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

Jan 27, 2011
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Shadow flame master said:
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.
Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines.

Kill random civilians on the street until your humanity hits 4 or lower.

BAM, your characters dialogue starts slanting more towards the "I am a literal monster" attitude, plus you CAN be a total dick to everyone to the point where one of the mission givers literally Jedi/Vampire Mind-Tricks you into continuing the plot, and where an encounter with a certain NPC can literally end with your character frenzying and murdering the heck out of her without you having any control of it.
 

Rebel_Raven

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Jul 24, 2011
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Certainly not all the time, but I certainly have, and will likely do it again. Lately? Loadout. Hilarious when my gal gets killed and she flips off the enemy.
Granted she might be attractive to some, and there's nothing wrong with it, but she's not the typical model woman you play as.
Guy's cartoonishly rugged though.

Lets see... there was a Mr. Mosquito skin that was more ... realistic.

Kill all Humans?
Lots of other aliens, too.
 

Shadow flame master

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aegix drakan said:
Shadow flame master said:
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.
Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines.

Kill random civilians on the street until your humanity hits 4 or lower.

BAM, your characters dialogue starts slanting more towards the "I am a literal monster" attitude, plus you CAN be a total dick to everyone to the point where one of the mission givers literally Jedi/Vampire Mind-Tricks you into continuing the plot, and where an encounter with a certain NPC can literally end with your character frenzying and murdering the heck out of her without you having any control of it.
That sounds up my alley! I love playing as the "Big Good" character as much as the next guy, but being able to play as a complete and utter bastard character is an experience I like more.
 

NPC009

Don't mind me, I'm just a NPC
Aug 23, 2010
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Rayce Archer said:
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.
Fugly but interesting looking, I bet. Interesting is what I tend to look for in character designs. It's great when designs fit the setting, story and their personal history. Good characters are more than something to look at. They have personality, motivations, fears, a place in the world. Ideally everything comes together and we end up with a character we like playing as regardless of their looks.

Of course, in games like Skyrim you have to imagine most of those things yourself, but I think that's part of the fun. Anyone can create a generic pretty face, it takes imagination to try something else.
 

Paradoxrifts

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someguy1231 said:
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. I've seen women of all shapes, sizes and attractiveness cosplay as almost any Borderlands character that you could name including some of the male characters. But, I've yet to see anyone dress up as Ellie.

I'm more concerned when social justice warriors inevitably blow their head gasket when nobody wants to eat their politically correct, vegan, halal, kosher, unsalted and bland-as-fuck potato salad. Because it is not enough for ideologues for their views to be heard amongst a chorus of many voices, they will want their view not only to be the most predominate but also for other views to be discredited or silenced.

::Edit:: Holy shit, there are like two Ellie cosplayers out there. In comparison to the fifty billion Mad Moxxi clones running around.
 

Odbarc

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Jun 30, 2010
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Some people are just obsessed with playing a pretty character. When I can create my own character, ugly is usually the aim. The biggest possible nose possible with inward set eyes and brow and pointed jaw, sunken cheeks, grey balding hair.

What I don't like are JRPG 17 year old boys who wear 20 pieces of clothing and look absolutely ridiculous that I find unplayable. I mean, I could do it once with FF7/Cloud because I'd have never done that before and it was cool once (ONCE).

Character design can absolutely push or pull me (or people) towards a game. Generally towards whatever fantasy that appeals to them.
 

mooncalf

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The six year old next to me says "Yes!" they want to play ugly characters. So there.
 

seditary

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Aug 17, 2008
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It depends. I want to play characters I find aesthetically pleasing and/or interesting. That could be considered ugly or might not depending on who is looking at it.
 

bjj hero

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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?
There are ugly protagonists that are awesome.

What about Planescape: Torment? He looks like a burns victim.
Dragon Quest 4 (I think, it was for the PS2) had Yangus who was short fat and ugley with a comedy British accent and was my favourite charecter, great back story and lovable.

Odd World has a great ugly main charecter too

So yes, if it is well done and there is a reason for it, Ill play ugly.

And on Destiny my Guardian is a battle scarred ugly ass Robot so its the same on make your own guy sorta games.
 

Dominic Crossman

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Marcus Fenix was one ugly guy and I enjoyed Gears so... yeah? Rereads question... No, I don't WANT ugly, I just want their appearance to fit the game (A handsome/pretty Fenix wouldn't of worked for example).

