Your very first PC

[Kaptin Keen]

I wonder if this has been done before - most likely so. But while making a cup of coffee just now, I came to think of the first character I ever made: Akomestos.

Akomestos was a mage, but the system in question didn't really allow for mages having any real options in the early game - so for his first couple of adventures, he was primarily a very unskilled arbalestier. He eventually grew powerful, though. We were just kids, so things got fairly silly. The system was designed to be low-magic, and there were no real fly spells or the like. It was essentially 2d. But there were two artifacts - a cloak that allowed levitation, and a sword that would shoot a blast of air. I managed to convince my GM to give me both, making me the only character in the game world with access to sustained flight.

By the end, in my red dragon scale armor, jetting around with my artifact sword throwing spells around, I was essentially Iron Man.

And it's funny because it informed on all my coming years of playing: Since it had gotten so silly, I never went there again. I've played lower power games ever since, both as player and GM.

And so I'm curious: Do you remember your first PC? And do you think that character has influence all the others somehow?

[Anonymouswizard]

Aragorn (this was just after one of the movies had come out, and I was like 9, maybe younger) the Cleric, later retconned into Aragorn the Elf*, in BD&D. There's not really much more to him, the game lasted about two seasons before my dad didn't have the free time to run again. I only remember Aragorn because of the uninspired name.

I played several games after, but my first proper campaign and actually serious character (because I'd GMed about 80% of those games) in a game that lasted more than two sessions (a big milestone) was a Thaumaturgist/Scholar in Unknown Armies 2e. He wasn't moral, he wasn't particularly good with people, but if you kept that in mind he did pay relatively nice with others. Unfortunately I can't give more detail, that game veers straight into inappropriate topics and doesn't let up.

* I wanted to play the Magic-User, but my little brother got to it first and he always got what he wanted. Elf allowed me to have my wizard magic while also giving the party a second warrior, even if we were missing a healer.

[Kaptin Keen]

Aragorn (this was just after one of the movies had come out, and I was like 9, maybe younger) the Cleric, later retconned into Aragorn the Elf*, in BD&D. There's not really much more to him, the game lasted about two seasons before my dad didn't have the free time to run again. I only remember Aragorn because of the uninspired name.

I played several games after, but my first proper campaign and actually serious character (because I'd GMed about 80% of those games) in a game that lasted more than two sessions (a big milestone) was a Thaumaturgist/Scholar in Unknown Armies 2e. He wasn't moral, he wasn't particularly good with people, but if you kept that in mind he did pay relatively nice with others. Unfortunately I can't give more detail, that game veers straight into inappropriate topics and doesn't let up.

* I wanted to play the Magic-User, but my little brother got to it first and he always got what he wanted. Elf allowed me to have my wizard magic while also giving the party a second warrior, even if we were missing a healer.

Akomestos was in a party with Taris the half-elf, and Blade. I remember another friend played a dwarf fighter - I don't recall the name of the character, but I know he always played a dwarf fighter of that name, no matter what the game was. So you're not alone, and we we're closer to 16 =)

[BWR]

My first character was a Thief in Basic. We started with the introductory boxed set from 1991, and ran the first adventure that came with it - Escape From Zanzer's Dungeon. I believe his name was Pike, one of the pregens.

We escaped the cell easily enough but the first encounter after this, a bunch of hobgoblin guards, was harder. Since we were all noobs, the GM read aloud everything about the monsters to us - their names, AC, hp, THAC0 and damage potential. Upon hearing that the monsters facing us dealt at least 1d4 points of damage, I paused. This being middle school we hadn't learned about probability in maths class yet, but I could reason out that 1d4 points of damage was a 3/4 chance of killing me with my 2 hp. I decided to stand behind the others and hope that their better AC and HP would save me.
"This is a game about heroes, and we have no place for cowards" the DM declared (or words to that effect), and all the enemies rushed past the other PCs to attack me specifically for being so unsporting. The first blow hit and killed me. There was a long, quiet bit where the DM looked surprised, then guilty and everyone started wrapping their heads around how easy it was to die in this game.
We'd spend probably about as much time playing as we did in character creation by the time I died.

