How do you try to roleplay on your playthroughs?

well I always do self insert more or less on my first playthrough but I do tend to RP things later on. The number one rule I have to keep in mind for me is to not give a fuck about character approval. I don't know why but I have a compulsive need to make fictional characters like me and thus break character to get their approval. I doubt you're as crazy as me so yeah. Also try and make a unconventional character, like instead of a headstrong warrior make him timid and lanky looking. I find this helps me keep interest.

First time is about 60% self insert.

Then I do extreme characters to test out the boundaries of the RP.

Then I come up with elaborate histories I think will be supported well in game.

I used to roleplay as my self many moons ago. I quickly found that boring.

Originally I played as myself and thought that was fine, but then when I first played Mass Effect I challenged myself to be a good badass Shepard and it was amazing. I found it to be very cathartic, making decisions I would never make irl and living thru the consequences of them, both good and bad.
So I made 4 Dragon Age world states with different rules.

- The goody two-shoes world, all protagonists are intelligent, Pro-Chantry, religious and have sympathy for the mages but are essentially in favour of the Circle. Both to protect mages from the world and to protect the world from them, but not in any way that mistreats them. So Cullen, Viv, Wynne and Aveline all fit in that world well.

- The Pro-Mage world where all protagonists fight for mage freedom and despise the Chantry.

- The selfish bastard world. This is where I make all the decisions I felt I couldn't in the other worlds like possess Connor and give the elves to Tevinter, and leave my protagonists to deal with the mess they've made. I do far less of the side quests as I'm less keen on the RP and don't want to play them for as long.

- Then the Pro-Templar world where all magic is suspicious. I've killed the entire circle in DAO and sided with the Templars in DAI, but not in a hateful way. Both the warden and IQ were dwarves so they thought it was for the best as they were ignorant about magic.

They're a lot of fun, and I sprinkled the big decisions evenly between all 4. Different romances for all as well. As for the side quests the Pro-Chantry warden did the chantry board quests but my mage wouldn't touch them as he hated the church. I like to save things for next time, so I didn't even save Sten until my third time round and had a whole new character to experience.

I admit, I have some limits in my RP, for example, I never play as an evil nor a lawful character in DA (always prefer neutral good/chaotic good or true neutral/chaotic neutral in the other games as well).
So: support the Templar Order is precluded. It's my RP-weakness: I'm having trouble to finish the game with a character whit whom I completely disagree and hate (don't get me wrong, I don't hate the Templar characters, I would hate MY protagonists if they would support the Order) But a happy, (very) secretly warm hearted murderer with some morally questioned decisions isn't excluded.

I know, I'm boring with my similar playthroughs.

My human protagonists are mostly Andrastian, this is why they very disgusted because the Chantry's corrupted.

I do not role play myself. For one I'm not a female nor an elf, and playing as myself would be pretty damn boring. I role play whatever comes to mind for this particular character. In the topic, What Did You Do In DA Today, usually any images with captions is how my Inky is thinking or speaking.


Edit*
In my current game I think of this Inky as a strong, fanatical Andtrasian but also a party girl. She is young, naïve and lacking in wisdom. She'll be in for a rude awakening after the Fade quest.

First playthrough is some combination of roleplay and self insert. I avoid spoilers so the surprises often get my own gut reactions rather than how I would roleplay the character if I knew what was going to happen. But I do try to stay in character.

Later playthroughs are more carefully planned out once I know the major plot points and decisions. With DAI the planning involved spreadsheets detailing each decision and how that would affect which divine I got. So if I wanted a certain divine I needed to match the decisions to get that divine while still fitting within my character.

I just let "fate" decide the Divine, although I have voted. I'm not even going to use the War Table Vote option my 5th PT because he's Andrastian and the choice is "up to the Maker."

Did they ever fix the bug regarding points for Leliana? The negative ones that counted positive instead?

I wish there was an option to just destroy the chantry.

My first playthrough is my "test run", where I figure out how the game works and what type of choices come up. My decisions are fairly "gut-reaction", I try not to have a PC that's all over the board choice wise, but also try not to think too hard/analyze the choices either - so the decisions end up being a mix of how I would react and how I think my character would react. Usually can't resist any movie reference dialogue choices I recognize (love me some 'Princess Bride' in Origins). Said playthrough is usually promptly deleted as soon as I finish.

For my subsequent playthroughs, I try to get inside my characters head as much as possible: What's his general personality like? What is her history/background? What does she fear? Does he prefer dry humor or "that's what she said" jokes? What's her relationship to her family/home? And then make my choices from there.

Second playthough is my canon worldstate: It's the Warden/Hawke/Inquisitor that for some reason called to me the most. So far each one of the protagonists have had a varied personality from each other, so should be interesting to see what happens with DA4. I'll try to achieve certain major points (ex Fereldan's ruler, the next Divine) that I know want to carry over to the next game, as long as it doesn't completely go against the character.

All other worldstates tend to have a theme: The Diplomat, The Smartass (seriously, if you haven't played a purely sarcastic Warden, try it sometime - she was fun ), The I-Don't-Want-To-Be-Here-And-Hate-You-All (also known as The How-Many-Of-My-Companions-Can-I-Get-Killed-And-How-Bad-Can-I-Mess-Things-Up? and The Everything-Sucks), The Power-Hungry-I'm-Only-In-For-Myself, The Curious-Mage-Who-Makes-Questionable-Life-Choices...
At least they are supposed to follow a theme, every now and then I've had a character that refuses to follow the script and goes off on his/her own path (I think my male Trevelyan and female Adaar played a "Freaky Friday" on me and just completely switched personalities, lol)

Well, I've noticed even when I am self inserting, it's almost always different personality traits that tend to come out in my characters anyway. Maybe it's just the nature of an RPG protagonist, for obvious reasons, but they are almost always supposed to be confident warriors, very extroverted, and natural born leader types, who want to restore order, command a group, etc. More or less. So rather, the character is usually more built to be a character I would like or admire than a self insert.

DAI protagonist is probably the closest I've been able to get with making her similair to me, since you can kind of play the character as more of a diplomatic type rather than a warrior, and there is more emphasis on your political moves and alliances than on your battle prowess. Also, despite the games other flaws, Sara Ryder in MEA wasn't bad either, as you can play her as somewhat of a scientist/explorer type, and I liked that.

I've done play throughs with characters that were jerks or evil, or whatnot, but those never become my main/canon character, I like to feel I can at the very least respect my character, or relate on some level, even if they are very flawed and make mistakes. And they need to make at least a few mistakes along the way, for there to be some sense of drama in the narrarive.