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Noneoyabizzness
2010-08-23, 09:47 PM
the topic is simple: name the first character you actually really enjoyed playing that made this hobby stick for you.

Mine was Blorin Bloodaxe, 2e dwarf fighter who didn't have the stats to be a pally so I went demihuman and ran him into fight after fight losing a finger in a fist fight with a bear to save the party mage. it was my first taste of chaotic good and still brings a smile to my face when he forgot how to count past 9

rokar4life
2010-08-23, 10:04 PM
My second rogue Jacob "Shanks" Warren. Had a love interest with the princess, broke into the bbeg's house(knowing it was his) to leave a doll that exploded with pink dust and confetti, forged several documents which were the objectives of jobs. Outright killed sever "recurring" villans on the spot. Stole several hundred thousand gold from a brothel, bought said brothel with the gold and despite the objections of group members retired there(I had to move, occasionally I tele-game or jump in when I'm in town.)

^^among other likely more bad ass thing which I can't recall^^

He now has a WoW character named after him, a spot in my friends campaign as a bbeg, and a "paladin" brother(fighter/rogue conman).

FelixG
2010-08-23, 10:13 PM
the character that is my namesake. Felix, from a Fallout Pen and Paper game.

Amoral jerk who survived from level 1-25 with nothing more than his starting rifle, leather long coat, and a willingness to kill a super mutant, an innocent child and anything inbetween!

I loved that character just so much.

DragonOfUndeath
2010-08-23, 10:16 PM
Garner Swift a rogue/wizard multi-class profiecent with throwing daggers and shurikan. think ninja casting Raise Dead! :smallbiggrin: :smalltongue: :smallbiggrin: :smalltongue:

Volos
2010-08-23, 10:20 PM
Connor Legaus, a Pathfinder fighter who managed to stay optimized even though he was only working with a single rapier and light armor. He was a petty noble who had the habit of becoming offended at the slightest of provocation. Many a terrible foe or potential ally had fallen on his blade in honorable duels. Between using combat expertise and power attack, I had nerfed him enough to keep the DM from deleting him outright, but it was quite enjoyable to have a guy dual wielding a single rapier. One of the reasons I love Pathfinder so much.

Wonton
2010-08-23, 10:25 PM
Joseph Dragonheart who was a Sorcerer descended from (surprise!) a Silver Dragon. To be specific, he was an Ultimate Sorcerer, from a homebrewed class I found on the old WotC boards. I took Energy Subsitution (Cold), Snowcasting, and Cold Focus, and pretty much spammed Scorching Rays and Scintillating Spheres. :smallbiggrin:

This is also when I discovered what an amazing spell Pyrotechnics is.

Violet Octopus
2010-08-23, 10:25 PM
Alberto, a tibbit urban druid. He was in a Stargate-style dimensional police sort of campaign, which was my first tabletop RPing that went beyond dungeoncrawling. Before the first session, the other players and I were in a room coming up with characters. I cracked open the Dragon Magazine Compendium and announced I was playing a tibbit. Before long we had an entire party of shapeshifting cat people - a warlock, swashbuckler and I think a rogue.

The game only ran for two sessions, but it was great fun. I never paid for a room's rent, as I'd just cozy up to human kids in cat form and persuade them to adopt me as a stray. I was party chef, de-facto cleric for the Cat Lord, and general utility guy who left combat to the cat-warlock. I also got to play straight man to the general antics of the rest of the party. Also, being Small sized (or Tiny in cat form) felt like a reality, not like a combat mechanic, unlike my experience playing NWN where it never really mattered.

Yukitsu
2010-08-23, 10:31 PM
Actually, my first favourite was my first character. A psychotic magical school girl (evil campaign) named Sarah. A warlock who simply wanted to protect her freinds from the "bad guys" and believed that all problems could be solved with the power of freindship. Despite the disjunct between that belief and the actions she embarked upon, she was probably the most blatantly evil member of the party.

My all time favourite was Jo Pistachio. Continuing in the vein of me rolling minimum on the age charts, because I do enjoy rolling for age, Jo was a child protege who worked for CSIS (Canadian Secret Intelligence Services) as a safety inspector. We knew an adventure arc was about to get kicked off because each of them started with him getting kidnapped. When the rest of the party had gotten to him, he'd have invariably diplomanced or MacGuyvered his way out of captivity.