Side note: I seem to be incapable of creating ugly characters without turning them into cartoons in CC's. True story, I tried to create an ugly female battle-scared Qunari in Inquisition and accidentally created one the most aesthetically pleasing models I've ever done.
 

FirstNameLastName

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It really depends. Would I seek out an ugly character? No. Would I play as an ugly character? Yes. Would I prefer an ugly character who is at least interestingly designed vs a generically attractive character? Yep.

Although, despite the way the question seems to coyly avoid the discussion of female character representations, I can't help but feel this is an indirect swipe in that direction. If so, I'd like to add that not making all the female characters barbie-dolls whose idea of armour is a metal bikini, isn't he same thing as make them ugly.
 
Aug 31, 2012
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Basically no, I'll make characters that I find aesthetically appealing. That doesn't necessarily mean they could all get jobs modelling underwear, but completely hideous, no.

The exception would be monstrous characters, but that really goes beyond what you're talking about I think, you can accept thing as looking good on a monster/alien/thing that you wouldn't for a human or very close to human character.
 

veloper

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Jan 20, 2009
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Sure they do. I for one enjoy playing ugly runt characters like the dwarfs and halflings in fantasy settings. I root for the underdogs.
 

The Lunatic

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Jun 3, 2010
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It's a bit unfair to say "Anyone" but, yes, you're correct in that not many do.

The majority of female WoW players choose to play as Blood Elves, not Ogres.

However, on the flip side, there's a number of people who enjoy playing Dragon Age Inquisition! Which is full of ugly characters.
 

Bizzaro Stormy

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Oct 19, 2011
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If you're looking for character diversity from ugly to cute, look no further than the Time Splitters games. I admit that I usually wanted to play as the monkey, one of the cute characters, but that was because you could have a monkey with twin Tommy Guns chasing people and that is awesome! However, there's nothing wrong with being a burning zombie, or Jacque De La Morte a very well dressed disfigured necromancer. If you want the best of both worlds play some 90's games. Especially the ones with good cut scenes but old 3d graphics that make the pretty characters look like nightmare people. As we all know Meryl and Sniper Wolf were both smoking hot in MGS and not pixelated abominations at all...
 
Jan 27, 2011
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Shadow flame master said:
aegix drakan said:
Shadow flame master said:
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.
Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines.

Kill random civilians on the street until your humanity hits 4 or lower.

BAM, your characters dialogue starts slanting more towards the "I am a literal monster" attitude, plus you CAN be a total dick to everyone to the point where one of the mission givers literally Jedi/Vampire Mind-Tricks you into continuing the plot, and where an encounter with a certain NPC can literally end with your character frenzying and murdering the heck out of her without you having any control of it.
That sounds up my alley! I love playing as the "Big Good" character as much as the next guy, but being able to play as a complete and utter bastard character is an experience I like more.
For bonus "evil" personality, sink a lot of points into intimidate early on. You can legit mug a guy right outside your character's apartment from the get-go. XD
 

Ragsnstitches

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Dec 2, 2009
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Ugly is an ambiguous term. Ugly personality? Ugly face? Ugly design?

The 1st I might have a problem with. I need to be endeared by a character. If they are reprehensible I can't associate.

The 2nd is simple, ugly people aren't inherently uninteresting. If I had a choice to play as Ghimli or Legolas, I would play as Ghimli every time. I would rather play as Brienne of Tarth over Daenerys, not for her personality mind, but because she's a lumbering brute of a woman in steel plated armor.

There are few equivalents to Brienne of Tarth in games (and movies/series mind).

For the 3rd type, if a character has an ugly aesthetic, as in poorly illustrated or lazily designed, then that's a flaw on the artist part and affects conveyance. If the style is hard to stomach it naturally makes it difficult to engage with. This is one of the differences between Mario 64 and Bubsy 3D (one of many, MANY fatal differences).
 

verdant monkai

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Oct 30, 2011
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You've never seen anyone make a custom character ever huh?

I personally wouldn't usually. But I would if it were appropriate for the story.
 

GundamSentinel

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Aug 23, 2009
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Want to? No. Would I mind? No.

I'm not deliberately playing ugly characters, but if the character is, well... a good character, then I don't care what he or she looks like.