[Kaptin Keen]

Well if nothing else, it was a valuable lesson learned, especially for your GM =)

[Anonymouswizard]

Akomestos was in a party with Taris the half-elf, and Blade. I remember another friend played a dwarf fighter - I don't recall the name of the character, but I know he always played a dwarf fighter of that name, no matter what the game was. So you're not alone, and we we're closer to 16 =)

Oh, the terribly uninspired names continued until the second character I mentioned (where I switched to thematic and/or real world names). I shall never forget Beano the Gnome (to be fair that was a comedy game). Or the game with Tordek the Dwarf Fighter adventuring alongside Tordek the Dwarf Fighter (should I mention that they had the exact same build?)

My first character was a Thief in Basic. We started with the introductory boxed set from 1991, and ran the first adventure that came with it - Escape From Zanzer's Dungeon. I believe his name was Pike, one of the pregens.

We escaped the cell easily enough but the first encounter after this, a bunch of hobgoblin guards, was harder. Since we were all noobs, the GM read aloud everything about the monsters to us - their names, AC, hp, THAC0 and damage potential. Upon hearing that the monsters facing us dealt at least 1d4 points of damage, I paused. This being middle school we hadn't learned about probability in maths class yet, but I could reason out that 1d4 points of damage was a 3/4 chance of killing me with my 2 hp. I decided to stand behind the others and hope that their better AC and HP would save me.
"This is a game about heroes, and we have no place for cowards" the DM declared (or words to that effect), and all the enemies rushed past the other PCs to attack me specifically for being so unsporting. The first blow hit and killed me. There was a long, quiet bit where the DM looked surprised, then guilty and everyone started wrapping their heads around how easy it was to die in this game.
We'd spend probably about as much time playing as we did in character creation by the time I died.

Ouch. Yeah, BD&D is probably the worst game for the GM to make that mistake, there's a reason that low levels are sometimes called 'Fantasy Vietnam'. Never had a character die yet (in early games my dad fudged, by the time other people began running we got sunset better at tactics*), but the one time it was borderline (I've failed skill roll and two PCs would die) I had the warning to come prepared

* In layman's terms our wizard no longer rushed into melee.

[LibraryOgre]

1989. Yong-san, Seoul, South Korea. We have to sneak over to Andy Nuxoll's house, because we're not allowed to play D&D.

I am given a fighter and a mage. We fight Xvarts, and I misplace a sleep spell.

[Kaptin Keen]

... and I misplace a sleep spell.

Even worse than misplacing your car keys, right? 'Honey, have you seen my sleep spell? I'm sure I left it next to the grimoire or the rams skull ...'

[Jay R]

And so I'm curious: Do you remember your first PC? And do you think that character has influence all the others somehow?

Absolutely.

This was in 1975. My actual first experience was pretty much just rolling dice to see how it worked. That was my only time playing with just the original three pamphlets.

My second time, which I consider my first real game, I was playing Theseus, a first level paladin in original D&D with only the first supplement Greyhawk. The alignments were Lawful (which mostly meant good) and Chaotic (which mostly meant evil).

I joined a group of people who’d already played a few games. We had no nuance, and the game didn’t encourage nuance. We killed Chaotics because they were Chaotics, and expected any Chaotic to kill us because we were Lawful. [It didn't miss by much being the green army men and the red army men on opposite sides.]

So a party of 1st through 5th levels went down into the dungeon. I had rolled so low on money that Theseus had no sword – just a mace.

I was deeply committed to playing him correctly a a paladin, completely on the side of Law, and completely opposed to Chaos.

After several encounters, a couple levels down in the dungeon, the entire party was down to 1, 2, or 3 hit points, back when 0 hit points meant dead. Theseus had a single hit point left.

The treasure we had just found included a sword, which Theseus asked for. He received the right to pick it up. Unfortunately, it was a high-ego chaotic sword, and the first thing that should happen when my paladin touched it is that he should have received 2d6 points of damage, which would have killed the character. The DM made a few rolls behind the screen, and then wrote and handed me a note.

"This Chaotic sword has changed your alignment. You are now Chaotic, and holding a Chaotic Flaming Sword."

