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I very much prefer a blank slate that lets me make the main character whatever I want. I also believe agency and mechanics are more important than a plot anyway.
"Story in a video game is like the story in a porno. It's expected to be there, but it's not important." - John Carmack
It kinda depends on the story for me. Playing Tomb Raider as anyone but Lara Croft would be really weird, but playing Pokémon as my own character is great.
Depends drastically on the game. I don't think that it's possible to give a single answer.
In general, I prefer Western RPG-style games over Japanese RPG-style games, and WRPGs tend to let you craft the main character, unlike JRPGs. And those kind of inhabit the same space. So I guess if you put me in a gun-to-the-head choice between the two, I'd prefer to create the main character myself. I also don't try to create my real-life self in games.
But, I mean...if I'm playing a Metroid-franchise game, I want to play Samus Aran. I don't want to play me, and I don't want to play some sort of character that I craft from scratch.
Blank slate in an open world.
That's why Skyrim and Eve Online are my favourite games.
Man, I no-lifed EVE from like 2014-2018. Had 5 accounts in my prime. Surprised people are still playing.
It's still getting updates and new content. They've put a lot of work into visual upgrades as well. It looks more beautiful than ever.
For anyone into complex open world games with a player-driven market, now is a good time to come back or dive in for the first time.
Depends on the game. I don't do roleplay much but I min-max a lot.
"Well, I was roleplaying lawful-good healer, BUT I can only get this +5 buff if I kick this orphan and kill his dog, so.. "
Haha yeah. Hero of the land, protector of the innocent and I just threw a friend into a sacrificial pit because it gave me +1 dexterity permanently.
Depends entirely on the story being told. All can be impactful.
Games where the main character is a blank slate can allow you to build meaningful relationships and aspects to your character, but it takes a lot more work from the devs to flesh out those story branches. When done well, it’s excellent. Mass Effect did a good job with this. Skyrim is an example where it’s well done but with less of a rigid framework and therefore less specific handling by the story.
Games that have a specific character but still allow you to shape their path can be beautiful. The ending of Red Dead Redemption 2 has audio callbacks to important decisions you made during the game that shaped who your version of Arthur Morgan was, and it brought tears to my eyes.
And games where the decisions are set in stone and the character development is entirely in the hands of the writer, director, and actor, like a movie, can still be phenomenal. God of War (2018) and Ragnarok are excellent examples.
I prefer a really well told story over a pick your own adventure. Character flaws, growth, emotional connections and situational realities are all able to be masterfully written when in control. But if you can't write well, just make an interesting playground and leave it up to the player and blame them for a boring game. :)
Its hard to answer because different games do them at different prorificencies. I like it best when there's agency and I can choose what they say and have that affect the story.
I don't like how many games lack the subtlety required to pull it off. The options are either softies-good or unnecessarily-evil.
"Mr Hero can you get me some food? Im so hungry."
Save the orphanage and give everyone 100gp
burn it down and piss on the ashes
I find mixing elements of both to be the the most interesting. A good example would be Planescape: Torment. You start as a blank character (sort of), slowly discovering who you were and having to decide who you are now. But it really depends on the story you want to tell (if the game is even story driven).
This is one of the examples that came to mind for me when it comes to 'mixture of both'.
Interestingly there are not many games which feature such a mixture, the characters usually lean a lot more towards blank or fully pre-written. Which isn't necessary a bad thing. But sometimes it's nice to be surprised.
That depends entirely on the story the game is telling.
What?
Would you better like a MC of a game you play as a self-insert you can render yourself onto without limits, a one that is written as a complete character that you can't control but to follow their plotline, or something between these two.
Depends on the game.
To play a game versus watching a movie, or something in between like a choose your own adventure book?
Different kinds of games, since this medium allows both being viable.
Blank slate. If it's a written character they have to be really cool, like Solid Snake. I'd rather my character just not say anything and let me play the game.
My favorite games are the games where the character is a blank slate. I like to be able to play whatever character I feel like when I start a story.
The one thing I wish more games did was have a reputation system. If my character regularly deals with problems by showing up in the dead of night, forgoing any agent attempts to talk things out, and personally murdering each and every person that inconvenienced me, I want enemies to react to that. Here I am walking the wastelands of fallout in a suit and a mask, eating automatic gunfire and taking out deathclaws with a combat knife, and raiders still think it's cool to take one of my serfs as a hostage? No amount of jet makes you stupid enough to think that's a good idea. Rumors spread through the wastes fast, why do the gunners take pot shots at me after I personally razed their headquarters and beat their leaders to death with my bare hands? Frank Horrigan never got this level of disrespect...
For first time play through I will use the characters provided.
That Pillars of Eternity I and II, the first few play through I used the characters provided. Later I did all custom characters.
Honestly I prefer to play characters without a clear personality so I can ascribe one to them myself. I loved the first GTA games because of the silent protagonist theme. It felt jarring when I played a character with clear personality traits in Vice City. It took a while of getting used to.
