While opinions abound on what makes a solid RPG (be it the setting, plot, likeable NPCs or innovative gameplay mechanics), for my money the heart of any role-playing experience is the character generator. The other components, while crucial, determine whether a given title will be a good game – they are not endemic to RPGs in particular. But if your game hinges on playing a character that you yourself envisioned, the mechanism that allows you to make it had better be a good one.

Now, I've been playing games for a good, long while, so this is not a comprehensive list, by any means. Rather, these are the standouts – experiences so unique as to be memorable. Ordered chronologically, they are not ranked but – in all but one instance – come attached to some darn good gaming.

Megatraveller 2 (1991)

Not much to look at but the most extensive, by far, what Megatraveller 2's character generator lacked in fancy graphics it more than made up for with an extensive ruleset that allowed you to plot your character's career and experiences for decades.

While your statistics were a result of an RNG (which you could re-roll), everything else – from your race and planet of origin to your eventual, year by year, career advancement – was subject to player choice. Each named planet offered a list of vocations you could choose from, each career offered its own skills and perks (including weapons, cash, annual retirement pay or – the holy grail – your very own space ship); and each year in service could range from the mundane to special duty or even a promotion (or, if you were very unlucky, an injury, which could end your career prematurely).

The game even accurately modeled aging, which led to a fun balancing act between sticking it out for one more term with the hope of securing better perks, or mustering out early and keeping your physical attributes intact. One of the favorite characters I made was a geriatric vargr (space cat) who, by the sage age of 64, wouldn't be much use in a fight, but had oodles of skills and guild contacts, his own luxury Merchant ship and more money than a bank.

Unfortunately, 1991's technology could not do the generator justice, so while you could lose yourself in making ever more intriguing and powerful characters, once in the game, they became little more than dots you had limited control over (such as parading them across the map or equipping a weapon they would automatically discharge, if attacked).

I never did finish Megatraveller 2 (or, indeed, find out what it was about), but I spent many happy hours in its character generator, designing courageous marines, opulent merchants and wily space vagabonds who, sadly, never got to prove their worth.

Fallout, Fallout 2 (1997, 1998)

Originally planned around the renowned GURPS role playing system (which replaced the random dice rolls of yesteryear with a point-buy process that offered greater player agency), Fallout eventually settled on its own, SPECIAL ruleset for creating characters, whose seven attributes (Strength, Perception, Endurance, Charisma, Intelligence, Agility and Luck), 18 skills and many, many perks offered great latitude for creating the exact character you had in mind and have since been enshrined in computer game history through use in all eight Fallout games (plus the unfortunate Lionheart: Legacy of the Crusader).

The boundless fun of the Fallout character generator was two-fold.

First, it let you to design whatever wasteland weirdo you envisioned – like a mouthy intellectual with limp noodle arms, a charismatic seductress other women couldn't stand, or your run-of-the-mill, bog standard brute who never quite mastered his A, B, Cs.

And second — it actually let you play them.

Unlike many of its successors, the first two Fallout games were actually written thoroughly enough to allow for myriad gameplay styles. If your character was short on IQ, your whole dialogue tree altered to reflect the fact. If she was good at repairs, there were actually notable things to fix. And if you didn't feel like fighting, you could finish both games without firing a shot (though not without killing anyone, as the first game required one and the second two deaths prior to completion). This great freedom of choice paired with a lengthy list of zany perks (here's looking at you, Expert Excrement Expeditor) offered unparalelled freedom to create a truly unique character.

Neverwinter Nights 2 (2006)

While fairly mundane in of itself (although it did let you control your character's height and girth – something the likes of Cyberpunk 2077 seems to have forgotten), where the NWN2 generator really shone was in its exhaustive backlog of races, skills and feats and its uncanny ability to recombine existing classes into new, fully-functioning wholes.

