Booting up my copy of Dragon Age II over the break, I designed my own Hero of Kirkwall. She is deceptively plain with short-cropped hair and fierce blue eyes. She is also a rogue, good-natured but prone to bursts of anger when the situation calls. Many of these things deviate from the character I've designed for 95% of the RPGs I've played in my years as a gamer. The exceptional demo for the game was part of the reason for the switch, but I also realized that I've been stuck in a character creation rut. Going into most RPGs, if given the chance to design a character, I typically go with an extremely moralist warrior who (if we're being honest) looks a hell of a lot like yours truly.
For better or worse, many games let us create our own characters: tweaking stats, moving cheekbones up and down. It's all very scientific. So how do you guys go about it? With a buffet of fantastic RPGs to look forward to this year (Mass Effect 3, Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, and Star Wars: The Old Republic maybe, to name just a few) we're going to be doing a lot of creating in the near-future. So what's your usual? Male or female? Good or evil? Melee or ranged? Let us know in the comments below. Maybe I can pick up some original ideas along the way.
 ABOUT THE AUTHOR Steven has been in a longstanding battle with videogames. He's pretty sure he's getting the upper hand. In his free time he writes, mostly fiction but also for a great little website called Video Game Henchmen. |
|---|
My usual is male, but depends if there is a voice actor or not. Like in Mass Effect the female shepard was better than the male so I had to deal with that. Although the sex scene was rather awkward...
SEX SCENE or GTFO. That's my motto.
My favorite characters combine the stealth and subterfuge of a Rogue with the power of a caster. Though not as strong in magic as a full wizard, my characters can hold their own, and though unarmored and using only one weapon, they are so trained in that weapon, that they appear to have the skill of a seasoned warrior. In addition, my characters often emphasize skills such as languages and lore, and often tend to take a party leadership role.
Rangers for some reason I don't really like that much. They seem to suck in a lot of the games I've tried.
I haven't played Oblivion (my comp can't run it; I tried once) but Morrowind was really good, though rather easy. Baldur's Gate/Neverwinter Nights were also good, and Neverwinter has community mods. (I hear good things about NWN2 also, but again, I can't run it)
Oblivion is also on the XBox and PSIII consoles. I used to be a strict PC gamer, but got tired of the constant updating, so use my PC as a PC and let the consoles be for gaming...these days....
My only regret is not playing WoW, but then again, think of all the hours I've saved, hehe....
Usually I make my character have really high persuading skills, a smooth operator. It gets me places thats for sure.
I like Melee combat, for some weird reason nothing satisfies me more than bashing a supermutant with my own hands.