And how about for premade stories? Especially cRPGs? How prevalent is it there? Do you consider it antithetical to play characters who have history in their setting in a computer game?
No, not at all ^.^ It's rather the staple driving factor of a great many very good video games.
It's not even truly an absolute deal-breaker for something to really capture the feeling of being a D&d game either - but it is a strong strike against it that the game needs to make up for in other ways. A game needs to work exceptionally hard to capture the feel of playing D&D well, if it is going down the path of pre-existing characters that the player picks from rather than making their own, but it can be done well.
(Edit to continue)
I've looked at other up and coming d&d games, but even though some of them looked very promising visually (There's a new dark alliance, I think?), the discovery that we would just be playing existing characters - no matter how famous or special - completely removed my desire to play them at all. I just lost all real interest, because for me it wouldn't feel like playing D&D, or be able to answer the whole point of WHY I go to a D&D game. It might be a great game and very enjoyable (and I'm sure I would!), but if my
itch is for a D&D game, it won't be able too scratch it.
The thing is, when I'm in the mood for the sort of game that it is, I'll probably go and look at it, and when I do, I'll enjoy it - but I won't think of it as a D&D game, not really - just a very good video game set in the forgotten realms.
Here's the really interesting part:
Is there was NO custom character available AT ALL in BG3... if it was JUST "Pick Your Character" and then a selection from between each of the origin characters, and a blurb provided for each one... I would be far, far less critical of it, because it wouldn't be trying to make itself out to bee something it's not. It wouldn't really feel like playing a D&D game - but I might enjoy it if the story was good and the gameplay was solid.
However, because there is the ability to make your own character, it is making a claim to a type of game that it ultimately fails to be, when that character is a blank empty nothing with no attachment to the story, and which only serves to highlight how the origin characters - who are still there and in your face regardless - are much more awesome than her... it fails, and fails hard, as well as creating story-telling dissonance.
It need sot either be the player character, and available companions - who are only companions, and not the player character... Or it needs to be a selection of fixed main characters, of whom we only choose one, and that has major impact on the game as a whole and the experience of playing through
Their story, as opposed to someone else's.
I'm not saying it's impossible to do both, but the crux of the problem is this: I need to feel like my character is tied to the story in their own unique way; I lead the party and I make our decisions, and there's got to be a reason why I am doing that, in amongst all the other strong personalities, even if I, by character, am unassuming and unassertive; the reason must be potent and present enough to cover this. If there is no unique factor that ties my character to the story in a way that the others are not so-tied, then my character's reason for existing at all falls apart, in the scope of the game.
If any origin character can hop into the lead role without anything changing, then it seems like there's nothing to support the existence of my character and their participation in the plot - especially when all those special characters are still there and still have all of their own special plot connections going on. If, on the other hand, something does change, and does set me apart as being tied to the plot in a unique way that the others are not... then we have the problem that the player character becomes a non-entity in a different way - that is, if any origin can hop into their shoes, assume the role of leader, and inherit the special unique plot-tie that makes them so, and still has their own stuff going on
As Well, then the player character is an automatically inferior and less interesting choice, because they just have a blank empty nothingness where the origins have their personal stories. This is the problem that BG3 has right now. By trying to do both sets of things at the same time, they shoot themselves in the foot and cut their own legs out from under themselves.
