Thanks for watching. First off, if you wanna keep up to date with me and stuff I am putting out, follow me on twitter @theRazbuten. Secondly, I will have one more video this year (I had my wife, also known as the Lady I Live With, play what I think is the most important game of the decade), so get excited for that. It has been a really cool time for the channel, and I am excited to keep putting out stuff that you all hopefully enjoy. I hope the 2020 will be the most productive and prolific year the channel has had so far, and that'd be impossible with out your support. So, with all of my heart: thank you. I appreciate you. Lastly, let me know your experiences with roleplaying in video games? Do you relate? Have you tried to do the shit I did in this video? How'd it go? I am definitely curious as to how other people approach it.
I have a really early experience of trying to roleplay a character when I was like 10 playing Chrono Cross for the first time. SPOILERS AHEAD. I remember that I put myself in the place of Serge in the beggining, but then, as the story developed, the character started to have a mind of his own. He cared for Kid and Pierre, he returned to his town from time to time just to walk around or talk to Poshul and Leena, stare at his house that was not his house anymore. When the decision to either save Kid or leave her to die, I didn't hesitate, he had to save her and he had to make a new friend, who he found in the extravagant yet wise Greco. Then he met Razzly and she became another powerful ally, completing his type triangle of red, white and green. Then came the moment Lynx took Serge's body from him. He was now alone, his friends didn't know him or they were not in the same world. He had to pull himself together, make unlikely allies to move forward, all to save Kid, once again and defeat Lynx, who owned his body now.
I had a really similar experience as you with Witcher. Most of the decisions I made were based off how I thought Geralt would respond to things, and not how I personally would, and I really enjoyed playing the game that way. Weirdly, I had a very different experience with Horizon Zero Dawn than with Witcher. Maybe I just didn't find her motivations compelling enough to relate to the anger she seemed to respond with by default, but I ended up feeling like I was trying to mold Aloy to not be rude in half of her interactions, which was honestly kind of frustrating. I do still enjoy games with faceless player characters so I can choose to either self insert or explore avenues of repressed social attitudes that I wouldn't normally express in my day to day life. But I think I do generally prefer games where I get to follow along with a character as they grow throughout the game. Divinity Original Sin 2 is a lot more interesting playing as one of the Origin characters. To be fair, that is partly because they have their own unique storylines, but having the character-specific dialog options makes a huge difference in the game, independently from the storylines themselves.
Great video! I have a similar problem to you, where I sort of just "am" the character in the game. At least, in games with ludo narrative dissonance and poor writing. I tend to self insert the most in Bethesda's games and especially in Fallout 4, and I think I know why. The game doesn't give you many options to express yourself, it doesn't give the institute any real character or motivation, The actual characters in the world feel more like quest nodes than characters, and most of all the game itself is constantly throwing things in your way not even remotely related to your son. So it's no surprise a lot of people say, "the developers clearly haven't prioritized the roleplaying, why should I?" If everything is shallow and nothing makes sense, you stop looking at things as a world and moreso as a themepark and a set of game systems. It's a fun set of game systems, but it's not "real" in the way outer worlds or fallout new vegas is. It's really hard for me and many others to play Fallout 4 and say, "I am doing this because I am a man trying to find his son," while you dress up as a crime fighting super hero. I am not clearing out a settlement and walking around listening to the radio for my son, I am doing it because it's fun. I think you tapped into potential for the story of Fallout 4 that I didn't think about, but I feel like it that story would fit better in a 10-15 hour game with limited choice rather than an 100's of hours open world playground. I do agree with you that games with defined characters that still give me choice tend to put me in the headspace more than games like Fallout 4 (or in your case, other open world games), but I feel like that's more correlation than causation. Those stories are easier to write, so the writing and world tends to be better and encourages you to actually view the world as a world. I think that truly open games require a different type of story telling than any other medium, and many try to adapt a last of us story to an open world game and it just doesn't work, and players just feel disconnected from the world and start only doing things for in game rewards.
i think you should play disco elysium, it's preety much the only rpg videogame where you end up roleplaying because even "failing" is rewarding and there is always another path to move foward, it's a really great game. edit: oooooh now i hear the hotel theme playing in the background, guess this comment wasn't needed lamao
This reminds me of last year when I (re-re-re-re) started a new save on Skyrim and role played as Elsa from Frozen, using only ice spells. This was a lot of fun.
God, I've made so many high-concept characters in Skyrim: Ten year-old archer girl who hated giants. Pirate who hoarded all gems, jewelry, etc instead of selling them. A viking. An immortal interdimensional traveler. Daughter of said interdimensional traveler. Werewolf barbarian with wolf companion. And so on.
I’ve never even thought to not project myself into a character. It’s second nature for me to want to be involved in the story. You’ve definitely convinced me to try this out soon. Great vid man
I've always done this. I don't think I could enjoy RPGs otherwise. Whether it be playing a racist Nord in Skyrim or a space pirate in Outerworlds; I've never really tried to project myself into a character.
Yeah, everytime I play PnP or PC games I actually look at the choices I can do and would do it if I am the character. Even with Geralt or other defined chars I do it. I must say I do not take the most easy route because some are moral wrong for me so noope I don't do anything to get the best shit together in skills and items.
Right In some games like Dragon Age i try to create a character like, a full passive elf with a big heart who always be kind to the others, but when i face certain situations i can't help but think "no, i can't allow that to happen, this guy is literally unforgivable, i cannot just leave him be, i will break out of this character just for once and than go back to the 'all good elf' again" but when i realize i have done this kind of thing hundreds of times
I definitely think it largely has to do with age and experience. Those who grew up role playing in table top rpgs are more prone to consider playing a character as an option. Those of who grew up with video games and never played traditional rpgs may not even think about playing a character instead of ourselves as an option, because the concept hasn’t really been introduced to us.
Honestly I never really thought about doing that. I always internalized the roleplaying aspect as playing as an alternate self in a fictional world. It's kind of wish fulfillment where I'm a good person who's strong enough to help and save everyone.
I can really relate to this. A game that handled this issue really well was Firewatch (briefly showin in the video). At the very beginning, the game had you answer multiple-choice questions that filled in your backstory and explained how/why you are where you are now (the real start of the game). By allowing me to define my character's history before I actually started the game, I felt it was a lot easier to actually role-play as the character I had helped create.
Yeah, the beginning of Firewatch is a mastercraft example of bringing the player into the mind of a character. I have a video idea in the future talking about likable heroes, and that game is definitely going to get a mention.
Two more good examples are Mount & Blade: Warband, where you select what your past life was before adventuring, and Tyranny, where you play a pre-game conquest mode of what you did while the overlord was conquering the lands before the start of the game.
For me It's like the difference between playing Zelda or stardew Valley. With Link as the protagonist in zelda you are playing as him and watching his story through cut Scenes. But in stardew valley I get to make choices to change my character. I place my self into the situation.
Honestly, this is the coolest kind of compliment. I try really hard to frame things in original ways without being ultra obscure, so to hear that it is connecting, means a lot. Thank you.
@Alannithas 69 HAHAHAHA LMFAO OMFG 69 LOLOLOLLLOOOOL HOLY FUCK IM ACTUALLY DYING LOLOL 69 I LITERALLY HAVE THE ENTIRE OFFICE I WORK AT GIVING ME WEIRD LOOKS BECAUSE OF HOW BADLY IM DYING OF LAUGHTER RIGHT NOW xDDDDDDDDDDDD XD XD XD LOLOL 69 HOLY FUCKING SHIT LOLOLOLOL
Witcher 3? My first one btw as I never have an interest in them in most cases. My standard for those types of games are EXTREMELY high given a think Witcher 3 is AMAZING. Was also very hard to get used to. Imo.... you should check it out.
roleplaying requires improvisation and stuff away from a script and thats not likely to happen in a computer game... its basically a stats salad in most cases
@QUEENDOM Thats different for everyone though. There are actually 2 totally different types of Roleplays out there, which often get totally conflated with each other. Sometimes its totally mechanical like in your example, other times its more like acting character roles and some games try both, just to make sure XD
Yeah, you've never role played in an rpg and you never will, because NOBODY has EVER been supposed to role play in an rpg. People thinking that rpgs are supposed to be like pen and paper roleplaying games just because they're also called rpgs is like people thinking that say a basketball videogame is supposed to be like playing basketball.
I like RPGs, and I feel the “playing as oneself makes a boring story”, but for me it’s also hard to make irrational and regrettable choices that I personally would not make just because “that’s the choice that character would make”. So when I play role playing games, I play like as a character that is basically a version of me in that context, but that changes through the choices it makes to better fit to the world (in a way that’s sometimes good and sometimes evil) creating a story plausible for me and the world (for example a redemption arc if a start with an evil version of me). That way I feel that I’m the one who’s changing my personality and moral values through the game (to better or worse), and I become closer to my character.
One day ,I create the opposite of the redemption arc, my characters start as a good two shoes ,but with the time he become more irrational and evil, he become the monster he used to fighting against. It's a really fun twist .
@Wolfgang Amadeus, yeah, I’m just saying that it’s more fun if you can identify yourself with your characters, like they become evil in a way you could (not just because they can)
I enjoy a similar approach but it only works in games with an established character for the protagonist. It is like combining yourself with them. When you have a meaningful decision to make you become so invested, because you have been the one leading that character to this fate. It isn't you facing the consequences of these choices but that character, and you also don't want to completely betray their moral code for their own. Batman is staunchly against using a gun as am I, but if I was playing a Batman game where a decision came up between saving someone using a gun (non-lethally) or letting them die by refusing to pick up the gun, I now feel torn. I don't want any involvement with a gun and neither does Batman, but Batman would be horrified by someone dying because of his cowardice. Stuff like that id what makes up the best RPG decisions imo, when you and the character both feel conflicted but you want to do what's best for the character. Do I use a gun to let Batman sleep better, or do I align Bruce's philosophy with mine and he suffers the consequences?
This. Literally this. You can’t just insert yourself into a world as you don’t belong. You’re forever disconnected as you’re supposed to have already been a part of this world, and that prevents you from inserting yourself into the story. But by creating a character that’s already set within the context of the world/story all you have to do is manage how they behave.
I’ve seen folks in the comments talking about how they usually-especially on a first play through-just play a version of themselves, and as a long-time D&D game master, that’s also something people tend to do when they first play a tabletop RPG. Playing a self-insert character is a great way to learn a new game, because you can approach every choice from the most familiar possible framework: what sounds like you? What would you do? The main exception is social-when a new player joins an experienced group who are all playing character clearly different from themselves, it’s easier for them to do the same. In single-player video games, we don’t have that social pressure, and we often play through a game’s story just once, so it makes a lot of sense to approach the game from an angle of “what sounds cool to me? what would I like to do?”
The problem with self-inserting into a game isn't that you end up roleplaying as yourself, it's that you don't roleplay at all You play the game through the lens of a person in real life wanting to experience all the content in the cool video game world in the best way possible, rather than as a person actually in that world with wants and needs relevant to actually being there
Exactly this. I'm not motivated to role play in a game where role playing means skipping content, making suboptimal decisions... it just feels wrong. Which is a bit weird, I have no problems picking flavor over power in tabletop. Guess it has to do with the direct line between the GM and you, the social contract to create an interesting story.
@@pagingdoctorsideburns I think its more so that you are able to do everything in certain games if you wanted to. If the world had consequences or actually restricted us based on our traits like tabletop games, we wouldn't be so incentivised to choose the best desicion every time and make a power fantasy.
When I play as myself, I limit myself based on my own morals. In Oblivion and Skyrim, I still haven't touched the thieves guild and dark brotherhood quests, so I'll look forward to making a character that can experience that. For me, I get immersed more when I'm playing as myself as opposed to a different character. I guess the former is like an experience, while the latter is more a good story.
This gets even worse when the setting doesn't even account for your choices. Once you're forced into a choice, it's very hard to do anything but play the game as an observer.
I don't roleplay as other characters until I, as the self-insert character and player, learn about everything I need to know. I am always going in blind so I can't roleplay on limited knowledge, myself.
when i play video games, i never view the main character as a “self-insert” character, but as a completely different person from me, and i and could never explain why when people asked about it. you put it into words perfectly.
an olive for me, I simply cannot roleplay, like at all, (excluding D&D I guess), it’s not that I try to self-insert myself, or even that I like to, it’s simply that I am completely and utterly unable to not be myself, which always ends up with me being the good guy and trying to make the best morale choices, almost always forfeiting clear advantages in favor of a better morale choice. To this day, with over 400 hours in Skyrim, i have never even completed the first assassination mission of the dark brotherhood (but i did almost everything else in the game though), even on my current "100% the game" character, i keep doing literally everything before starting the questline even if at this point i know everything that is going to happen in it and the rewards, even if i never played it (also not losing merchants or trying to find complex workarounds to their death (besides console commands) is nice)
For me it depends on the type of character that I make because I give all my custom characters my own name. They are me but I imagine them being me but from a different universe I decide on their personality their backstory everything. But I like the way he talks about the way he approaches role playing games and I’m gonna do that when I play cyberpunk 2077. Btw who is hype for it.
I can't roleplay characters that don't make the same moral choices as myself. I've tried. I just feel too guilty because I'm still the one making the decision.
Exactly. I'm playing, I'm the one making the choices. When I am playing something I feel like inside the game. It doesn't matter what character I'm playing with. man, woman, monster...
@Charles Lee Ray Thank you for this incredibly insightful comment. I had no idea. This knowledge changes everything! How could I feel empathy and emotions towards something that's just a game? How could I ever believe that media was meant to evoke empathy in people, when obviously it is meant just to be distracting pixels on a screen? What a fool I've been.
Me: "I'm going to be a malevolent, sadistic bastard." Small child in tutorial area: "Help! That boy stole my teddy bear." Me: "Unhand that teddy bear, villain!"
Same here. It's so hard for me to do evil stuff. However, that doesn't stop me from going through all their stuff when they are not home. Sigh, I am a bad person.
If you were an NPC, would you really care if someone stole or damaged your property? As soon as the protagonist hits a loading screen... > Your broken pots and crates will fix themselves > Your sweet rolls will respawn > The bucket on your head will disappear > You'll go into stasis until he comes back
Maybe. But in the grand scheme of things, aren't we all NPCs to someone else's game? Just as they are our NPCs? Don't we all have a bucket on our heads? Hell if I know, but it's already after 1 a.m. and I went to bed 3 hours ago and I'm still on my phone.
My fondest memory of roleplaying in a video game was when I got so bored in Fable 3 I decided I would be a mad king of the slums. I bought up every property, dressed in a silly costume, and then handed out money to common folk at every opportunity.
You know, I really hate when there is a good and bad ending, it kills my desire to RP because I'm going to want to play based off of having the best ending.
Schneeregen _ exactly, this is why I love fallout new Vegas so much (yeah I know obligatory fallout new Vegas ass-kissing) but I really do. The 4 groups or people that you choose to side with are so good for role playing, non of them are all morally bad or morally good. While you may say that the legion is bad, there are many people who live in the Mojave who say that they like the legion since it stopped a lot of tribe/gang attacks.
@@rallo9635 Which is why taking the command of New Vegas by yourself is the 'superior' ending. The game even states how awesome your rulership is and that it's made Mojave a better place. Why side with one of the factions when you can do everything better by yourself?
@@Skallva he reprograms himself to be more assertive and less well yes man all the time at the end of battle for hoover dam part 2. Which can be taken either as him not being so much of a loose end for ya or well this is fallout him going full skynet since hes in control of the securatrons not the courier. To me its the latter cuz that seems more in line with fallout lore.
I played fallout new Vegas by fully creating a character at the start of the game (DnD style). It went really well for the first half of the game where I was doing all the side quests on the road to the strip. He was a really chill, peaceful hunter that wasn't afraid of combat but prefered to talk it out. It all fell apart when I joined the wrong faction without really paying attention. I decided help out the omertas (gangster casino owners) who's quests seemed like run of the mill fetch quests, the catch was that once I'd done them the game assumed that I agreed with their secret plans to commit a small genocide to overthrow Vegas and run a small sex-slavery business with all manner of dodgy shit on the side. My character was simply too trusting to question all the subtle signs that I as a player would have grilled them on. Instead of reloading my save to change my relationship with them, I chose to roll with it and retcon my character's naivety. My laid back protagonist was now intoxicated by the power that this crime family held and in a momentary lapse of judgement had sanctioned a gang war. The rest of New Vegas was about my guilt ridden character wanting to redeem himself, he fought his inner greed and roamed the wastes with a much deeper character than I could have given him otherwise. Because I role played and committed to it after a mistake, I gave my character a arc that wasn't accounted for in-game and the story was much better because of it. Sorry for the wall of words but I've always thought this style of playing was really interesting and thought that here would be the place to talk about it.
I dunno man, it always ends up in a massacre at the Omertas, mainly because i actively seek out the hidden weapon stach and then aggro the guards because my moronic self still doesn't get it that only concealed weapons are allowed to be openly worn (and kill the stringpullers behind it as well since their namea are highlighted and i'm already forced to use a stealth boy now because of the bad rep). P.S. never go Apeshit in the Tops for loosing all of your hard earned cash unless you completed the show actor sidequest. You might trick the Questgiver with your stolen and propably now bloodstained Outfit but not Old Jimmy with his Guitar. Funnily enough that was the same run where i joined with the ultra luxe canibals for once
I quite liked the naivety. Well written characters outside of roleplaying get tested and are changed by it. You had a nice twist for your character's arc.