I think Jo was the first character I had built that really kicked off the trend that all of my male characters would at some point be forced to cross dress. A trend that has consistently held 9 male characters in.

Starscream
2010-08-23, 10:31 PM
Nobby, my Halfling Rogue. I've been playing him since I first started 3rd edition. Halflings were all but unknown in the human town where my party met him, and when the party paladin caught a small street urchin picking his pocket he took it upon himself to teach the young lad right and wrong.

Since this involved buying him good food, new clothes, and protecting him from the local police (who inexplicably seemed obsessed with his capture), Nobby went along with it. It came as quite a shock to the party when it turned out the "lad" was 26 years old and wanted for several burglaries, a few muggings, robbing a jewelry store, and seducing a noble's daughter*.

But not as much of a shock as it was to the evil sorcerer who attacked the party and wound up with a dagger in the back of his neck. Nobby may have more cynicism per pound than a beholder has contact lenses, but he stands up for his friends.

I've since recreated the character for a number of campaigns. Whenever I can't think of anything else I want to play, I play Nobby. His build has varied over the years. Sometimes he has the Shadow or Dark templates, sometimes he has a few levels of Factotum, and on one occasion he was a gestalt Rogue/Swordsage, but the basic character remains the same. He's basically a three foot tall Lupin III.


*Fun fact. When asked if this is true, he always vehemently denies it. Specifically, he denies the word "a".

Archpaladin Zousha
2010-08-23, 10:50 PM
The first character I truly cared about was Sir Georg Redcrosse, a paladin I played in the first true D&D campaign I ever played in. Georg wasn't too special, most of his backstory being cobbled together from various characters in Edmund Spenser's epic poem The Faerie Queene and a few other stories, and the Ahnold Schwartzenegger accent I tried to use with him kept slipping, but he was the first character I truly got to play. Most other campaigns I'd been involved in, I was either the DM or the game only lasted one or two sessions before breaking up due to a lack of preparedness and conflicting schedules. The Thule campaign lasted for about 15 sessions, giving me time to roleplay Georg and give him more personality.

To the other people of the group, Georg both fulfilled and subverted their expectations of a paladin. He was kind and noble, but he exhibited more caution than most of them had seen. He once mentioned discretion being the better part of valor, which prompted the party's bard to mock him by nicknaming him "Brave Sir Robin." He was also one of the most "normal" people in the group. A group that included a kobold werewolf sorcerer, a druid with an odd penchant for finance and politics, a halfling treehugger (homebrew class) whose curiosity and lack of common sense caused the second Chernobyl meltdown (our campaign was in a post-apocalyptic Europe, with the advanced technology of the past providing all the magic stuff), and a gold-digging elf bard who was actually from the past and occasionally "remembered" things that we encountered.

During the campaign, Georg survived a nuclear explosion (the afformentioned meltdown), had several run-ins with his succubus nemesis and her half-fiend sons, was killed in a duel with a frost giant and ressurected by the most powerful angels in the setting, engineered a fight between the biggest (and most adorable) red dragon in the world against the Tarrasque, survived an avalanche caused by that fight and stood toe-to-toe with the Tarrasque to help bring it down, getting killed again, but being revived by the Spirit of the West Wind, and survived the massacre of Heironeous' faithful by the armies of the Clockwork Spirit, becoming their new leader.

Georg did not end up participating in the final battle against the BBEG, an artificial intelligence called The Clockwork Spirit, instead aiding the kings of Thule in their final stand against the Spirit's army of constructs to buy the rest of the group time to slay it. Despite the apocalyptic events, Georg survived and returned to the few faithful that had made it, both to help a nation lost without its king and a church struggling to survive. With Georg's help, the survivors of the war had a chance, and thanks to him, the traditions of the paladin survived. He ended up living to a ripe old age and dying peacefully, being buried in a sacred tomb near his home city. The DM and I were originally planning on having him reappear in the sequel campaign as a kind of "Force Ghost," but I ended up leaving that new campaign before it really got going.

Still, even though he never made it to level 20, Georg lived a full life and had a full personality. I've never had a character as developed and as fun as Georg before or since.

Zaydos
2010-08-23, 10:54 PM
Willowwreath my 2nd character (we all were killed by kobolds my first time playing). Basic D&D Elf. He finally got 4000 XP but hadn't leveled up yet when my allies decided feeding the elf to the hobgoblins was a good idea. I was 6 at the time, they were 7 and 8.

