Poll: Custom character vs Character with defined personality?

[FakeSympathy]

Whenever I play a game the characters that i play as always seemed to break down into two categories;

First are the characters with already defined personalities and traits. Games such as Metal Gear Solid, Final Fantasy 7, Uncharted, Halo, Gears of War, and The Lost of Us all have main characters with already established history, personality, and traits.

And then there are the make-your-own characters. These are usually silent protagonists where you get to decide who your hero should be. Games such as KOTOR, Fallout series, Elder Scrolls Series, and Dragon Age: Origins all have silent protagonist. Although Mass Effect series, Dragon Age 2 and Inquisition, and SWTOR all have voices for the protagonists, they should still be considered as silent ones since those dialogues were made by your choice.

So do you prefer when games let you make your own choice or have already built character?

 

[FalloutJack]

I can't make that decision. I've done both. There are cases of good characters that are defined and good custom-build systems that make your character likeable enough while designed to your preference. There's also the reverse where either of these are done badly.

 

[[Kira Must Die]]

I like both, but creating a character, to me, is like another game itself. I love myself a good character creator. I tend to spend a lot of time and fun with that alone.

 

[dragoongfa]

It all comes down to the type of game really.

In games like Skyrim, with an open world and open progression then a custom character is best. Gameplay wise it won't make much difference but story wise it's a whole different matter because it's the player who writes the story in each session of that game.

With some proper roleplaying such a custom character could be as interesting as a pre defined character. The only issue that comes to mind is that we don't have the necessary technology of text to voice in order to have fully fleshed out custom characters.

 

[The Madman]

Ideally both. It's hard, but it is doable.

A few examples of games I can think of where the player-made protagonist still manages to have personality and feel like a character unto themselves as opposed to just a proxy for the player:

-Shadowrun: Dragonfall & Hong Kong both do this really well, Hong Kong especially impressed me with how much it let me flesh out my character through interacting with a 'longtime friend' npc.

-Kotor 2 did an amazing job of allowing the player to create a protagonist that was both their own but still part of the story. The use of flashbacks as a means of both conveying the story and giving roleplaying opportunity was great.

-Vampire: Bloodlines gives you tons of room to both build a character and to roleplay that character in such a way as they feel compelling through the awesome clans, the humanity, and your personal decisions and allegiances.

 

[Aerosteam]

Character with defined personality all the way, for any game. They're always more memorable to me.

 

[Hades]

I vastly prefer established characters over custom build ones. With my own characters its almost inevitable he would end up being the most boring person in the land. I can't say Skyrim had many interesting npc's but all of them were less dull the the dragonborn.

With a established character I feel the character I'm playing as drives the story with his own beliefs, friends and enemies but a custom character is no less a mere spectator then you are.

 

[Zykon TheLich_v1legacy]

Always custom. Otherwise my attitude tends to be "Who's this fucker? I don't give a fuck about them or anything they do" *turn off game*, or more likely, just don't buy in the first place. Even ones with a bit of customisation like the Mass Effect and Dragon Age put me off, although that was only a small part of it.

I assume you're talking about RPG type games or games with significant story. It's not something that I play these days, but I never had a hankering to make my own Tekken or Street Fighter characters

 

[CrystalShadow]

Both. For entirely different reasons.

I love a custom character. (though I often find character creators frustrating in not allowing what I actually feel like doing, which undermines it somewhat as an idea)

But a character with a good story can do things a custom character usually can't. And so the story tends to just work better if the character you play as has an identity of some kind.

 

[Lufia Erim]

With a personality. It makes for better story telling. I mean i have nothing against creating your own character, it's just that with an defined character and personality developpers can tell and more compelling story. Of course it is possible to have an epic adventure with a created character.

 

[Darth Rosenberg]

As has been said; it depends on the game, as both can be used in different - and effective - ways. Personally, I feel it perhaps works best if the character design biases heavily towards one or t'other. Morrowind/Skyrim's a blank slate, and beautiful for it, as your RP is all that then really matters. With defined characters, you're participating in their story.

The trouble is when a character falls between those two stools; for me, Shepard's a perfect example of bad PC character design, because s/he's never your creation, and never their/the writer's own. Shepard's passed back and forth between player and writer/cinematic director, and there's a dissonance that can never be resolved (the Inquisitor had the same problem, but managed to be even more boring/listless because of the 'story' and, sadly, voice actor/director for what should've been my favourite female Inquisitor).