How people play RPG's Other people: Create in depth characters to roleplay as and shape the world to how their character would shape it Me: "So anyway i started blasting."
I know, right? I got a fanfic that's almost turning into something more original where the protagonist's late father left behind a diary with secrets of how he suffered a similar fate as his daughter when she grew up. Now even the protagonist herself writes how she's regretting being such a bad and fearful influence and hopes to turn that around now that she's got a full-grown daughter who was snatched away from her at a very young age. Oops. Going into way too much detail now. Oh, and my own writing skills are pretty bleh.
in Skyrim you are left with a world that has no consequences or meaning and is actually just a big but ultimately very shallow sandbox, but no real roleplaying or depth
@@kurojima That's not entirely true. NPCs live or die depending on your actions, Jarls change, and so do the factions you're part of. How much power to change the world should an average adventurer really have?
@@notalpharius4553 you don't recall it doesn't necessarily mean it doesn't.. I can make a grand essay on how player choice in Skyrim effects the world.. Do you want me to do that?
Honestly it might sound weird but The Sims series is an amazing role-playing playground once you get over that 'I'll make myself' idea; create a random sim, random traits and try thinking what a person with those traits would do
That’s what I loved about the Witcher 3, I wasn’t playing „myself“, I was playing Geralt. At first I was disappointed that the game won’t let you do certain things like sneaking and picking locks and so on (nothing that I do but that I like to do in video games), but when I realised that this was intentional I managed to get deeply into Geralts character and more often than not I made the choices based on what I would think HE would do, rather than me. Great video!
Another thing I almost always do is picking a female character. It has become kind of a habit but it always makes me get a tad more into being someone else and making decisions based on the character I play.
That sounds like when i tried playing without a compass in gta v or red dead, only orienting yourself with the few in game sings and dialogs, yeah, it's kind of doable, but the game is not meant to be played that way, you end up filling the gaps in your head, its kind of fun, but i wish that the games it selves allow for it
Breath of the Wild is maybe the only game I've played where turning off the compass is viable. I wish there was a Breath of the Wild but for roleplaying.
@@razbuten again morrowind =) no markers there. only notes in your journal that you take from npc conversation. YOU have to travel by foot and look for landmarks and ask around. skyrim cant hold handle to morrowind =)
@@razbuten From what I know, Assassin's Creed Origins and Odyssey also offer a mode with vague directions etc instead of objective markers. If I had more patience, I'd play them both again like that to enjoy the amazing world design.
Bethesda's writing and to an extent Fallout 4's writing is incredibly lacking and simple it's incredibly boring compared to non Bethesda Fallout titles
I was so bored by Skyrim until my third attempt at a fresh start. I basically built my D&D character and made desicions based on his characterisitics. I ignored quests I didn't feel like he would involve himself in and came up with story reasons for each choice. I was way more invested and actually finished the main quest. Maxed out skill trees. It is absolutely the way to go.
I love the idea of roleplaying but on the first playthrough, when I'm learning the game, I _always_ play as myself. Then when I feel comfortable, I play as other characters. Once I had learned about Skyrim more, I played more than a Khajiit; so much so that I attempted to roleplay as her kin who were Khajiit, Orismer, and Bosmer respectively.
roleplaying makes no sense in most videogame RPGs because there's no good reason to do side quests when you have a world ending threat to face. if you have realistic priorities you would miss some of the best content because wandering off on sidequests wouldnt make sense
That depends on the game. Mass Effect 3 avoided this problem by making it so that every sidequest, and every side activity you do ultimately rewards you with forces who can join you in the final great fight. It's a very specific solution of course, but it works and makes me feel like every single sidequest I'm doing is ultimately serving the main galaxy-ending goal. Even the Multiplayer counts towards it.
QUEENDOM Wrong. Roleplaying *traditionally* means backstory, your character and how you act. In video games it largely means choosing between fighter, mage, thief and etc.
J2Dragon I feel as if there aren’t anymore True rpg games that let you live in the world and be your own unique special person because the industry has shifted to action RPGs because those are more controllable,cinematic and for some gamers an rpg can be overwhelming as it is with a main storyline so if you eliminate that and just tell the player he can do whatever he wants narratively that could be a turnoff to some
Baby Showtime Perhaps you’re not looking in the right places. Have you tried Divinity Original Sin 2? Or Disco Elysium? I’ve heard good things about them. Can you also give me an example of one of these older true RPGs? Cause I still think we have those. Oh and if you really want to be your own person then play D&D. No video game has ever been close to capturing the freedom you get in TTRPG (with a good GM).
@@writershard5065 ME3 was the one of the worst cases of this dichotomy between urgency and sidequests. If you do all the "Priority" missions first (As you should in real life) you would miss half of the content, because this missions connect one to each other to the endgame, and when you reach a certain phase of the main quests, unresolved main quests become permanently not done. There are only few examples where you have to divert away from the Priority mission to do something else so you can do the next Priority mission available.
The problem is that in d&d you don't feel like the century of the universe. You have other players and there is a real chance that you'll die before finishing the game. In World of warcraft there are other players which allows there too be role playing servers. In games like skyrim you are the centre of the universe so your actions dictate how the universe operates. So your gonna play it straight more in skyrim.
@Tom Phelps BUT YOU'RE THE DRAGONBORN!!@21@!!! The game definitely has a major "chosen one" problem, but you can ignore that with a few mods (the mod "You Are Not the Dragonborn" makes the game feel much different).
@Tom Phelps Because you seemingly misapprehended the fact that the mod has you have the same plain-Jane vanilla startup sequence? Why'd you comment about your experience about something you've never experienced?
@Tom Phelps You tagged me and said "I just feel like a prisoner who was at the wrong place at the wrong time" when I mentioned the mod. I assumed you were chatting about the mod because that's what my last comment was about.
I feel lots of times playing DnD most of the DM's are more focused on the story and hitting checkpoints rather than focusing on the players/characters and having a fun adventure. I've met very few good DM's who try to make the game interesting for every individual person, just from my own experience. So I feel this post.
As someone who almost always plays through RPGs while roleplaying, I think one of the biggest problems is that it is almost always way way harder to roleplay on a first playthrough. In general, it's easy to plan twists and arcs when you know what's going to happen ahead of time. But when you look at TTRPGs, I don't need the whole story to play a convincing character at all, in fact, often you barely know more than the setting and what will immediately be happening when you begin. I think an easy and powerful way for RPGs to encourage roleplaying, even on the first attempt, is to offer a synopsis on the main menu. Describe the world at large, the year, what our player will be doing at the start of the game, some interesting factions and possible origins. Give the players the tools they need to create a compelling character. New Vegas' intro, while seemingly frontloaded with information, seems to be an attempt at this, giving the immediate background of what's been happening in the region and who the major players are, what you've been up to in this world, and then immediately asking the player to take a personality test. In less time than the entire FO3 intro, FNV does a lot to establish itself and encourage you to establish yourself as a distinct character. In the game itself, anticipate and encourage player character participation. So much of modern RPGs, especially Bethesda titles, involve walking somewhere and watching characters act out scenes before ordering the protagonist around. The major choice, often, is deciding who you want to give you the orders. Instead, truly let the player character drive the story. Let NPCs depend on the player and their choices. A good example of this is, again, New Vegas. In New Vegas, the player character ends up with the Platinum Chip, a macguffin that can change the fate of the entire region. Suddenly, every major faction is forced to, no matter what atrocities the player has committed, attempt to butter them up. Mr. House especially literally cannot move, and depends on the player to do what he cannot. This gives the player a very active role in deciding things. It's a balancing act, of course, since you have to make the player as well not feel like the chosen one, a boring trope that makes for boring stories like Skyrim's. Moral greyness is a powerful tool here. Choices that can be debated and don't have an obvious 'good guy' answer. Shocking revelations about factions the player has aligned with may question their faith as well and open up opportunities for an arc as the player character decides he can't abide by certain things. Lastly, skill checks are SO IMPORTANT. They offer so many ways to approach a story and its quests. Whether through dialogue or interactions with the world, they're a way to reflect the character in very concrete ways. Less talked about is the importance of failed skill checks. While I hate to keep referencing New Vegas for everything, the failed skill checks in that game are absolutely hilarious. A character can be just as, if not more defined by what they *can't* do than what they can. I'd love to see more rpgs open whole avenues only available because my character DOESN'T know how to use explosives, or talk to people. Oh, traits are also good. Traits with strong, and it is important that they be STRONG, positive and negative impacts can really help make a playthrough unique from any other playthrough. I'd like to see some systems where players can design their own traits and give themselves bonuses where it makes sense and negatives where it makes sense.
In tabletop RPGs, the phrase used is "Your character knows more about their world than you." This is how things like History skill checks work. We can reflect these in-game by removing dialouge options will skill check options, instead of what is done now and reveals dialogue options alongside the skill.
@Tom Phelps In spite of my constant referencing I def. don't think New Vegas is perfect. Once you play it like twice going on the cycle of goodsprings primm mojave outpost nipton novac boulder city new vegas is SUCH A DRAG
I literally had this conversation with my girlfriend not even 3 days ago and used many of the same examples (DA: Inquisition, The Witcher, etc...) Really cool to hear someone else feels the same way.
I always play RPGs as myself. For me, I just much prefer seeing how the story plays out if I were in the position of the main character, making all the choices, and doing all the things I enjoy. I don't think that I play games really for the character arc, if I wanted that I'd just read a book or watch a show. What I love about games is that you aren't watching something play out. You are the one making things happen. I always thought that was the general consensus of games but obviously I was wrong. The fact that I like to put myself as the main character is exactly why I have a harder time immersing myself as a female character in games, because I find it to be the most different thing that you could change in a character and I can never fully relate to them. I guess that's been my whole point: My main goal in games is to either create the character as myself, or play in a way that I can best relate to the character. (I even use my real name, and try to make myself in games, that's just how I play)
You have very quickly become one of my favorite UA-camrs. I genuinely did not subscribe to you expecting to like your content so much but well... here we are. Also, I would kill to see some DND-esque content from you, although I worry that some viewers wouldn't find that interesting, idk man... I eat that shit up.
I have a DnD podcast called Once Upon A Roll. Full disclosure, it has been slow going because of the holidays and getting used to running this channel, but now that I have some more resources, I plan to do a lot more episodes next year. ua-cam.com/channels/yIyH5iEGEy9NeUfwJXXtGw.html
The only game i really went through a personal journey with was Dark Souls. I've never been huge on story, and the lack of cut scenes and info dumps made the game feel a lot less like a game. That, paired with having to struggle to overcome the challenges provided alongside the character, really made me feel like i was in a ruthless world that is unfair to its inhabitants. The journey of getting good at a fighting game against real people is the closest thing I've done to roleplaying outside of that.
Yeah, it is rare for me to have that kind of personal journey in games. Dark Souls definitely increased my ability to be patient... My most recent personal journey with a game happened with Outer Wilds (distinctly different than Outer Worlds), and I plan to make a video on that in the future as dang it was special.
@@razbuten interestingly Dark Souls comes to mind as being one of the games that I did the most character building in my head. Granted not on the first play through but while learning about the various places in the world I found myself inspired to start a new character and play as if my character came from those locations. This decided my character stats and weapon and armor choices.
I find it very hard to get into Dark Souls, not so much because of the difficulty but more because I find it difficult to come up with a unique character and put myself into his shoes due to the cryptic nature of the Dark Souls world.
When roleplaying in TES style games, I inevitably run up against an important decision that they don't give enough information or options to make a decision that fits the character.
All they need to do is make it so that the evil, bad, selfish, and naughty choices are just as viable and rewarding as the good choices but in a different way.
@@KarmasAB123 Roleplaying depends on how fun it is in actual game. More choices shouldn't be there just to see what happnes and for replayability but to make you consider will that choice be viable for you. Evil charachters should have their own thing
Yeah, it's hard to role-play when your options are essentially "be a good guy and do the quest" vs "be evil and turn down the quest. No alternative content, just missed content"
Maybe we should stop making choices (in general) fall on a binary of good vs evil. It's much more interesting (imo) to have a world where things happen and the player reacts to the world organically. They might even have to make hard decisions! Rather what feels like a lot of games do treating it as just adding to replay value
There was ONE game that indeed changed my own understanding of myself: KOTOR 2. I usually make decisions in video games based on a mix of my own character and the main character established in the narrative. (Like: "How would I react if I had lost all my force powers and had been expelled from the Jedi Order?"), so I'm not exactly roleplaying. But in KOTOR 2, Kreia really made me change the way I look at the force as concept. She made the REAL ME question my previous understanding of the whole Star Wars narrative. Before, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda had been wise teachers for me and Vader, Sidious and Bane made me want to be one of them. (I always found the Sith to be far more interesting then the Jedi.) After playing KOTOR 2, both Yoda and Sidious just looked like blind fools to me who didn't understand that they were laying their fate in the hands of a dangerous THING - the force. The whole history of the SW universe just appeared to be a endless repetition of the same conflict: Force users fight other force users and the ordinary people have to suffer because of it. Kreia wanted to end this, and while I wasn't agreeing with her in every way, I'm shared her basic point of view ever since.
Dude, there is this one mod in skyrim that make lydia talk and feel like an actual person and combined with other mod that introduced lik 200 NPCs that have there backstory and there conversations last way longer than the normal NPCs, made me forget i was playing a game and i thought i was speaking to a real f*cking person. Anyways i was on the village below high rothgar and lydia stops me to talk about who know what and she ends by saying something along the lines of "ones the civil war has ended it doesnt matter wich side wins, everyone is going to forget about the men and women who fought for this land and every one is just going to remember you, the dragonborn". Once i finished the civil war quest line and made the stormcloaks win, i refused killing general tullius and the oportunity to be included in Ulfric speech (or something like that) basically i refused the idea that the dragonborn had even fought on the civil war, just because i for one second thought of the NPCs as real people...im really happy of how i ended up modding my game.
@@alw2839 The dark side and the light side of the force are but two sides of the same coin, my friend. Those who commit themselves to one extreme, aren't able to see the bigger picture.
@@untruelie2640 I agree. Though I'm sure that KOTOR won't let you play that way. IRL that has many implications but let's keep this convo fiction related. Wouldn't the selfish self eventually get in the way tho?
@@alw2839 Trying to see the bigger picture is entirely selfish, but this doesn't mean that one wants to gain more power. The key is knowledge, not power. Not the knowledge about force techniques and combat tricks though, but the knowledge ABOUT the force. All what the Jedi and the Sith ever did was to dive deeper and deeper into the ocean - but to recognize the ocean for what it is, one has to get out of it, above it. To fully understand the force, one has to sever his or her connections with it, to look at it from the outside. This is what the Exile did, what made him/her so unique - not being dependend on the force anymore, not being dominated by it. Do you still wonder why Kreia was so interested in the Exile? I started playing KOTOR 2 as a Jedi who became more and more "dark" as the game progressed, just because it was more fun. When I finished the game, I did not care anymore wether I belonged to the dark side or the light side. I had discovered something way more interesting; an outside view on the force. Kreia said it: Names and titles are useful, but they don't mean anything. There always has to be a Darth Traya, but only as a costume, not as a true person. You can call me a Sith as you would say that I'm wearing a particluar set of clothes; they suit me, but they don't define what I am.
Every time I first play an RPG I play as a reflection of myself in that world, but one thing I noticed is that some of my favorite playthrough on RPGs are my second ones where I play as different from me as possible. Part of me wants to try that on my next new RPG, just do what is fun or weird or just what I wouldn't but I also think that maybe a reason I enjoy so much is because I already know the world of the game as well as to where the story is going and bc of that I can create a character with full personality but that fits the world. Me, I know myself pretty well so I can always adapt myself to fit with something new, with a new character is a bit hard. I guess that's why I love in Witcher 1, you have a established character BUT he lost his memories, is the best of both worlds.
Yeah, when talking to people, it seems like a lot of folk save RPing for subsequent playthroughs. That is all well and good, but it is rare for me to replay long ass RPGs multiple times, so I never get around to it.
I think a lot of people when role playing in RPGs create a full character arc in their head rather than just a person. It makes sense to have a box where stimuli goes in and then the box spits out how that character would react - but instead people have an idea of how their story will end, and get disappointed if that doesn't happen. I see this happen all the time in what is, in my opinion, the greatest RPG series ever made: Football Manager. People get disappointed or angry at certain scorelines or player interactions or transfer bids - but really it feels like what they're angry at is the random story generator that is the FM simulation not creating the story that they had been planning for their manager and their players.
i do usually play as myself in RPG's, only in a select few have i played fully as someone else, but FM weirdly was one of my favs for doing this. I'd make harsher team decisions based on what the character would do and hired players that interested him. ah if only i enjoyed the new FM's as much.
I've noticed that what affects my judgment in RPGs is the prospect of extra XP - I tend to accept quests I wouldn't really want to do just because I could get that extra skill point. Especially on a first playthrough, because i've no idea what to focus on yet, which quests lead to what, etc.
I feel like the problem is more of not wanting to miss out on content. If games were procedurally generated you wouldn't want to do things for the sake of checking out what developers have done.
