Does anyone sincerely want to play as "ugly" characters in games?

Timeless Lavender

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I personally do not care. I just want a character (assuming we meant games without character creation) to be easily different and unique from others. Very often some games used the same type of beauty in their characters which have gotten stale over time. If it means to have an ugly character, then I am fine by that. I just do not want to be guessing the characters appearance the third time around when being asked.

EDIT

I just forgot to add that I prefer a character personality over their appearance. I will take an ugly character with charming personality over an attractive person with a wooden personality.
 

aozgolo

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Beauty is extremely subjective. I, for example, am highly attracted to bigger women (BBW) and I understand this isn't considered a modern beauty standard for most people. I love games that let me create "bigger" characters to enjoy, and I realize what I find beautiful another person finds ugly.

Even if I'm not going for attractiveness to me though I still create characters who fit with the archetype my character is trying to encompass. If I want to roleplay as a cowardly merchant character for example he may be a middle aged stocky balding man with a bulbous nose and double chins because that fits with the archetype I imagined for that sort of character.
 

the December King

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If I have a choice?

ALWAYS.

Hot chicks and buff dudes as optional playables do not interest me in the slightest- I love inhuman characters, and they usually fall into the 'not attractive' category. The less human, the less anthropomorphic, the better.

But whether male or female, I think the more important element for me is whether the character is 'cool'- whether there is something that I like in the design or visuals or mannerisms that I think is unique, and helps to define the character. That could be a conventionally attractive woman with a robot arm, for example. Or, even better, just her robot arm...

Now if the game is really good, I'll end up trying the other character types, even the pretty ones, if there is a game- related point to do so (different arc, weapons, missions, etc.), but never on just aesthetic reasons.
 

Casual Shinji

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Well, what kind of ugly are we talking about here; super deformed John Merrick, or just your regular homely person? Because if it's the latter I really don't mind. In fact, in Dragon Age 2 I purposely made a long haired, balding, slighty alchoholic looking wizard, because that's the type of character I felt like playing. Sometimes it's fun to be the ugly schmuck and kick ass, instead of the umpteenth hottie getting worshipped.

It's the same reason why it's fun to have an action hero who botches things from time to time, instead of one who just performs like a well oiled machine.

Flaws tend to make characters more interesting. It humanizes them.
 

KingOfGreyfell

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I made a point of making my dunmer in Skyrim as ugly as I felt needed. Big and burly, with a perpetual scowl, and one eye because I thought I could get an eyepatch. Granted, Skyrim dunmer aren't winning any beauty awards without a disproportionate amount of effort going into beautifying them.
 

sageoftruth

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Team Four Star's decision to play Dragon Ball Xenoverse as "Dumplin" answers that question for me. Check it out in this link. I skipped straight to the character creation part.
https://youtu.be/RwnFhFbJ9es?t=631

There's plenty of fun to be had in playing an ugly character .
 

Qvar

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Andy Shandy said:
I wouldn't play the game just because the main character was ugly, but yeah, I would. I'd have to be pretty shallow to be turned off of a game by the relative attractiveness of the main character.

As for the character creator point, I imagine that's because many people are trying to recreate what they'd want themselves to look like (with the tools at their disposal).
I think the point here is about if you 'want' to play ugly characters as well as beautiful ones.
In other words, having 2 games exactly equal, except in that one has a good-looking main char, and another with a butt on his face and a face on his butt, would you play the second one just for the sake of it?
 

thoughtwrangler

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Many of us are already playing "ugly" characters. I.E. characters who are not necessarily repulsive, but do not fit the definition of conventional beauty.

Heavy Weapons Guy is ugly. And as far as we can tell, the spy isn't very attractive, since he's obscured by a mask. Same for the Pyro. Garrus Vakarian is an "ugly" alien. Steiner from FFIX? Ugly. The elder Solid Snake is ugly. Frank West would be considered just a regular schmo. Yangus from Dragon Quest VIII is a more outwardly obvious example. The Nameless One from Planescape: Torment is rather ugly, as are most of his companions.

Some of these characters are second-banana types. But for the most part, they're "cool" characters. Characters that can be respected despite their physical lack of appeal. And the games take place in settings where standards of beauty and aesthetic are either close enough to infer similarity to our own (Team Fortress 2) or set up in such a way as to be more or less analogous to our own. (Dragon Quest VIII, Planescape Torment, Dead Rising, Mass Effect.)

Yes, it's the rule of the day that characters will *probably* be attractive. But the culture is set up in a way that even an ugly male character can still be "cool" to play.
 

Bat Vader

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I say yes but only under certain terms. They have to have a well written character and the story has to be good. I don't want to play an ugly character just for the sake of playing character. The same goes for a good looking character. If the character has a personality of a 2D cardboard cut out I'm not interested.
 

Andy Shandy

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Qvar said:
Andy Shandy said:
I wouldn't play the game just because the main character was ugly, but yeah, I would. I'd have to be pretty shallow to be turned off of a game by the relative attractiveness of the main character.

As for the character creator point, I imagine that's because many people are trying to recreate what they'd want themselves to look like (with the tools at their disposal).
I think the point here is about if you 'want' to play ugly characters as well as beautiful ones.
In other words, having 2 games exactly equal, except in that one has a good-looking main char, and another with a butt on his face and a face on his butt, would you play the second one just for the sake of it?
If the attractive one is "standard attractive video game protagonist" of its time, I'd still probably buy "literal butt face" one maybe one or two times out of ten just because it's something a bit different, but yeah, in that case I would probably buy the attractive one most of the time.
 

