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

[SmallHatLogan]

Depends on the game. RPGs with character customisation I tend to make fairly plain looking characters. Not ugly but not beautiful. Something like Saints Row anything is fair game. From supermodel to Quasimodo. In games without character customisation it doesn't really matter, I'm not buying a game based on the protagonist's appearance (although I can't think of many games with really unattractive protagonists).

What about a genuinely ugly character? As in, a character who actually "plays" as ugly within their game world, and is ostracised and insulted by other characters? Handled well, that could be interesting. A lot of quote-unquote "diversity" of characters in games is just window-dressing: male, female, young, old, the characters are all hyper-capable and handled almost interchangeably within their game worlds. The last game I played where a character's demographics were gameplay-relevant was Walking Dead season 2, where you have the capabilities, limitations and viewpoint of a young girl. A game that did the same for a disabled, elderly, or ugly protagonist... that could be interesting.

Fallout 2 kind of did that. You can't change your character's appearance (although the graphical fidelity is low enough that it wouldn't really matter anyway) but your charisma stat determined your characters attractiveness. Having an ugly character was pretty much just played for laughs but I thought it was a neat addition and is something worth expanding on. Then of course there's the option of low intelligence which makes your character barely able to formulate full sentences and has an impact on NPC dialogue and also locks you out of some side quests.

 

[Captain Marvelous_v1legacy]

I would not want to play as some horribly disfigured character that I wouldn't be able to look at without dry heaving. I don't mind playing as undead characters, but, even under such circumstances, I have standards. I also wouldn't be able to play as a character that has some ridiculous exaggerated feature, like big nose, ears, or feat, or having one something, like an ear, being larger than the other or some crap like that. So, no hiddeous disfigurement and no facial hair on women and I'm good to go.

 

[Fox12]

Wow, I'm... a little bit disappointed in the comments section.

All I care about is the writing. I'd MUCH rather play as a well written, interesting ugly character then a bland pretty character.

You seem to be answering the wrong question. The question was not ugly but interesting vs beautiful and boring. It was hideously deformed ugly vs not ugly in a vacuum. You added in the bland vs interesting part yourself.

No, I understood the OP perfectly. My point is that it's inconsequential, as the writing is the most important aspect of a character. Their appearance in a vacuum doesn't mean a a thing, since they're essentially a husk until we get to know them. I would be happy to play a deformed character. I'd be just as happy to play an attractive character. As long as their both well written, it doesn't matter.

However, and this is important, when it comes to appearance, what I really want is range. I want interesting but normal looking characters. Interesting but attractive characters. Interesting but ugly characters. I want a mixture, just like in real lief, because it encourages greater creativity and diversity from a storytelling stand point. Essentially, I want interesting characters, and it's possible to have a design that's both interesting and ugly/deformed.

 

[Tilly]

Hell yes. Unattractive characters need to be far more widespread. I think probably the reason we don't already have this is because no-one likes to think of themselves as ugly (or playing the role in social situations where they're treated as such)

 

[briankoontz]

Of course it's fine to have ugly protagonists. The game plot could be having the protagonist interact with a bunch of gamers who only play characters they find attractive.

If we only play attractive characters, we're seriously limiting what we're able to experience in games, just like if we only watch movies with attractive actors, that limits the value of what art can provide. How we evaluate whether to watch a movie then becomes based not on the quality of the movie (how well it improves our understanding of the world and our own lives) but rather on what the actors look like.

If we believe that video games have no artistic value, then we might as well maximize our aesthetic pleasure by only playing games with attractive protagonists. One wonders why people with such an impoverished view of games play them in the first place.

 

[DrOswald]

Wow, I'm... a little bit disappointed in the comments section.

All I care about is the writing. I'd MUCH rather play as a well written, interesting ugly character then a bland pretty character.

You seem to be answering the wrong question. The question was not ugly but interesting vs beautiful and boring. It was hideously deformed ugly vs not ugly in a vacuum. You added in the bland vs interesting part yourself.

No, I understood the OP perfectly. My point is that it's inconsequential, as the writing is the most important aspect of a character. Their appearance in a vacuum doesn't mean a a thing, since they're essentially a husk until we get to know them. I would be happy to play a deformed character. I'd be just as happy to play an attractive character. As long as their both well written, it doesn't matter.

However, and this is important, when it comes to appearance, what I really want is range. I want interesting but normal looking characters. Interesting but attractive characters. Interesting but ugly characters. I want a mixture, just like in real lief, because it encourages greater creativity and diversity from a storytelling stand point. Essentially, I want interesting characters, and it's possible to have a design that's both interesting and ugly/deformed.

Ok, why is writing the most important and visual style inconsequential? Not all games need great writing to be great, not all characters need to be deep to be good. Writing being most important is your opinion, not fact.

Now, it is fine that you have that opinion, or it would be fine except for...

Wow, I'm... a little bit disappointed in the comments section.
...
If looks are so important then go play Dead or Alive: Beach Volley Ball. Team Ninja seems to share your concept of game design. As for me, I put value in things other then just looks.