I struggle a lot with making characters that differ from me as a person. I don't typically do self inserts, but each character I make feels like a slice of my personality. Even the ones that are far removed from my own moral code and personality have a few drops of me in them. I should try branching out more like this. Thank you for the amazing insight.
I also think that, especially for players who aren’t used to roleplaying, there can be difficulty in creating your own character. With a blank slate, there’s nothing there to PLAY the ROLE of, and so people just don’t. When you have an established character you’re controlling, that character has motivations and interests that will get you to want to see then be happy. As such, you start playing as them.
Yeah, it's much easier to roleplay when you have "an audience", even if it's just your friend. I would get bored very fast if I tried to do it without anyone to share my experiences with.
Huh... I honestly never thought of "role-play" in the sense you described between two kinds of games; one with a pre-defined character, and one you can create, to which the irony of it all is... that the created character usually ends up just being me in a fictional setting, while a pre-defined character like Geralt or Aloy (Horizon Zero Dawn) was actual role-playing for me since I wasn't being me. It's given me a different outlook on how I have played past games, and I learned to appreciate both types even more so now.
It took me a long time to “get” Hollow Knight. I originally played it with headphones in and just trying to find fun bosses to fight. I quickly grew bored of it. It wasn’t until I actually started to “roleplay” and imagine what it would be like to have to revisit the remains of a once great kingdom that I truly had fun. Yes, the boss fights and platforming were challenging and rewarding, but the simple act of having the ability to choose to bow to an NPC with respect after they teach you new skills or to slowly piece together other characters backstories and how they relate to others or your own, those were truly some of my favorite moments.
I’ve been wanting to practice this myself when I play rpgs recently. I remember I used to play games as if I was a living breathing person in that world with wants and needs and really get into it. I’ve always played as “myself” in rpgs but now I just make a bunch of decisions based on what I would do if I were in the situation which is role playing in a way. But for instance if I’m playing new Vegas I’m thinking “I’m gonna go to sleep now to recover” where as back in the day I would have a whole internal monologue like “shit, I’m really banged up. Gonna drink a little booze and try to sleep it off”. I wanna start back getting in depth and feeling like I’m actually in the world instead of feeling like I’m just controlling some little virtual version of myself lol. It’s much more rewarding to play that way.
This video made me realize that I generally feel the same way you do about this, and is probably why I end up dropping so many super popular RPGs, even though on paper I should be a huge fan. I've had an experience similar to what you described with the Witcher 3 with Mass Effect. I thought of a backstory and personality and likes and dislikes all based on what the game gives you and his relationships with characters all depended on that. I spent time thinking about why he would make what choices he did and it turned into one of my favorite ever video game experiences
Personally I love attaching myself to a blank-slate main character in role playing games because it allows me to become engrossed in the story more so than if I was playing as a pre-established character
I thought the same. He's a foil for Will and Elizabeth, not a dynamic character in his own right. Overall, I wasn't too impressed with the sequels, but I thought Elizabeth had a first-rate "hero's journey" arc.
Gonna be honest, don't think this is a video I ever expected to see. Or ever knew I wanted to see. But I completely agree with everything in this video. And it has given me an urge to try something similar in the future, thanks!
That is awesome to hear! Yeah, obviously it was very much based around my experience of feeling limited by games, but it is good to know that other people go through it too.
Projecting yourself into a game is only interesting if you not only project your strenghts but als your weaknesses on to your avatar. Unfortunately most rpgs only give you the option to put points in positive aspects of your character like perks or increasing your skill points. Only very few rpgs get stat systems right. Fallout 1, 2 and New Vegas are one of the few that get it right. While at first glance it might work like a traditional stat system, the stats can be decreased to a point where it creates severe penalties for the character. If you have low strength there are some weapons you simply cannot use, or not use efficiently. If your charisma is low you will miss out on a lot of skill checks that a charismatic character would have. Traits with benefits and trade offs add a lot of depth to characters. Unfortunately only very few rpgs actually have them. Most rpgs are actually just stat games, meaning games where you just power up your stats to get a stronger character so you can beat stronger enemies which help you get even stronger. That's not an rpg if you go strictly by the definition of the word roleplaying. You are not playing a role, your are not playing a character. You are playing an avatar whose only purpose is to increase their stat values. True rpgs are actually really rare as most developers don't really develop rpgs. They develop addicting stat games where you are massively incentivized to increase your stats more and more. Actualy rpgs are not very interesting to the average player because, as was said in the video, this style of playing a game can be very exhausting, where as the average gamer plays to relax.
@@pandacakes6613 But also you have to sacrifice all the other perks than can give a possibilty to complete a quest without failling it because you have explosive, sneak, perception, FA, CQC etc... So you get weaker in the end because you focus to much on specifique perks or stats.
@@chronokros4857 Cha only gives an initial boost to speech and Barter (sucks). Also a small buff to already OP companions I guess. Int gives more skill points every level, making it the best stat really. Cha pales in comparison.
I felt like Outerworlds really rewarded me for paying attention. There's so many details in every aspect of the writing and world building that heavily add to the experience.
The most immersive games to me are the ones with an established character. Games like Red Dead Redemption 2 for example. In that game, I started the journey as a pretty violent Arthur. A criminal who beat an O'Driscoll to death in a stable, looted houses, robbed shops and stagecoaches, got in fights with other criminals and took everything poor Mr. Wrobel had, even his horse. As the game's storyline progressed and Arthur grew as a person, I tried to reflect that in gameplay. I started being more forgiving, I didn't kill people when I didn't have to, I stopped committing unnecessary crimes and I was more helpful to NPCs in need. The culmination of this change happens when Arthur is diagnosed with tuberculosis. From that point on, I tried to redeem Arthur as a character. I really wanted to help as many people I could before Arthur died. I stopped caring about money and became very generous with donations, I always stopped to help the folk in need, I took all side quests and I tried to make positive changes in the world by using Arthur's skills to fight the bad guys and lift up the downtrodden. A game like RDR2 has a 100 times bigger potential for role playing than any generic RPG game where your character starts as a blank slate because it allows for a true character arc that makes sense. The game sets up a premise and then I can latch onto it and act it out by immersing myself in the story and empathizing with the main character. Games with mute, non-defined characters never have this kind of impact on me. They completely remove me from the story and make my character feel like an MMO avatar who simply takes random quests from people.
"A game like RDR2 has a 100 times bigger potential for role playing than any generic RPG" that's objectively not true tho. you are forced into a specific story, you literally cannot roleplay at all, you're just the predetermined character that the writers of the game created. to me this sounds like a lack of imagination on your part
@@666FallenShadow Role playing literally means playing a role. It can be a specific role like Arthur Morgan. Not all RPG games need a character creator or countless dialogue choices that ultimately amount to nothing. RDR2 proves that more limited narrative choices can actually make the game more immersive and realistic.
@@CinematicSeriesGaming tbh i hated rdr2, the realism made the GAME feel like a chore to "play". all the missions were extremely long and boring exposition dumps with minimum gameplay followed by mediocre combat followed by yet another long exposition dump. i tried to give the game a chance and forced myself to endure it for 20 hours before finally giving up. i paid for a game, not a poorly made movie that never heard the phrase " show, don't tell" made in a glorified tech demo. oh, the horses balls shrink when it's cold, woopty fucking doo🙄 predetermined characters are a double edged sword, if you don't mesh with the characters, the story becomes a chore to sit through and if that's the main appeal of the game, the game will be utter shite to you. at least in rpgs where you make your own character and have some freedom of choice you have a higher chance of becoming invested because they give you some agency.
@@666FallenShadow I had the opposite experience. RDR2 absolutely blew me away and I felt immersed in its world like never before. I played AC Odyssey a month before that and that game was fkin trash in comparison. Exactly the kind of RPG you're talking about - a lot of dialogue choices, quests, different outcomes etc. I felt nothing but boredom and frustration. It was so mind-numbingly boring, repetitive and soulless I felt like I was descending into depression.
Players are often more immersed playing as a character of the same gender though. So half your players will be less immersed, making it overall not any more immersive. A game like Horizon Zero Dawn was more immersive for me personally.
Whenever I play RPG’s I role play as a fictionalized version of myself so I always do what I would do in the situation or at least what I would want to do and I have a lot of fun doing it
Currently playing a fresh round of Divinity:OS2, one of the best rpgs ever with 2 friends. We choose a theme (monks) together, then created unique characters and switched them between players. For every new character levelup you have to explain why your character would choose that skill/how it fits into his arc
Can we talk about how amazing edited these videos are? The amount of time it takes so get all these clips and put them together so that it goes along with the commentary is insane.
Funny how I created one of my favorite characters "Anne Baker" on: The Division 2, it began just by creating a random character, which involved into a girl learning how to deal in this chaotic world, all while having dreams about getting back to college when all of this ends, if it will ever end I think I overthinked my character into this game, which is a looter shooter, but I had tons of fun
I have a much simpler approach to role playing. "What would I do if I was in that situation (given the options that I have)?" Usually works really well in terms of how the game is supposed to be played and how I customize the experience to my liking.
Wow, that was unusually insightful for a UA-cam video, and it really challenged the way I see RPGs. Although I would consider them to be my favorite genre of video games, it never occurred to me to take this approach of extreme immersion you described in the video. I always played RPGs as a representation of myself, even in games like Mass Effect or The Witcher with a more or less defined character - my Geralt was still more me than Geralt, making decisions that I considered to be right or the most helpful in the given situation. But what you said about your experiences in The Outer World really struck me and sounded like a fundamentally different experience than the ones I usually had with video games. The amount of time I spend with playing games decreased as I grew older, leading to me having essentially stopped playing games at all, but I am really tempted to try this approach on a game like Planescape: Torment (which, if you haven't already done so, you definitely should play) with a comparatively high degree of freedom to form you character and answer in the way you want, just to see where it takes me. PS: As one of the many who discovered your channel through the "What Games Are Like For Non-Players" video, I was kind of skeptical if you could come up again with something as intriguing and fundamentally new to me as you did with this first video, but I was delightfully surprised to have a similar feeling while watching this video - you just did it again. Well done, sir!
I almost always play RPGs with custom characters this way and its probably why I enjoyed Fallout 4 a lot more than most other RPGs. Due to how the main plot was set up, it could go in all kinds of ways in different orders. Each of my characters have such memorable "arcs" that I didn't even need to write them down because I remembered them. My first character, for example, was empathetic to the plight of the common folk and, like yours, became anti-Institute. But she was so devoted to finding her son that when she finally did find him, she underwent a terrible mental breakdown. Not wanting to tear apart the family she lost once before, she sided with the Institute out of love for Shaun but with the intentions of reforming the Institute from within as Director so while she experienced some growth as a character, her core values remain unchanged. Contrast with another character I made who is hot-headed and is quick to spring into action. Like the first, she was very anti-Institute and would not hesitate to help anyone who is against them. Because of this, when she finally reached the Institute, she was so enraged by what they did to Shaun (2.0) that she gunned down Father before he could reveal his true identity. She then realized the Shaun (2.0) she found was a synth so she continued searching, gunning down every Institute member she sees but never found him. So, she went into depression and got addicted to Med-X. She ended up siding with the Minutemen and did not hesitate to blow up the Institute, mistakenly believing that they murdered her son. Strangely, I utterly disliked Witcher 3. Sure, the story is decent and it has a predetermined character to help with how I play but the main story as a whole doesn't allow for much deviation and in gameplay, Geralt is always a sword-wielding, sign spamming Witcher. You can't specialize with other weapons like Fallout 4 allows, which limits the character growth potential. And that's before I get into my many gripes with the gameplay. I'm also a bit disappointed that you did not mention Divinity: Original Sin 2, which is one of the few D&D-style RPG video games out there and one of the best RPGs period. You can quite easily create and roleplay a unique character in that game with its incredible amounts of options in character creation, combat and dialogue. Other than that, great video!
This is why I like reading others opinions. I know there are plenty who dislike the witcher 3 but its always nice to see why they do. Personally its one of my favorites of all time
@@latima123ify And I, for one, am pleasantly surprised and respect you for not immediately dismissing my opinion or calling me a braindead, "Call of Duty" gamer for daring to criticize/not enjoy everyone's favorite sacred cow and critic-proof "game of the generation", Witcher 3. Or for actually enjoying Fallout 4, what with Bethesda being every gamer's favorite punching bag nowadays. Many people seem to not realize that opinions differ in many respects. But I don't hate Witcher 3; I can actually see why people like it. The game I would say I hate is The Last of Us Part 2. For me, my fav RPGs are Fallout 4, Dragon's Dogma, Dark Souls, Divinity: Original Sin 2, Skyrim, Baldur's Gate (definitely trying out 3 soon) and Dragon Age: Origins. Divinity: Original Sin 2 would be my most favorite of the bunch. Fav non-RPGs are Total War: Warhammer 2, Red Dead Redemption 2, The Last of Us (hated the second one), Hitman, Sims and XCOM 2.
@@LoneWolfHBS Honestly, after reading four of the A Song of Ice and Fire books and heard all the praise of The Witcher, I'm getting sick of people acting as though "realism" is the one true goal of all fiction. Yes, the Witcher looks good and I've heard plenty about it having good combat and a deep story, but I'm sick of people putting down entertainment as a goal and acting as though their favored game/book/movie is so much better then mere entertainment. That and realism can't be the road to quality in fantasy- fantasy by its definition involves throwing out some aspects of reality, you can't have it both ways. The Witcher 3's trailer has that line about "making the most realistic game" ever... then a hot porcelain skinned mermaid with big breasts rises out of the water and waves "Hey sailor" to the titular grump. Pick one. Either you're an exciting fight and sex scene filled fantasy for people to go through, or you're realistic.
@@adams13245 Completely agree. Realism in fictional media should be treated as a bonus, not the main feature, because writing fiction to be as realistic as possible kind of defeats the point of "fiction" in the first place. Expecting realism in fantasy is just...why? Real life is boring so why the hell do I want more of it? People tend to confuse realism in stories with believability. It is hard to call Witcher, for example, realistic when the main character fights by spinning like a goddamn fool, has a sword that can cut through thick armor somehow, or never had to worry about breaking his weapons. Believable in a fantasy setting? Yes. Realistic? Hell no. Having realistic elements, like having characters maintain their weapons when needed, is fine but it should not exist just for the sake of it. Realism should never be the sole reason for story decisions. Otherwise, you're just missing the point of fiction. As mentioned before, it should only be a bonus and/or must be coupled with another, more important, reason for it. For example, killing an important character out of nowhere for realism and realism only is terrible, TERRIBLE writing. There has to be a very good reason (and I mean VERY good reason) for the death. Otherwise, the character was wasted. This is why people are fine with Ned Stark dying in the first Game of Thrones season, since his death was a consequence of his own actions and kickstarted the arc for many other main characters, but the many deaths that happened in the later seasons baffled many because they exist solely for shock value or "realism".
Depending on the setting in RPG games, I always settle into one of two characters: If its a fantasy setting, then I typically adopt the persona of a smiling wizard who is happy to make friends and connections until he's gained enough power. Once the wizard becomes confident enough that a decent level of power has been achieved, then he shows his true colours and goes full-on evil. I will even allow meta-gaming for this character, since finding ways to break the game online would be the equivalent of the wizard learning of some ancient, hidden power in a magical tome. If it's a realistic/sci-fi setting, then I typically become a murderous psychopath who is only concerned with making money and causing mayhem. This character is evil right from the start, even to his own detriment. No meta-gaming here as it doesn't fit the character. Non-killable npcs are the bane of this character's existence. Typically, this character never ends up becoming very powerful and frequently turns down quests as he doesn't want to be anyone's errand boy. Both of these characters are very unlike me in real life, but video games allow me to live out those dark fantasies that lurk at the back of my mind. I often get quite frustrated with games when quests don't provide options for evil, or neutral characters. Yet other quests in some games don't even seem to have much of a good option to pick. This often makes me feel like the character I'm playing has some sort of personality disorder. One minute you're out finding a sword for some old war hero, the next you're assassinating him. I've always felt that games should focus on less quests, but give them more branching paths to allow for the player's character to act in a consistent way.
Dragon Age 2 was really great at this. You could pick whatever dialog you wanted but Hawke had a definite inherent personality that was awesome to role play as.
*do it you coward* I'm playing through my second play through right now and it's really fun to send updates to my friends about what's happening, "Twink Boi is in a committed relationship with Iron Bull now and it's amazing and Cole is best boi"
Celestial Draconis Inquisition was my introduction to the series and the only one I’ve played. What are some of the things that make Origins a better game for you?
My first try of roleplaying as the character instead of self-inserting me into the story was probably with Deus Ex: Human Revolution. The second mission demanded me to help a guy in the office who did illegal stuff and wanted me to help. As I saw Adam as a pretty strict and rightous character, I didn't help him with his illegal stuff, but if there'd been an option to arrest him, I wouldn't have done so either, as I knew Adam wanted to consider himself still human, even though he is a heavily augmented cyborg. His human emotions - interpreter by me - told him it was sufficient to not help that guy. In the end I lacked achievements, which is frustrating, because I actively skipped game content and the possibility to be rewarded with skill points, loot and avhievements. I'd probably reconsider my image of the protagonist, adjust it if necessary, to be able to both play the whole game and still feel like I played the role of the protagonist.