I thought for a moment, and realized my position. We had all gone down into the dungeon to find and kill people with an opposite alignment, and take their stuff. Theseus had only one hit point, and was surrounded by people who would kill him instantly if they knew he was Chaotic. How does he survive?

They had money and magic items, were all down to 1-3 hit points. Hmm…

I asked to speak to the DM privately. When we got into the other room, I told him, "I don't have any questions for you. I just want them to believe you gave me more information than the note had." I told him my plan, we waited a couple more minutes, and then we walked back in.

My (ex-)paladin told the group, "This is a Holy Sword with a quest I have to take on alone. I need you to go back the way you came. It's important that you do as I ask. Go back single file, and no matter what you hear, DON'T LOOK BACK."

Of course the five characters trusted my paladin, and did as he asked. My Chaotic ex-paladin came up and stabbed each one in the back. Several times the DM said, "You hear a stab behind you, and a body slumping." "We don't look back." After five times, he told them that they were all dead.

So in my first game of D&D, my paladin murdered an entire lawful party.

----------------------
One of the party members had a supposedly useless magic item. It was a Bag of Duplication. If you put something in the bag, you would get a useless duplicate: swords that didn't hold an edge, magic items that looked identical but weren't magic, food that tasted bad and didn't satisfy, etc.

Later that week, I heard about a different party that had suffered a TPK.

This party was turned to stone by a bunch of cockatrices. My "paladin" heard about them, and went out to rescue them.

Some time later, they woke up back in town, having been rescued by a paladin, who (of course) refused any kind of reward. But for some reason, none of their magic items worked. I understand they spent a fair amount of time trying to find out how being turned to stone would neutralize their magic items, and looking for a way to reverse the result.

Meanwhile, Theseus (now re-named Darkstar) had several new magic items – and their gratitude. They never came looking for him, because they never realized that their real magic items had been stolen.

------------------

Years later he atoned, regained his paladin status and grew to defend the helpless – any helpless.

And yes, it affected all my D&D characters since then. I will never again play a PC who is not completely loyal to the party. We can argue, have different goals, keep secrets.

But I will never again act against anybody else’s PC.

[Quertus]

Well, my first PC was a super Lawfully Good idealist, who got killed by the party for XP. I'm sure that has absolutely nothing to do with why I prefer to run evil Necromancers with undead armies and layers of powerful continent defenses.

[CharonsHelper]

I forget the name, but my first PC was a 3.5 monk which I rolled an 18 STR for who I was trying to make into a grappler build. It might have worked decently eventually since I convinced the DM to let me be from a school where everyone became werebears, so I was going to pick up the Savage Species progression. (The lycantropy ones were some of the few decent ones, since the actual LA was only 2, and the 6 levels gave +16 STR, +8 CON, +2 DEX, and eventually large size. So unlike many LAs, his saves and accuracy would have remained solid.)

Unfortunately, that campaign died about 3 sessions in before I really got the hang of it. I remember failing to grapple the boss, only to realize afterwords that it should have worked because I forgot about their -4 size penalty. Of course, it never would have been an amazing build (because... 3.5 monk) but everyone but the DM was totally new to D&D, so no one was anything close to top tier.

[Lord Torath]

Aragorn (this was just after one of the movies had come out, and I was like 9, maybe younger) the Cleric, later retconned into Aragorn the Elf*, in BD&D. There's not really much more to him, the game lasted about two seasons before my dad didn't have the free time to run again. I only remember Aragorn because of the uninspired name.

I played several games after, but my first proper campaign and actually serious character (because I'd GMed about 80% of those games) in a game that lasted more than two sessions (a big milestone) was a Thaumaturgist/Scholar in Unknown Armies 2e. He wasn't moral, he wasn't particularly good with people, but if you kept that in mind he did pay relatively nice with others. Unfortunately I can't give more detail, that game veers straight into inappropriate topics and doesn't let up.

* I wanted to play the Magic-User, but my little brother got to it first and he always got what he wanted. Elf allowed me to have my wizard magic while also giving the party a second warrior, even if we were missing a healer.

I think I've got you beat when it comes to unimaginative PCs and names. My first PC (using the blue-box basic set) was a dwarf named Gloin. I don't remember much about his adventures.