They killed a few of my next characters before they could reach Lv 2 until finally Bob (the Neutral cleric) got to Lv 2. Then there was my chaotic crazy sworddancer (a class the DM made, it was effectively fighter but took more XP to level up... not the best balanced) who made it to level 4 or 5.

Then I hit 3.5 and things got really fun; partially because I was old enough to actually RP now.

devinkowalczyk
2010-08-23, 11:25 PM
Yushkys, from the land of Pelushkys. A human wizard->red wizard (transmutation).
This game was intense, being so involved you leave with a headache.

He was just one I spent weeks working on after the game had unofficially ended.

Best and most memorable night still by all the party members:
Being chased by something big after our big battle, so squat for spells left.
Stone wall in the way
LIGHTBULB!
stone to flesh
and "swim" through the wall



His son was a half golem fighter with meanness as a template!

Lady Moreta
2010-08-23, 11:30 PM
Arinatria Siannodel - called Silver (because Arinatria is too hard to pronounce).

She is my current character, and also the first one I ever created - a Bard/Cloaked Dancer, currently at Level 12. She gives the DM fits every time she opens her mouth, because she is a diplomancer in every sense of the word - I forget the exact details but it's something along the lines of - she cannot fail to make a hostile person neutral.

She's the least effective in terms of combat - but I do love my talky elf :smallsmile:

Zom B
2010-08-23, 11:44 PM
I played Yahdi, the Desert Fox, my rogue in 2nd edition. I was so sad when he got squished. He had a dog figurine and a dagger that could fire off a 1st-level Magic Missile once per day he called Savior after it killed a swooping gargoyle that was about to nail him when he was at 1 hp. He also had Aurora, a scimitar made of a metal that had been smelted out of a meteor, which shifted with a rainbow of colors when the light struck it.

I still include Savior and Aurora into different treasure troves every once in a while.

El Dorado
2010-08-23, 11:44 PM
I was lured into roleplaying games because our DM was a good storyteller and the players invested themselves in their characters, even if a particular campaign didn't last very long. My first memorable character with the group was Miranda, a half-elf gypsy druid. She had green eyes, a sun-kissed complexion, and curly black hair that hung over her shoulders. She was practical, stubborn, and a bit superstitious, and was forever butting heads with the party's painfully formal elven wizard. She also had the misfortune of accidentally hitting her friends in combat more than once, so she became somewhat reluctant at wading into melee, worried that her bad luck would harm her friends.

Galileo
2010-08-24, 12:03 AM
My favourite character is Kalehn Secondhorizon, an Illumian paladin. He's been reincarnated through several campaigns, as my group's pretty awful at keeping one going.

In the present campaign, he is a holy knight dedicated to defending his homeland and a recovering alcoholic. The idea of a party leader who has to wait outside the tavern while the rest of the party gets the information rather appeals to me. A flawed hero is far more interesting than an absolutely perfect one.

Remmirath
2010-08-24, 02:41 AM
While I can think of several characters I liked and cared about before this example, they only really got fleshed-out personalities near the end of their being played time. I'll always look on them with fondness and might take 'em out of the deep-freeze if I ever play 1st edition again, but they don't really count for this, I think.

So. My first character in 3rd edition - Liareth Varniskir (though he never told anyone his last name), a grey elven necromancer. He started out being a pretty decent and naive guy, but over the course of the campaign became very bitter and evil. He was the party leader of the group by default because none of the others wanted to lead, and he got the party into endless amounts of trouble through his aggressive lack of diplomacy and tendency to insult the most powerful people in the room. Their party is still the only party I've yet to see double-cross, then triple-cross someone - and then try it again.
Through it all he still tried to get along with the original party members, particularly the elven sorceress, but all but her turned on him eventually.
He also had a vampiric sword and an amulet given to him by a cabal of liches, both of which were constantly asserting an evil influence over him. The leader of the lich cabal was the only person he never tried to double-cross - he was too obviously powerful.

He ended his life partially undead and with the hand of every man in the land turned against him. I'm not sure I'd say I actually liked him, but he was really fun to play. :smallamused:

He was also my first character who really ended up with a fully fleshed out personality and background. The game started at 1st level and ended at 20th level, with the campaign he died in being the one where he would've achieved 21st level if he'd survived.

Being my first 3rd edition character, he was wretchedly underpowered and broken at the same time, but none of us knew what we were doing at that point. I didn't even realise it until a game or so later.

