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