Running on D&D's 3.5 ruleset, NWN2 capped its characters at level 30 – granting the use of premium classes and epic feats. Planned accordingly, this broad level range could mean that while you started the game as a lowly, level 1 Sorcerer who had to cower behind Fighters in between castings, with a liberal sprinkling of Red Dragon Disciple, Eldritch Knight and Fighter levels, that same spellcasting wimp turned into a warrior-blacksmith powerhouse capable of forging (and putting to thorough use) her own +8 enchanted katanas.

Put together, it made for a fun experience of creation and discovery, as raising your abilities and skills would sometimes give you access to as-yet unknown feats or classes, which would then dictate further development of the character.

Dragon Age: Origins (2009)

A simple affair for such an elaborate production, it's how Origins' character generator integrated with gameplay that deserves mention here. Whereas most other generators on this list merely constructed your character, in DA:O it also altered the narrative you experienced.

The very last option you picked during creation (one of the six titular origins) determined not only where you began the game, but also structured the game's prologue and, to a lesser extent, plot, with different NPCs reacting to your character in a particular way, additional quests and unique dialogue options. Not only that, but the origins you did not pick still played out in the background of your playthrough, showing you (usually bad) ways in which your in-game life may have played out if you had picked a different path.

And while other, more modern, games have since adopted this semi-tailored approach to narrative structure, none have done it justice in the way that Dragon Age: Origins originally did.

Dragon's Dogma (2012)

Frustratingly, the best character generator on my list is also the only one I cannot get a screen for (as restarting the game to activate it would mean erasing existing save data — something I am loathe to do, given the many sweaty hours I've put into the current incarnation).

Suffice it to say that Capcom have outdone themselves where this character generator is concerned. Far from being an exhaustive cosmetic tool to determine your outward appearance, Dogma's generator is the only one I've seen which adjusts your statistics based on your actual, physical build (the lack of which irked me to no end in Cyberpunk 2077, where a character with a Body of 20 looks the same as one with a Body of four).

To wit, characters that are taller are heavier, which lowers their running and climbing speeds, but allows them to regenerate stamina at a faster rate, be more resistant to knockback and have an easier time wrestling flying creatures to the ground. Whereas ones that are shorter and slighter can fit in goblin tunnels (because — why wouldn't you, right?); run and climb faster, but also tire at a quicker rate and tend to get knocked around more... It's such a simple, elegant solution that it boggles the mind why more devs never put it to use.

XCOM 2: War of the Chosen (2017)

Not an RPG – I know – but definitely a game which recognizes (with a certain, sadistic glee) the attachments a player is likely to form to characters they themselves made, XCOM 2 offers an extensive (if purely cosmetic) generator that lets you customize the outward appearance, voice range, and demeanor of your soldiers.

My favorite part, by a long chalk, of any new XCOM 2 session (and there have been a few) is customizing my squad, giving them distinct names, outfits and personalities and a bit of backstory (in my mind) to boot. It all makes for a much more personal experience and – what with your soldiers eventually forming bonds and the ability to make propaganda posters in game, what starts out as a squad of unknowns quickly turns into a tight-knit unit you know by heart (well, provided they all survive, anyway).

Despite its solely-visual nature, I consider the XCOM 2 character generator to be a core part of the overall gameplay enjoyment (something the original game lacked and was all the worse for it).

Summation

There you have it: six great character generators and five (sorry, Megatraveller 2!) Great Games. Do you have a particular favorite? Is there a character generator out there more extensive than the ones listed here? Drop me a line to let me know.

In the meantime, I'm gonna go and make another Megatraveller 2 party: doing just two characters to get the screens for this article was not enough of a fix...

Pig recommends:

• -taking your time at character generation; even if you can't wait to play the game, even if it's taking literal ages to come up with a non-cringeworthy name (try fantasynamegenerators.com, if you're having an exceptionally tough time); take a breath, ask for advice — do what you have to — just make sure the character you make is the character you want; it'll be your in-game face for the next 40-60 hours; best get it right on the first try;