First or Third person? Options

[Renee]

Which do you prefer, First or Third person? I am mostly a 3rd person gamer for Bethesda titles. I'll switch to 1st occasionally, I'll do this while decorating or looking for something which is lost, for instance.

But here's the real reason I started this thread. I have this whacked-out theory, I wonder if there's any truth to it. For those who have played table games, especially long ago. There were two basic ways to approach table games.

-- 1). play-act everything, essentially you'd 'voice' your character.
-- 2). use lead figurines, such as these.

We used figurines around our table, back in the '80s. We'd see our characters at all times, just like seeing pieces on a Monopoly board. I think this has something to do with my preference for 3rd person. I wonder if anybody here was more of a play-acting type, and prefers 1st. Probably not, but I had to wonder aloud.

Thank you

[RaderOfTheLostArk]

I play exclusively in third-person (except for Oblivion, which regularly forces me into 1st person against my will). I don't even purchase first person games anymore. The last one I bought was Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines in 2004.

When I roleplay, I am never my character. So I do not want to see the world through my character's eyes. My character and I form and adventuring party of two. I'm just along for the ride on their adventures. I make suggestions ("Say, why don't we explore that dungeon over there?") and my character automatically rejects them ("No, I want to go to the nearest town to sell off my loot before I become over-encumbered.")

I have never played a tabletop game. My introduction to roleplaying was the old Infinity Engine games (Baldur's Gate: Shadows of Amn, Planescape: Torment, Icewind Dale, ect) and those were all third-person games. So I guess I learned early to think of roleplaying as something that happened in third-person.

Pseron! You made it to Chorrol! Welcome! (EDIT: You have had an account here for a long time already? Huh, I don't remember ever seeing that. Don't remember any of your posts. Ah, well, it's kind of like you are new if you haven't been active in a long time, right? Welcome anyway!)

Since you bring up Oblivion specifically: I have been replaying Oblivion with mods and having a grand ol' time. But for the love of Talos, the third-person camera is awful, especially in combat. I don't remember being so bad. I remembered not liking Morrowind's third-person camera, but while I was replaying that a month or so ago, it was way better than I remembered. How that camera angle could regress so badly from Morrowind to Oblivion is beyond me. I'll sometimes change it in Oblivion when I am not in a fight, but it's disappointing to have to switch back.

That being said, I enjoy third-person greatly more when the camera works well. While I don't obsess over every detail of the character like some other players here, I still spent the time to make my character. I want to actually see them in action. It gets me more into the play. Not the first person greatly hinders the enjoyment, but I still prefer third person by far.

Hello everyone😁,
Ah wonderful....My first posty.
For me it simply has to be third person. I admit there are brief moments we switch to first...seconds really...to pick up something tricky or amongst clutter, but only if we really must.

Why MUST it be third. Well, in a sense...I AM the character and looking out through my screen or ‘likeness’ eyes simply reverts to my human other half being in the game instead of me. This diminishes our bond. It is like....The ventriloquist wants to see the dummy...not be in it hmmm.

Welcome aboard! There is also an official Introduce Yourself thread in the General Discussion subforum if you want to drop a message there. Oops, looks like you posted one there already.

This post has been edited by RaderOfTheLostArk: May 25 2021, 02:45 AM