Ever Make a Character Too Old for the Story?

[DustyDrB]

I started Neverwinter Nights 2 recently, and made a Ranger who is middle-aged (the character creator isn't in depth, but I did add some grey into the beard). For a back story, I had him be a retired war veteran.

Then the story starts. And I'm waking up in a house, taking orders from my foster father and performing in a festival with my (young adult) friends. As humorous as it was, I decide to go back and make a new character to better fit the intro.

So has this happened to you? Do you restart the game as I did or do you continue while adding some kind of back story explaining the situation? If so, let's hear how you explain why your character is still in school at 50 years old, or why he looks older than his father.

 

[HumpinHop]

I can't remember playing a big story centric game like that which had such customization. The only thing I can recall are the Morrowind games and creating a WoW character.

I would always like to give them wrinkly faces and silver or gray hair and picture them as 50 or older. The fascination started when I read 'The Great Gatsby', or more specifically learned about Tom Buchanan. This guy was a ************, bossing people around and physically dominating everyone, he was opinionated and racist and didn't give a damn about anything because he was a bulldozer of strength and confidence. And he was in his 50's!

The idea of this kind of 'old man strength' that just comes from decades of work and experience was always more interesting to me than having another young brash upstart brimming with naive confidence.

As to why I could have a 50/60 year old man fighting dragons... Magic, *snort snort*.

 

[DustyDrB]

The idea of this kind of 'old man strength' that just comes from decades of work and experience was always more interesting to me than having another young brash upstart brimming with naive confidence.

Same. I'm more apt to play characters who could unironically say, "I'm too old for this shit".
I think most every Dragon Age Origins intro only makes sense if your character is young (possible exception with the Mage origin. You'd just have to assume your mage character was extremely slack in his studies, or was brought to the Circle later in life. Maybe the Dwarf Commoner origin would allow for older characters too, but that's the only one I haven't played).

 

[GiantRaven]

All the time. If there's a game that has an age slider, I tend to crank it all the way up.

 

[Davey Woo]

I had the same problem, only I was a 200-year old Gnome.
I got the feeling that in that game your character is supposed to be a young Tiefling to properly fit with the story.

Never had a problem in any other games I've played, but then again I don't remember any other game where you choose your age.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

No, but I did always find it funny that regardless of whatever age I put in for my character in Neverwinter Nights 2 (I never went above 21, I like playing as young characters), it was always my "last year to compete in the Harvest Festival."

 

[Maiestas777]

I did this in Fallout: New Vegas. Although the game is pretty vague on the age of your character, there are still NPCs who, despite being obviously early middle age, will refer to you as "kid". This is funny because I made a man who looks to be in at least his mid-50s.

 

[DustyDrB]

I did this in Fallout: New Vegas. Although the game is pretty vague on the age of your character, there are still NPCs who, despite being obviously early middle age, will refer to you as "kid". This is funny because I made a man who looks to be in at least his mid-50s.

Yeah, I made a character who looked like an thinner version of middle-aged Orson Welles. People calling him "kid" was just downright disrespectful.

I had the same problem, only I was a 200-year old Gnome.
I got the feeling that in that game your character is supposed to be a young Tiefling to properly fit with the story.

Never had a problem in any other games I've played, but then again I don't remember any other game where you choose your age.

It's not just about the age you set your character as. Neverwinter Nights has that, but not many others do. It applies to any game with a halfway decent character creator. My human noble in Dragon Age Origins looked older than his mother and at least as old as his father.

 

[NotSoLoneWanderer]

When you make a game its pretty safe to assume a young man with a bright future to further shape the world around the instead of an older gentlemen whose viable fighting skills assuming he's around 50 with be in top shape a one maybe three decades down the line. I Saw the new Assassins creed though and Ezio has a hook this time around!

 

[Yureina]

I would always like to give them wrinkly faces and silver or gray hair and picture them as 50 or older. The fascination started when I read 'The Great Gatsby', or more specifically learned about Tom Buchanan. This guy was a ************, bossing people around and physically dominating everyone, he was opinionated and racist and didn't give a damn about anything because he was a bulldozer of strength and confidence. And he was in his 50's!

He was a mean bugger. I still remember that from when I read that book back in High School.

As for me... no. All my characters seem to be roughly my age regardless of the game. It's always been that way.

 

[Stormz]

All the time. I like to play as characters that are older because I just like the whole "Experienced no nonsense warrior" I also love to add tons of battle scars if the option is available. Both Dragon age games do this. In Dragon age 2 your mom only looks like she would be in her 40s, but you can make your character look 70 for cryin out loud.

 

[Pedro The Hutt]

Heh, I tend to anticipate this and tend to make inexperienced characters, this also gives them a chance to grow and develop still. Most middle aged characters are kind of bogged down in their routines. Although there is certainly satisfaction to be had in roleplaying an experienced character, given the opportunity.

 

[Road_Block]

Fallout 3 is the biggest example that comes to mind. Going by the years that pass in the intro, the main character is about 18, if I remember the time jumps correct. Meanwhile, my first character looked like he was in his mid thirties. It wassn't too annoying until I started meeting the character's dad/people who know his dad and realized my character looked like he wassn't much younger than they were.

 

[Flailing Escapist]

Since I always play through Oblivion as a Mage one playthrough I decided to make my character as old as possible and named him Gandolfo (the "o" is from Magneto because Ian Mckellon is the shit) It was pretty ridiculous tho because I always only run around in the game and beside my numerous spells I also usually wield a broadsword. So a sprinting, 1/2 ton sword wielding Gandolf seems like a bit of an (awesome) but long stretch

 

[Heartcafe]

I tend to do the exact opposite XD
I always slide the age bar down to see if I could play as a 1 year old. Worked for me in the original Neverwinter Nights.