Just wondering what people started out as and why. My first character was a Dwarven fighter named Rurik Dunkil. I come from a Scot/Irish family and the dwarves have always stood out to me because of their accent. He is still my favorite and I still use him as an NPC.
Also what got you interested in D&D in the first place? My parents and uncles used to play, but I never did until my friend bought the V3 PHB and brought it to school. How about the rest of you?
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Well, my first PC, during the age of the D&D red-box, was a Fighter, because he was created faster than other classes; and I can't remember his name because I only remember how cool this game was! I got immediately hooked and never left the game since. I don't have his character sheet anymore. I have all the sheets of my other PCs though!
With AD&D my first PC was a halfling Thief named Yarrash! He lost his left foot (long story) had been responsible for the annihilation of a whole hammlet and ended up really depressed but it was a hell of a campaign!
I used to stick to Thiefs and Bards from that on. Almost always humans.
Uuhh, memories coming back... :)
PS With 3E I still didn't got a chance to be player and only DMed it. My players don't want to dm and the only DM I know still uses AD&D2E... Sad it is, but my time will come!
Just wondering what people started out as and why.
My first character in my current gaming group was a were-tiger fighter-thief... cause I loooove the big cats and liked the idea of getting inside the mind of a trueborn lycanthrope.
Can't remember the first character I had gaming as a kid, as I started DMing very quickly so there wasn't any time spent on PCs of my own.
My friend that introduced me to the game in 1980 had lost his gaming group and recruited me to play AD&D....by myself. I rolled up five brand new characters and he ran me through B1 (In Search of the Unknown). No backstory--two fighters, one cleric, one thief, one magic-user. They were all human and they all had Roman names, I remember. As soon as I rolled up the characters, we started the dungeon. First combat encounter was giant rats....and I was hooked.
Turns out he was only trying to get me to learn AD&D so I could DM "Descent into the Depths of the Earth and Vault of the Drow" for his 10th level party which had gotten stuck in "Descent into the Depths of the Earth" when his first DM quit gaming.
Needless to say me learning curve was very steep. I hadn't been playing AD&D for two weeks when I found myself running the lich encounter in D1 and subsequent attack on the Kuo-Toan temple. We soon recruited more players and within a year had a pretty regular gaming group going (most of them were also on the wrestling team and always had to make weight for meets so they could never eat munchies at the game--didn't realize how difficult that was!)
Discovering 3rd edition has been a kind of a re-birth of D&D for our entire group of old friends. Now that someone other than me has started DMing 3rd edition, I consider my new PC kind of my "first" chance to "really" play in about fifteen years.
My PC is a CN (E) cleric of Cyric. He loves to cause trouble and spread discontent. I plan to run him up to 5th level, then switch to sorceror, also go to 5th level, and then start taking levels as a mystic theurge.
Red box. Human mage named Fireball.
Real original name, eh?
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As I've always been the perrenial DM, I haven't got to play much, but when I have...
1st AD&D character - Dante Montresor. A human dual-classed 1st level Fighter who then advanced as a Wizard. Who was also an identical twin to another player's PC in the group.
1st 3rd edition character - Sorik Rowanmantle, a human ranger.
I wish I still had my first characters from basic/expert DnD...but that was ....jeez! over twenty years ago. I know either played the party cleric or an elf (when that was a class).
The earliest one that I can remember the name of from ADnD 1st edition is a dwarf thief named Cain. He teamed up with a halfling assassin named Sir Janadin of the Fair Folk that I played too.
I played Alexander the Holy One as a cleric until he was 15th level around that same time. He ended up getting 'Wave' the trident from White Plume Mountain and one of those cool laser blaster rifles from the Expedition to the Barrier Peaks only to die (like three times) in the Tomb of Horrors.
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My first character was a 1st edition ranger named Justinian. This was back in late 1979 and I was 10 years old. The 2d8 hit die at 1st level, the druid and magic-user spells, tracking, and the damage bonus to a considerable list of monsters were all draws, but it was the list of really neat special followers in the DMG that clinched it for me.