Great video! I remember how i struggled the first time playing geralt because i tried so hard to figure out who he is and what he would to (didn't knew the books at this time)...second time i played it, i "knew" him so all decisions felt natural and right...for his character.
When I played Dragon Age: Inquisition, I decided my Inquisitor didn't want to lead and didn't consider herself the person in charge, and she never felt comfortable being forced to act like a leader. She made emotional decisions instead of tactical ones and would often take a support role in combat. In Trespasser (the final DLC and true end of the game), she was told she'd be pressured into ending the inquisition, and she just freaking leapt for it without a second thought. What the story treated as a big decision was obvious from the very start of the game. But the moment that sticks out the most is the final dialogue where you meet the villain of the next game in the series, and he's... Polite. You feel betrayed by this character and you're worried for what he might do, but he spoke to me as a friend. I didn't know what to do, and I asked myself probably the ultimate RPG question: What would my character do? Only in realising how obvious the answer was did I realise I had created a full, complex character throughout the game. I didn't know what to do in a situation, but she did.
I did something similar on the first playthrough, but I was still getting my bearings so I did a fair bit of picking the most advantageous options as well. On my SECOND play through I had a better idea. I was a religiously inclined gangster with a savior complex that ended up encouraging his girlfriend to become the Pope. I picked only options that personally benefited him, made use of his contacts, or leaned towards his religous bias. Then I started making up a bunch of gangster friends and family members including an estranged son that supported the cause as one of those info runners, but didn't want people to know they were related. And that's how fanfics are born.
I'm pretty sure most people seeing they are the only person with the power to save the world and then seeing something like the fall of Haven would have their lives and their entire world view shift, you weren't REALLY role-playing it if you didn't consider how your character would view that. Even Varric who is shown to typically be selfish and self centered sees what happened in Haven and decided he had to fight for the people even though it meant fighting what seemed to be an Arch Demon and an extremely powerful evil being he had personally seen "defeated" before and yet still lived and came back harder. But, oh well 🤷♂️ I feel bad for anyone who ever does PnP with you if every character you "roleplay" is bullheaded and one dimensional, NEVER having ANY character growth and progression.
weirdly, i don’t like the role playing aspects of fallout 4 *because* the protagonist is more established. It’s fine in the first playthrough, but it’s frustrating on subsequent playthroughs having your characters motivations always being the same. for example, it’s difficult to roleplay as, say, a hardass loner lesbian who’s very cold and socially isolated, because canonically my character is always in a loving relationship with a man, living in a picture perfect suburban town. the main quest is always motivated by finding your missing son, who you are supposed to deeply care about. that’s why i prefer new vegas, because the only thing that’s set about your character is the fact that you took on a delivery job, and you were shot in the head by chandler from friends. everything else about the character is up to me
It's a really tricky balance for developers I think. It's hard to deliver narrative weight to a blank slate character, such as in your average Bethesda title, compared to a more guided experience like The Witcher series. FO4 tried to do both. I'm not sure it worked. I thought it was strange that I was playing a pre-apocalypse person, supposedly a lawyer in the woman's case, who's pretty incredible at all the apocalypse stuff like shooting, crafting, etc. This is why I use an alternate start mod now.
One of my favourite parts of fallout 4 was my companion paladin danse, I was immediately drawn to him since he is kitted out with power armour, but he tried to be as honourable as you can in an apocalypse, this made me value his opinion or his approach to certain situations, but also made it that much harder to choose when the twist reveal came round... I still remember that moment as the highlight of my playthrough since he was such a huge part of it and I ended up killing him since it’s what he would have wanted, being a member of the brotherhood of steel... Another favourite companion was curie, who I turned into a synth... her exploration or discovery of emotion was really sweet and made me immediately drawn to her since she had such an interesting storyline the more you spoke to her
For me i always roleplay if I get to define my own character. If I am just playing as a character the game gives me, I don't care and don't try to roleplay. For example, in Skyrim I make a lot of new games and play as characters I make up. But in Sekiro for example, I don't roleplay because I didn't make the shinobi. And I never replay Sekiro. I don't really care about story arcs though, just character design. The exception to this is the first playthrough of any game, which has been addressed well in another comment. Personally i have started to not make a role for my first playthrough character, while I figure out what the game is and what I want to do on the next one.
The moment you showed dragon age I instantly thought about the fact that in like 8 or more playthroughs of the 2nd game I not once sided with the templars. Even on the runs that I told myself I was going to.
As someone who couldn't get into dungeons and dragons the one time my friends and I tried to play it, this really put into perspective what I'm missing out on by never really role-playing in any game that I play. I was always confused by what the RP in RPG was supposed to mean, really. Next time I get the opportunity Ill make more of an effort to actually play an original character and find out if maybe that's a meaningful experience for me
Splendid video, as always. Now that I think about it, I find it really hard to roleplay in most games, because more often that not, there is always a "better" or "superior" choice that will lead to a better ending for a quest, or just a better reward. So instead of making a choice based on how my character or me would react, I just google the consequences of my choices to be sure I don't miss on anything. It surely isn't the best way to play, and it's certainely my fault for doing so, but eh. I'm still having a fun time, I guess.
I guess you could just Roleplay as someone with some kind of precognitive ability and a very pragmatic moral compass. Seeing how sometimes (not often, but still) the best outcome of a quest in term of gameplay reward isn't the same as the best narrative outcome, it could make for interesting moral dilemmas...
Closest thing to this I’ve done is making Jesus as a mage healer in Dragon Age: Origins. For each decision, I’d ask WWJD. 🤔 Naturally this led to doing most the quests/helping people a lot. He also became a bloodmage. Whoopsie. 😬
@@yvrelna Christianity just gets weirder the more you dig into it. They are a group of people that regularly drink blood and flesh that also believe a god is merciful for saying "either murder this child or mutilate the d*ck of every male child." Oh yeah and the same guy gets jealous of other gods that don't exist and got pissed over people building a tall tower. They are a freaky group of people.
I hate it when games just make the characters just a blank slate and the excuse that "it is so that people can project themselves onto them" is stupid, I have never met someone who said " I was expecting the main character just to be a blank slate with no emotions but instead I got a character with personality. Totally ruined my immersion." no we liked when our characters have ideals and goals it makes them have, well, character!
@extreme odst Their stories are. What is compelling about a Mario games story? You are only there to play a set of polygons that get an endorphin rush for crushing small creatures
@@noizepusher7594 Actually I will disagree! I'm going to bring up Fallout 4. There was a certain group of people that were angered by the game forcing your character into a marriage where you have a child and also loathed how the story really pushes the "WHERE IS MY SON SHAUN!?" especially as it made doing anything else feel out of place (for some people). Similarly some people didn't like the fact that the character was voice acted or the dialogue prompts more vague. Now, this wasn't true for everybody, possibly not even most people but I cite it as an example. Frankly I think that they all have their own strengths and weaknesses. Generalist characters can, at their best, provide greater opportunities to more broadly play a character. The weakness to this is that as a game your options will still be limited and it's very possible to create a character only for it to be nonviable in the game itself. Many will further restrain it by establishing a universal background or starting profession however. Then there's the somewhat predefined characters. Geralt is one such character. It gives you some diversity of choice but it's also very much its own character and restrictive. You can only use these weapons, you are a witcher, these are your friends, you have a pre-existing romantic relationship with these characters. It's a lot easier to roleplay the character from the get go. Then there's entirely being rid of these and making it a game like FFXV where characters are very well defined in ways where you really are playing as Noctics. It's "your" Noctics but not in the way that Geralt is "your" Geralt nor the way that a generalist character is "yours". I genuinely admire the good generalist rpg but I consider it the hardest to accomplish in a satisfying manner.
@@brycejordan8987 interesting argument! When I said I wanted them to have character I didn’t quite mean an entire story line forced apon the player. I just want a happy medium. Maybe a few snarky quotes here and there, perhaps some voice options and optional relationships here and there. That way they can have character but the player still gets choice.
Only cause most games do a blank slate character like shit. But behold the glory that is Fallout 1,2, and (especially) New Vegas, which give you options to explore almost any kind of character you want. It's harder to do than for a pre-made character, but when it's done right it's incredible.
The keeping notes of Alfred part was actually really interesting to me. I'm not big on Roleplaying games mostly because it's hard for me mentally to make myself be someone I'm not and to make a character someone of myself makes me feel like I'm wasting my time in a way. Honestly, the journals thing I think could be a cool way for me to go about another RPG kind of game. Thoroughly establish who this person is, make it clear for me on what they are like and play from there, keeping a journal as if I were them. Maybe it can help me immerse myself. Even if not, this was a really fascinating way for me to get a bit of insight on these things
The first time I was convinced to fall in love with video games is when I did exactly what you did- roleplaying a character as that character, with F:NV. I had this moment where I decided my character would put pre war books in mailboxes across the Mojave and his character just... spiralled from there.
I like RPing with silent protagonists like Gordon Freeman and Corvo Attano. The latter was pretty funny, because I am a very nervous person and not very good at stealth, so my Corvo was a klutz who talked a big game to himself, planned out what to do meticulously, then failed spectacularly and ended up having to fight everybody the hard way. He reminded me of a cat that, having failed to jump on top of the fridge attempts to maintain dignity while walking away covered in spilled cereal.
I never really thought of role playing the way you described, but it makes sense. I think of role playing as playing as yourself but in a different role, e.g. role of a fighter, mage, theif, etc. But your definition... i never do that i think.
The conversation point you bring up seems super obvious but I never really realized it until I saw this video. I love these open world RPGs but I feel like I do always play as some version of me. Its definitely that 2nd or 3rd playthrough where I actually roleplay as something or someone else that is truly memorable.
Seems that despite having played multiple CRPGs, I have never thought about roleplaying the same way you do and didn't even consider the possibility that anyone might think of it this way. For me, the purpose of a good roleplaying game was and still is allowing the player to most fully express their own personality within the game world, not to pretend they are someone else. So despite the genre being named "role-playing games", I never even thought I should commit to playing a role that's not a projection of myself - weird, I know. Maybe that's because I never played and understood tabletop RPGs, they're a very niche thing in my country. Watching this video was almost a cultural shock - creating other personalities set firmly within the game world and so disconnected from yourself that you make choices in the game that you yourself would never make in real life sounds completely alien to me. The complaint I most often make about games with choice is that they present choices with options that 99% of the players would never choose in real life as if they really were interesting and story-defining. "Would you tell this guy whom you've just met and know nothing about that he's a moron and then steal his gold for no reason except that it gives you Chaotic Evil points, or would you behave like a sane person?" Like, come on, no one thinks of themselves as being "evil", so why would anyone choose an option clearly meant to be evil? That's why I liked the Witcher series and Life is Strange, there are choices where you have to really think what matters to you as a person, what would you, the player, do in those circumstances! But if the purpose is to pretend you're someone completely different, then those "evil" choices probably make sense. I guess I should thank you for broadening my knowledge, though I still have a completely different opinion on what a computer RPG should do.
That's weird! When Dave Arneson created D&D with Gary Gygax, they didn't intend for the players to express themselves or interpret themselves in the fictional world, but that they would interpret rogue adventures looting ancient tombs guarded by eldritch monsters. To express one-self is a strange one! Sure, you take decisions ans ome decisiones are based on your own moral values, but that's far from you interpreting yourself.
This is so odd to me. I throroughly enjoy playing as a version of myself, or more accurately, somebody with my personality tacked onto their body/skills/life story/you get it. For me, *that* is what roleplaying is - getting into the story as if i was there! It's why i loved Half Life and Portal's silent protagonists so much! It's entirely the opposite of how it works for you.
I found Chell to be a bad protagonist precisely because she was silent. For example, during the really long fall in 2, she's completely stone cold silent, not even whimpering, as she falls for dozens, probably hundreds of feet. This isn't to say Portal 2's writing is bad, Glados is hilariously terrifying, but Chell never felt like a good character to me. Thing is I love Dishonored, which also has a silent(ish) protagonist. You can make silent dialogue choices a few times during the game, but there's only, maybe, a half dozen of them. Thing is, unlike Chell who has these strict puzzles to solve, Corvo has tons of agency- through gameplay. Want to role play Corvo as a noble man out to clear his name? You can! Want to play Corvo as a broken psychopath who delights in bloodshed? You can! I think there's more to it than the high chaos/ low chaos choices, such as how you kill enemies and how you kit out the lord protector. Maybe Corvo shuns his supernatural powers and barely uses them, or maybe he goes all in on the black magic. In Dishonored you can really change how Corvo reacts on the basis of gameplay, and I think that more than makes up for the lack of voice acting, while Chell really can't.
Your comparison with pen and paper RPGs is really interesting because for me it has always been the other way around. I find it almost impossible to play another character than myself in DnD because I have to psychically act out my character's actions myself. If I want my character to tell someone to fuck off in a video game I simply press the "fuck off" button while if I wanted to do the same in DnD I have to face my DM and personally tell him to fuck off. The way this works in a videogame is far more disconnected from both myself and the real world and that makes it a lot easier to do actions that I wouldn't necessarily do in real life.
Thanks for watching. First off, if you wanna keep up to date with me and stuff I am putting out, follow me on twitter @theRazbuten.
Secondly, I will have one more video this year (I had my wife, also known as the Lady I Live With, play what I think is the most important game of the decade), so get excited for that. It has been a really cool time for the channel, and I am excited to keep putting out stuff that you all hopefully enjoy. I hope the 2020 will be the most productive and prolific year the channel has had so far, and that'd be impossible with out your support. So, with all of my heart: thank you. I appreciate you.
Lastly, let me know your experiences with roleplaying in video games? Do you relate? Have you tried to do the shit I did in this video? How'd it go? I am definitely curious as to how other people approach it.
I have a really early experience of trying to roleplay a character when I was like 10 playing Chrono Cross for the first time. SPOILERS AHEAD. I remember that I put myself in the place of Serge in the beggining, but then, as the story developed, the character started to have a mind of his own. He cared for Kid and Pierre, he returned to his town from time to time just to walk around or talk to Poshul and Leena, stare at his house that was not his house anymore. When the decision to either save Kid or leave her to die, I didn't hesitate, he had to save her and he had to make a new friend, who he found in the extravagant yet wise Greco. Then he met Razzly and she became another powerful ally, completing his type triangle of red, white and green. Then came the moment Lynx took Serge's body from him. He was now alone, his friends didn't know him or they were not in the same world. He had to pull himself together, make unlikely allies to move forward, all to save Kid, once again and defeat Lynx, who owned his body now.
I had a really similar experience as you with Witcher. Most of the decisions I made were based off how I thought Geralt would respond to things, and not how I personally would, and I really enjoyed playing the game that way. Weirdly, I had a very different experience with Horizon Zero Dawn than with Witcher. Maybe I just didn't find her motivations compelling enough to relate to the anger she seemed to respond with by default, but I ended up feeling like I was trying to mold Aloy to not be rude in half of her interactions, which was honestly kind of frustrating.
I do still enjoy games with faceless player characters so I can choose to either self insert or explore avenues of repressed social attitudes that I wouldn't normally express in my day to day life. But I think I do generally prefer games where I get to follow along with a character as they grow throughout the game. Divinity Original Sin 2 is a lot more interesting playing as one of the Origin characters. To be fair, that is partly because they have their own unique storylines, but having the character-specific dialog options makes a huge difference in the game, independently from the storylines themselves.
Great video! I have a similar problem to you, where I sort of just "am" the character in the game. At least, in games with ludo narrative dissonance and poor writing. I tend to self insert the most in Bethesda's games and especially in Fallout 4, and I think I know why. The game doesn't give you many options to express yourself, it doesn't give the institute any real character or motivation, The actual characters in the world feel more like quest nodes than characters, and most of all the game itself is constantly throwing things in your way not even remotely related to your son. So it's no surprise a lot of people say, "the developers clearly haven't prioritized the roleplaying, why should I?" If everything is shallow and nothing makes sense, you stop looking at things as a world and moreso as a themepark and a set of game systems. It's a fun set of game systems, but it's not "real" in the way outer worlds or fallout new vegas is. It's really hard for me and many others to play Fallout 4 and say, "I am doing this because I am a man trying to find his son," while you dress up as a crime fighting super hero. I am not clearing out a settlement and walking around listening to the radio for my son, I am doing it because it's fun. I think you tapped into potential for the story of Fallout 4 that I didn't think about, but I feel like it that story would fit better in a 10-15 hour game with limited choice rather than an 100's of hours open world playground.
I do agree with you that games with defined characters that still give me choice tend to put me in the headspace more than games like Fallout 4 (or in your case, other open world games), but I feel like that's more correlation than causation. Those stories are easier to write, so the writing and world tends to be better and encourages you to actually view the world as a world. I think that truly open games require a different type of story telling than any other medium, and many try to adapt a last of us story to an open world game and it just doesn't work, and players just feel disconnected from the world and start only doing things for in game rewards.
i think you should play disco elysium, it's preety much the only rpg videogame where you end up roleplaying because even "failing" is rewarding and there is always another path to move foward, it's a really great game. edit: oooooh now i hear the hotel theme playing in the background, guess this comment wasn't needed lamao
I really hope you didn’t get her to play fortnite
okay but why do I always pick the polite options in games even though I'm a giant asshole in real life
because you don't actually want to be an asshole...?
