Poll: Ugly Protagonists

[TwiZtah]

Nameless One from Planescape: Torment is pretty much as fuck-ugly as they get. I do believe that made the game a whole lot better.

He does have muscles and stuff though, just put a bag on his head.

Trying to think of fat neckbeard protagonist...hmmm

His skin is a warped, crackled mass of scar tissue and he has a magical tattoo on his shoulder that is literally physically painful to look at.

Granted, he's not the best looking dude, but fuck, he's been around for a while. I still want to see a protagonist that looks like anyone on www.reddit.com/r/cringepics, fat neckbeards with fedoras everywhere!

 

[xmbts]

Frank West was designed as an unattractive character, not just physically but his personality as well, his mission above all else is to get famous. At least until Capcom fell in love with him.

 

[Denamic]

Well, that depends entirely on the protagonist, doesn't it?

 

[Jezzascmezza]

I don't need a handsome or particularly attractive protagonist- as long as they look normal.
Downlight ugly protagonists can often look kinda distracting

 

[Xan Krieger]

Just off the top of my head
Alex Mercer
Commander Shepard (if you're playing him to be like you he's gonna have your faults like that time I shot that gas leak and burned a krogan to death)
Pretty much every GTA protagonist.
Max Payne (one of my favorite protagonists)
Your character in every Saints Row game
Spec Ops: The Line

Some of the characters can be really ugly inside (looks again at Spec Ops), some are just minorly ugly.

 

[Genocidicles]

I voted potato because it's not relevant to me.

I'll take any protagonist, as long as they're interesting.

 

[Abomination]

My time spent with MediEvil for PSX resulted in Sir Daniel Fortesque becoming one of my favorite characters of all time. He most certainly isn't pleasing to look at but gets the job done.

I want to see more ugly characters, perhaps even with a Phantom of the Opera type obsession going on.

I guess event Geralt of The Witcher series can be considered ugly... the man's got more scars than a blind butcher's thumb.

 

[The Funslinger]

Frank West was designed as an unattractive character, not just physically but his personality as well, his mission above all else is to get famous. At least until Capcom fell in love with him.

He does have a bit of a squat face going on.

 

[Scarim Coral]

Well I suppose it would be a welcome changed/ unquie if there was a JRPG that actually star a unattactive protagonist comapred to the many bishounen lady like and youthful protagonist Japan usually have.
If you're wondering what I'm picturing an unattractive but still liked protagonist, to me it would like comparing Coop from MEGA XLR to the usual mecha pliots.

 

[Ryank1908]

I like spending some time in character creators making things that look like they just quite frankly shouldn't exist, but generally after I've had my fun and I want to make the character I'm going to play as a lot I generally prefer them to look cool. I don't know why, it's kind of silly I guess. But I generally prefer to play as a character that I can look at and go 'yeah, thats badass,' but that kind of comes down to the kind of games I like to play (like spectacle fighters, fighting games, action RPG's, games that are quite involved on the visual side of things.)

Edit: Though that said it's interesting seeing people raise the distinction between ugly-hideous and the usage of ugly for character's like Max Payne and Geralt of The Witcher. I'm not personally bothered about whether my character is 'pretty' or not, I just like them to be at the very least interesting to look at and capable of looking cool in some way, be that effortless and slick, Dante-esque pretty-boyism or the kind of animalistic ferociousness of Geralt's fighting style.

 

[thehorror2]

I'd like to see a video game that had an unattractive FEMALE protagonist. Maybe a fantasy game where you play as a woman like Brienne of Tarth, or something. Hell, a video game that gave us a woman who isn't outright gorgeous like almost every other game with women in it. That'd be interesting.

 

[Lucid_Camel]

Having a Shepard that wasnt great looking really improved the game for me, he has a little drawn on upper lip facial hair with a duke Nukem Hair style and a battle scarred weathered face, made him seem like the rough lone survivor i made him out to be.Ever sence MSG4 iv prefered my characters to be seasoned vets.Plus was kinda funny that women hit on an old guy with a concrete block for a face

 

[Glasgow]

If a protagonist isn't the manifestation of the player then it can work pretty well in the game. A player needs to want to play a game, and if the character is disgusting, what incentive is there to play him? So the developers usually need to think of it this way and don't even bother sometimes.