Justinian pulled Wave from White Plume Mountain and also recovered on seperate occassions a ring of elemental command (water) and a DM designed amulet with additional water powers. The DM ruled that this triplet together conferred additional powers when all worn together. A triplet existed for each of the elements, though this water set was the only one the group had.
Ah, memories...
I took the example fighter character from the D&D Basic (Red) Boxed Set and used him for about seven months when I first started out. Once my mother stopped being interested in filling the role of DM, my friends and I decided to start over.
My first _real_ PC was named Blinky (hey, I was in 4th grade!) - a barbarian that looked oddly similar to the BBEG from the Dungeons & Dragons cartoon.
Ah, Blinky. I miss you, ol' buddy.
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Heh, Blinky. ::smirk::
First PC was named Rexx. Go figure. Fighter, pink box with the Erol Otus cover. Stats were 3d6 rolled in order: S 17 I 12 W 9 D 7 C 15 Ch 13. Then I rolled a 1 on the d10 for two hit points to start. I quickly learned the rule "DMs can curve dice rolls whenever necessary" as my DM most assuredly curved some rolls to keep Rexx alive through the Keep on the Borderlands. Rexx is still alive, though purely stuck in the occassional NPC role, hovering around 28th level. My goal of 30th will be achieved before I die, hopefully.
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Vandal Hex-human Mage from Perrenland. Began in 1980 with B1-5, then White Plume Mt, Temple of Elemental Evil, the Slavelords, & Queen of Spiders (& was one of two survivors of the Tomb of Horrors); he became the motivating force behind the campaign when I took over as DM. He met his end when the adventurers he sponsored recovered a Deck of Many Things in 2002--he drew the Void Card (thought I could get him to 17th level on the sly)...22 years of adventuring shot in one bad draw.......
Can't remember the first character I had gaming as a kid, as I started DMing very quickly so there wasn't any time spent on PCs of my own.
I'm in the same boat - I can't remember my first character and I never played many as I quickly turned to DMing. I guess my favourite character was actually in a Call of Cuthulu campaign. Very intense game. I was the butler tasked with taking care of an old run down mansion out in the country in a late Victorian setting. I had an expectant wife (played by a female friend of mine) and really really needed this job which is why we both did not run screaming when things started going crazy. I did not even know I was playing Call of Cuthulu, just that this was the set up ... for a while anyway I thoght it might be a murder mystery, me being a butler and all. Needless to say it was very intense.
I'm impressed with how many people made interesting characters their first time out. For me it was Fall of 1984 and a fighter named The Red Knight. (My friend was the Black Knight so...yeah.) Old ready for anything last a whole week until he put on a gauntlet filled with rot grub. After that my Killer DM toyed with him a couple more days and pulled the plug by having this 1st level whipping boy sucked into a portal to the 9 Hells. We didn't even bother to role-play the end.
I don't remember his name but I had a dwarven thief. He wasn't the greatess but the best part about him was that he had a pair of gauntlets which had a dagger on each finger created into each for his weapons, but that didn't help when fighting a red dragon which I tried a dive onto its head. That was 15 years ago when I started playing. Since then I'm stying with my fighter class particularly dwarven since their easy to create and best for nighttime and underground campaigns (in my opinion )
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An elven ranger named Thrance back in 2.0.
Dont know why I picked that combo, but I enjoyed it tons. Ive had a handfull of fav characters over the years, he is on my top three list, being number two. Breetai the Just, or as my friends call him, Breetai the Xenophobe or Unjust is my all time fav though.
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Well, technically my first character was one of the pre-gens from the AD&D starter set my mom bought me in middle school. All I remember is that there was a female thief named Slinker in there.
The first character I ever created myself, using the AD&D 2d Edition books, was a female half-elfin ranger/druid named Mystique. The object was to get a character with the most exotic powers and least restrictions possible, for maximum immediate hack-slashery. I was in seventh grade at the time.
Mystique is still alive, around ninth level, though we haven't played her party in a few years. Though I do have a soft spot for her, the other character I created for the party is probably my sentimental favorite of all the characters I've created.