My second PC was a wizard (probably named Gandalf, but I don't recall for certain), and I distinctly remember being utterly underwhelmed by the effects of my Magic Missile on the giant crabs we were facing. Missiles explode, right (at least the ones on my GI Joe cartoons certainly did). How could I hit this crab with a Magic Missile and not crack its shell wide open? I was around 8 at the time.

[Malphegor]

Until last year most of my stuff was in freeform
forum rp and in mmos (standing around roleplaying in someone’s hideout in a superhero mmo). A necromancer posessed by her evil ancestor, a few fuuristic knights with
laser sworda and energy shields... standard superhero
guff.

For actual tabletop though...

Verrick Tull, the Lawful Evil Bard (required DM permission). A magic user who seeks a fabled Words of Creation/Truename thing that would make him a god of pure creation, singing the universe. Didn’t work out in-character. There’s something
about a domineering diva of a rockstar who wants WORLD DOMINATION I like, but things petered out. (he was meant to be based on Mok from Rock 'N Rule)

Currently I’m playing the first character that ever made it past one session. Malphegor! Tiefling wizard, Lawful Neutral, modelled after mad scientist tropes, dreams every night of a futuristic city in which skyscrapers beam energy to a floating stone sphere, the grandson of a mad swamp witch who thinks life works like a story, the son of a pair of fantasy lawyers who try to distance themselves from this magic malarkey, has a strong mistrust of the fey, has mild hayfever, has a bit of narcissism, is a bit of a cleanfreak, is absolutely a tyrant if given any power, and is not evil... yet.

I kinda want him to die to try a better put together character rather than ALL THE MULTICLASS and dubious
legality of mixing 3.0 feats with 3.5e stuff but for a ‘first’ character he’s been a blast to play.

[Seclora]

His name was Alfred Williams. The game was 3.5 with elements of D20 Modern. Alfred was a multiclass Bard Sorcerer, Chaotic Good-ish, and liked money.

By the end of the campaign, Alfred was the patron of resistance groups(Including the party), Record Studio Owner/Producer, and inventor of the Motorcycle. But me, I'll always remember him as the war criminal who effectively nuked a military creche and a Preschool in order to exterminate an invading aberrant species. My next character was a Vow of Poverty Saint. I think very carefully about the collateral damage of my actions now, and I blame Alfred for that.

[LibraryOgre]

Even worse than misplacing your car keys, right? 'Honey, have you seen my sleep spell? I'm sure I left it next to the grimoire or the rams skull ...'

Well, in AD&D, sleep spells affected the lowest HD creatures first, which mean they knocked out our party.

[Luccan]

Aragorn (this was just after one of the movies had come out, and I was like 9, maybe younger) the Cleric, later retconned into Aragorn the Elf*, in BD&D. There's not really much more to him, the game lasted about two seasons before my dad didn't have the free time to run again. I only remember Aragorn because of the uninspired name.

I played several games after, but my first proper campaign and actually serious character (because I'd GMed about 80% of those games) in a game that lasted more than two sessions (a big milestone) was a Thaumaturgist/Scholar in Unknown Armies 2e. He wasn't moral, he wasn't particularly good with people, but if you kept that in mind he did pay relatively nice with others. Unfortunately I can't give more detail, that game veers straight into inappropriate topics and doesn't let up.

* I wanted to play the Magic-User, but my little brother got to it first and he always got what he wanted. Elf allowed me to have my wizard magic while also giving the party a second warrior, even if we were missing a healer.

Wonder how he would have gotten along with my first character: Bilbo the Gnome, Magic-User/Fighter in AD&D (I think we were ignoring multiclassing restrictions). He wasn't really anything like Bilbo from the Hobbit, right down to not even being a halfling or thief.

