Do you view the player-character as "you"?

[Mike Fang]

When playing games where I'm given the ability to play a personally-created characters (RPGs mostly) I do tend to go for one that's pretty representative of myself. Even if it's not a human character, they tend to reflect my general personality. While it's true games are an escapism, I guess part of what I enjoy is imagining myself in these outside-of-real-life situations.

 

[Aerosteam]

Never. I want my main character to be y'know, a character, as opposed to a template to put yourself on.

Although, when it comes to WRPGs like Dark Souls, The Elder Scrolls and Dragon Age: Origins where I'm forced to make up a character from scratch for the most part, I just make up a personality and base their appearance on it. When it comes to choices, I go for what I would do still.

 

[BeerTent]

Really depends on the game, and how much work has been put into characterization.

My character in Loadout would be me, I'd like to think, and that cute little thing flying my ship in Elite Dangerous would be me if I had gender reassignment surgery (Maybe I should switch back to male?)

But for games with an iota of characterization, or any amount of choices and story? I build a character for the world. Fish, the Decker for Shadowrun. Zephyr, the mad, angry psychopath in the wastes, Shepard, the 1st human Spectre. You know, all that jazz that's not me.

 

[Headsprouter]

Often I find it difficult to really get into games nowadays unless I get at least a little customisation. It's why I love games like TF2 which offer a great amount of customisation both through loadouts and cosmetics, and RPGs like Fallout and Skyrim where you can be pretty much anyone. At the very least, I'd like a big roster of characters, chances are I'll identify with something. Timesplitters was great for that, but that said I have trouble getting into Dota when the characters just aren't in a style which feels cool to me.

 

[SmallHatLogan]

The last truly immersive experience I had with a game was Telltale's Walking Dead. I didn't see myself as the protagonist. Lee and Clementine aren't me, they are their own characters. But all the decisions that I made were based on what was going on in my head, not on what I thought Lee or Clementine were thinking. Same with Mass Effect. So there is self insertion to a certain point, but I still don't see the protagonist as being me.

With a more open game that has character creation like Fallout it's a definite no. Now I'm getting into roleplaying territory, and that requires me to step outside of the character because I have to make decisions based on a different set of rules.

And games with a linear/non-interactive narrative have no opportunity for self insertion whatsoever. When cutscenes are happening I'm just a spectator.

Going back to your other thread, the reason I often prefer creating characters over having a set protagonist is not because of self insertion, it's because I feel like I have greater control over what's going on, and because I can create a character that I want to play as. And characters that I don't want to play as often end up being protagonists in games. And one character that I definitely don't want to play as is myself.

 

[Jake Martinez]

The last truly immersive experience I had with a game was Telltale's Walking Dead. I didn't see myself as the protagonist. Lee and Clementine aren't me, they are their own characters. But all the decisions that I made were based on what was going on in my head, not on what I thought Lee or Clementine were thinking. Same with Mass Effect. So there is self insertion to a certain point, but I still don't see the protagonist as being me.

With a more open game that has character creation like Fallout it's a definite no. Now I'm getting into roleplaying territory, and that requires me to step outside of the character because I have to make decisions based on a different set of rules.

And games with a linear/non-interactive narrative have no opportunity for self insertion whatsoever. When cutscenes are happening I'm just a spectator.

Going back to your other thread, the reason I often prefer creating characters over having a set protagonist is not because of self insertion, it's because I feel like I have greater control over what's going on, and because I can create a character that I want to play as. And characters that I don't want to play as often end up being protagonists in games. And one character that I definitely don't want to play as is myself.

I kinda agree with what you're saying about how ludology drives some people to distance themselves from the "character" they are creating/playing. I'm pretty much the same way. I tend to view characters mostly as a tool for myself to use. This tool sometimes has numbers attach to it that I want to make bigger or smaller depending on the ludology of the game.

This is why even in games that allow you to create your own character, I don't actually get into a character. I simply look at them as a tool through which I exercise my agency in the game.

 

[maninahat]

Not normally. Usually I pick an existing character for inspiration, and translate it into the game setting. Right now I am playing Tales of the Borderlands using all the options that Sterling Archer would have picked if he were the protagonist. I was delighted to see that Archer was part of the 2% of players who would encourage a character to just let go and fall to their death. Alternatively, I play a "retard run", in which I purposefully pick all the stupidest or worst possible options and see what happens. in Fallout: New Vegas I convinced Boon to murder his comrade for the fun of it, let a suicide bomber destroy the Van Gaafs when I was supposed to be on guard, punched a vital prisoner to death instead of interrogating them, and permitted the NCR monorail to be blown to bits.