My first character was a Halfling Thief way back in the AD&D days. He found a hat which housed a trapped goddess within a jewled brooch on it. For a while he had to live with her nagging, but it was made easier being privy to her vast knowledge on, well, everything. When she was finally freed, he joined her church and became her favourite cleric. When I finally finished playing, my Halfling was a 20th-level Thief/9th-level Cleric. Maybe I should see about bringing him back as an NPC for my next campaign.
1987- The first character I played was a wizard I made because I thought he could beat my friend's fighter in a one-on-one battle. I did, eventually.
In 1974 I was a lil kid who followed some college students onto campus in Boston and into a room afterschool. I was an intrusive little brat and this was nothing new. They allowed it. I'd had the hobbit read to me that same year and, initiated into the lyric of epic fantasy, discovered D&D to be as colorful and appealing as crack-sprinkled Froot Loops.
My first character was a no frills dwarven fighter named Forgus, which I later realized was probably just an unambitious variant of 'forge'.
Forgus never got to second level. A Grimtooth style DM informed me that the large statue whose hands I'd climbed up, held out in front of it like steps, was actually just an extremely patient giant of particularly granite complexion. No one at the table bought it and I was given a reprieve but during the very next adventure I was forced to attempt to use a wand (I know the rules don't bear this out) to stop a rushing horde of orcs in a banquet hall. The wand went boom. The orcs were dead. The room had chests full of high level treasure alas, the treasure was quite dead as well. And Forgus was blinded. Then the sound of massive beating wings bearing down upon me. Two rounds later I was neck deep in a jacuzzi of farm fresh dragon poo.
I just retired poor Forgus before this particular DM could raise the dwarf's charisma score then shove him into a Turkish prison full of megaphallic hobgoblins. Who does that to a three foot tall kid? lol, bastid.
My first character was from the Red basic set. He was a fighter. That is to say a human fighter. His name was Territh and I played him till he gained the 22 level, then he got level drained and fell to level 21. I finally tired of him and had him die.
My very first(at the ripe old age of 7)was Aahz, a human rogue, cause my older siblings wanted me to hurry up and die so I wouldn't bother them anymore about letting me play. Ha! I out-lived them all and made it to level 20. In 3.5 I started as a human rogue named Darriel Fawkes a.k.a. Fawkes the filch, who loved to bluff almost as much as stealin' gold.
My first character that I remember was an elf fighter named... Onrie. I play him in Greyhawk conventions and made a new version of him as an npc for my homebrewn world. You can also find Onrie as a lvl 60 hunter on World of Warcraft, and most likly some other place that I forgot about.
I still dont know why my avatar is an ogre...
Two rounds later I was neck deep in a jacuzzi of farm fresh dragon poo.
I just retired poor Forgus before this particular DM could raise the dwarf's charisma score then shove him into a Turkish prison full of megaphallic hobgoblins. Who does that to a three foot tall kid? lol, bastid.
ROFLMAO!!
I recently found the character sheet for my first ever D&D character and I was sorely confused. How did I make something that... dumb? Oh well.
Red box D&D, dice you had to rub a crayon on to fill in the numbers with color... I was a dwarf, using a 2 handed sword and a shield (I don't even remember that part, but there it is on my sheet). Name was Ironhead Kneesplitter. Now that's creativity at it's finest. Somehow I'd even made a 2 sided character sheet by taking photocopies of the front and back and taping them together along the edges with electrical tape.
If memory serves, I got him killed off within a couple weeks by trying to start a fight with something much, much bigger than myself. Ahh well, live and learn.
Can't really remember my first character, we made up characters and got them killed off again so fast that they all seem to blur together for me.
One cleric of mine actually made it to about 6th level if I recall correctly (this was wayyyyy back in 5th grade so bear with me). We walked into a wizards lab and found a bottle w/ a chicken feather inside.