[Phhase]

Considering any system, it was a few years back, since I've been reading sourcebooks since I was a kid but only played proper since college.
It was a homebrew using the Fantasy Age system, a kind of scifi space opera setting with magic. It was pretty good, even if the DM was a bit railroad-y. I played Splynter, a Chaotic Evil Sentinel (A robot) who was actually being animated by an elemental spirit of lightning. My class was rouge(assassin), and I used my taloned hands as weapons. Turns out I'm not very good at being evil. My only real goal was to devour souls and swell in power, and I kind of had trouble RPing it when we were almost exclusively fighting elemental. I also developed a deadly grudge against an NPC, since it was a big figure in the DM's universe, and his greatest flaw was being unable to separate his lore canon from our adventure canon (So figures that featured prominently in lore were all but omnipotent, effectively). He had one of his archvillains try to draft my character, making a deal to allow my character to escape the universe. Eventually, the DM had me betray the party inside an arcane extradimensional prison for elementals we were trying to repair so that I could be the final boss, even though it really didn't make any sense to me why I would. The idea was for me to fight them straight up, but I instead destroyed the prison, causing chaos and havoc. He was too weak-minded to see how this could serve his campaign, and considered me to have destroyed his campaign. It wasn't that bad, but I was a little disappointed, since I could still see the potential.

However, DnD proper I started only a little while ago, with a Red Dragonborn Fighter/Rouge named Khorath. I made him lawful neutral, just because I could. He's half comedy, half voice of reason in our chaotic party. He's also the face despite having +0 to charisma, since the rest of our party is so distractable. Maybe it's MY +5 to diplomacy propping us both up, who knows. He's the sort to take a sample of everything, which his how I ended up commissioning a rapier that's more like a giant needle, letting me inject a bottle of (x) into the target on a hit. However, his signature attack is to take a long drought from a bag of rum he carries, then to blast that out along with his breath weapon. I call it the Accelerant Augmented Assault.

His backstory proper is that he has no clear memories past ten years ago. Anything beyond that is a blur of darkness, black metal, red light, constructs, and chaos. He is very unsure whether he truly is a Dragonborn, or even a flesh and blood being at all. He's a bit of a sense freak, being new to the whole biology thing. He was wandering in the wilderness until he found shelter in a nearby city. With a natural inclination for science, he quickly was admitted to the local chapter of alchemists and brewers. Later, he set out across the waves to find the truth of his origins, eventually meeting the party.

It's fun to think about, but hasn't really come up much yet. Right now the party finally put into port and Khorath is having a field day buying weapons and armor while pretty much the whole rest of the party gets smashed at a tavern.

[Ortho]

I'm a latecomer, my first character was a 5e Champion Fighter named Flint Balderdash. He was a dwarf who singlehandedly convinced my DM to never let us roll for stats again (he had 13s and 14 across the board before racial bonuses) and who was only killed when said DM gave my 3rd level party a Deck of Many Things.

He was short lived, but an absolute blast to play. I just put on a bad Scottish accent and roleplayed the crap out of the campaign. Good times.

[The Kool]

never let us roll for stats again (he had 13s and 14 across the board before racial bonuses)

This is actually fairly middle of the road for rolling stats? I mean, it's pretty decent, but nothing spectacular. 13 is the most likely number to roll.

Anyway, my first character was Bill the Paladin, AD&D. He didn't last very long because I had no idea how paladins were supposed to be played and mostly mimicked my older brother who was playing a stealthy and experienced Ranger. When I retired him, I picked up a magic-user, and mimicked my older sister who was a pyro... With greater success, at least.

[Toric]

Like Malphegor my introduction to roleplaying was via freeform RP, on a chat room in my case. And so I was... Dark Ninja! He was a ninja. Dressed in black. He had shadow magic, which was really just Shadow Clone Jutsu but this was before Naruto so shut up!

My first D&D character was a 3.5E gnome ranger, whose name I can't remember. Through terrible DM-player communication he once interrogated a barkeep who had been attacked by goblins, rather than interrogating one of the goblins like any sensible person.

[2D8HP]

Fighter #1 - He fought Giant Spiders and Skeletons and...

....that's pretty much all I remember about him, he was followed by a conga-line of other Fighters (or "Fighting-Men" as the rules then called the class)

The first non-D&D character was for Villains & Vigilantes and for the game the PC was supposed to be based on on myself - and other than that I'd rather have been playing D&D I don't remember much of that game.

The next game was Champions (another comic book superheroes RPG) and I made my PC an "Agent of the Shadowed Moon", and his "power" was a ray-gun he carried...