That condescending attitude of yours. Seriously, you are looking down on people because they have different preferences when they play with digital dolls. Grow up.

 

[Shadow flame master]

I can play as an ugly character, but what I really want to play as is a character who has a truly ugly personality. I want to play as a character that is apathetic to other peoples trouble, who won't give others in need help and will possibly gloat about it. I want a game that allows me to play as that character.

 

[Fox12]

Wow, I'm... a little bit disappointed in the comments section.

All I care about is the writing. I'd MUCH rather play as a well written, interesting ugly character then a bland pretty character.

You seem to be answering the wrong question. The question was not ugly but interesting vs beautiful and boring. It was hideously deformed ugly vs not ugly in a vacuum. You added in the bland vs interesting part yourself.

No, I understood the OP perfectly. My point is that it's inconsequential, as the writing is the most important aspect of a character. Their appearance in a vacuum doesn't mean a a thing, since they're essentially a husk until we get to know them. I would be happy to play a deformed character. I'd be just as happy to play an attractive character. As long as their both well written, it doesn't matter.

However, and this is important, when it comes to appearance, what I really want is range. I want interesting but normal looking characters. Interesting but attractive characters. Interesting but ugly characters. I want a mixture, just like in real lief, because it encourages greater creativity and diversity from a storytelling stand point. Essentially, I want interesting characters, and it's possible to have a design that's both interesting and ugly/deformed.

Ok, why is writing the most important and visual style inconsequential? Not all games need great writing to be great, not all characters need to be deep to be good. Writing being most important is your opinion, not fact.

Now, it is fine that you have that opinion, or it would be fine except for...

Wow, I'm... a little bit disappointed in the comments section.
...
If looks are so important then go play Dead or Alive: Beach Volley Ball. Team Ninja seems to share your concept of game design. As for me, I put value in things other then just looks.

That condescending attitude of yours. Seriously, you are looking down on people because they have different preferences when they play with digital dolls. Grow up.

That's not true at all. I'm fine with playing as any character. And I'm fine with other people playing as whomever they wish. I find it a little sad, however, that a few people, prominently OP, who has made similar posts before, blindly say that they only want to play as attractive characters. That's a little bit close minded. In OP's case it's much worse, since, in another post, he basically said the only characters worth saving were attractive female characters. To quote him, in order to get some "princess pussy." I find his line of logic disturbing. And now he's asking if anyone could ever seriously want to play as an unattractive character. Well yes, I would.

 

[zelda2fanboy]

I kind of enjoyed in KOTOR and in Mass Effect how playing the game "evil" made my character more ugly. I liked to go in and see what deformities they were building up and generally used them to act like an asshole. However, when I made an unintentionally "ugly" character in Saint Row, I couldn't really get into it. That could just mean I don't like that series, though.

 

[Mikeybb]

My point is, whenever games have given players the option to create an "ugly" character, most of them won't use it. In addition, most of those that do use it generally do so ironically or for laughs, rather than to make any kind of serious statement about beauty standards or body image or anything like that.

Well, it's purely anecdotal of course, but one of the reasons I loved star wars galaxies was the character creation engine was incredibly versatile.
While technically the same engine and system in place for EQ2, in that game they streamlined it and took away a lot of the 'ugly' ends of the sliders.

I mention this as it feeds in to my favorite character.
A human miner who dabbled in gunsmithing but majored in claim jumping, who was a little short, a little overweight and had male pattern baldness.
If you imagine a slightly taller danny devito, touring around on his speeder bike looking for that next big mineral claim, selling cheap guns on the side and despite all physical traits pointing away from it, still dressed as han solo, you'll have a perfect mental image of what he looked like.
So, that's why I loved the character builder in SWG and, I guess, you could call him ugly too.

While occasionally I make an ugly character for laughs, quite often I'll make one if the character idea fits.
Of course, this mainly happens in RPG games, but then you don't see detailed character creators outside of them too often.

 

[loa]

You mean games like borderlands? Psychonauts? Oddworld abes odyssey? Dungeon keeper? Team fortress 2? Giants? Evolve? Left 4 dead? Planescape torment? Among the sleep? Alien vs predator?
Yeah. Yeah people play that. Good games.
You see "ugly" doesn't have to equal boring and who doesn't want to play as the monster or the zombies?
Who was seriously so put off by razs deformed potatohead and everyones general butt ugliness that they couldn't bring themself to play psychonauts?

 

[DrOswald]

Wow, I'm... a little bit disappointed in the comments section.

All I care about is the writing. I'd MUCH rather play as a well written, interesting ugly character then a bland pretty character.

You seem to be answering the wrong question. The question was not ugly but interesting vs beautiful and boring. It was hideously deformed ugly vs not ugly in a vacuum. You added in the bland vs interesting part yourself.

No, I understood the OP perfectly. My point is that it's inconsequential, as the writing is the most important aspect of a character. Their appearance in a vacuum doesn't mean a a thing, since they're essentially a husk until we get to know them. I would be happy to play a deformed character. I'd be just as happy to play an attractive character. As long as their both well written, it doesn't matter.