I cannot for the life of me explain why I ate that feather, but that character will always stand out in my mind. He spent the rest of his career polymorphed into a chicken, and the party would hang healing potions around my neck so that I was still the "healer"! :-)
My first chariter that I made but never played was a fighter named Zax Redrain. I never got to play him because I am the DM. Mabe with my new group im in will have one of my players take a turn at DMing and I will get to play him or my other chariter made at the same time a Monk named Fadious Core.
In the beginning, a quarter-century ago, I was a Human Magic-User named Thrag. He had a very high intelligence but a very low wisdom, making him very innocent and fun to play. In a time when we didn't bother with things like weight and ecumberance, Thrag had accumulated in his fourteen levels of existance a fine collection of about thirty magic staves which he carried with him everywhere he went (Today I can only imagine him like a golfer with a caddy). I chose a magic-user on the flip of a coin... we were two players and the DM wanted a fighter-type and a caster-type.
I mostly DM now, but when I do get to play, I tend to 'fill in the gap'. I see what's needed in the group and make a character accordingly, and try to play that character to the best of my ability. I tend to play simple characters just to prove to the other players that you can make great things with a single class human.
Ahh, the memories... Kog the Dwarf (remember in those days when Dwarf was a class?), Araman Pathfinder the Human Ranger (who always wore a chainmail and a two-handed sword), Qwerty the Dwarven Cleric (never went anywhere without his handaxe), Khi the Half-Elf Magic-User (who turned out to be from three different space-times), The Great Ozaki the Human Bard (yes, the Great Ozaki HAS seen it all!), Graycen Angelthorne the Elven Wizard Summonner (who despite his young age has accomplished great things).
Ultradan
My first character was a rogue in red box D&D...probably some name like Rob the Rogue or Tim the Thief or something (back in the day we really hadn't read any fantasy books so naming the characters was pretty much based on "real" names...alliteration, however, was the key).
I guess the reason why was because my friend made a fighter (it must have made more sense then). The character died quite quickly since our GM was just as inexperienced as rest of us so he didn't quite have an idea what kind of monsters level 1 characters can handle (I think it was some giant which killed us).
No problem, let's roll the next ones (and no giants please).
Those early games were more a tactical exercise hack'n'slash than actual roleplaying, that crept to us slowly. Reading LotR helped a bit (at least naming of characters though I remember a cleric named Sauron...) and other fantasy even more.
My first D&D character was made around 1999 - 2000 (latecomer to the game, introduced by my brother-in-law). It was 3.0, and I created a female half-orc barbarian named Unglar. She was raised by her human mother amongst their tribe, and set off questing to find her kidnapped half-sister with the help of a friendly druid from the nearby woods. She fought with a scythe and always carried a "portable battering ram" (read - tree trunk) and a trusty set of manacles (she fancied herself as a sort of bounty hunter). She also had the curious quirk of literally eating any fallen foes that she particularly didn't want to ever face again after having her sister's kidnapper come back from the dead once. After killing him a second time, she hauled him to a friendly local necromancer and made a bargain with the creepy old guy: clean up this dead b*&@ard's skull and make into a faceplate for my helmet, and you can keep his brains and innards. Mr. Necromancer was happy to oblige, and she eventually had her skull-masked helmet enchanted so that it wailed disturbing battle music anytime she lowered the faceplate to go into battle. Ahhhh... good times.
AD&D Bullywug Barbarian named Rroark. Fell in love with the critters eversince the cartoon. Even convinced the parents to VHS them for me :D GO BULLYWUGS!!!!
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I first started playing in the mid-70's. I made two fighters and ran them through one of the first campaigns--a "B" module i believe. It was AWESOME and i was hooked ever since. Fun stuff!! To this day(I'm 38), i still play D&D. In fact, i am in two campaigns now. I'll play till i die!
Thoth Amon the Atlantian Mindflayerian
Favorite quotes from this thread so far...
discovered D&D to be as colorful and appealing as crack-sprinkled Froot Loops.
ROFLMAO!
survived the fist couple of caves in the Caves of Chaos
My first adventure, as well. Though I did not know how to pronounce Chaos at the time (pronounced it "chay-oss"). I was 10, so I'm giving myself some slack.
I'll play till i die!
Me too!