Came here to say this. Games are places where we fulfill our fantasies. Like killing people. Fighting dragons. And being kind.
@@Raymando Bro...That's deep...
probably because games often have a romancing option for characters--usually that doesnt exist irl
@@jessicobra7 if you know the right words, it does
This reminds me of last year when I (re-re-re-re) started a new save on Skyrim and role played as Elsa from Frozen, using only ice spells. This was a lot of fun.
This is the only acceptable reason to play Skyrim tbh.
I've never been able to stay interested in Skyrim, but this makes me want to try again lol
oh my gosh, I haven't played Skyrim but that is awesome XD
God, I've made so many high-concept characters in Skyrim: Ten year-old archer girl who hated giants. Pirate who hoarded all gems, jewelry, etc instead of selling them. A viking. An immortal interdimensional traveler. Daughter of said interdimensional traveler. Werewolf barbarian with wolf companion. And so on.
This seriously just made my day.
I’ve never even thought to not project myself into a character. It’s second nature for me to want to be involved in the story. You’ve definitely convinced me to try this out soon. Great vid man
I've always done this. I don't think I could enjoy RPGs otherwise. Whether it be playing a racist Nord in Skyrim or a space pirate in Outerworlds; I've never really tried to project myself into a character.
Yeah, everytime I play PnP or PC games I actually look at the choices I can do and would do it if I am the character. Even with Geralt or other defined chars I do it.
I must say I do not take the most easy route because some are moral wrong for me so noope I don't do anything to get the best shit together in skills and items.
I've tried making an evil character after I play self insert, but I just can't. It's just not my nature
Right In some games like Dragon Age i try to create a character like, a full passive elf with a big heart who always be kind to the others, but when i face certain situations i can't help but think "no, i can't allow that to happen, this guy is literally unforgivable, i cannot just leave him be, i will break out of this character just for once and than go back to the 'all good elf' again" but when i realize i have done this kind of thing hundreds of times
I definitely think it largely has to do with age and experience. Those who grew up role playing in table top rpgs are more prone to consider playing a character as an option. Those of who grew up with video games and never played traditional rpgs may not even think about playing a character instead of ourselves as an option, because the concept hasn’t really been introduced to us.
me roleplaying in pokemon like "I only use rock-type pokemon because of my rocky relationship with my father"
Underrated
I choked
USAGI oof
@@ChrisPBacon-xn9up imma just take that back cause I think it went too far
I only use electric types because of my static social life.
Honestly I never really thought about doing that. I always internalized the roleplaying aspect as playing as an alternate self in a fictional world. It's kind of wish fulfillment where I'm a good person who's strong enough to help and save everyone.
You kind of treat every charachter as Link.
are you some F-rated superhero irl
I can really relate to this. A game that handled this issue really well was Firewatch (briefly showin in the video). At the very beginning, the game had you answer multiple-choice questions that filled in your backstory and explained how/why you are where you are now (the real start of the game). By allowing me to define my character's history before I actually started the game, I felt it was a lot easier to actually role-play as the character I had helped create.
Yeah, the beginning of Firewatch is a mastercraft example of bringing the player into the mind of a character. I have a video idea in the future talking about likable heroes, and that game is definitely going to get a mention.
Mount and Blade: Warband does this too. It helps
Two more good examples are Mount & Blade: Warband, where you select what your past life was before adventuring, and Tyranny, where you play a pre-game conquest mode of what you did while the overlord was conquering the lands before the start of the game.
The first act was pretty solid but the build-up didn't pay off in my opinion.
For me It's like the difference between playing Zelda or stardew Valley. With Link as the protagonist in zelda you are playing as him and watching his story through cut Scenes. But in stardew valley I get to make choices to change my character. I place my self into the situation.
Man, you always pick the most interesting (and relatable) topics that NO ONE else is talking about. Nice bloody work 👏
Honestly, this is the coolest kind of compliment. I try really hard to frame things in original ways without being ultra obscure, so to hear that it is connecting, means a lot. Thank you.
@Alannithas 69 HAHAHAHA LMFAO OMFG 69 LOLOLOLLLOOOOL HOLY FUCK IM ACTUALLY DYING LOLOL 69 I LITERALLY HAVE THE ENTIRE OFFICE I WORK AT GIVING ME WEIRD LOOKS BECAUSE OF HOW BADLY IM DYING OF LAUGHTER RIGHT NOW xDDDDDDDDDDDD XD XD XD LOLOL 69 HOLY FUCKING SHIT LOLOLOLOL
yeah I have to agree with you, that's the reason I subscribed
Exactly!
I've always felt the same as this topic playing RPGs for 15+ years so to see someone else talking about it is a really satisfying watch
Huh, just realized I've never role played in an RPG
Witcher 3? My first one btw as I never have an interest in them in most cases.
My standard for those types of games are EXTREMELY high given a think Witcher 3 is AMAZING. Was also very hard to get used to.
Imo.... you should check it out.
Same
roleplaying requires improvisation and stuff away from a script and thats not likely to happen in a computer game... its basically a stats salad in most cases
@QUEENDOM Thats different for everyone though. There are actually 2 totally different types of Roleplays out there, which often get totally conflated with each other.
Sometimes its totally mechanical like in your example, other times its more like acting character roles and some games try both, just to make sure XD
Yeah, you've never role played in an rpg and you never will, because NOBODY has EVER been supposed to role play in an rpg. People thinking that rpgs are supposed to be like pen and paper roleplaying games just because they're also called rpgs is like people thinking that say a basketball videogame is supposed to be like playing basketball.
I like RPGs, and I feel the “playing as oneself makes a boring story”, but for me it’s also hard to make irrational and regrettable choices that I personally would not make just because “that’s the choice that character would make”.
So when I play role playing games, I play like as a character that is basically a version of me in that context, but that changes through the choices it makes to better fit to the world (in a way that’s sometimes good and sometimes evil) creating a story plausible for me and the world (for example a redemption arc if a start with an evil version of me).
That way I feel that I’m the one who’s changing my personality and moral values through the game (to better or worse), and I become closer to my character.
One day ,I create the opposite of the redemption arc, my characters start as a good two shoes ,but with the time he become more irrational and evil, he become the monster he used to fighting against. It's a really fun twist .
@Wolfgang Amadeus, yeah, I’m just saying that it’s more fun if you can identify yourself with your characters, like they become evil in a way you could (not just because they can)
I enjoy a similar approach but it only works in games with an established character for the protagonist. It is like combining yourself with them. When you have a meaningful decision to make you become so invested, because you have been the one leading that character to this fate. It isn't you facing the consequences of these choices but that character, and you also don't want to completely betray their moral code for their own.
Batman is staunchly against using a gun as am I, but if I was playing a Batman game where a decision came up between saving someone using a gun (non-lethally) or letting them die by refusing to pick up the gun, I now feel torn. I don't want any involvement with a gun and neither does Batman, but Batman would be horrified by someone dying because of his cowardice. Stuff like that id what makes up the best RPG decisions imo, when you and the character both feel conflicted but you want to do what's best for the character. Do I use a gun to let Batman sleep better, or do I align Bruce's philosophy with mine and he suffers the consequences?
This. Literally this.
You can’t just insert yourself into a world as you don’t belong. You’re forever disconnected as you’re supposed to have already been a part of this world, and that prevents you from inserting yourself into the story. But by creating a character that’s already set within the context of the world/story all you have to do is manage how they behave.
Well put
I’ve seen folks in the comments talking about how they usually-especially on a first play through-just play a version of themselves, and as a long-time D&D game master, that’s also something people tend to do when they first play a tabletop RPG. Playing a self-insert character is a great way to learn a new game, because you can approach every choice from the most familiar possible framework: what sounds like you? What would you do? The main exception is social-when a new player joins an experienced group who are all playing character clearly different from themselves, it’s easier for them to do the same. In single-player video games, we don’t have that social pressure, and we often play through a game’s story just once, so it makes a lot of sense to approach the game from an angle of “what sounds cool to me? what would I like to do?”
The problem with self-inserting into a game isn't that you end up roleplaying as yourself, it's that you don't roleplay at all
You play the game through the lens of a person in real life wanting to experience all the content in the cool video game world in the best way possible, rather than as a person actually in that world with wants and needs relevant to actually being there
Exactly this. I'm not motivated to role play in a game where role playing means skipping content, making suboptimal decisions... it just feels wrong. Which is a bit weird, I have no problems picking flavor over power in tabletop. Guess it has to do with the direct line between the GM and you, the social contract to create an interesting story.
@@pagingdoctorsideburns I think its more so that you are able to do everything in certain games if you wanted to. If the world had consequences or actually restricted us based on our traits like tabletop games, we wouldn't be so incentivised to choose the best desicion every time and make a power fantasy.
When I play as myself, I limit myself based on my own morals. In Oblivion and Skyrim, I still haven't touched the thieves guild and dark brotherhood quests, so I'll look forward to making a character that can experience that.
For me, I get immersed more when I'm playing as myself as opposed to a different character. I guess the former is like an experience, while the latter is more a good story.
This gets even worse when the setting doesn't even account for your choices. Once you're forced into a choice, it's very hard to do anything but play the game as an observer.
I don't roleplay as other characters until I, as the self-insert character and player, learn about everything I need to know. I am always going in blind so I can't roleplay on limited knowledge, myself.
when i play video games, i never view the main character as a “self-insert” character, but as a completely different person from me, and i and could never explain why when people asked about it. you put it into words perfectly.
an olive for me, I simply cannot roleplay, like at all, (excluding D&D I guess), it’s not that I try to self-insert myself, or even that I like to, it’s simply that I am completely and utterly unable to not be myself, which always ends up with me being the good guy and trying to make the best morale choices, almost always forfeiting clear advantages in favor of a better morale choice. To this day, with over 400 hours in Skyrim, i have never even completed the first assassination mission of the dark brotherhood (but i did almost everything else in the game though), even on my current "100% the game" character, i keep doing literally everything before starting the questline even if at this point i know everything that is going to happen in it and the rewards, even if i never played it (also not losing merchants or trying to find complex workarounds to their death (besides console commands) is nice)
Ditto. I just view them as not a self insert, but a bland uninteresting character with no personality
For me it depends on the type of character that I make because I give all my custom characters my own name. They are me but I imagine them being me but from a different universe I decide on their personality their backstory everything. But I like the way he talks about the way he approaches role playing games and I’m gonna do that when I play cyberpunk 2077. Btw who is hype for it.
I can't roleplay characters that don't make the same moral choices as myself. I've tried. I just feel too guilty because I'm still the one making the decision.
smiles I always roleplay a villain turning good, to compromise XD
smiles bombing megaton sickens me. Never did it once.
Exactly. I'm playing, I'm the one making the choices. When I am playing something I feel like inside the game. It doesn't matter what character I'm playing with. man, woman, monster...
Mr. Chopsticks I know, I felt so bad when I was doing an evil play through and I exploded megaton
@Charles Lee Ray Thank you for this incredibly insightful comment. I had no idea. This knowledge changes everything! How could I feel empathy and emotions towards something that's just a game? How could I ever believe that media was meant to evoke empathy in people, when obviously it is meant just to be distracting pixels on a screen? What a fool I've been.
Me: “I’m gonna make my character super evil! 😈” Me later: “I just can’t bring myself to do it 😢”
Me: "I'm going to be a malevolent, sadistic bastard."
Small child in tutorial area: "Help! That boy stole my teddy bear."
Me: "Unhand that teddy bear, villain!"
Can’t bring myself to hurt virtual people in a virtual world.
Same here. It's so hard for me to do evil stuff. However, that doesn't stop me from going through all their stuff when they are not home. Sigh, I am a bad person.
If you were an NPC, would you really care if someone stole or damaged your property? As soon as the protagonist hits a loading screen...
> Your broken pots and crates will fix themselves
> Your sweet rolls will respawn
> The bucket on your head will disappear
> You'll go into stasis until he comes back
Maybe. But in the grand scheme of things, aren't we all NPCs to someone else's game? Just as they are our NPCs? Don't we all have a bucket on our heads? Hell if I know, but it's already after 1 a.m. and I went to bed 3 hours ago and I'm still on my phone.
My fondest memory of roleplaying in a video game was when I got so bored in Fable 3 I decided I would be a mad king of the slums. I bought up every property, dressed in a silly costume, and then handed out money to common folk at every opportunity.
You know, I really hate when there is a good and bad ending, it kills my desire to RP because I'm going to want to play based off of having the best ending.
Schneeregen _ exactly, this is why I love fallout new Vegas so much (yeah I know obligatory fallout new Vegas ass-kissing) but I really do. The 4 groups or people that you choose to side with are so good for role playing, non of them are all morally bad or morally good. While you may say that the legion is bad, there are many people who live in the Mojave who say that they like the legion since it stopped a lot of tribe/gang attacks.
@@rallo9635
Which is why taking the command of New Vegas by yourself is the 'superior' ending. The game even states how awesome your rulership is and that it's made Mojave a better place. Why side with one of the factions when you can do everything better by yourself?
@@Skallva it was implied that yes man was going to slowly take over and undermine your rule in the future.
@@Kris-wo4pj
When exactly? All I recall is the ending saying 'you did good' without any mention of yesman.
@@Skallva he reprograms himself to be more assertive and less well yes man all the time at the end of battle for hoover dam part 2. Which can be taken either as him not being so much of a loose end for ya or well this is fallout him going full skynet since hes in control of the securatrons not the courier. To me its the latter cuz that seems more in line with fallout lore.
I played fallout new Vegas by fully creating a character at the start of the game (DnD style).
It went really well for the first half of the game where I was doing all the side quests on the road to the strip. He was a really chill, peaceful hunter that wasn't afraid of combat but prefered to talk it out. It all fell apart when I joined the wrong faction without really paying attention. I decided help out the omertas (gangster casino owners) who's quests seemed like run of the mill fetch quests, the catch was that once I'd done them the game assumed that I agreed with their secret plans to commit a small genocide to overthrow Vegas and run a small sex-slavery business with all manner of dodgy shit on the side. My character was simply too trusting to question all the subtle signs that I as a player would have grilled them on.
Instead of reloading my save to change my relationship with them, I chose to roll with it and retcon my character's naivety. My laid back protagonist was now intoxicated by the power that this crime family held and in a momentary lapse of judgement had sanctioned a gang war.
The rest of New Vegas was about my guilt ridden character wanting to redeem himself, he fought his inner greed and roamed the wastes with a much deeper character than I could have given him otherwise.
Because I role played and committed to it after a mistake, I gave my character a arc that wasn't accounted for in-game and the story was much better because of it.
Sorry for the wall of words but I've always thought this style of playing was really interesting and thought that here would be the place to talk about it.
I dunno man, it always ends up in a massacre at the Omertas, mainly because i actively seek out the hidden weapon stach and then aggro the guards because my moronic self still doesn't get it that only concealed weapons are allowed to be openly worn (and kill the stringpullers behind it as well since their namea are highlighted and i'm already forced to use a stealth boy now because of the bad rep).
P.S. never go Apeshit in the Tops for loosing all of your hard earned cash unless you completed the show actor sidequest. You might trick the Questgiver with your stolen and propably now bloodstained Outfit but not Old Jimmy with his Guitar. Funnily enough that was the same run where i joined with the ultra luxe canibals for once
You're an ideal player of call of Cthulhu or dnd rolling with it
I don't answer comments very often, but man you convinced me to try such roleplaying in a game. ^^
I quite liked the naivety. Well written characters outside of roleplaying get tested and are changed by it. You had a nice twist for your character's arc.
@Thomas Williams I think that's interesting because isn't that kiiiind of what happened to Joshua Graham with the legion?
How people play RPG's
Other people: Create in depth characters to roleplay as and shape the world to how their character would shape it
Me: "So anyway i started blasting."
how to do a dark side Star Wars KOTOR playthrough
You and me both, pal.
You are why we call a “murder hobo”, you just go from place to place killing everything with zero interest in story, characters, dialog, lore, etc
@@BoJangles42 It's not my fault the NPC's are stuffed with shiny loot
Me
Writing real life journals about the character. That's some next level roleplay.
I know, right? I got a fanfic that's almost turning into something more original where the protagonist's late father left behind a diary with secrets of how he suffered a similar fate as his daughter when she grew up. Now even the protagonist herself writes how she's regretting being such a bad and fearful influence and hopes to turn that around now that she's got a full-grown daughter who was snatched away from her at a very young age.
Oops. Going into way too much detail now. Oh, and my own writing skills are pretty bleh.
"In Skyrim no matter what the protagonist is the dragonborn"
That's why you skip the main quest.
I used to do this all the time. Just don't go up to the Barrow and you're fine to live a free life in Skyrim. :P
in Skyrim you are left with a world that has no consequences or meaning and is actually just a big but ultimately very shallow sandbox, but no real roleplaying or depth
@@kurojima That's not entirely true. NPCs live or die depending on your actions, Jarls change, and so do the factions you're part of. How much power to change the world should an average adventurer really have?
@@vanyadolly I don't really recall having a real impact on the world in Skyrim.
@@notalpharius4553 you don't recall it doesn't necessarily mean it doesn't.. I can make a grand essay on how player choice in Skyrim effects the world.. Do you want me to do that?