However, and this is important, when it comes to appearance, what I really want is range. I want interesting but normal looking characters. Interesting but attractive characters. Interesting but ugly characters. I want a mixture, just like in real lief, because it encourages greater creativity and diversity from a storytelling stand point. Essentially, I want interesting characters, and it's possible to have a design that's both interesting and ugly/deformed.

Ok, why is writing the most important and visual style inconsequential? Not all games need great writing to be great, not all characters need to be deep to be good. Writing being most important is your opinion, not fact.

Now, it is fine that you have that opinion, or it would be fine except for...

Wow, I'm... a little bit disappointed in the comments section.
...
If looks are so important then go play Dead or Alive: Beach Volley Ball. Team Ninja seems to share your concept of game design. As for me, I put value in things other then just looks.

That condescending attitude of yours. Seriously, you are looking down on people because they have different preferences when they play with digital dolls. Grow up.

That's not true at all. I'm fine with playing as any character. I find it a little sad that a few people, prominently OP, who has made similar posts before, blindly say that they only want to play as attractive characters. That's a little bit close minded. In OP's case it's much worse, since, in another post, he basically said the only characters worth saving were attractive female characters. To quote him, in order to get some "princess pussy." I find his line of logic disturbing. And now he's asking if anyone could ever seriously want to play as an unattractive character. Well yes, I would.

What does it matter to you if people only want to play as attractive characters? Why is it sad that people enjoy media differently than you do? And why do you feel the need to express that using such a condescending tone if you don't actually feel that way?

Also, that quote was by a different user name so you are at best guessing that this is the same guy. But that doesn't really matter, since you did not target him. You instead went with general condescension of people who disagreed with you.

If this was indeed just you making a swipe at this guy, do it in a PM next time. The forums are not the place for passive aggressive feuds.

 

[Kanan]

No, because in that whole statement you never gave a reason to like the given character. I mean if the character has better stats, or maybe a cool back story then I would be prompted to play as the character. But I definitely won't like a character if they have no definitive quality other than being ugly.

Yet I won't avoid them just because they are ugly. Sometimes uglier characters are cooler or more unique.
From a purely asthetic standpoint I kinda like the forsaken, despite their disgusting looks.

 

[Fox12]

snip

Yes, I said I'd like more diversity and I'm the asshole.

People can do whatever they want, and play whoever they want. I was criticizing a very specific idea, brought up by a very few people, that a characters value is relative to their appearance, and nothing else. This was only a handful of people I've seen, but I've seen it. If that offends you then... that's fine, actually.

 

[loa]

Funny thing is, if an ugly character has a fun personality or does something interesting, it probably won't classify as "ugly" to the OP.
Perceived ugliness is more than the sum of the looks.

 

[Callate]

I think you could make a game where the ugliness of the main character(s) was part of some wider point; a horror game, for example, or an "indie" title where the way others reacted to them influenced their actions or made them ironic. But in terms of more conventional games where the character's ugliness simply "was"...?

I think that at best, that would be a point to be overcome, not a point in the game's favor. Come to think of it, we've spent quite some time trying to make polygon-based characters who were aesthetically pleasing; in a way, going the opposite direction seems kind of perverse.

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

If it fits the game, then absolutely. I've also been known to create what some might consider "unattractive" characters in various games where customization is allowed- my first three characters in World of Warcraft were a male Tauren, a female Forsaken and a female Tauren; and then there's my habit of creating beastfolk characters in Elder Scrolls games. Even when I decided to make a High Elf in Skyrim, she didn't really come out of the creation process looking like pin-up material.

Spoiler: Don't worry, she's not into you either.

 

[Tay Sway]

Bethesda character creation screens have given me many hours of joy, both ironically, and for low charisma playthroughs of fallout, or rp runs where i try doing something that doesn't really follow the main quest

so yes, i do sincerely want to on occasion. in some cases, games provide lore explanations for ugly-looking characters, give them tasks or positions that we don't typically explore as viddyahgam protagonists, or sometimes they're just written to be likable. if game devs can do it, i can make up my own dumb story to justify playing as an ugly ************, just as easily as i would with good looking characters

i don't have to like how they look to find them interesting or enjoy what they do

 

[BarkBarker]

Nope, if its gonna be in sight all the time I want my character to appeal to me visually. Yeah playing the fat, gross and wrinkly sack of ass might be fun to roleplay but I'm not gonna go there for my whole time, no way.

 

[Rayce Archer]

My first Skyrim character was a Dark Elf assassin. I wanted him to look truly ancient, as though he'd been morag-tonging fools since before Red Mountain blew. His skin was stretched taught over brittle bones, his skin blanched a ghostly pale by year without light. His milky-white dead eyes had long ago stopped seeing and what little hair he still had clung to his tattooed, craggy skull like sickly weeds. His drawn, emaciated lips parted just far enough for him to grin with his rotten teeth just before the kill.

I wouldn't force him on another person by any means though. Dude was fugly as hell.