Before that character it was more the fun of the game than the fun of the roleplaying and the character specifically that I enjoyed, though I'd been playing for several years prior to that.

Makiru
2010-08-24, 03:17 AM
My first character I had where I had actual knowledge of the rules was a Warforged Fighter named Dozer, short for Bulldozer. Eberron had just come out, so I really wanted to be a robot wielding a big-old sword, so he just had a byeshk fullblade, making it 150% heavier with no real benefit, but what did I care? The game only lasted a day and I was just the heavy that stood in the back and said nothing, so no real characterization. Standard kick-in-door plot got awesome when I grappled a hydra's head, then got Enlarged by the sorceress to the point that he actually crushed it under his adamantine mass. "Dozer!" chants went on for a full minute.

That isn't the first character I really cared about, though. I just wanted to play a game with my friends and figure out what this "D&D" thing was.

The next character I had is the first I really cared about; consequently, he was also the first one I rolled up on my own. He was It'kth Kel, ex-patriot flamebrother salamander. Not only was the game longer and more in-depth this time around, I knew how to roleplay this time around and eventually created a backstory, one of being given a bum deal from the rest of the Plane of Fire and getting stuck on the Material Plane after a botched planar ally spell and the death of the caster, leading him to become a hopeless alcoholic.

Not only was Kel my first character and my first monstrous character, he was also my first evil character. The thought of being able to actively betray my own teammates and still be in character was an entirely new concept to me that I was too eager to try out. One particular moment stands out when a group of bandits held us up at a bridge and demanded a toll. While the rest of the party was ready to fight (and spend more money than the toll recovering), I simply paid the toll and left. There was a moment when the other players and the DM just turned and looked at me like I spat in the Pope's face or something equally heinous that I still remember quite clearly. I did come back to get a surprise attack on the main guard, though, mostly to get my money back, but to also get my chump teammates to do more things for me in the future.

I expressed real emotion when he got grievously hurt and when I revealed he just found out about his latent water elemental heritage (game ended before I could get into that more, but we were going to take a boat to a Dr. Moreau island, so it was good timing). It'kth Kel is one of the few characters I have ever considered using again in a different game or system, despite his sub-optimality.

Balain
2010-08-24, 03:47 AM
The first one I cared about was T'ton a paladin from 1st edition D&D.

The one lately that I care about and makes appearances in my campaigns was Zhubok. A CG orc cleric.

Aharon
2010-08-24, 05:18 AM
Benrin a 2e human fighter, who tried to storm a fortress alone uncounted times, to be left for dead on a dungheap uncounted times. Goblin after goblin, the enemies died, and never became more intellient. He finally won, and gained Gauntlets of Ogre Power, which allowed him to be a much more competent fighter...

(The character was created using the rules of the 2nd ed starter set, which only went up to 5th level. The starter set also included an adventure that told the DM the monsters would leave the protagonist(s) on a dungheap whenever he would normally die. As the adventure was designted with 4 PCs in mind, and not one, this happened oh so very often :smallbiggrin:)

Tetsubo 57
2010-08-24, 06:22 AM
Sir T'can, Lord Ranger. I played him from 1st level until 26th level. back in the 1E days. He was my first character to live past 1st level.

Mezmote
2010-08-24, 06:44 AM
Kaymian Stillwater.
Human Wizard 3/cleric 3/ Mystic Theurg. I loved the personality and wide variaty of knowledges and applications it had. Also, with 22 in both primary abilities, he had a bucket load of spells each and every day. Even had more spells than the parties sorceress.

He was the parties only healer, going invisible and flying around using cures. Never got beyond level 13, but boy oh boy was he a diamond.

His big personal mission was to find a girl he had met earlier in his travels. Lilliane Stillwater. At age 8 he left his parents and sought the world for knowledge and Lilliane, adopting her birth name in hope that it might catch her attention, should fate allow it. He hooked up with a child gang in a large metropolis, aiding them with better plans and surveillance when stealing food and stuff. He later got involved with a ragtag party of adventurers who he kept alive until he finally met his childhood love (the campaign ended, and I had hoped and planned for a happy ending, which i got).

GodGoblin
2010-08-24, 07:37 AM
One of my most fun characters would have been Victor, I cant remember his surname but he was a rogue/asassain.

He was the first true evil character I played and boy did he like killing! It was set in a clockwork/steampunky setting so I had a gnome remove my arm and replace it with a mechanical one full of hidden blades :smallbiggrin:

He was evil but also cultured and all round genuine nice guy, that and he had a thing for poisoning people.