 

[Therumancer]

Just so we're all clear, the use of the word Ugly in the title refers to more than just physical repulsiveness. I'm asking your opinion on whether you would like to see a character that has any or all of these characteristics: has/will done/do horrible actions, hard-to-like personality, has a general vileness about themselves (demonic taint, creepy features, etc), or a deformity, as well as being physically unattractive.

This came to my mind because I've been playing D&D since I was old enough to understand half of the words they use. That's about 9 or 10 solid years I've been spending actively trying to scare off the opposite sex, and I've noticed a few patterns in the players (I'm usually the DM). To this day, only three characters I have ever had the pleasure of DMing with have had characteristics that make them less likable and sexy.
1. A white-collar worker who distances himself from everyone around him and is out of shape for his age (32) 2. A foul-mouthed dhampir prick with a number of almost-disfiguring tattoos and piercings on his face and body. 3. A cleric of the Pestilence God, who is covered in hideous pus-weeping boils, a face that's been forcefully rearranged several times, and who vomits maggots on his foes as a primary attack.

Everyone else has made an effort to keep their characters looking good and keeping their personalities likable, and I often get called out on how most of the NPCs the group runs into usually have some sort of personality or mental disorder that makes them hard to get along with (narcissist, barely reformed criminals, honor-less, brutally honest, misanthropic, etc.)

Thing is, I prefer characters to be ugly, be it on the outside or the inside. An unattractive/flawed character resonates with me because that's how us tiresome human beings are, and I've realized that I can care a lot more about the plight of Marv from Sin City or Markus Fenix from Gears of War than I can with Cloud from Final Fantasy. It's more believable, I can see some ugly son of a ***** having more of a problem in life more than a pale-skinned kid in dire need of a haircut, and I find myself drawn to characters with major personality issues that would make them hard to get along with. And when I say "major personality issues" I don't mean, "they swear a lot in between kicking ass and people don't like that" or "his father died in front of him as a child, so now he's a loner".

I'm talking full-fledged problems, like a guy saying, "I'm so fucking hard right now" after gunning down a bunch of enemy soldiers, or some fellow throwing his friend into a river after beating the shit out of him with a cane for some imagined slight.

I don't know. Maybe their defective personalities speak to me as a loner, but another player in my group refuses to find redemption or redeeming qualities in any character in any media, meaning we butt heads quite often, so I thought I'd ask the people about their opinion. You know, democracy and whatnot.

TL;DR: What's your opinion on ugly characters, and who's your favorite?

Well, I play RPGs to escape from reality which is where I kind of differ from you. I don't want things to be entirely realistic in terms of who I play, or what I run into. I pretty much have to deal with a F@cked up existance every day, both when I spent many years working at a casino, and also after I was forced to retire with brain damage. Even if a piece of work on a lot of levels ALL of my characters tend to wind up having more redeeming qualities than not.

When it comes purely to physical attractiveness, that's a mixed bag. When it comes to relatively normal characters mine tend to be at least average or slightly above average looking, even if not people that are going to pass as movie stars (though I play more than a few of those as well). I've played many things, especially in games that RIFTS that are hideous by conventional standards, but are mostly just alien or really differant. I mean nobody calls a full conversion cyborg really ugly for example, he's just way differant being pretty much a brain in a casing inside an almost entirely mechanical body.

When it comes to attractiveness I also think your standards are a little borked. To be honest nobody agrees 100% on what constitutes as being beautiful, but by like the vast majority of people's standards Marcus Fenix is a bloody stud-god for example, representing a high end physical ideal. If you look at his face you might go "I don't get it" but now look at the rest of him, especially those arms and broad shoulders, and that muscle definition without even trying. This dude strips to a G-string and oils up properly and he'd probably be a Mr. Olympia contestant.

Let me put this into perspective, Arnie is considered one of the most beautiful men ever in his prime, granted not ALL women will agree with that, but the majority love this type, which is why you see them drooling over all the "hunks" pumping iron at the beach and stuff. His face isn't really the key here... I mean look at this, people tend to forget what made him famous.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMXi-uwNGc0

The guy is simply huge, and pefectly formed, the guy won contests that are basically the male equivilent of beauty pagents (even if there is female body building, it's viewed differantly). Marcus Fenix might not appeal to everyone, but he's pretty much got the same thing going.

Incidently this is also why the flip side of people making fun of girls with breasts bigger than their head in fantasy art is guys that show off biceps like tree trunks that are bigger than their neck with perfect definition without even bothering to need to do anything ahead of time to get the muscle definition to stand out.

