Create a Character or Pre-made Character for Video Game RPGs?

Examples of RPGs where you can create a character include Elder Scrolls and Fallout. RPGs where you can play as a pre-made character include Deus Ex and The Witcher.

I mostly prefer a game where I can create a character. If I want to play as a female protagonist, that's my choice. Creating a character also adds replayability to an RPG. If I beat the game as a male warrior, I can play it again as a female mage. You can't create a character in games like The Witcher but if the character and story is interesting, I can't complain.

Which do you prefer?

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I'd prefer creating my own character; which in most cases winds up being a female.

 

More choice is better, though I consider Deus Ex to be in the "character creation" camp. I view my RPG character as a bag of stats rather than a personality or a gender so as long as I have freedom to choose the stats, that's all the "character creation" I need. Being able to customize appearance or gender or anything that doesn't affect gameplay (or only affects minor dialog choices) is a nice extra but not a core ask for me.

Mage vs. warrior is definitely gameplay affecting but the Deus Ex equivalent of that are the skills you choose to develop and the equipment you use to use and Deus Ex gives you plenty of control there.

Personality choices like "good" or "evil" I tend to be skeptical of. Few games in my experience give you a good experience for both - more frequently, the choice is a hidden difficulty level or the overall narrative is written for the "good" path and the "evil" path ends up throwing all story logic and verisimilitude out the window in service to giving you a winning path. KOTOR was one that threaded this needle well but that was the exception to the rule.

 

For me, it depends on the game. Games like Oblivion and Skyrim allowed the player to create a character from the ground up. It was great fun to choose the race, gender and attributes of my personalised character. The story was quite loose around the character and it gave a real sense of freedom and immersion. I think that the same could be said for the KOTOR games.

The Mass effect games gave a bit of flexibility, but the character was Shepherd and that was that. But the narrative demanded these restraints and I spent many happy hours zipping across the Milky Way in the Normandy.

Witcher 3 offered no such choice, but I didn't actually find this limiting. I enjoyed stepping into the shoes of Geralt and I could enjoy the world from his perspective. This gave the sense of having a real place and presence in this incredible fantasy world.