I've played the Walking Dead, making the choices I would ideally make in those circumstances, but I quickly discovered I tend to pick the boring options that everyone else picks.

 

[IceForce]

Nope, never.

I like to play as something that I can't be IRL.
ie: The opposite gender, or a different or unusual race (Argonian, Khajiit, etc.), etc.

 

[templar1138a]

I play a lot of WRPGs and simply will not play anything that claims to be an RPG without character customization. This is because I do like to create characters that are supposed to be me within the context of that world (though I don't always do this). At first, this was a roleplaying exercise to better demonstrate to myself how to play a character who isn't simply all light or all dark on the morality system. It's become the default because I mainly use characters that aren't me in tabletop RPGs, where there isn't a strict set of dialogue trees or events (at least, not if I have a decent GM).

 

[Ariseishirou]

It depends on how well-defined the character is in that world. If they're clearly someone else, then no. If they're a voiceless set of hands with a gun, then yes, they're me. Shepard, for example, is not me. Chell is pretty much me.

Which makes straight-male-as-default super weird when I'm playing, say, Artyom!me and for some reason I bone a random girl who showed up for like ten minutes at beginning instead of the cute Red Line guy who's clearly been into me the whole damned game. It would be kind of cool if, in those cases, you had options. Where all the gay guys at anyway.

 

[SecondPrize]

Yes, mostly. I do stuff in video games. I'm the one in control. The characters exist, but they're puppets whose strings I pull.

 

[Johnny Impact]

Characters are like cars. This one's a flash new Bugatti, this one's a SWAT van, this one's a semi, this one's an old Civic with lots of after-market mods. I'm not the car, I'm driving it. My response to a particular situation depends on the tendencies and capabilities of the vehicle I'm operating. You can't expect a dump truck to take a corner at speed but you CAN put it right through a concrete wall.

If your question is, Can I keep reality and fiction separate, the answer is yes. I never had a problem with it. My mother saw that moronic Tom Hanks movie and she used to get real nervous when I referred to actions undertaken in character as "I did _____." Kind of surprised I didn't end up in counseling.

 

[kasperbbs]

No. Unless it's a blank slate with no previous history or people that know the character. Then again i don't put too much thought into it and play it like any other game, it's just that i don't think of the character as Geralt for example, but my own dude/gal making their own story.

 

[The Harkinator]

Depends entirely on how much additional information I'm given about the character. For example, in Dragon Age games you can create and customise a character, but the surname and character history are already determined, and I will roleplay certain elements of the characters personality based on that information. My Grey Warden was a Human Noble so I played him as a knightly figure (even gave him Ser as part of the name) and acted as such.

It's very hard to have a true blank slate character and when I do have one to play as it can sometimes depend on the setting too. In Fallout 3 I basically played myself in that situation even though certain things were determined about me. In Fallout New Vegas I played a mash between myself and the sort of person that would have done the things the Courier did before the start of the game, but in Skyrim I created a character that certainly wasn't myself, and instead took advantage of the blank slate to become something else entirely (lost member of Septim dynasty).

Depends whether I could see myself in that setting, and whether I think a character very far from myself would be much more interesting to play given the world he would be inhabiting.

 

[Axelotus07]

no, but I do tend to have my characters in RPGs follow (admittedly, loosely) my own set of morals.

I am a pretty big fan of this style. I have a hard time pushing my character to do things in the game that in real lfe I would morally struggle with. If its a necessary action it doesn't affect me as much, but if I have choice options I don't usually stray beyond my own morality.

I have a hard time making an "evil" character, or a straight up goody goody

I'm with you on this also. It's pretty much the reason for me putting of finishing Infamous. I had a really hard time
destroying the city that I had already spent so much time into saving. I guess naturally I like to play the hero.

 

[Chester Rabbit]

Never ever. I view them as an opportunity to role play within a fictional world. So from the get go I think about what kind of character I want to play as, what their back story is, why they might have a scar over one eye ect. Why would I want to play as myself?

 

[Charli]

Some games do that for me, others do not, depends entirely on the person, the subject of the game and the ability to suspend disbelief and enter a role.

 

[Halla Burrica]

Nah, not quite. I prefer to be sort of a "silent puppet-master", the one who pulls the strings of the main character, instead of trying to be the main character himself.

 

[Ishal]

Yes, I do. For at least one character in a game.

Dark Souls, Skyrim, Fallout: NV, KOTOR II.

All these are games in which I have multiple characters, as I play them over and over again. At least one of those characters is "me." I view them as extensions of myself and make the choices I would make. The rest are characters that I create, which are then roleplayed. The important part is that I created them, and that there is a line connecting me to them. It's that "feel" or illusion of agency. It's a unique experience that I can't get anywhere else.