Without character editor, without me: That's why Witcher 3 is not a real RPG for me

I find to wear the title "RPG" requires a game a character editor. Some I do not like RPG's titled games, among other things, because they do not allow character settings.

What Horizon: Zero Dawn and The Witcher 3 Together? Right, both games are often referred to as "role-playing" without being. So I look at it at least. It is clear to me that with this statement I draw the two big "ZS of the gaming community" on me - anger and approval - but that's fine. Opinions are different and in my opinion suggest the "roles" in "role-playing" that I can just choose between different roles.

AC Valhalla is more of a RPG as the Witcher

In Horizon and the Witcher there is only Aloy and Geralt - and I can not stand both. Adam Jensen from Deus Ex, on the other hand, I found extremely cool and I like mankind divided very - a roleplay is not yet.

Also Assassin's Creed: Valhalla has role-played trains, even more than any AC before, but is of course no RPG. Although the possibility of choosing egg gender in the binary sex system, a bit more RPG elements offered as Horizon, Witcher and Deus Ex. Even the sexual and romantic orientation can be determined by me, which belongs to the Character Building .

Why do character editors have fun?

But why are character editors actually - for me and for role-playing generally - so important? There are different answers.

I - only in better: The communication researcher Nick Yee noted that we tend to be in games to make idealized versions of ourselves. The strength of the characteristic depends, so Yee, from the self-confidence of the playing person. The lower the self-confidence, the more idealized the character looks out. The possibility of recognizing ourselves in this seemingly improved state of ourselves can act euphorizational and uplifting.

Game in the game: Sometimes we use the mechanics of the character editor but also as an amusement entertainment. When I poked the online role-playing game Aion for a while, I had more fun in the character editor than in the game itself. Pink skin and grotesque long arms, turquoise hair and a pine, which goes down to the chest? No problem!

Cultural Scientist Rudolf InDerst describes in issue 15 of WWW what has most amused to him in the character editor of Virtua Tennis 4, while he was trying to fabricate more and more absurd character models. The editor became "Game Within A Game" for him:

"The joy of obscure, at the Karnevalesque occurs and let us start without remorse (but under loud laughter) disturbing biomechanical experiments." "

Gender Wapping: According to the study "The Strategic Female: Gender Switching and Player Behavior in Online Games" have chosen in World of Warcraft in a quest specially tailored to this field of research, 23% of male subjects female avatars, but only 7 % of women male. Interesting here is that older players are more preferred to "genderwapping" as younger.

The reasons why a game has been chosen, which does not match its own gender are different. Many men like, according to the study, the aesthetics and attention of other players in MMOs, which to get them through a female character. These are based on the assumption that other gamers assume through the female character, the player is a woman. Toxic men believe in "their" game worlds there would be no real women and that they get the attention of the other players through pretermination of a female being.

Players often pretend to be male: Conversely, women play in online games male figures to attract less. Some of the men gave price, very feminine avatars with a cis-heteronormative aesthetics to prefer. These avatars are then controlled by these men also "stereotypical female", in terms of behaviors of the character in interactions with others.

But not only men who feel heroines as more attractive, like to choose female avatars. Some just want to get to know new perspectives that do not meet their own, or also owe suppressed pages to themselves through the character. For example, the surveyed men in female roles often revealed to react with friendly Emojis and to give themselves emotionally concrete.

Men who is socially predominantly conveyed to have to be hard and emotional cold, enjoy being able to live out through the differentiation of their themselves in a fictitious female character and be emotional.

Nele Wobker

@Elenrekbow Sense of a role-playing game is for me to be able to superior me a fictitious game character, which I not only equip with different talents, skills and clothes, but also with an individual personality, a background story, an optics and a gender. Anyone who has no desire to deal with eyebrows, mouth, hair arbearm and hairstyle as well as the gender of the character, may like to grab the prefabricated standard character for my sake. They have themselves in BioWare game series such as Mass Effect and Dragon Age.

himself become part of the story

The teacher and blogger Sascha Brittner explained the significance of character editors in MMOS in the WASD # 15 as follows:

"As a lively Character Creator, I offer other players my services: new hairstyles, liposuction by click, tattoos - everything is possible. At first glance, all this may happen to a Gimmick, but in the end, this is about creating and forming a common World, whereby fans themselves become part of history, which increases the so-called just a MMOS. "

The Proteus effect

The Proteus effect is a scientific field of research that assumes that our actions in digital worlds with controlled avatar change through its appearance. Players, the female figures emotional game than male, are, for example, under this behavioral phenomenon. I also like to create characters that are optically and in their minds, very different from each other.

Alone Dragon Age: Inquisition I played through the 15 times. Almost all the possibilities of the editor were exhausted in hours of small effort to create the desired main character every time. Whether eleven * in, Qunari, dwarf * in or human: I played them all. With the look, the class me chosen and the gender I created 15 completely different personalities, with different motivations, wishes and talents. Some were extroverted, others shy. One Elfin has loved companions of Solas intimately, the other ear peeled him in an unrestrained rage.

Already when creating the various avatars I paint the attitude of the character: Who could my charming warrior fought with the backwards, hazelnut-brown hair love? Should my life-drawn, scarred dwarf church, which Lorebeding has no connection to nothing and thus has to be the magic, really hit the side of the renegade magnoven, just because I would do it as a Nele? How far would the virtuous, just Qunari magicians go to life and death in their sky-festivals? And so forth. In my decisions, not only the species and the class were crucial, but also clearly the look and what I connect with it.

there is more

In order to finally return to the static Witcher: At the WitchCon 2021, CD project Red Designer Phillipp Weber and Blazej Augustynek announced that the development team originally provided for the first part of the series a character editor. The team then decided against (story) design reasons.

Maybe I could have done better with the franchise if I could have created my own straight or maybe even a Geraldine. At least, in my view, it would have been more likely to have been a full role-playing game and maybe I would also have spared the repeating pictures of Geralt in his bathtub ...

It may be that Witcher falls into the category RPG thanks to its different decision-making routes and skill options for many, but this will be meaningless if various possibilities are always represented by one and the same static character.

Therefore, character editors are just as important to role-playing games, which want to tempt us with different decisions and consequences anyway, to play them several times.

And if we are currently in the daydream in terms of editors: I wish more and diverse recruitment options for my play figures. Give me mersmale, scars, thick figures, suspensions, sleepfish upper arms, trans characters, deep wrinkle faces and the opportunity to give my avatar physical impairment. Diversity and representation are important, not just for me or because it concerns me specifically. Games are there for everyone and especially in role-playing games, we should be able to create our main character themselves to do exactly what the genre name implies: slip into different roles ...

More about character editors can you read in our editor Special.

This article is part of our hero * indoor theater week, which is still running until 13 August 2021 and presented you daily exciting new articles around the topic of video game characters. All items of our hero * Interior theme week can be found here in the overview. > Important note: Due to offensive and injured comments, we decided to close the comment area. We would like to thank everyone who has commented material and constructively to date.