Honestly it might sound weird but The Sims series is an amazing role-playing playground once you get over that 'I'll make myself' idea; create a random sim, random traits and try thinking what a person with those traits would do
Crusader Kings II?
@@parsatayebi7652 I just murdered everyone, no matter what
... wow. absolutely. i love roleplaying in the sims.
Playing the pre-made sims in the overworld is surprising a lot of roleplaying fun
My sister made sans undertale one time
That’s what I loved about the Witcher 3, I wasn’t playing „myself“, I was playing Geralt. At first I was disappointed that the game won’t let you do certain things like sneaking and picking locks and so on (nothing that I do but that I like to do in video games), but when I realised that this was intentional I managed to get deeply into Geralts character and more often than not I made the choices based on what I would think HE would do, rather than me.
Great video!
Another thing I almost always do is picking a female character. It has become kind of a habit but it always makes me get a tad more into being someone else and making decisions based on the character I play.
Tom Phelps then play Witcher 1 and 2
Ciri is the main character of the Books and Witcher 3 finishes her story absolutely perfectly
@@artival22 no she isnt. Geralt is the main character, Ciri just have a major participation in the last books
Gustavo Meletti I’ve read all the books. And they are both main characters. The story revolves completely around her and her abilities.
That sounds like when i tried playing without a compass in gta v or red dead, only orienting yourself with the few in game sings and dialogs, yeah, it's kind of doable, but the game is not meant to be played that way, you end up filling the gaps in your head, its kind of fun, but i wish that the games it selves allow for it
Breath of the Wild is maybe the only game I've played where turning off the compass is viable. I wish there was a Breath of the Wild but for roleplaying.
i wish I had a switch hahahha
@@byakka someone has been watching too many nakey jakey
@@razbuten again morrowind =) no markers there. only notes in your journal that you take from npc conversation. YOU have to travel by foot and look for landmarks and ask around. skyrim cant hold handle to morrowind =)
@@razbuten From what I know, Assassin's Creed Origins and Odyssey also offer a mode with vague directions etc instead of objective markers. If I had more patience, I'd play them both again like that to enjoy the amazing world design.
Playing Fallout 4 for the 1st time: "WHERE IS MY SON DAMMIT"
Playing Fallout 4 for the 628th time: "What's the main story again?"
Who plays Fallout 4 that many times lol. 2 was enough for me.
No even in the first time lmao
@@MrPtrlix 2 playthroughs, might do a third
Bethesda's writing and to an extent Fallout 4's writing is incredibly lacking and simple it's incredibly boring compared to non Bethesda Fallout titles
@@detectivepayne3773
Yeah, gameplays good and after a few playthroughs story tends to not be an issue
I was so bored by Skyrim until my third attempt at a fresh start. I basically built my D&D character and made desicions based on his characterisitics. I ignored quests I didn't feel like he would involve himself in and came up with story reasons for each choice.
I was way more invested and actually finished the main quest. Maxed out skill trees. It is absolutely the way to go.
I love the idea of roleplaying but on the first playthrough, when I'm learning the game, I _always_ play as myself. Then when I feel comfortable, I play as other characters. Once I had learned about Skyrim more, I played more than a Khajiit; so much so that I attempted to roleplay as her kin who were Khajiit, Orismer, and Bosmer respectively.
roleplaying makes no sense in most videogame RPGs because there's no good reason to do side quests when you have a world ending threat to face. if you have realistic priorities you would miss some of the best content because wandering off on sidequests wouldnt make sense
That depends on the game. Mass Effect 3 avoided this problem by making it so that every sidequest, and every side activity you do ultimately rewards you with forces who can join you in the final great fight. It's a very specific solution of course, but it works and makes me feel like every single sidequest I'm doing is ultimately serving the main galaxy-ending goal. Even the Multiplayer counts towards it.
QUEENDOM Wrong. Roleplaying *traditionally* means backstory, your character and how you act. In video games it largely means choosing between fighter, mage, thief and etc.
J2Dragon I feel as if there aren’t anymore True rpg games that let you live in the world and be your own unique special person because the industry has shifted to action RPGs because those are more controllable,cinematic and for some gamers an rpg can be overwhelming as it is with a main storyline so if you eliminate that and just tell the player he can do whatever he wants narratively that could be a turnoff to some
Baby Showtime Perhaps you’re not looking in the right places. Have you tried Divinity Original Sin 2? Or Disco Elysium? I’ve heard good things about them.
Can you also give me an example of one of these older true RPGs? Cause I still think we have those.
Oh and if you really want to be your own person then play D&D. No video game has ever been close to capturing the freedom you get in TTRPG (with a good GM).
@@writershard5065 ME3 was the one of the worst cases of this dichotomy between urgency and sidequests. If you do all the "Priority" missions first (As you should in real life) you would miss half of the content, because this missions connect one to each other to the endgame, and when you reach a certain phase of the main quests, unresolved main quests become permanently not done. There are only few examples where you have to divert away from the Priority mission to do something else so you can do the next Priority mission available.
The problem is that in d&d you don't feel like the century of the universe. You have other players and there is a real chance that you'll die before finishing the game. In World of warcraft there are other players which allows there too be role playing servers. In games like skyrim you are the centre of the universe so your actions dictate how the universe operates. So your gonna play it straight more in skyrim.
@Tom Phelps BUT YOU'RE THE DRAGONBORN!!@21@!!!
The game definitely has a major "chosen one" problem, but you can ignore that with a few mods (the mod "You Are Not the Dragonborn" makes the game feel much different).
@Tom Phelps "You Are Not the Dragonborn" introduces a lot of potential starting options. You don't have to participate in the intro sequence.
@Tom Phelps Because you seemingly misapprehended the fact that the mod has you have the same plain-Jane vanilla startup sequence? Why'd you comment about your experience about something you've never experienced?
@Tom Phelps You tagged me and said "I just feel like a prisoner who was at the wrong place at the wrong time" when I mentioned the mod. I assumed you were chatting about the mod because that's what my last comment was about.
I feel lots of times playing DnD most of the DM's are more focused on the story and hitting checkpoints rather than focusing on the players/characters and having a fun adventure.
I've met very few good DM's who try to make the game interesting for every individual person, just from my own experience.
So I feel this post.
When I started playing D&D I realized that the video game RPG genre has never really cared about roleplaying.
Then when I started playing other tabletop RPGs I realized D&D never cared about roleplaying as much as I thought.
Yeah, have you ever played snowgrave?
For me roleplaying is more about different stats and abilities. Different people will speak in different manner and will fight using different things.
Yea its usually the most basic rp
The latest Bethesda games don’t care about roleplaying
That whole journaling your rp character looks like a really good creative exercise for character creating!
As someone who almost always plays through RPGs while roleplaying, I think one of the biggest problems is that it is almost always way way harder to roleplay on a first playthrough.
In general, it's easy to plan twists and arcs when you know what's going to happen ahead of time. But when you look at TTRPGs, I don't need the whole story to play a convincing character at all, in fact, often you barely know more than the setting and what will immediately be happening when you begin.
I think an easy and powerful way for RPGs to encourage roleplaying, even on the first attempt, is to offer a synopsis on the main menu. Describe the world at large, the year, what our player will be doing at the start of the game, some interesting factions and possible origins. Give the players the tools they need to create a compelling character.
New Vegas' intro, while seemingly frontloaded with information, seems to be an attempt at this, giving the immediate background of what's been happening in the region and who the major players are, what you've been up to in this world, and then immediately asking the player to take a personality test. In less time than the entire FO3 intro, FNV does a lot to establish itself and encourage you to establish yourself as a distinct character.
In the game itself, anticipate and encourage player character participation. So much of modern RPGs, especially Bethesda titles, involve walking somewhere and watching characters act out scenes before ordering the protagonist around. The major choice, often, is deciding who you want to give you the orders.
Instead, truly let the player character drive the story. Let NPCs depend on the player and their choices. A good example of this is, again, New Vegas. In New Vegas, the player character ends up with the Platinum Chip, a macguffin that can change the fate of the entire region. Suddenly, every major faction is forced to, no matter what atrocities the player has committed, attempt to butter them up. Mr. House especially literally cannot move, and depends on the player to do what he cannot. This gives the player a very active role in deciding things.
It's a balancing act, of course, since you have to make the player as well not feel like the chosen one, a boring trope that makes for boring stories like Skyrim's.
Moral greyness is a powerful tool here. Choices that can be debated and don't have an obvious 'good guy' answer. Shocking revelations about factions the player has aligned with may question their faith as well and open up opportunities for an arc as the player character decides he can't abide by certain things.
Lastly, skill checks are SO IMPORTANT. They offer so many ways to approach a story and its quests. Whether through dialogue or interactions with the world, they're a way to reflect the character in very concrete ways. Less talked about is the importance of failed skill checks. While I hate to keep referencing New Vegas for everything, the failed skill checks in that game are absolutely hilarious. A character can be just as, if not more defined by what they *can't* do than what they can. I'd love to see more rpgs open whole avenues only available because my character DOESN'T know how to use explosives, or talk to people.
Oh, traits are also good. Traits with strong, and it is important that they be STRONG, positive and negative impacts can really help make a playthrough unique from any other playthrough. I'd like to see some systems where players can design their own traits and give themselves bonuses where it makes sense and negatives where it makes sense.
Play with New California. Seriously. It is one of the best introductions to a game I've ever played through.
In tabletop RPGs, the phrase used is "Your character knows more about their world than you." This is how things like History skill checks work.
We can reflect these in-game by removing dialouge options will skill check options, instead of what is done now and reveals dialogue options alongside the skill.
Fantastic comment!
@Tom Phelps In spite of my constant referencing I def. don't think New Vegas is perfect. Once you play it like twice going on the cycle of goodsprings primm mojave outpost nipton novac boulder city new vegas is SUCH A DRAG
@@spinningninja2 thanks!
*starts playing a game, ends up writing a book*
me in each new vegas playtrough
I literally had this conversation with my girlfriend not even 3 days ago and used many of the same examples (DA: Inquisition, The Witcher, etc...)
Really cool to hear someone else feels the same way.
It is always good to hear that I am not the only one having this problem lol
Plot Twist: Your girlfriend is actually Razbuten disguised
Dude as somebody who's written school assignments from the perspective of fictional characters, you've opened my eyes to the possibilities
I always play RPGs as myself. For me, I just much prefer seeing how the story plays out if I were in the position of the main character, making all the choices, and doing all the things I enjoy. I don't think that I play games really for the character arc, if I wanted that I'd just read a book or watch a show. What I love about games is that you aren't watching something play out. You are the one making things happen. I always thought that was the general consensus of games but obviously I was wrong. The fact that I like to put myself as the main character is exactly why I have a harder time immersing myself as a female character in games, because I find it to be the most different thing that you could change in a character and I can never fully relate to them. I guess that's been my whole point: My main goal in games is to either create the character as myself, or play in a way that I can best relate to the character. (I even use my real name, and try to make myself in games, that's just how I play)
You have very quickly become one of my favorite UA-camrs. I genuinely did not subscribe to you expecting to like your content so much but well... here we are. Also, I would kill to see some DND-esque content from you, although I worry that some viewers wouldn't find that interesting, idk man... I eat that shit up.
I have a DnD podcast called Once Upon A Roll. Full disclosure, it has been slow going because of the holidays and getting used to running this channel, but now that I have some more resources, I plan to do a lot more episodes next year. ua-cam.com/channels/yIyH5iEGEy9NeUfwJXXtGw.html
@@razbuten Oh shit, I'm totally gonna check that out.
i forgot what it was called/ what video ya mentioned it in and im really glad the op posted this comment. Thanks
The only game i really went through a personal journey with was Dark Souls. I've never been huge on story, and the lack of cut scenes and info dumps made the game feel a lot less like a game. That, paired with having to struggle to overcome the challenges provided alongside the character, really made me feel like i was in a ruthless world that is unfair to its inhabitants.
The journey of getting good at a fighting game against real people is the closest thing I've done to roleplaying outside of that.
Yeah, it is rare for me to have that kind of personal journey in games. Dark Souls definitely increased my ability to be patient... My most recent personal journey with a game happened with Outer Wilds (distinctly different than Outer Worlds), and I plan to make a video on that in the future as dang it was special.
@@razbuten interestingly Dark Souls comes to mind as being one of the games that I did the most character building in my head. Granted not on the first play through but while learning about the various places in the world I found myself inspired to start a new character and play as if my character came from those locations. This decided my character stats and weapon and armor choices.
I find it very hard to get into Dark Souls, not so much because of the difficulty but more because I find it difficult to come up with a unique character and put myself into his shoes due to the cryptic nature of the Dark Souls world.
When roleplaying in TES style games, I inevitably run up against an important decision that they don't give enough information or options to make a decision that fits the character.
All they need to do is make it so that the evil, bad, selfish, and naughty choices are just as viable and rewarding as the good choices but in a different way.
If you really want to get into roleplaying, you should do what your character would regardless of the metagame.
@@KarmasAB123 Roleplaying depends on how fun it is in actual game. More choices shouldn't be there just to see what happnes and for replayability but to make you consider will that choice be viable for you. Evil charachters should have their own thing
@@goldenhorse4823 Fun is subjective; everyone will always have their own missed opportunity to point out.
Yeah, it's hard to role-play when your options are essentially "be a good guy and do the quest" vs "be evil and turn down the quest. No alternative content, just missed content"
Maybe we should stop making choices (in general) fall on a binary of good vs evil. It's much more interesting (imo) to have a world where things happen and the player reacts to the world organically. They might even have to make hard decisions! Rather what feels like a lot of games do treating it as just adding to replay value
There was ONE game that indeed changed my own understanding of myself: KOTOR 2. I usually make decisions in video games based on a mix of my own character and the main character established in the narrative. (Like: "How would I react if I had lost all my force powers and had been expelled from the Jedi Order?"), so I'm not exactly roleplaying.
But in KOTOR 2, Kreia really made me change the way I look at the force as concept. She made the REAL ME question my previous understanding of the whole Star Wars narrative. Before, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda had been wise teachers for me and Vader, Sidious and Bane made me want to be one of them. (I always found the Sith to be far more interesting then the Jedi.) After playing KOTOR 2, both Yoda and Sidious just looked like blind fools to me who didn't understand that they were laying their fate in the hands of a dangerous THING - the force. The whole history of the SW universe just appeared to be a endless repetition of the same conflict: Force users fight other force users and the ordinary people have to suffer because of it. Kreia wanted to end this, and while I wasn't agreeing with her in every way, I'm shared her basic point of view ever since.
Dude, there is this one mod in skyrim that make lydia talk and feel like an actual person and combined with other mod that introduced lik 200 NPCs that have there backstory and there conversations last way longer than the normal NPCs, made me forget i was playing a game and i thought i was speaking to a real f*cking person. Anyways i was on the village below high rothgar and lydia stops me to talk about who know what and she ends by saying something along the lines of "ones the civil war has ended it doesnt matter wich side wins, everyone is going to forget about the men and women who fought for this land and every one is just going to remember you, the dragonborn". Once i finished the civil war quest line and made the stormcloaks win, i refused killing general tullius and the oportunity to be included in Ulfric speech (or something like that) basically i refused the idea that the dragonborn had even fought on the civil war, just because i for one second thought of the NPCs as real people...im really happy of how i ended up modding my game.
Yoda: I sense the dark side in you.
@@alw2839 The dark side and the light side of the force are but two sides of the same coin, my friend. Those who commit themselves to one extreme, aren't able to see the bigger picture.
@@untruelie2640 I agree. Though I'm sure that KOTOR won't let you play that way. IRL that has many implications but let's keep this convo fiction related. Wouldn't the selfish self eventually get in the way tho?
@@alw2839 Trying to see the bigger picture is entirely selfish, but this doesn't mean that one wants to gain more power. The key is knowledge, not power.
Not the knowledge about force techniques and combat tricks though, but the knowledge ABOUT the force.
All what the Jedi and the Sith ever did was to dive deeper and deeper into the ocean - but to recognize the ocean for what it is, one has to get out of it, above it.
To fully understand the force, one has to sever his or her connections with it, to look at it from the outside. This is what the Exile did, what made him/her so unique - not being dependend on the force anymore, not being dominated by it. Do you still wonder why Kreia was so interested in the Exile?
I started playing KOTOR 2 as a Jedi who became more and more "dark" as the game progressed, just because it was more fun. When I finished the game, I did not care anymore wether I belonged to the dark side or the light side. I had discovered something way more interesting; an outside view on the force. Kreia said it: Names and titles are useful, but they don't mean anything. There always has to be a Darth Traya, but only as a costume, not as a true person. You can call me a Sith as you would say that I'm wearing a particluar set of clothes; they suit me, but they don't define what I am.
Every time I first play an RPG I play as a reflection of myself in that world, but one thing I noticed is that some of my favorite playthrough on RPGs are my second ones where I play as different from me as possible. Part of me wants to try that on my next new RPG, just do what is fun or weird or just what I wouldn't but I also think that maybe a reason I enjoy so much is because I already know the world of the game as well as to where the story is going and bc of that I can create a character with full personality but that fits the world. Me, I know myself pretty well so I can always adapt myself to fit with something new, with a new character is a bit hard. I guess that's why I love in Witcher 1, you have a established character BUT he lost his memories, is the best of both worlds.
