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Always female, even if it means that I suffer a disadvantage to my favorite tactic, which is killing everything in sight. I generally skill myself for the goal of being able to kill everything and I hate managing resources. As a result, I tend to either go for the standard warrior or sometimes I'll abuse a stealth mechanic and rain long-range undetected shooty death. Mages are completely out of the question.

When I can customize the main character I tend to make it a close depiction of my actual self, either literally or in spirit. It my not look or act exactly like me, but I identify so strongly with my avatars that all of my decisions will be coming from a somewhat personal space, instead of from a detached watchmaker's perspective. It won't have a hairstyle that I simply think is cool so much as a hairstyle I'd hypothetically like to have, if that makes any sense. As another example, when I choose race and class, I think something like, "Which fits my personality best?" or "Which would I actually be, if I were in this world?" as opposed to "What would be most interesting/easiest/hardest to play?" or "What would make for an interesting character concept?" I'm just so thrilled with the idea of being in the worlds of the video games that I can't help but reimagine myself over and over again as characters in them when given the chance.

Along these lines -- and this is something I've always found a little strange about myself -- I have immense difficulty having my avatars carry out actions in-game that run counter to what I might personally do, were I actually the avatar in the adventure. I am always the paragon of paragons if it's a game with a morality scale, and I'm not sure why this is the case when I know I'm playing a made-up character in a fictional reality. In Fable II, there are certain achievements I can't unlock without being evil enough -- which means having to killing innocent NPCs. It actually causes me stress to do things like that! Anybody else have this problem?

Well, if we're talking abilities, stats, etc. than I like speedy characters. I always use Makita in The Red Star because she moves like greased lightning. When playing an rpg like Mass Effect, I like having a character with charm or diplomacy. I'd rather talk myself out of situations whenever possible. Diplomacy and charm simply opens up more options in games like this

As for gender, I go male if it's a game where the main character represents myself (like a Bioware game) since I'm a dude and doing those romance sidequests is only fun if I'm playing male. Otherwise, I always pick female because it's just more fun to kickass as a hot chick. Like if I'm playing a fighting game or beat'em up I always look for the badass female character. I do the same think in other games too like Contra Hard Corps. I always use the female in that game

When a game gives me a choice to change the default name or appearance of a character I never do. I'm a purist. Shepherd from Mass Effect should look like Shepherd from Mass Effect. There's a picture of the guy on the box and that's who I'm playing as. If I'm playing a japanese rpg, the characters' names should be whatever the story writers chose for them. Plus, I hate the hassle of coming up with names or fiddling around with character appearance

I generally hate NPCs. The little morons get upset over the dumbest things. You usually can't get very far very fast being the nice guy. So I stopped taking the nice guy route a long time ago. Now I generally just try to build up destructive power as quickly I can.

The way my characters look varies. Colors are pretty consistent though. I like to color my characters black, with highlights of dark blue, red, and lime green.

I don't know what this says about me, per se, but every character I make is as goofy as possible. If all I can change is their names, I'll use FFVII as an example, Cloud was named Florence, Barett was named Parsley and Tifa was named fartboners. When I can customize appearance, my Shepherd from Mass Effect was a boney black dude with peroxide blonde hair and bright blue eyes, my character in Saints Row is a huge asian cliche (buck teeth, pinched eyes) on a head that looks like a Nosepass from Pokemon (with a suitably big nose), a Spartan helmet, ridiculous catholic themed tattoos all over his body, a pink thong and flip flops.

Gamerforlife wrote:I always go default. Can't be bothered

Plus, in games like Mass Effect, I feel that default Shepherd is the way he's supposed to look. That face is on the box art

Despite that fact, the creators of Mass Effect really wanted people to create their own Shepherds. That's why he isn't the main character in the books, because Shepherd is every player's character, not the game's character.

I try to get them to look like me. I generally can't do that, because I'm not good at recreating myself. I get close though. I will take liberties with hair/facial hair so I can look a little better than I actually do, or to make them fit the enviroment. If I play a race that is nonhuman, I just make what I think looks good.

I tend not to play a female because I can't relate as well story wises. If its a game like say, Left 4 Dead, where I just pick one and go, I'll play as Zoey. She's fun. But if the character is annoying, I won't.

Choice wise, I make them do what seems right to me at the moment, or how I would act. I get angry at the bad guys, sometimes wanting to kill them. (That's why I can't be a cop...)

I always seem to go with the white guy who has black and white morals and will never do the wrong thing.
Being a dick was cool when I tried it in fallout 3 but I got bored after I killed everyone and stole their stuff.

I'm in Key-Glyph's school of thought. My philosophy is that the character is my avatar, so I try to make choices that make it match me. This goes for aesthetics and gameplay mechanics, although I do consider whether the gameplay mechanics adequately support that.
I also subscribe to Gamerforlife school of thought in keeping defaults in RPGs and such.

Like KG, I also don't like doing stuff I wouldn't do in the game, but that doesn't usually make me uncomfortable, I think it just diminishes my enjoyment of the game. On that note, I really wish that JRPGs would move away from the convention of putting chests in people's houses for you to loot (unless in those rare cases the owner gives you permission and so on). I consider that a significant design flaw and it is rather pervasive.

And if it is on a separate play through I have less issues making unethical choices.

Ivo.

I always make my characters male, unless there's a different experience for each gender (ala Resident Evil). Everyone seems to want to make their character female. so I choose male just to be different. I tend to make my character middle-of-the-road as far as skills go (especially on the first playthrough), then as I get the hang of things I figure out what I want to specialize in.

I usually make sure my Itelligence/Wisdom and Stanima are pretty high. Strength and defense rankings depend on what type of game it is.