...which another PC grabbed, and that was the end of my character.

After that it was a bunch of Call of Cthullu "Investigators" who could read Latin, Greek or Magyar, and Traveller Scouts with starships.

My most memorable AD&D character was a half-orc Cleric/Fighter who kept his face hidden with a "Great Helm" and I had him try to act as a Paladin and...

...he didn't last long before the other players said "Nope!".

My last AD&D character that I remember something about was from the Barbarian Class in The Dragon magazine and I remember that I wrote down "Chaotic Good" as Alignment in the Character Record Sheet, and that in the Character Illustration I wrote "If you ain't a Barbarian then you ain't...".

My very last PC for decades was a "Solo" for Cyberpunk and that's all I remember about him.

I made some Knights for [/i]Pendragon, [/i] various GURPS PC's, and I made a dual class Rogue/Wizard and some Rangers for 3e D&D that I never played.

My first PC for 5e D&D that I briefly played was a half elf Rogue with the Entertainer Background, and then (for a bit longer a human Urchin background Fighter named "Lander Stormwind", who's the earliest PC I can remember the name of without looking up the sheet - he wasn't very memorable otherwise.

The PC I best remember was "Ossian" a Folk Hero background Fighter/Rogue who I had curse like "Captain Haddock" from the Tin Tin comics.

[lawfulgay]

My first PC is a tiefling ranger named Zerissa. She is still around and is currently level 6.

She has blue skin (which I was actually given **** for by the DM and other players because blue skin tiefling is a weird thing??) And dark blue hair (yeah she kinda looks like Jester from CR but honestly I made her long before I even knew that CR was)
She has bright yellow eyes and sharp teeth.
Her horns are oni style, pretty short, and her right horn is actually snapped in half.

Her backstory is she grew up in a large town by the sea. Her family was pretty rich and influential, and at age 16 her father wanted to marry her off to the son of the other most influential family in the city.
Zerissa, however, is a lesbian who obviously didn't want to marry a man. So, the day before the wedding she ran away from home and lived in the forest and did odd jobs for money.
When she was 19, she met a half-elf woman named Lyra, who became her travel partner and the two fell in love. However, one night bandits raided their camp, planning on kidnapping Zerissa and returning her back to her family for gold. Lyra sacrificed herself so Zerissa could get away, and Zerissa know lives with this constant regret of how she got her lover killed.

In the current campaign she is 25. She met another tiefling woman named Kallista at a tavern, doing some fighting for money. (The DM put her there just so there was something exciting happening in the bar when we walked in. She wasn't meant to be anything but a background NPC, but I decided there and then that Zerissa just immediately fell in love with her.)

Now, Kallista is her girlfriend and Zerissa is super protective of her because she doesnt want another person she loves to get killed.
Zerissa was my first and one of my favorite characters I've made. I actually have commissioned tons of art of her. She is the definition of chaotic gay.

[Spriteless]

Must have been around '95, on Sunday afternoons when we were all done with homework, Dad started running a game for us. I played Ariel the Avarial Winged Elf, cleric of the wind goddess, swept across the sea from home in a storm and looking for a way back, and later, the reason for her being sent to this strange land. I had a pet pseudodragon! Because Dragon Song! Mostly, I spent my spells taking care of my younger siblings.

Sis played a Wizard so posh she'd actually spend spell slots making 'unseen servant' do labor back in A&AD when that reduced your chances for survival. She rode a pegasus.

Bro played a dwarven fighter who rode a giant eagle. He would dive enemies for extra damage, because that makes sense right?

I never understood how people could be confused by the turning radius that the older editions imposed on fliers.

[denthor]

Denthor a thief.

Name was given by a then friend.

Ambrone a wizard was the first one I named.

The friend of course ran Harold fork beard.

[Kitten Champion]

My very first PC could be argued to be the Amazon I created for a Diablo II RPG I played at my friend's apartment when I was elementary school, but the Amazon wasn't a character so much as a block of stats moving across a modest pregenerated dungeon printed on a mat of some sort.