Yeah, when talking to people, it seems like a lot of folk save RPing for subsequent playthroughs. That is all well and good, but it is rare for me to replay long ass RPGs multiple times, so I never get around to it.
I think a lot of people when role playing in RPGs create a full character arc in their head rather than just a person. It makes sense to have a box where stimuli goes in and then the box spits out how that character would react - but instead people have an idea of how their story will end, and get disappointed if that doesn't happen. I see this happen all the time in what is, in my opinion, the greatest RPG series ever made: Football Manager. People get disappointed or angry at certain scorelines or player interactions or transfer bids - but really it feels like what they're angry at is the random story generator that is the FM simulation not creating the story that they had been planning for their manager and their players.
i do usually play as myself in RPG's, only in a select few have i played fully as someone else, but FM weirdly was one of my favs for doing this. I'd make harsher team decisions based on what the character would do and hired players that interested him. ah if only i enjoyed the new FM's as much.
I've noticed that what affects my judgment in RPGs is the prospect of extra XP - I tend to accept quests I wouldn't really want to do just because I could get that extra skill point. Especially on a first playthrough, because i've no idea what to focus on yet, which quests lead to what, etc.
I feel like the problem is more of not wanting to miss out on content. If games were procedurally generated you wouldn't want to do things for the sake of checking out what developers have done.
This is the problem I had with New Vegas. I didn’t make choices that my character would make because I didn’t want to miss any content.
I struggle a lot with making characters that differ from me as a person. I don't typically do self inserts, but each character I make feels like a slice of my personality. Even the ones that are far removed from my own moral code and personality have a few drops of me in them. I should try branching out more like this. Thank you for the amazing insight.
I also think that, especially for players who aren’t used to roleplaying, there can be difficulty in creating your own character. With a blank slate, there’s nothing there to PLAY the ROLE of, and so people just don’t. When you have an established character you’re controlling, that character has motivations and interests that will get you to want to see then be happy. As such, you start playing as them.
Honestly this is why I consider starting to stream. Simply to force myself to create immersion, keep up the roleplay etc...coz i dunno what else
Yeah, it's much easier to roleplay when you have "an audience", even if it's just your friend. I would get bored very fast if I tried to do it without anyone to share my experiences with.
I talk to myself to solve this problem haha, It's a little weird but you can talk in your head only
Huh... I honestly never thought of "role-play" in the sense you described between two kinds of games; one with a pre-defined character, and one you can create, to which the irony of it all is... that the created character usually ends up just being me in a fictional setting, while a pre-defined character like Geralt or Aloy (Horizon Zero Dawn) was actual role-playing for me since I wasn't being me. It's given me a different outlook on how I have played past games, and I learned to appreciate both types even more so now.
It took me a long time to “get” Hollow Knight. I originally played it with headphones in and just trying to find fun bosses to fight. I quickly grew bored of it. It wasn’t until I actually started to “roleplay” and imagine what it would be like to have to revisit the remains of a once great kingdom that I truly had fun. Yes, the boss fights and platforming were challenging and rewarding, but the simple act of having the ability to choose to bow to an NPC with respect after they teach you new skills or to slowly piece together other characters backstories and how they relate to others or your own, those were truly some of my favorite moments.
"That meant making a character who's kind of a-" *AD*
Not sure if you planned that, but that's fantastic
read this as it happened, 10/10
I’ve been wanting to practice this myself when I play rpgs recently. I remember I used to play games as if I was a living breathing person in that world with wants and needs and really get into it. I’ve always played as “myself” in rpgs but now I just make a bunch of decisions based on what I would do if I were in the situation which is role playing in a way. But for instance if I’m playing new Vegas I’m thinking “I’m gonna go to sleep now to recover” where as back in the day I would have a whole internal monologue like “shit, I’m really banged up. Gonna drink a little booze and try to sleep it off”. I wanna start back getting in depth and feeling like I’m actually in the world instead of feeling like I’m just controlling some little virtual version of myself lol. It’s much more rewarding to play that way.
This video made me realize that I generally feel the same way you do about this, and is probably why I end up dropping so many super popular RPGs, even though on paper I should be a huge fan.
I've had an experience similar to what you described with the Witcher 3 with Mass Effect. I thought of a backstory and personality and likes and dislikes all based on what the game gives you and his relationships with characters all depended on that. I spent time thinking about why he would make what choices he did and it turned into one of my favorite ever video game experiences
Personally I love attaching myself to a blank-slate main character in role playing games because it allows me to become engrossed in the story more so than if I was playing as a pre-established character
Jack Sparrow was a very controversial choice for the point that the character who changes the most is the protagonist.
I thought the same. He's a foil for Will and Elizabeth, not a dynamic character in his own right.
Overall, I wasn't too impressed with the sequels, but I thought Elizabeth had a first-rate "hero's journey" arc.
I also love making my own stories about the characters too. Like what you did with yours. Makes it better
It's interesting to see someone that see's RP so identically to myself and has the same EXACT view on F04, which is very rare.
Gonna be honest, don't think this is a video I ever expected to see. Or ever knew I wanted to see. But I completely agree with everything in this video. And it has given me an urge to try something similar in the future, thanks!
That is awesome to hear! Yeah, obviously it was very much based around my experience of feeling limited by games, but it is good to know that other people go through it too.
Projecting yourself into a game is only interesting if you not only project your strenghts but als your weaknesses on to your avatar.
Unfortunately most rpgs only give you the option to put points in positive aspects of your character like perks or increasing your skill points. Only very few rpgs get stat systems right. Fallout 1, 2 and New Vegas are one of the few that get it right. While at first glance it might work like a traditional stat system, the stats can be decreased to a point where it creates severe penalties for the character. If you have low strength there are some weapons you simply cannot use, or not use efficiently. If your charisma is low you will miss out on a lot of skill checks that a charismatic character would have. Traits with benefits and trade offs add a lot of depth to characters. Unfortunately only very few rpgs actually have them.
Most rpgs are actually just stat games, meaning games where you just power up your stats to get a stronger character so you can beat stronger enemies which help you get even stronger. That's not an rpg if you go strictly by the definition of the word roleplaying. You are not playing a role, your are not playing a character. You are playing an avatar whose only purpose is to increase their stat values.
True rpgs are actually really rare as most developers don't really develop rpgs. They develop addicting stat games where you are massively incentivized to increase your stats more and more. Actualy rpgs are not very interesting to the average player because, as was said in the video, this style of playing a game can be very exhausting, where as the average gamer plays to relax.
Daggerfall
a very good point random dog, people are very much only into blind self-promotion, and hence, have a very one-sided, unbelievable characters
I mean to be fair CHA in New Vegas is kind of garbage. You can get through pretty much everything if you put points into speech.
@@pandacakes6613 But also you have to sacrifice all the other perks than can give a possibilty to complete a quest without failling it because you have explosive, sneak, perception, FA, CQC etc... So you get weaker in the end because you focus to much on specifique perks or stats.
@@chronokros4857 Cha only gives an initial boost to speech and Barter (sucks). Also a small buff to already OP companions I guess. Int gives more skill points every level, making it the best stat really. Cha pales in comparison.
I felt like Outerworlds really rewarded me for paying attention. There's so many details in every aspect of the writing and world building that heavily add to the experience.
The most immersive games to me are the ones with an established character. Games like Red Dead Redemption 2 for example. In that game, I started the journey as a pretty violent Arthur. A criminal who beat an O'Driscoll to death in a stable, looted houses, robbed shops and stagecoaches, got in fights with other criminals and took everything poor Mr. Wrobel had, even his horse. As the game's storyline progressed and Arthur grew as a person, I tried to reflect that in gameplay. I started being more forgiving, I didn't kill people when I didn't have to, I stopped committing unnecessary crimes and I was more helpful to NPCs in need. The culmination of this change happens when Arthur is diagnosed with tuberculosis. From that point on, I tried to redeem Arthur as a character. I really wanted to help as many people I could before Arthur died. I stopped caring about money and became very generous with donations, I always stopped to help the folk in need, I took all side quests and I tried to make positive changes in the world by using Arthur's skills to fight the bad guys and lift up the downtrodden. A game like RDR2 has a 100 times bigger potential for role playing than any generic RPG game where your character starts as a blank slate because it allows for a true character arc that makes sense. The game sets up a premise and then I can latch onto it and act it out by immersing myself in the story and empathizing with the main character. Games with mute, non-defined characters never have this kind of impact on me. They completely remove me from the story and make my character feel like an MMO avatar who simply takes random quests from people.
"A game like RDR2 has a 100 times bigger potential for role playing than any generic RPG" that's objectively not true tho. you are forced into a specific story, you literally cannot roleplay at all, you're just the predetermined character that the writers of the game created. to me this sounds like a lack of imagination on your part
@@666FallenShadow Role playing literally means playing a role. It can be a specific role like Arthur Morgan. Not all RPG games need a character creator or countless dialogue choices that ultimately amount to nothing. RDR2 proves that more limited narrative choices can actually make the game more immersive and realistic.
@@CinematicSeriesGaming tbh i hated rdr2, the realism made the GAME feel like a chore to "play". all the missions were extremely long and boring exposition dumps with minimum gameplay followed by mediocre combat followed by yet another long exposition dump. i tried to give the game a chance and forced myself to endure it for 20 hours before finally giving up. i paid for a game, not a poorly made movie that never heard the phrase " show, don't tell" made in a glorified tech demo. oh, the horses balls shrink when it's cold, woopty fucking doo🙄
predetermined characters are a double edged sword, if you don't mesh with the characters, the story becomes a chore to sit through and if that's the main appeal of the game, the game will be utter shite to you. at least in rpgs where you make your own character and have some freedom of choice you have a higher chance of becoming invested because they give you some agency.
@@666FallenShadow I had the opposite experience. RDR2 absolutely blew me away and I felt immersed in its world like never before. I played AC Odyssey a month before that and that game was fkin trash in comparison. Exactly the kind of RPG you're talking about - a lot of dialogue choices, quests, different outcomes etc. I felt nothing but boredom and frustration. It was so mind-numbingly boring, repetitive and soulless I felt like I was descending into depression.
Players are often more immersed playing as a character of the same gender though. So half your players will be less immersed, making it overall not any more immersive.
A game like Horizon Zero Dawn was more immersive for me personally.
Whenever I play RPG’s I role play as a fictionalized version of myself so I always do what I would do in the situation or at least what I would want to do and I have a lot of fun doing it
i rp as myself
Ha Mr. Obvious keep up them videos man.
Currently playing a fresh round of Divinity:OS2, one of the best rpgs ever with 2 friends.
We choose a theme (monks) together, then created unique characters and switched them between players.
For every new character levelup you have to explain why your character would choose that skill/how it fits into his arc
Hm, i never thought of playing games like this. I’m going to give it a try!
Yeah! It definitely is an interesting experience. Exhausting, but interesting.
Can we talk about how amazing edited these videos are? The amount of time it takes so get all these clips and put them together so that it goes along with the commentary is insane.
Funny how I created one of my favorite characters "Anne Baker" on: The Division 2, it began just by creating a random character, which involved into a girl learning how to deal in this chaotic world, all while having dreams about getting back to college when all of this ends, if it will ever end
I think I overthinked my character into this game, which is a looter shooter, but I had tons of fun
I have a much simpler approach to role playing.
"What would I do if I was in that situation (given the options that I have)?"
Usually works really well in terms of how the game is supposed to be played and how I customize the experience to my liking.
Wow, that was unusually insightful for a UA-cam video, and it really challenged the way I see RPGs. Although I would consider them to be my favorite genre of video games, it never occurred to me to take this approach of extreme immersion you described in the video. I always played RPGs as a representation of myself, even in games like Mass Effect or The Witcher with a more or less defined character - my Geralt was still more me than Geralt, making decisions that I considered to be right or the most helpful in the given situation. But what you said about your experiences in The Outer World really struck me and sounded like a fundamentally different experience than the ones I usually had with video games. The amount of time I spend with playing games decreased as I grew older, leading to me having essentially stopped playing games at all, but I am really tempted to try this approach on a game like Planescape: Torment (which, if you haven't already done so, you definitely should play) with a comparatively high degree of freedom to form you character and answer in the way you want, just to see where it takes me.
PS: As one of the many who discovered your channel through the "What Games Are Like For Non-Players" video, I was kind of skeptical if you could come up again with something as intriguing and fundamentally new to me as you did with this first video, but I was delightfully surprised to have a similar feeling while watching this video - you just did it again. Well done, sir!
This is a very thoughtful and nice comment. I appreciate you.
I almost always play RPGs with custom characters this way and its probably why I enjoyed Fallout 4 a lot more than most other RPGs. Due to how the main plot was set up, it could go in all kinds of ways in different orders. Each of my characters have such memorable "arcs" that I didn't even need to write them down because I remembered them.
My first character, for example, was empathetic to the plight of the common folk and, like yours, became anti-Institute. But she was so devoted to finding her son that when she finally did find him, she underwent a terrible mental breakdown. Not wanting to tear apart the family she lost once before, she sided with the Institute out of love for Shaun but with the intentions of reforming the Institute from within as Director so while she experienced some growth as a character, her core values remain unchanged.
Contrast with another character I made who is hot-headed and is quick to spring into action. Like the first, she was very anti-Institute and would not hesitate to help anyone who is against them. Because of this, when she finally reached the Institute, she was so enraged by what they did to Shaun (2.0) that she gunned down Father before he could reveal his true identity. She then realized the Shaun (2.0) she found was a synth so she continued searching, gunning down every Institute member she sees but never found him. So, she went into depression and got addicted to Med-X. She ended up siding with the Minutemen and did not hesitate to blow up the Institute, mistakenly believing that they murdered her son.
Strangely, I utterly disliked Witcher 3. Sure, the story is decent and it has a predetermined character to help with how I play but the main story as a whole doesn't allow for much deviation and in gameplay, Geralt is always a sword-wielding, sign spamming Witcher. You can't specialize with other weapons like Fallout 4 allows, which limits the character growth potential. And that's before I get into my many gripes with the gameplay.
I'm also a bit disappointed that you did not mention Divinity: Original Sin 2, which is one of the few D&D-style RPG video games out there and one of the best RPGs period. You can quite easily create and roleplay a unique character in that game with its incredible amounts of options in character creation, combat and dialogue. Other than that, great video!
This is why I like reading others opinions. I know there are plenty who dislike the witcher 3 but its always nice to see why they do. Personally its one of my favorites of all time
@@latima123ify And I, for one, am pleasantly surprised and respect you for not immediately dismissing my opinion or calling me a braindead, "Call of Duty" gamer for daring to criticize/not enjoy everyone's favorite sacred cow and critic-proof "game of the generation", Witcher 3. Or for actually enjoying Fallout 4, what with Bethesda being every gamer's favorite punching bag nowadays. Many people seem to not realize that opinions differ in many respects. But I don't hate Witcher 3; I can actually see why people like it. The game I would say I hate is The Last of Us Part 2.
For me, my fav RPGs are Fallout 4, Dragon's Dogma, Dark Souls, Divinity: Original Sin 2, Skyrim, Baldur's Gate (definitely trying out 3 soon) and Dragon Age: Origins. Divinity: Original Sin 2 would be my most favorite of the bunch. Fav non-RPGs are Total War: Warhammer 2, Red Dead Redemption 2, The Last of Us (hated the second one), Hitman, Sims and XCOM 2.
fallout 4 is an underrated masterpeice.
@@LoneWolfHBS Honestly, after reading four of the A Song of Ice and Fire books and heard all the praise of The Witcher, I'm getting sick of people acting as though "realism" is the one true goal of all fiction. Yes, the Witcher looks good and I've heard plenty about it having good combat and a deep story, but I'm sick of people putting down entertainment as a goal and acting as though their favored game/book/movie is so much better then mere entertainment. That and realism can't be the road to quality in fantasy- fantasy by its definition involves throwing out some aspects of reality, you can't have it both ways. The Witcher 3's trailer has that line about "making the most realistic game" ever... then a hot porcelain skinned mermaid with big breasts rises out of the water and waves "Hey sailor" to the titular grump. Pick one. Either you're an exciting fight and sex scene filled fantasy for people to go through, or you're realistic.
@@adams13245 Completely agree. Realism in fictional media should be treated as a bonus, not the main feature, because writing fiction to be as realistic as possible kind of defeats the point of "fiction" in the first place. Expecting realism in fantasy is just...why? Real life is boring so why the hell do I want more of it? People tend to confuse realism in stories with believability. It is hard to call Witcher, for example, realistic when the main character fights by spinning like a goddamn fool, has a sword that can cut through thick armor somehow, or never had to worry about breaking his weapons. Believable in a fantasy setting? Yes. Realistic? Hell no. Having realistic elements, like having characters maintain their weapons when needed, is fine but it should not exist just for the sake of it.
Realism should never be the sole reason for story decisions. Otherwise, you're just missing the point of fiction. As mentioned before, it should only be a bonus and/or must be coupled with another, more important, reason for it. For example, killing an important character out of nowhere for realism and realism only is terrible, TERRIBLE writing. There has to be a very good reason (and I mean VERY good reason) for the death. Otherwise, the character was wasted. This is why people are fine with Ned Stark dying in the first Game of Thrones season, since his death was a consequence of his own actions and kickstarted the arc for many other main characters, but the many deaths that happened in the later seasons baffled many because they exist solely for shock value or "realism".
