Role playing in games

[Rusty]

Do you find that you sometimes have the intention to play a bad character but then never follow it through?
I tend to always play the samaritan and therefore does that mean I'm not really roleplaying anymore?

Just a thought I had whilst playing The Outer Worlds

[Strudel]

It depends on the game. In Star Wars game I usually go full Black Hat because who doesn't like choking and lightning the plebs? Witcher 3 I was generally a very Friendly Geralt, and similarly with Skyrim.

Cyberpunk 2077... I'll have to wait and see.

[Snowy]

So I don't want to spoiler it, but in RDR2 on PS4 I was playing a properly villainous outlaw, but one with a slight moral compass - if I came across a woman being abducted for example I would always look to free her and take her to safety. Then later in the game, things happen that made me as a player question how I was playing and look to be a better person.

Not bad when a game's story can change the way you play.

Most games though I tend to play a decent sort.

[Sly Boots]

Always go virtuous on a first playthrough.

I've occasionally gone full-bad on a replay, notably the original KOTOR and also a renegade ME1-3 playthrough.

KOTOR did it pretty well, actually, I seem to remember murdering at least one of the more annoying companions

[Rusty]

Ooh, loving the RDR2 thoughts on changing your mind.

I almost changed my mind after chatting to my companion in Outer Worlds. I thought it was black and white but she made me realise it wasn't.

[Wrathbone]

Dragon Age: Origins has a few moral choices where I've backed out on some evil options while playing an evil character. On the other hand, I had one playthrough where my only character goal was to accept any and every dialogue option to murder someone, and by the Maker I stuck to my guns. There's one bit where if you play as a mage, you get to question one of your old mage friends from the Circle who's been locked up. Or alternatively, you can beckon him over to the bars and stab him in the belly for no reason, in true psychopath style. I seem to recall at least two opportunities where you can barter with a demon to allow them to keep on possessing a child. Strangely I had no problem with that.

Thinking about it, I'm not sure what manner of absolute evil I actually rejected, though I'm sure I did at least once.

EDIT - I remember! I chose not to destroy the Urn of Sacred Ashes because I had Leliana with me and she would have kicked off about it, and I was attempting to get the achievement for having a foursome with her, Zevran and Isabela. So not entirely altruistic.


Mass Effect springs to mind as one where I couldn't bring myself to be 100% renegade. There are many renegade moments that are worth it for the comedy, but ultimately I found that a cynical, spiteful Shepard didn't make sense with the tone of the story. I've watched videos of 'worst timeline' Shepard, though, where everything goes horribly wrong, and the capacity for causing disaster throughout the series is almost unparalleled.

[DjchunKfunK]

I nearly always play a fairly good character first time through and I say I'll go back and play a bad guy on another play through but I rarely if ever replay games nowadays.

[Snowy]

Ooh, loving the RDR2 thoughts on changing your mind.

Have you played it Rusty?

I am going to tread super-lightly as really don't want to spoil it. I had had some things happen to Arthur (the protagonist) which had made him a little philosophical, and also had some chance encounters with 'side quest' characters where he had some conversations about the type of person he was.

Until that point, I had played it hard and loose morally (with the exception of distressed damsels). If it drew breath, I had shot it, either for pelts and food, for loot, for a hat (on at least three occasions), and frequently for the sheer bloody hell of it. Arthur Morgan as played by Snowy had killed more people than the plague. Those conversations though struck a chord, and I started thinking about Arthur's legacy. I may not be able to scrub all the blood from his hands, or polish out all those notches on the saddle-horn, but I am trying to make a difference now (still not finished it - being a PS4 game I only get to play it when the wife is out, and I spend waaaaay too long just bimbling).

[Stormbringer]

Many years ago, when Neverwinter Nights came out, I used to begin playing as a guy who would heroically save people and mercilessly kill villains, but before long my taste for killing and delivering summary justice would take over and I would actually become the villain. I tended to instinctively follow this pattern in any game that allowed it. I learned a lot about myself through such roleplay.

[Rusty]

When I used to D&D I tended to side with slightly chaotic characters, too chaotic and it just pisses off the other real world people, but just a little bit weird is good.

Back to Outer Worlds again and I enjoyed a nice little 'sub quest' where I went to a bar and chatted to a companion. The voice acting was so cute I was smiling all the way through.

[Wrathbone]

When I used to D&D I tended to side with slightly chaotic characters, too chaotic and it just pisses off the other real world people, but just a little bit weird is good.

Yeah, I ran a campaign once when a player confused chaotic evil with chaotic stupid. After the third or fourth time he attempted to publicly slit the throat of whatever random NPC he was talking to, the rest of the party were getting seriously pissed off and yet he persisted anyway, even after I asked him to stop being a dick. So I had a whole bunch of guards hunt him down and kill his character on sight. Shit has consequences!

The best use of a chaotic evil character I've heard of was from voice actor Taliesin Jaffe (of Critical Role fame), who talked about a character he played where outwardly he was lawful good, but he would engineer situations where he could be chaotic evil in secret. The example he gave was where the party went to a tavern and he took the barkeep to the back room to discuss a discount, murdered him, then came back out and announced that the barkeep had said they had free run of the place for the night. That is a class act of evil.

[Maturin]

I remember a great playthrough of Oblivion years ago where I roleplayed a hero who was a compulsive thief by night.

In my house in Cheydinhal I had the living room swamped with all the trinkets, goblets and treasure I'd robbed from all the other houses in the town. In the daytime I went around as the 'Champion of Cyrodil'. Little did they know.

[Rusty]

back to Outer Worlds again but I am doing that but being a thief as soon as their backs are turned

It's quite funny as (as far as I can tell) there's no indicator to say if you're being watched so I'm doing a manual double take on people then swiping stuff piecemeal