Basically if the dude can pass as a Mr. Olympia contestant, your not going to tell me he's ugly. That said there are ugly protaganists out there, but not as many as you might think. Guys tend to be as objectified as girls are, just with differant standards that get less attention because their isn't the same kind of platform for attention in doing it (though it comes up).

I'll also ask questions like who the hell would want to play a priest of pestilence? The world sucks enough as it is. Half the point of escapist RPG games is to have vile, evil, things like that materalized and be able to kill/stop them and make the world a better place in a way that just doesn't apply to reality. I mean you can't say the character even has any good points by definition when you get beyond the concept. I suppose in theory if the guy was some kind of plague infested chaos minion (Warhammer style) that went rogue and was trying to prevent things like happened from him from happening to anyone else, it could make for a darkly tragic hero, but if he's a priest you can't even say he's doing bad things for the right reason, he pretty much wants to have the planet write in sickness in putrescent misery for the glory of his god.

In general when it's come to PC "bad guys" there are usually some redeeming qualities. Sort of like someone playing a priestess of Loviatar or whatever in D&D. Being Lawful the character can at least jusify coming to the defense of society as a whole, and given the abillity to deviate a step from deity alignment being say "Lawful Neutral" and walking around going "I'm kinky, not evil, and I generally just bring the horrible suffering to the enemies of my home of X". It can be done with some creativity in a lot of cases, but by the time you get to a maggot barfing priest of disease who runs around serving a god dedicated to bringing pestilence to the world, it's kind of a foregone conclusion.

 

[lacktheknack]

In most games I play, I'm either faceless, or the everyman.

Then again...

I watched Face/Off yesterday. At one point, we see Nicolas Cage without a face, and it was very ugly.

Therefore, does that mean all my faceless characters are ugly?

Hmmmmmmm...

I'd like to see a video game that had an unattractive FEMALE protagonist. Maybe a fantasy game where you play as a woman like Brienne of Tarth, or something. Hell, a video game that gave us a woman who isn't outright gorgeous like almost every other game with women in it. That'd be interesting.

"Myst Online"'s character maker didn't come with gorgeous options... at all. No matter how you adjust the sliders, you always come out with someone that you knew in high school, minus the prom queen. Does that count?

 

[NightmareExpress]

Boil 'em, mash 'em, stick 'em in a stew...
Boil 'em, mash 'em, stick 'em in a stew...
I voted potato, how 'bout you?

I don't have a preference for either.
Just give me someone interesting and dynamic, please.
That's all I ask.

 

[Lieju]

It depends on what you consider attractive. A big muscular guy is ugly to me, and I'd rather not play as one. But old and grizzled, especially a woman? Hell yeah!

I kinda often, when I can make my own character, make a petite female who has a nose that looks like it was broken at some point. I just want to give her something that easily looks unique.

Hahaha Oblivion.
OT: I think most of the games I play the most let you choose your appearance. Mass Effect, Skyrim, Fallout. You can make yourself as ugly as you want and no-one really cares, which kinda gives the optimistic view that appearance counts for little. In a perfect world, maybe...

Not really. You can't, for example, change the body-shape in many of those games, and as I tend to play female characters, their boobs are often ridiculous-looking.

I think it was in Dragon Age that I wanted to make my female-character really starved looking and skinny, like all skin and bones, and the elves were skinny, but she was still stuck with huge boobs...

I did make an effort to make one of my female characters look like they were hit on the face with a hammer, though. I sometimes try to make my character as inhuman-looking as possible. Like S/he belongs to an another species.

 

[spartan231490]

It's all about the universe. Someone like Vlad Taltos would be a villain in most series, but in the Dragaeran series, the world is so fucked up he's a likable saint. There are dozens of examples. "Ugly" is not equal to flawed. You can have a flawed character that is still a good person, it's all about balance. No one likes a story about someone who's perfect, but no one likes a character who is emotionally repulsive either.

 

[TheFinalFantasyWolf]

I don't really "prefer" either.
Whenever I come across a character, whether they be physically attractive or not, I just don't care about it. However, if and when the character does develop and open up in the game to be likable, understandable or endearing, that's when I begin to really like them, regardless of their appearance. It's kinda like in real life, the better the personality, the more attractive they become to me.

 

[Grottnikk]

I usually play the ugliest thing you can find in an MMO. Started with a big fat dumpy-assed Troll in Everquest .