A great example of a defined PC's virtues would be Captain Walker, from Spec Ops The Line (although given how intelligent that game is, the game itself plays with the tension between player agency and linear progression and characterisation). I thought Lara in the new TR was pretty damn well done, too.

But... if pushed to vote in a typically too simplistic binary poll? I'd go for custom character - as character customisation's a huge draw for me, and that element's usually emphasised with player defined creations.

 

[Bobular]

I really like the way Mass Effect and Dragon Age 2/Inquisition have done it, that sort of mix of custom character, but with actual personality.

I feel that my characters in Skyrim all feel kind of bland as they have no interaction really with events going on other then hit with weapon and my choices at character creation only lead to people helpfully pointing out I'm a Nord.

On the other hand I don't usually feel invested as much in a character that was pre-created (though there are exceptions). I wonder if this is more down to the pre-built characters seem to be generally boring big, white, guys with brown hair and stubble so custom characters lets me avoid the sameness a bit.

 

[Aeshi]

I prefer making my own, but I think it is possible to have both to an extent if you know what you're doing. The Saint's Row series in particular was usually pretty good at that.

 

[stormtrooper9091]

I prefer the characters that have a story if a story is about a character. Except Half Life

If a game story is about a world, massive sociopolitical shenanigans, a single character is kind of unimportant

 

[mistercheese]

Built, but only on the condition that the character matches the gameplay. The Far cry series has both of this being done both well (in blood dragon) and terribly (far cry 3 and 4). Jason and Ajay are both far too meek and untrained to represent the lunatic whirlwind of death that the player is in the gameplay.

 

[Grouchy Imp_v1legacy]

Custom, as it adds greatly to the replay value of a game - and replay value is the top thing I look for in a game.

Fixed characters are great for writing in fully developed personalities and character interaction since the writers get to decide who the main character will react - and that kind of storytelling certainly has it's strengths - but custom characters offer entirely new ways to experience a game. Replay Halo: Reach three times and you've played the same game over and over, with all the cutscenes panning out just as before and nothing changing in the story. Play Fallout: New Vegas three times and each playthrough has the potential to be entirely different from the last/next, with characters, factions and entire questlines unfolding differently as the game reacts to characters with differing strengths and weaknesses.

 

[verdant monkai]

An actual character all the way.

I love a good custom character but they are rarely anything but the soulless mule you ride through the game on. Take fire emblem Awakening for example. No one remembers it for the boring goober that was the strategist you played as, they remember Chrom the hero and Tharja the best girl and so on.

Then you have awesome player custom characters like commander Shepard.

It depends on what you want out of a game's story. If you just need to self insert as the hero to satiate your egotistical desire for praise and recognition, then go into Skyrim and make your dull mute avatar look as much like that facebook profile picture as possible. For everyone who actually wants a decent story which has more to it than well done you are the hero, then play a game like the Witcher or a tales of game. With glorious charming characters you wish were real and could reach out and run your thin slimy your fingers down.

 

[The Purple Grape]

Custom- those game tend to remember they're games not movies with an occasional and (usually) half-assed and easy gameplay in between cutscenes. I like to play games not watch most of them. When gaming gets more actual writing talent to pull of charterers then we will see if I can care. Not saying there isn't any but it is heavily in the minority imo.

 

[hermes]

Characters with defined personality.

If I am in charge of customizing the character's responses and personalitiy, I always tend to default to the generic do gooder that cares more about maximizing utilities in the game than being an actual character. Besides, custom made characters have a much greater tendency to break up when the game is forcing an emotion into him for the sake of narrative (like Bigby Wolf, Cole McGrath and Shepard).

 

[WhiteFangofWhoa]

Probably Custom, if only because we're able to use a character editor like in SWTOR, Pokemon X/Y or Fire Emblem. The more influence your character has over the direction of the story, the better, and your choices define who that character is.

Though they are always limited by the developer's imagination and time constraints, one day I hope to see a lot more protagonists where you have full control over not only their name, appearance and gender, but how they view the world they are introduced to and their chosen life goals in it as well. Even if those goals are villainous.