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Creating a character and playing for a few hours. You are not emotionally connected to the character. For some reason, the character, even though you are having fun, isn't meshing with your play style or tactics you are encompassing. You may also feel like you are missing something you'd enjoy in the story if the character had some other trait so you restart.
Playing a few days has the same impact. You have played the game and now understand its basics and are developing experience in its combat system or other. You think back to how poorly you did in the game when you first started playing it and feel that you can now definitely play those parts better. You restart to do so. Or once again, you attempted to get emotionally attached to a character and gave it a strong effort, however, your enjoyment level is waning.
Playing to the end and then restarting. You have a sense of dread that something you have been enjoying thoroughly for so long is about to come to a close. You are not yet ready to let go of the experience so you hold off on finishing it to experience the parts of the you enjoyed again. You may also just stop playing the game for a long period of time for the exact reason. Unlike the other two, you need to break away from the emotional attachment you have with the character or the game before you can complete it.
For me, I restart because I think about something cool that I don't have in the game. Like all of a sudden I want to try a cleric/thief and I don't have a cleric/thief so I gotta restart to do that. Or I think that while it's cool to play a cleric/thief who specializes in clubs, it would be totally cool to play one who specializes in quarterstaffs! You know what I mean? I want to try some different.
I play for the fun, I replay for the minor variations
Or, maybe not. Still, it's possible. I've heard rumors.
First, I always self-insert in these games. I see the various gaming worlds of the games I like to play as a kind of Heaven, where I can be my true self, complete with the power of my truly realized, divine "Self".
Second, I am always looking for a perfect relationship, in perfect harmony and balance, of my own ideal "Self" as a part of the Divine Quartet. I constantly agonize over whether my true "Self" is an arcane or a divine caster. I know I'm a magical being, with very good casting, and that I seek an oppositional physical being as my "soul mate". So, my "soul mate" will be either a fighter type or a rogue type.
Third, I always struggle with whether multi-classed beings have any belonging to my Divine Quartet. Including one or more of them would increase our group power. Making myself one (specifically cleric-mage), would solve my personal conundrum about what type of magic I would be good at, if I could choose. But I always start to dislike the dilution of "purity" for every step I take any of the four of us away from the perfect Divine Four - fighter, cleric, rogue, mage.
Fourth, the inclusion of the bard class as a potential expression of myself as a musical arcane caster in 2nd edition, or as a musical divine caster in 3rd edition, further makes me agonize over my own self-expression as a magical being in D&D games, especially since I am a musician in real life. I feel the constant temptation to recast myself in the Divine Quartet as the bard, complete with the bard's over-the-editions identity crisis as to what he should be, because of the powerful siren song of having the power of music in a D&D game.
Fifth, I am often torn up about including fifth and sixth slots, changing my Divine Quartet into a Sextet. The pull of the Sextet is especially powerful in Baldur's Gate, where the fifth can be a druid, and the sixth a ranger, and all the role-playing possibilities, combined with the forced pairs.
I currently have tweaked my Divine Quartet in Icewind Dale into a fine art. I have no temptation whatsoever to use anything but a four-member party. I have Jason, my (fighter, berserker, undead hunter, or inquisitor), Thorik (my dwarven cleric - no temptation to restart him other than for his kit - it's Lathander, or Tyr, or Helm, or Tempus - darn it!), and Kat, my thief (or wait, maybe I should make her a fighter-thief, just to create a stronger version of a rogue class).
And then, there's poor little me. I've restarted this same party multiple times just to try other roles for myself in it. I have Jason, Thorik, Kat, and.... me as a bard. Me as a transmuter. Me as a sorcerer. I really should try me as a generalist mage, although the thought of giving up all those extra spell slots really bugs me... hmm.
So far, IWD, I've never even gone past the next to the last floor in Dragon's Eye (I think Yxonomei's level), just because I still haven't quite gotten my Divine Quartet as perfect as I want. I will use Keeper a time or two to make a few adustments, but if I do that too many times, it starts to feel like a "dirty game", and I will often restart from the beginning for that too.
I'm hopelessly addicted to creating and playing through "The Perfect Game".
I have only finished BG1 twice without console cheating, as a Blackguard and a solo cleric/thief and I have never finished BG2 without the console (I was young ok don't judge me
I have a similar problem when I play table top rpgs but I generally prefer to play supportive characters or skilled characters as I'm mainly interested in story/pc development.
- the character seems to become too OP: he annihilates everything without any problem at all
- the character has been killed (generally I play a no-reload run and even if I don't go that route in one particular run, after the character death it would become a no-go for me eventually- I would just think too much about his death and its consequences, the further run would feel unnatural to me)
- a new idea of a character has come into my mind: it can be because of this forum or because of my own thinking
- I've found a new portrait that inspires me to create a character and try him
- I still haven't tried everything in the game and want to taste how it feels to play as a certain class/kit/alignment
- I've played another game so after I come back to BG I want to try a character reflecting someone in this other game
I have to say, that for the first time of playing BG, I've found 2 solutions for my restartisis:
1. I want to beat BG with a Totemic druid because I was Inspired by this tread and by @bbear 's question
2. Playing with my wife in a multiplayer is a unique experience and we will go till the very end.
These are exactly my considerations, thanks @bengoshi for saving me the time to write them down...
and back when I played the original game i just very rarely got past lamahla and her cronies (i was young and D&D is complicated)
Nine times out of ten I abandon games because my insightful stroke of genius turns out to be a disaster looking for somewhere to happen, but when they do gel they can be really effective.
Also I like the idea that my orphaned offspring are wandering around the Sword Coast creating mayhem in my absence (I never actually kill them off). Reminiscent of when I played Runequest (washes mouth out with soap and water) and the DM, who ran several campaigns with different players, used to 'borrow' one of my characters from time to time to make up the numbers in someone else's game. He knew me well enough that he could play my character 'in character' and the character could never actually be killed but it did lead to some interesting scenarios when I next came to play the character. For example I could be told: "Charname has gained a level, but is in a town two days travel away from where you left him and his reputation has decreased by one - what is he going to do?"
I also think a big part of my restartitis is that, despite my desire to pick up more characters and change things around, I find it hard to let go of Imoen, Minsc and to a lesser extent Keldorn. I play on... then realize I am playing the same game again! I try to change but it is hard... hopefully one day I will.
It is less of a problem with Icewind Dale, but the addition of kits makes me feel like I'm always missing something so instead of rolling a new character I reroll an entire party only to realize I have the same problem but with a new character. grrrrr
But that was awesome!
More ale, Winthrop!
My second reason - I'm playing a mod that is new to me and I realise I've got totaly the wrong party to get the most out of the mod.
Thirdly - and sadly this is the most common. I play a fair way through the game, and then I have a couple of weeks of not being very well (nausea, poor eyesight, pain, lousy concentration etc) and I can't play. Then I lose the emotional investement I have in that team, and I forget how to use the particular combination of skills, abilites, spells and equipment I've built up.
Restartisis rules all!!!