan of the Paladin/Righteous hero archetype. But cross me or mine and be ready for a reckoning. It's also why I hate it when game endings suck whichever way they go. I highly approve of multiple endings to reflect our individual journey and choices, but I want a best and a worst; anything in the middle is a lovely bonus.

Why should I? It's a role playing game, I like to assume a new role. I find RPG's to be the best form of escapism, other than captivating books.

I couldn't agree with you more. Or if I could it would be very difficult as the amount of agreement with you is already substantial.

If I wanted to be myself, I wouldn't play a game; I'd go outside - the graphics are amazing and the level of detail is unheard of!

Outside? WTF? Next you'll be saying you credit that nonsense about some sort of "flaming ball" that just hangs in the sky with magic.

 

[Altefforr]

Outside? WTF? Next you'll be saying you credit that nonsense about some sort of "flaming ball" that just hangs in the sky with magic.

No, no; the old ones are dead. No magic, there's this new guy called science. Apparently he dreams us all into existence, and we live on his blanket; I think they call it gravity. But, you know what's really non-sense? This whole thing about the mystics magic, just being some sort of sound-wave. Sounds aren't waves! Water makes waves! Sound is loud or quiet, not some sort of surfer!

 

[Jfswift]

I can see the appeal to self inserting yourself into a game, like if you wanted to experience first hand how well you'd fair during a zombie apocalypse but for me I prefer to make a character unique to their environment, to try something new.

 

[Voulan]

Not in fantasy games, which is almost all of my RPGs. I want to play as a new person in a new world, rather than myself. I might actually try to one day, to see if I could get a close likeness, but that's pretty unlikely.

That and I don't have very high self-esteem, so I'd rather play as a perfected character.

 

[DeltaEdge]

Pretty much all the time. I always make decisions according to what I would do in that situation, or what I would say in that situation whenever possible. I always make my character the same gender as myself, if possible, but rarely do I copy my personal looks, besides my skin-tone, because super short black hair, and no particularly special features does not a unique character model make.

 

[Jessta]

Sort of, I project traits of myself onto the character to begin with, 6 ft tall, spiked/messy blonde hair, blue eyes, slight stubble etc. and I like to think that their own personalities are amplified aspects of my own whenever I actually role play one, for example I have slight attention problems so I made a character that was suuuuuper easily distracted in D&D and would get into all sorts of shenanigans because he just wouldn't pay attention.
The characters are never actually supposed to be me though, like I almost never give them a thick jaw line or a large nose or sunken eyes nor do I ever make them not do anything based on pure lethargy.

 

[mechalynx]

Nope, I usually end up making brunettes or gingers with heart shaped faces and green eyes.

The only time I successfully recreated my looks with a character creator was my XBL avatar. And it's uncanny.

 

[Vivace-Vivian]

Gaming is a form of escapism for me. I'm always myself, I'd rather play as someone else.

 

[Kurt Cristal]

I used to do that, but found it wasn't of much use, I never really connected with characters of my own likeness. My Mass Effect character ended up looking like some bizarre Russell Crowe, so I'm just no good at designing a character after myself anyway. Besides, I'm not intersting! I'm boring!

Lately, I play mostly as women (am a guy) and typically roll evil characters. Moar interesting! Although to be quite honest, I do have some evil tendencies myself. Muahahaha.

 

[TecnoMonkey]

I try to add some of my features when creating a character, but not to the point that the character becomes my mirror image, I tend to add the same eye color, hair and lips that most matches mine own.

 

[EHKOS]

Technically. I make my ideal version of myself physically, usually a snazzy suit and white hair. Morally I can't stand to play as not me, I'M JUST NOT EVIL.

 

[JagermanXcell]

I've almost never 100% self-inserted myself, unless theirs like a moral choice system in the game, then I'm always a goodie two shoes. I never try to recreate my physical appearance, sometimes I even play opposite gender if the option presents itself, personality can differ just nothing evil. Last game where I completely self-inserted myself into was Persona 4, but that was because that game had good writing to actually engage me into the world and the characters.

What I do find fun is cos-playing in RPGs. Going into a game as Dante from DMC personality, appearance, and all, is literally more fun then anything I would ever hope to do.

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

Generally my first character looks like me within the constraints of what else I've chosen (like playing as an orc, for example) and my subsequent ones are their own characters and generally fit with what I'm trying to role play as. Dark Souls was a bit of a diversion from that, because I missed the customisation entirely for my first 6 characters or so and they all got default faces. Funnily enough, they're all deleted now in favour of ones I've put effort into, but I still haven't made myself although it would be pretty easy to do so.

 

[DoctorImpossible]

I used to do it all the time with sports games, until I hit my 30's and it became difficult to justify myself as a rookie.

 

[lacktheknack]

Only in Myst Online, because it actually has the avatar doing things I can (and would) do.

I literally couldn't do ANYTHING I do in other video games, so self-inserting feels pointless. Role-playing is lots of fun anyways.