AgedGrunt

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We tend to immerse ourselves with the main protagonist, so there is a bias (we don't want to think of ourselves as ugly).

We're bombarded with biases of beauty in society. Characters ideally have flaws, but pretty rare to see it in appearance. And no, a scar down the face isn't an ugly flaw; it's often a lame characteristic to make a character look tougher and constantly remind the audience that they're a bad ass. That's fine (if you are writing for teenagers).

Ugliness is also an old trope of villains, because symbolism. Face of evil and all that.
 

visiblenoise

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I don't care that much, but given the choice, I would almost always choose to be someone or something at least remotely attractive. Not simply "not ugly," but actually attractive. Given the choice, I would also make nearly all the good characters have some aspect that is physically attractive. Unattractive appearances would be reserved for unfathomable badasses, unimportant or joke characters, and bad guys. But they will never be the good main character.

My reasoning is that appearance is very loosely tied to personality, if at all, especially in fiction. So having to see an ugly character constantly is, to me, a needless compromise. It's a small one though.
 

Loop Stricken

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someguy1231 said:
Simply put, people like to look at characters they find attractive. In World of Warcraft, the most popular races for female characters are Humans, Blood Elves, Night Elves, and Draenei. All of those are widely considered the sexiest races in WoW. By contrast, the least popular female races are Orcs, Goblins, Tauren, and Dwarves, who are generally considered the ugliest. You think that's just a coincidence?
I happen to like Goblin and Forsaken girls, myself. Orcs too, but the new model updates made their run animations rather jank.

Anyway, what do you mean by ugly? Overly-large facial features that don't match the rest of their face? Fat? Patchy hair? Scars? And if scars, do you mean like burn scars or war wounds?

Or, do you mean 'do we want girls who aren't dressed in fucking chainmail bikinis'? 'cos yeah, give my ladies some decent armour.
 

PsychicTaco115

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Whenever there's a game that has a character creation system, I always make a neckbeard

Why? Because I find it funny

Saint's Row 2 (the Third was awful and I stopped playing when I couldn't make it), Dark Souls, Skyrim... All neckbeards
 

Zhukov

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Sure.

I've never had trouble sympathizing with ugly characters in books or movies (admittedly they are very rare in the latter), I don't see why it would be a problem for me in games.

I've tried to make ugly or plain characters in RPGs with character editors. It's actually pretty difficult, since it's easy for them to just end up looking uncanny-valley-tastic.

The first character I made in Skyrim was an Orc with a face like a tree stump and I loved him. In Saint's Row 3 I made a guy who looked like a small, wiry version of Danny Trejo.

Can't speak for anyone else, but I say bring on the ugly.

Not that I expect it to happen.
 

Whispering Cynic

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Sincerely? No. I immerse myself in my characters and if I'm repulsed by the character (for whatever reason, not just aesthetic), I can't do it. And that, obviously, ruins the game for me.

So when given a choice, I always pick/create a character I find attractive. Or a monster. I'd much rather play as some eldrich abomination dredged out of a fever-induced lovecraftian nightmare than an ugly human.
 

L. Declis

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Honestly? Not really.

I don't mind if they're battered, bruised, thrown through hell and back, missing an arm and such (see my constant adoration for Snake in all his forms) but even when you do this to all of them, they can still make them handsome.

Hell, even Old Snake from MGS4 was a silver fox, and while he aged poorly, he was still a bit of a looker, burn scars, wrinkles and uncomfortably tight sneaking suit.

But burns and all, with his body falling apart, I don't care what you say, the ending where he stands on top of Metal Gear and duels Ocelet in his final, broken form is glorious to see.

Hell, in the next Metal Gear, Big Boss is missing at least an arm, an eye, burnt, psychologically fucked, has a piece of shrapnel stuck in his head and is getting old.

My point is, you can have "not pristine and not hot" without the character being ugly.

In Dark Souls, I play as a 6' Asian women who is not pretty in any sense of the word and is bulky enough to look like she can throw that armour, shield and spear around, but she isn't ugly.

Same with FemShep; I have always preferred her ME1 look of being a little old, a little tired and not a model. I dislike that they basically made her a model in ME3 and made her younger and stuff, to me, she was THE woman, not a little girl. But again, not ugly, just not sexy either.
 

DementedSheep

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Sure if the design is still cool, hell even if it isn't and it's just plain ugly it could be interesting. So long as it doesn't make me want gag just looking at it (ironically the only examples I think of that do that are both characters designed to be sexy. Difference in taste I guess). Kratos is ugly but I still played him and like his design and Styx is a goblin thing but I want to play that. I've played orcs, undead, giant horned cats, dunner (in skyrim with pronounced bow ridges and lines under the eyes) and older and not attractive characters in various rpgs and no it isn't a gimmick or a statement. Pretty is often boring and things can look good without being attractive.
Unfortunately interesting design not centred around fuckablity is a concept that often seems hard to grasp if the character has a vagina, even for side characters rather than protagonists. Although I don't actually think it is because people don't "get it", more likely is just like with brother, where they just consider it a waste of a slot because there is "no point" in women existing unless it's to play victim or for the purposive of getting them up and if they don't do that the character should be male.