Hey everyone, it's him, Tim

Love that Tim did not even flinch at the term "Uncle Tim"

Thumbnail Tim; "I’m going to make him an offer he can’t refuse."

In RPGs like Arcanum, they have so many options for characters that you run the risk of "Choice paralysis," making players not want to go through the process of creating a unique character. Most RPGs are moving away from level 1 choices and easing people into it after a few levels. I personally don't like this mentality, I like choices and unique builds of characters when replayability is a feature of a game. So making Premade characters, like what you might give a new player to DnD, is a great way to let people bypass the overwhelming ammount of choices that some games give you.

I have to say that as far a "Premades" go Larian Studios really knocks it out of the park with Their "Origin" Characters.

I agree, that said my very first ever RPG playthrough was as Max Stone in Fallout 1 because I didn't know what I was doing. Had a blast. Eventually wished I was better at lockpick... with guns... Another playthrough quickly followed. The premade character can be extremely helpful!

Uncle Tim's thumbnail looks like he's passing me a joint😂😂

New video, new shirt, that's how we roll

The way premade characters are part of the world building in Arcanum is fantastic. You can read all their back stories and then find their bodies strewn around the crashed blimp. Whoever wrote their backstories and had them added to the crash site: great stuff.

While I rarely use them for my final character, I find pre-mades good for any new mechanical system as an example of the kinds of things you should take if you want to be X type of character. Guidance on how certain archetypes - stealth, tank, glass cannon, face, jack-of-all-trades, etc. - are handled in a new set of mechanics is very useful and often missed or poorly explained in most games. Sure a game might highlight that the bow skill is useful for bows, but not highlight that you should also have high luck to pickup more arrows off bodies or good stealth because sneak attacks are the bow's bread and butter. This of course assumes the pre-mades are genuine and efficient characters not a single skill or two of use and the rest randomised to make a mostly useless character. And yes there'll be user created guides out there soon enough, but a game should explain this on its own and well constructed pre-mades are oft missed opportunity to explain how all the systems work together.

Tim - 'if you have a premade character, youre not a full RPG'
Geralt of Rivia - *cries in the corner

I made my own character when I first tried Fallout 1. I read through the bios and stats of the premade characters and decided to make my own character. Thanks Tim.

Hi Tim! Not related to this video but I just saw the Outer Worlds 2 Direct last night. Most of what they were advertising sounded like it came straight from your playbook. Cool that Leonard was in it too! I think having swappable first/third person is also a great thing, I like both and some times I can't decide which to use. I'm incredibly excited for this release!

I'd like to share a couple of thoughts on premade characters. For the longest time, I couldn't understand why somebody would want to play a premade character, and give up all the possible choices. I thought that I would miss out on some central aspects of role-playing. But having played a couple of games with premade characters, I must admit that I stand corrected. In many games I can make my own character and choose a name, gender, appearances, voice, background, etc. But these choices have little to no consequences to the game, so I'm not sure that they have contributed in any significant way to the role-playing part. On the other hand, some of the games with premade characters have made sure to give the character a rich background and have integrated the character with the world. Furthermore the developers have prepared many different ways for me to play, act, and make choices, to which I get some well designed consequences and reactivity. Depending on the execution, premade characters can be an "investment" of player freedom, that can pay off with a richer rpg experience.

Hi Tim! I'm playing Fallout for the first time right now and I just wanna say thank you! It was a bit difficult at first and required some tinkering on my end but now it's working great and I'm having fun! I can feel the passion throughout every part of the game and I wish more new games were like it.

We still play D&D (3.5) with our long time friends, and I quite like my premade character there, but I do need some help when levelling up. If it's about Shadowrun, what I know a bit more, I just enjoy creating characters from the start and tinkering with the choices. Tim's words about being able to finish a game with not "optimized" but flawed characters also helped me with some runs, where I was unsure about my builds.

Holy shit tim cain said hello to me

The thumbnail makes Tim look like he's holding a blunt he just took a big hit of

I would love to see more games that provide "Dev Builds" for characters as a complement to "Random Character" generators. These could be accessible through either DLC, or pre-order bonus, or just a special  menu in the character creator. Such as "This is TIm Cain's favorite build for a Ranger" or something along those lines.

I think having premade characters eases the gap for players who find character creation step too daunting, especially for first playthrought when they have no idea how useful are all stats and skills. In my first Fallout 2 playthrough (and also first Fallout game ever) I used default character that had thief archetype and it was a really fun playthrough.