I like it when a roleplaying game gives you more depth to making a character, even if it's superficial stuff like changing stats around. Something that gives a bonus to something and takes something else away or is otherwise some defining characteristic that makes the game more fun.

Fallout, Arcanum, Avernum, the dummied out backgrounds in Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines.

They're not very common, but I like it when they're a feature. Name some.

(I would clarify with more text, but unfortunately, I've been struck with depression so more dynamic expression isn't in me today.)

Same here, I feel for you. More despair than depression I 'pose. Been hanging around "neurophilosophists" a lot lately...... Google them, maybe you'll see why.

Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous lets you set a background for your character, which provides some minor benefits.

Stranger of Sword City Revisited allows you to select a "feature", which is basically a background that gives the character a low-level skill not typical of their starting class. (For example, you could make your Cleric an atheist, and she'll start able to cast low-level Wizard spells in addition to her usual Cleric spells.) A Freeman with the "Deprived" talent (you also get to choose a talent on character creation, except that the main character's must always be "Chosen one") is able to select some features with unique names; unfortunately, such features are useless due to the Freeman's "Forever Standby" ability (character can't be added to the active party).

I've heard Darklands might have something of this sort.

[non-GOG]

Oubliette, when you're creating a character, allows you to choose what school the character attends, and in doing so you get stat bonuses and a starting class; unfortunately, this can also result in the character dying during character creation.

I believe the original Romancing SaGa (not Minstrel Song) allows you to choose the profession of the main character's parents.

Edit: Another famous non-GOG example: While you don't get to choose them, in Pokemon games starting with the 3rd generation, each Pokemon has a randomly chosen nature, which increases one stat and lowers another. (This is in addition to DVs, which are rolled randomly when the Pokemon is generated.)

Wasteland 2 (and 3 too I guess) - clone of Fallout system

Shadowrun trilogy

These dont fit 100% what yer looking for I think, but still might work for you.


The Atom RPG games:

https://www.gog.com/game/atom_rpg_postapocalyptic_indie_game
https://www.gog.com/game/atom_rpg_trudograd



Marauder (sadly not on GOG):

https://store.steampowered.com/app/289600/Marauder/



7,62mm (also not on GOG):

https://store.steampowered.com/app/289890/762_High_Calibre/



MetalHeart: Replicants Rampage (WAS available on Gamergate I think?).

https://www.mobygames.com/game/metalheart-replicants-rampage



Planet Alcatraz and its sequel (also not on GOG - though that could be due to the unedited version being really quite racist by all accounts):

https://store.steampowered.com/app/289420/Planet_Alcatraz/

You're kidding, right?

The Baldur's Gate & Neverwinter Nights series both use D&D rulesets and have the option of custom portraits for each character you design or adapt, and both allow a single character to solo the game, or up to six characters you may decide to keep in your group.

Is that what the OP asked?

If you mean "BUT WASTELAND WAS FIRST!!!" then W1 doesn't have traits or quirks as W2 calls them. No.

Perhaps https://www.gog.com/game/underrail

Not completely sure since i played it on release and memory's wobbly.

The latter day Avernum Remakes have perks/unlockable traits. Some of them are pretty nice, too.

Sounds like something I've been thinking about independently but never had a name for. Unfortunately/fortunately, my depression the other day stemmed from getting ghosted after I hyped myself up for some friendship, and now I've had to do another round of reconsidering who I call "friends". It's not something that seems like it drastically alters the game in the long term, but you're basically choosing the path of your character's life in 5-year intervals that gives you bonuses and detriments to individual stats. It's neat, but the video I watched of Joshua Sawyer playing makes it look like it can be abused to min/max. I'll need to boot it back up and actually see what it does, but I do like the concept in abstract. Speaking of which... Ah, the Traveller school of character generation. Seems kind of pointless but I get a laugh whenever I read about those kinds of systems. "Your character is dead before you even play. Roll a new character." I get being randomly assigned a background and then having to roll with it, but this is a few more degrees from what I'm talking about. That's more akin to randomly generated loot than having a background that adds flavor, at least from mechanics I personally prefer. But then I haven't played Pokemon in like twenty years, so what do I know.

The Fall - Last Days of Gaya (original, enhanced edition or reloaded) should be what you are looking for. It takes place in a post-apocalyptic world ruled by vicious gangs fighting each other. NPC got their own cycles, each has something to say and your recruitable characters come with a rich background and vision for the future. From one of your party members you learn:

Maybe it also has to do with the fact that I'm a vegetarian. I do not like eating dead things.

You can incorporate this into roleplaying your own character. Try to find something this person might like to eat and reward her with it for a job well done. This doesn't affect the game in any way, but adds a level of attachement to your party.

This game also offers jobs and traits, where you can be very good in survival, which improves your cooking skills and offers additional abilities to unlock, while on the same time you are generally bad at other tasks. Some of which you may be able to get better, but never to a degree as your primary skills or profession.

While the game hasn't been favorably received, a mess full of bugs, which developers managed to turn into the game worth playing that it become when they released the EE-edition. Despite that bad initial release it still occupies a space in my heart to this day. It's got just the right amount of immersion to gameplay ratio, interesting world and character building, a lively NPC cast with their daily routines and lots of customization options.

Since there is no digital release available you got to find a used copy on ebay or Amazon. I tried my disc copies of the original and EE and both run on Windows 11 Pro 64-bit. You could also leave a vote for the Reloaded version to be released here. It would be great to be able to buy it bundled with the original + EE versions.

I think there's a reason this mechanic didn't catch on.

Can you think of any CRPG more recent than Oubliette where it's possible to die in character creation? (Note that it's rather hard to think of a CRPG that *isn't* more recent than Oubliete; maybe Rogue? But I'm pretty sure Rogue didn't have character creation in the first place.)

Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire were released in Novermber of 2002, so not quite 20 years ago, and the Pokemon games before them did not have natures.