My first PC who was an actual character was Nadilee, a Human Rogue. This was Pathfinder using a conversion of the Eberron, and at the time I was quite enjoying reading through the campaign setting book I was lent and wanted to create a character that mostly fit into the internal politics of the world. The game itself was a train heist scenario with each of the PCs having their own underlying motives. I ended up making a Thranish assassin who aimed to get in with the robbers in order to arrange it so she assassinate someone aboard while disguising it as a random casualty.

Nadilee is prim, and will act with formality and respectfulness regardless of who she's dealing with. She's kind as well, and believes in doing good works out of altruism. However, she's also a stoic killer with a fanatical devotion to completing her tasks. Less because of religious zealotry, and more out of a pragmatic grasp of the realpolitik. She cares because she's faithful and wants to be a good person, but she acts because she's a Thranish assassin in the real world and firmly desires Thrane's safety and prosperity.

She was mostly based on Suzuno Kamazuki/Crestia Bell from Devil is a Part-Timer, which I was enjoying at the time. She was fun to play, even though we never finished that story because of life stuff.

[ngilop]

My first ever character was named after myself Sir Kenneth,

Back in '87 and was a Paladin. Though was upset because I got a high charisma and I wanted my strength to be higher. Then my DM explained how I was basically Sir Galahad. mind you.. I was young and that was back when it was 3d6 in order. Only much later ( like 7 or 8 years) did I realize how amazing that character was in terms of stats rolled. I still have my character sheet as well.

[Kalashak]

The first character I made was a half orc Barbarian named Wolf for 3.5, but I never actually got to play him. The first character I made and played was for Serenity, a mildly alcoholic lawman gone rogue named Dir Tiberius Harry. A lot of my characters have followed roughly in Dir's tradition, in that they're flawed people trying to do the right thing in a flawed world but I don't think that's actually because of him. It's just an archetype I'm drawn to.

[Saintheart]

I made a monk. In 3.5.

This might explain why I haven't left that system in the 12-15 years since. I'm still trying to figure out how to make him not suck.

[Guizonde]

the system was dark eye, we were young, and i wanted to play something uncomplicated. the gm threw the monster manual at us and told us "have fun, i'll deal with the chaos". and so "the troll" came to be. in dark eye, trolls have regenerating health due to their blood, and they're basically black holes for food. they're also incredibly stupid and strong. i was playing in a game with a fairy that cast spells, a centaur which was nc-17 in terms of acts, and i think a necromancer.

... i ate the barkeep in the first 5 minutes of gameplay. then i collapsed the inn. then i destroyed the jailhouse and ate the jailor, then the armory and ate the smith, using its load bearing beam as a club and its metal door as a shield. we went on to destroy the evil noble's castle and my healing blood saved the party's hp several times over. thus became "the troll paladin". really hungry, really loyal at protecting his fairy best friend.

ever since, i've been loyal to the party and always try to have a means of healing my team. my first answer is usually "how do we collapse the building". my first dnd character (much more serious) was father corbec girdersson, dwarven cleric of pelor, who was the black sheep of the family because he studied medicine instead of architecture and engineering. that character was loved by the team since he was a gruff, no-nonsense healbot who could fight like a man possessed and could actually tell you good info on what building we were in. due to a funny habit of always rolling great, he never got lost. ever. he was also a vegetarian which annoyed the dm to no end. that campaign ended when ooc relations with the dm soured badly. still would love to have that character sheet, but alas, it's now lost to time.

many characters have come and gone since then, knaki the chameleonic skink, josé, doc frankalice, edward, raymond... and even the sociopathic edward was loyal to the team, if about as destructive as a limited nuclear exchange.

[Wraith]

Edion Exodise, an Elf multi-class Fighter/Mage in AD&D. He had a longsword and a longbow and wore chainmail armour - I didn't know anything about casting disruption at the time, but it didn't matter because he never cast a single spell.
The party kind of wandered around an Inn for 3 hours, tripping over wenches and bumping into other patrons, before the DM took a call on his 'phone that lasted 10 minutes and then he told us to pack up for the night because he was going to keep talking to the other person for a bit longer.

Did this character influence any of my others? Yes - It took me ~10 years before I bothered trying to play AD&D again, because it was so dull and my character was so humiliated.