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).
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.Batou667 said: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.