I also think he was being hunted by his vampiric uncle for the death of his own father but we didnt get to expand on that before the campaign ended.

Snake-Aes
2010-08-24, 07:42 AM
First character ever was also the first that I liked playing. It was a cyborg with wheels for legs and a lightsaber with a deadly fear of dogs. Wouldn't feel out of place in an Axe Cop issue.

AmberVael
2010-08-24, 07:52 AM
My very first character was also the one with the best ability scores. Three 18s, a 16, and a 14.
Well, and a 4.

These stats were put together to create a half-orc barbarian with absurd physical abilities and pretty good wisdom and intelligence to boot. His charisma was such that you couldn't distinguish any difference in his behavior when he was at a gladiatorial match or at a tea party, but it didn't matter- he and his axe could cut through awkward moments.

Given the appropriately simple and descriptive name of "Crunch," the barbarian was the only party member to survive an almost TPK that involved everyone else getting hanged or sworded by the town guard. He later went on to lead a barbarian horde.

Very simple, not much roleplaying to him, but he was quite memorable.

dsmiles
2010-08-24, 08:02 AM
I played a Dwarf named Balthor. (Yes, I said Dwarf, as in the class. :smalleek: BD&D rulez!)

darkpuppy
2010-08-24, 08:08 AM
It's hard to pick favourites, but definitely the first character I truly cared about was in one the Roleplaying UK Nationals (2002/3, I think), where I played a victorian superheroine going by the moniker of the Ice Maiden. Since I'd already cut my roleplaying milk-teeth on Forgotten Futures, I leapt into the characterisation and gained a very respectable 3rd place... but while she was the first, she was by no means my favourite. Amusingly, two of my favourites were the biggest berks to grace Star Wars and DnD respectively, and the third was my scheming Ravnos from Bradford's V:TM LARP, Jaison Lyons, the "humble collector of tales" who, if he had continued playing, would have had about 6 plots on the go at once to depose the prince... all of which he would then betray so as to be the power behind the throne... Ahhh, fond memories.

Anyways, my Star Wars favourite was Nayell Darhan, the "Force Inept". Infamous not only for being karmically punished for metagaming on Tattooine ("These aren't the droids you're looking for" [Nat 1] "HOW DO YOU KNOW?" "No, these really aren't the droids you're looking for!" [Nat 1] "We're checking anyway!... Nope, not the droids we're looking for..." [facepalm]), but for... The Force Speed Wheelbarrow! To cut a shaggy dog tale short, I saved the ambassador, but almost died from running backwards into the ship's bulkhead... at something like 60MPH.

My DnD character, whose name I sadly don't recall, was even unluckier, and was renowned for being a ranger who only made high rolls on attacks when it genuinely no longer mattered. The best example of this was when we were ambushed by a group of bandits, managed to capture the leader, and were off scot free... I decided we wanted to make an example out of the leader to discourage pursuit, and so I made a called shot to the groin... Natural 20, followed by a natural 20, and max damage on the dice. Suffice to say, the GM's description was eye-wateringly gruesome...

Lucid
2010-08-24, 09:13 AM
Kelvash the Dark One, a CE Drow outcast Fighter/Rogue.
Left the Underdark because he was afraid to get turned into a drider, wanted nothing more than amass wealth and be left alone.

He went through two very shortlived campaigns before ending up on Krynn, where he forged an unlikely warrior's bond with a cursed Solamnic knight. Despite their differences they made a very effective combat machine together.

Notable feats include:
Attempting to backstab the party by making deals with naga and slaadi which horridly backfired, needing the party to bail him out.
Breaking the party out of prison while riding an invisible nightmare.
Somehow becoming the wielder of the Ultimate Hammer of Goodly Goodness.
Training in a forbidden martial arts style in the abyss with said hammer.

He never died, instead ending up suspended in time together with the Solamnic and the BBEG, thus saving the world.

Campaign lasted for two years, with eventually only me and the knights' player remaining. Good times:smallamused:

MightyTim
2010-08-24, 09:51 AM
Though I never 'played' him, per se, the first character I ever cared about was an NPC kid named Jack (My DM was awful with names). He had been conscripted into the local militia to help our group of PCs accomplish our task. He looked up to my character and by the Nine Hells, I was going to make sure he got through it alive.