Depending on the setting in RPG games, I always settle into one of two characters:
If its a fantasy setting, then I typically adopt the persona of a smiling wizard who is happy to make friends and connections until he's gained enough power. Once the wizard becomes confident enough that a decent level of power has been achieved, then he shows his true colours and goes full-on evil. I will even allow meta-gaming for this character, since finding ways to break the game online would be the equivalent of the wizard learning of some ancient, hidden power in a magical tome.
If it's a realistic/sci-fi setting, then I typically become a murderous psychopath who is only concerned with making money and causing mayhem. This character is evil right from the start, even to his own detriment. No meta-gaming here as it doesn't fit the character. Non-killable npcs are the bane of this character's existence. Typically, this character never ends up becoming very powerful and frequently turns down quests as he doesn't want to be anyone's errand boy.
Both of these characters are very unlike me in real life, but video games allow me to live out those dark fantasies that lurk at the back of my mind. I often get quite frustrated with games when quests don't provide options for evil, or neutral characters. Yet other quests in some games don't even seem to have much of a good option to pick. This often makes me feel like the character I'm playing has some sort of personality disorder. One minute you're out finding a sword for some old war hero, the next you're assassinating him. I've always felt that games should focus on less quests, but give them more branching paths to allow for the player's character to act in a consistent way.
Dragon Age 2 was really great at this. You could pick whatever dialog you wanted but Hawke had a definite inherent personality that was awesome to role play as.
Man, those few clips from Dragon Age: Inquisition makes me want to hop back into that world again!
*do it you coward*
I'm playing through my second play through right now and it's really fun to send updates to my friends about what's happening, "Twink Boi is in a committed relationship with Iron Bull now and it's amazing and Cole is best boi"
absolute garbage game
@@mellamanq just because you don't like it doesn't make it garbage, it's not Fallout 76
DA Origins is better.
Celestial Draconis Inquisition was my introduction to the series and the only one I’ve played. What are some of the things that make Origins a better game for you?
Recently found your channels and I’m really enjoying everything. Keep it up!!!
Thanks! I will do my best!
My first try of roleplaying as the character instead of self-inserting me into the story was probably with Deus Ex: Human Revolution.
The second mission demanded me to help a guy in the office who did illegal stuff and wanted me to help.
As I saw Adam as a pretty strict and rightous character, I didn't help him with his illegal stuff, but if there'd been an option to arrest him, I wouldn't have done so either, as I knew Adam wanted to consider himself still human, even though he is a heavily augmented cyborg. His human emotions - interpreter by me - told him it was sufficient to not help that guy.
In the end I lacked achievements, which is frustrating, because I actively skipped game content and the possibility to be rewarded with skill points, loot and avhievements.
I'd probably reconsider my image of the protagonist, adjust it if necessary, to be able to both play the whole game and still feel like I played the role of the protagonist.
You are the only person I have ever seen to do this in a RPG. Ever.
Great video! I remember how i struggled the first time playing geralt because i tried so hard to figure out who he is and what he would to (didn't knew the books at this time)...second time i played it, i "knew" him so all decisions felt natural and right...for his character.
This is so truly relatable, you articulated a feeling I've failed to for most of my life.
When I played Dragon Age: Inquisition, I decided my Inquisitor didn't want to lead and didn't consider herself the person in charge, and she never felt comfortable being forced to act like a leader. She made emotional decisions instead of tactical ones and would often take a support role in combat. In Trespasser (the final DLC and true end of the game), she was told she'd be pressured into ending the inquisition, and she just freaking leapt for it without a second thought. What the story treated as a big decision was obvious from the very start of the game.
But the moment that sticks out the most is the final dialogue where you meet the villain of the next game in the series, and he's... Polite. You feel betrayed by this character and you're worried for what he might do, but he spoke to me as a friend. I didn't know what to do, and I asked myself probably the ultimate RPG question: What would my character do?
Only in realising how obvious the answer was did I realise I had created a full, complex character throughout the game. I didn't know what to do in a situation, but she did.
So, what did she do?
@@gamerlost526 She set out to save him from his own destructive path. She didn't have enough hate in her to set out to kill him.
@@LordSusaga Huh. That's nice.
I did something similar on the first playthrough, but I was still getting my bearings so I did a fair bit of picking the most advantageous options as well.
On my SECOND play through I had a better idea. I was a religiously inclined gangster with a savior complex that ended up encouraging his girlfriend to become the Pope. I picked only options that personally benefited him, made use of his contacts, or leaned towards his religous bias.
Then I started making up a bunch of gangster friends and family members including an estranged son that supported the cause as one of those info runners, but didn't want people to know they were related. And that's how fanfics are born.
I'm pretty sure most people seeing they are the only person with the power to save the world and then seeing something like the fall of Haven would have their lives and their entire world view shift, you weren't REALLY role-playing it if you didn't consider how your character would view that. Even Varric who is shown to typically be selfish and self centered sees what happened in Haven and decided he had to fight for the people even though it meant fighting what seemed to be an Arch Demon and an extremely powerful evil being he had personally seen "defeated" before and yet still lived and came back harder. But, oh well 🤷♂️ I feel bad for anyone who ever does PnP with you if every character you "roleplay" is bullheaded and one dimensional, NEVER having ANY character growth and progression.
weirdly, i don’t like the role playing aspects of fallout 4 *because* the protagonist is more established. It’s fine in the first playthrough, but it’s frustrating on subsequent playthroughs having your characters motivations always being the same. for example, it’s difficult to roleplay as, say, a hardass loner lesbian who’s very cold and socially isolated, because canonically my character is always in a loving relationship with a man, living in a picture perfect suburban town. the main quest is always motivated by finding your missing son, who you are supposed to deeply care about.
that’s why i prefer new vegas, because the only thing that’s set about your character is the fact that you took on a delivery job, and you were shot in the head by chandler from friends. everything else about the character is up to me
It's a really tricky balance for developers I think. It's hard to deliver narrative weight to a blank slate character, such as in your average Bethesda title, compared to a more guided experience like The Witcher series. FO4 tried to do both. I'm not sure it worked. I thought it was strange that I was playing a pre-apocalypse person, supposedly a lawyer in the woman's case, who's pretty incredible at all the apocalypse stuff like shooting, crafting, etc.
This is why I use an alternate start mod now.
One of my favourite parts of fallout 4 was my companion paladin danse, I was immediately drawn to him since he is kitted out with power armour, but he tried to be as honourable as you can in an apocalypse, this made me value his opinion or his approach to certain situations, but also made it that much harder to choose when the twist reveal came round... I still remember that moment as the highlight of my playthrough since he was such a huge part of it and I ended up killing him since it’s what he would have wanted, being a member of the brotherhood of steel...
Another favourite companion was curie, who I turned into a synth... her exploration or discovery of emotion was really sweet and made me immediately drawn to her since she had such an interesting storyline the more you spoke to her
The Geralt part is the part that got my subscription, because damn, I felt the same way.
For me i always roleplay if I get to define my own character. If I am just playing as a character the game gives me, I don't care and don't try to roleplay. For example, in Skyrim I make a lot of new games and play as characters I make up. But in Sekiro for example, I don't roleplay because I didn't make the shinobi. And I never replay Sekiro.
I don't really care about story arcs though, just character design.
The exception to this is the first playthrough of any game, which has been addressed well in another comment. Personally i have started to not make a role for my first playthrough character, while I figure out what the game is and what I want to do on the next one.
im amazed by the freedom of gameplay in the outer worlds, like you can kill everyone, and do what ever you one.
I cannot wait till it comes out for switch.
Been gaming my whole life and the whole idea of real role-playing still sounds like an alien concept to me
The moment you showed dragon age I instantly thought about the fact that in like 8 or more playthroughs of the 2nd game I not once sided with the templars. Even on the runs that I told myself I was going to.
As someone who couldn't get into dungeons and dragons the one time my friends and I tried to play it, this really put into perspective what I'm missing out on by never really role-playing in any game that I play. I was always confused by what the RP in RPG was supposed to mean, really. Next time I get the opportunity Ill make more of an effort to actually play an original character and find out if maybe that's a meaningful experience for me
Splendid video, as always.
Now that I think about it, I find it really hard to roleplay in most games, because more often that not, there is always a "better" or "superior" choice that will lead to a better ending for a quest, or just a better reward. So instead of making a choice based on how my character or me would react, I just google the consequences of my choices to be sure I don't miss on anything.
It surely isn't the best way to play, and it's certainely my fault for doing so, but eh. I'm still having a fun time, I guess.
I guess you could just Roleplay as someone with some kind of precognitive ability and a very pragmatic moral compass. Seeing how sometimes (not often, but still) the best outcome of a quest in term of gameplay reward isn't the same as the best narrative outcome, it could make for interesting moral dilemmas...
Closest thing to this I’ve done is making Jesus as a mage healer in Dragon Age: Origins. For each decision, I’d ask WWJD. 🤔
Naturally this led to doing most the quests/helping people a lot.
He also became a bloodmage. Whoopsie. 😬
Oh no
"He did tell his followers, 'Drink my blood, it will give you powers.'"
-- Jason Stackhouse, "Trueblood"
Well.. communion is said to represent jesus' blood...
Does he led a cult of cannibals? All wanting to eat his flesh.
@@yvrelna Christianity just gets weirder the more you dig into it. They are a group of people that regularly drink blood and flesh that also believe a god is merciful for saying "either murder this child or mutilate the d*ck of every male child." Oh yeah and the same guy gets jealous of other gods that don't exist and got pissed over people building a tall tower.
They are a freaky group of people.
I much, much rather play as a predefined character. It's so cool to be Geralt or someone else that's just a cooler damned guy than me, lol.
I hate it when games just make the characters just a blank slate and the excuse that "it is so that people can project themselves onto them" is stupid, I have never met someone who said " I was expecting the main character just to be a blank slate with no emotions but instead I got a character with personality. Totally ruined my immersion." no we liked when our characters have ideals and goals it makes them have, well, character!
@extreme odst Their stories are. What is compelling about a Mario games story? You are only there to play a set of polygons that get an endorphin rush for crushing small creatures
@@noizepusher7594 Actually I will disagree! I'm going to bring up Fallout 4. There was a certain group of people that were angered by the game forcing your character into a marriage where you have a child and also loathed how the story really pushes the "WHERE IS MY SON SHAUN!?" especially as it made doing anything else feel out of place (for some people). Similarly some people didn't like the fact that the character was voice acted or the dialogue prompts more vague. Now, this wasn't true for everybody, possibly not even most people but I cite it as an example.
Frankly I think that they all have their own strengths and weaknesses.
Generalist characters can, at their best, provide greater opportunities to more broadly play a character. The weakness to this is that as a game your options will still be limited and it's very possible to create a character only for it to be nonviable in the game itself. Many will further restrain it by establishing a universal background or starting profession however.
Then there's the somewhat predefined characters. Geralt is one such character. It gives you some diversity of choice but it's also very much its own character and restrictive. You can only use these weapons, you are a witcher, these are your friends, you have a pre-existing romantic relationship with these characters. It's a lot easier to roleplay the character from the get go.
Then there's entirely being rid of these and making it a game like FFXV where characters are very well defined in ways where you really are playing as Noctics. It's "your" Noctics but not in the way that Geralt is "your" Geralt nor the way that a generalist character is "yours".
I genuinely admire the good generalist rpg but I consider it the hardest to accomplish in a satisfying manner.
@@brycejordan8987 interesting argument! When I said I wanted them to have character I didn’t quite mean an entire story line forced apon the player. I just want a happy medium. Maybe a few snarky quotes here and there, perhaps some voice options and optional relationships here and there. That way they can have character but the player still gets choice.
Only cause most games do a blank slate character like shit. But behold the glory that is Fallout 1,2, and (especially) New Vegas, which give you options to explore almost any kind of character you want. It's harder to do than for a pre-made character, but when it's done right it's incredible.
The keeping notes of Alfred part was actually really interesting to me. I'm not big on Roleplaying games mostly because it's hard for me mentally to make myself be someone I'm not and to make a character someone of myself makes me feel like I'm wasting my time in a way. Honestly, the journals thing I think could be a cool way for me to go about another RPG kind of game. Thoroughly establish who this person is, make it clear for me on what they are like and play from there, keeping a journal as if I were them. Maybe it can help me immerse myself. Even if not, this was a really fascinating way for me to get a bit of insight on these things
The first time I was convinced to fall in love with video games is when I did exactly what you did- roleplaying a character as that character, with F:NV. I had this moment where I decided my character would put pre war books in mailboxes across the Mojave and his character just... spiralled from there.
A courier doing courier things.
"Deciding to not roleplay is also a role you are playing" MIND = BLOWN
I guess it did make sense in the metagame.
That's along the lines of "choosing no to chose is a choice".
Gotta respect the Disco Elysium background music.
Kind of ironic considering Disco has incredibly versatile and immersive role play.
I like RPing with silent protagonists like Gordon Freeman and Corvo Attano. The latter was pretty funny, because I am a very nervous person and not very good at stealth, so my Corvo was a klutz who talked a big game to himself, planned out what to do meticulously, then failed spectacularly and ended up having to fight everybody the hard way. He reminded me of a cat that, having failed to jump on top of the fridge attempts to maintain dignity while walking away covered in spilled cereal.
I never really thought of role playing the way you described, but it makes sense. I think of role playing as playing as yourself but in a different role, e.g. role of a fighter, mage, theif, etc. But your definition... i never do that i think.
The conversation point you bring up seems super obvious but I never really realized it until I saw this video. I love these open world RPGs but I feel like I do always play as some version of me. Its definitely that 2nd or 3rd playthrough where I actually roleplay as something or someone else that is truly memorable.
When you put Critical Role and Disco Elysium on the same video, I instantly like you.
Seems that despite having played multiple CRPGs, I have never thought about roleplaying the same way you do and didn't even consider the possibility that anyone might think of it this way. For me, the purpose of a good roleplaying game was and still is allowing the player to most fully express their own personality within the game world, not to pretend they are someone else. So despite the genre being named "role-playing games", I never even thought I should commit to playing a role that's not a projection of myself - weird, I know. Maybe that's because I never played and understood tabletop RPGs, they're a very niche thing in my country. Watching this video was almost a cultural shock - creating other personalities set firmly within the game world and so disconnected from yourself that you make choices in the game that you yourself would never make in real life sounds completely alien to me.
The complaint I most often make about games with choice is that they present choices with options that 99% of the players would never choose in real life as if they really were interesting and story-defining. "Would you tell this guy whom you've just met and know nothing about that he's a moron and then steal his gold for no reason except that it gives you Chaotic Evil points, or would you behave like a sane person?" Like, come on, no one thinks of themselves as being "evil", so why would anyone choose an option clearly meant to be evil? That's why I liked the Witcher series and Life is Strange, there are choices where you have to really think what matters to you as a person, what would you, the player, do in those circumstances! But if the purpose is to pretend you're someone completely different, then those "evil" choices probably make sense. I guess I should thank you for broadening my knowledge, though I still have a completely different opinion on what a computer RPG should do.
That's weird! When Dave Arneson created D&D with Gary Gygax, they didn't intend for the players to express themselves or interpret themselves in the fictional world, but that they would interpret rogue adventures looting ancient tombs guarded by eldritch monsters. To express one-self is a strange one! Sure, you take decisions ans ome decisiones are based on your own moral values, but that's far from you interpreting yourself.
This is so odd to me. I throroughly enjoy playing as a version of myself, or more accurately, somebody with my personality tacked onto their body/skills/life story/you get it. For me, *that* is what roleplaying is - getting into the story as if i was there! It's why i loved Half Life and Portal's silent protagonists so much! It's entirely the opposite of how it works for you.
I found Chell to be a bad protagonist precisely because she was silent. For example, during the really long fall in 2, she's completely stone cold silent, not even whimpering, as she falls for dozens, probably hundreds of feet. This isn't to say Portal 2's writing is bad, Glados is hilariously terrifying, but Chell never felt like a good character to me.
Thing is I love Dishonored, which also has a silent(ish) protagonist. You can make silent dialogue choices a few times during the game, but there's only, maybe, a half dozen of them. Thing is, unlike Chell who has these strict puzzles to solve, Corvo has tons of agency- through gameplay. Want to role play Corvo as a noble man out to clear his name? You can! Want to play Corvo as a broken psychopath who delights in bloodshed? You can! I think there's more to it than the high chaos/ low chaos choices, such as how you kill enemies and how you kit out the lord protector. Maybe Corvo shuns his supernatural powers and barely uses them, or maybe he goes all in on the black magic. In Dishonored you can really change how Corvo reacts on the basis of gameplay, and I think that more than makes up for the lack of voice acting, while Chell really can't.
Your comparison with pen and paper RPGs is really interesting because for me it has always been the other way around. I find it almost impossible to play another character than myself in DnD because I have to psychically act out my character's actions myself. If I want my character to tell someone to fuck off in a video game I simply press the "fuck off" button while if I wanted to do the same in DnD I have to face my DM and personally tell him to fuck off. The way this works in a videogame is far more disconnected from both myself and the real world and that makes it a lot easier to do actions that I wouldn't necessarily do in real life.