Do you 'self-insert' in videogames?

[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.

 

[The_Lost_King]

No, I don't. At most I will give my character their own personality but I never make myself.

 

[nightingale]

Yeah, I do. Face, hair, personality, weapon of choice... maybe armor if available for customization, they're all as similar to the real me as it is made possible. I don't usually use my real name because it would sound weird in most fantasy worlds, but I do have a limited number of alternatives which I've used so much that by now are almost like second or third names. Imo, this way the experience becomes more personal.

 

[Zombie Sodomy]

I always play through the story as if I was the main character, but I don't take that into account when I create my characters look. The character could be an alien woman; I still think of her as being me. I've never really thought of my looks as being part of my identity. If it's my brain in a different body, it's still me. I have a hard time making a character that isn't me. It's not fun to me, so even if I set out to create an evil character I will still end up making the exact same choices as on my last play-through. I always try to make the best decision the first time around, and I can't bring myself to do anything that I don't believe is the best decision. It can be inconvenient at times to have my character so connected to me. In Star Wars: The Old Republic I finally created an Imperial class, I went with Bounty Hunter because they have no official connection to the Empire and are just fine killing sith and Imperial officers, and am leveling far slower than any of my Republic characters because I can't bring myself to do half the side quests on that side.

Edit: I also have yet to find a game that lets my character have my long ass Bon Jovi/Neil Young hair. My bottom lip is tricky too.

 

[uchytjes]

I always do my first playthrough. After that I play just to do stuff.

 

[concrete89]

More than I would like to admit. In the end, my characters act like I would act, given their abilities, and sometimes, I get far too invested in their struggles.

 

[jdogtwodolla]

I can barely manage to self insert into the Xbox/Mii universe, how the hell am I supposed to do it in an actual game?