My first character (Fireball) was a mage...because they could cast MAGIC!!!! How cool was that! Summon fire outta nowhere? Sign me up!
I started playing in 2001, actually, but the best teacher there is would have to be my cousin, and my first character was in his homebrew campain, Corbedon. Skycrown Coldwind the undead-hunting elven rangher who ended up becoming a ghost and saving the city from the undead hoardes by telling his necromancer cousin about the danger. Yeah, it's a bunch of contradictions.
Wow, I never thought to get so many hits on here in so short a time! It's stories like all these that make me love this game! To all those kids who just stick to console games I say you are missing so much!
Wow, I never thought to get so many hits on here in so short a time! It's stories like all these that make me love this game! To all those kids who just stick to console games I say you are missing so much!
So true.... I just started a new series of adventures that will take the players from lvl 15 to 20. The hook is that Onrie has been missteriosly kidnapped, and my players followed because he is one of the highest levels and the bundle of exp at the end. I will use this too introduce two new npcs, ressurect an old one, have them explore an forgoten continent, kill recuring villians, bring back there favorite shadowy half dead demon badguy, and through there favorite cursed magic item, + more! Sound good?
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My first character, back in '94 was a human paladin in a Dragonlance game that a friend ran as a class project. She had actually reverse engineered the rules from a computer game. My character had started off his life as simple farmer. And was known as Dvid Fieldtiller. Unlike most of your city-folk type paladins, all he could tell you about a sword is that the pointy end went into the bad guys. He only used two weapons his battle-axe and a sling. I don't think I ever used a single bullet for that thing. Glass mug shards and wood chips, yes, but bullets no.
-Malkari
A human Figher Called RAMBO - playing in a huge Dungeon in the Tunnels and trolls System on a farm in rural New Zealand.
It was 1985.
I got butcherd.
So I made RAMBO II
He got murderlised.
So I made Rambo III.
All this when Rambo one had just come out.
I was 8 years old.
I think he was killing me just to shut me up.
My first D&D character was made around 1999 - 2000 (latecomer to the game, introduced by my brother-in-law). It was 3.0, and I created a female half-orc barbarian named Unglar. She was raised by her human mother amongst their tribe, and set off questing to find her kidnapped half-sister with the help of a friendly druid from the nearby woods. She fought with a scythe and always carried a "portable battering ram" (read - tree trunk) and a trusty set of manacles (she fancied herself as a sort of bounty hunter). She also had the curious quirk of literally eating any fallen foes that she particularly didn't want to ever face again after having her sister's kidnapper come back from the dead once. After killing him a second time, she hauled him to a friendly local necromancer and made a bargain with the creepy old guy: clean up this dead b*&@ard's skull and make into a faceplate for my helmet, and you can keep his brains and innards. Mr. Necromancer was happy to oblige, and she eventually had her skull-masked helmet enchanted so that it wailed disturbing battle music anytime she lowered the faceplate to go into battle. Ahhhh... good times.
That's pretty cool.
That's pretty cool.
Thanks. I didn't know what the hell I was doing when I made her, and used some high ability scores to try and cover her weaknesses in Int and Cha rather than focus on her physical stats. I gimped her on the Dex department, so she was pretty slow and clumsy, and only barely smarter than the average orc. But I have to say, she made for some of the most interesting stories I have as player or DM even to this day. She retired around 10th level or so, once she'd rescued her sister and killed the evil warlord, so Unglar is still out there somewhere, alive and well, singing along with her musical skull-mask and eating bad guys.
An Elf, because they can fight and cast spells! :)
Played him for many years.
My first D&D character was a 1st level magic-user (red box D&D) back in 1983. I think his name was Mordil. He lasted all of two session before he was captured, raped and murdered by feces-wielding clerics of Tharizdun (nasty DM!). Mostly I've been the DM though.
feces-wielding
...
My first D&D character was a human fighter named Raydeen. Our group didn't have alot of options due to having a Dm who was Jonny By The Book. since that time, the character has been injected with spinal fluid of Orcus turning him into a half demon, had bonded to him a Timeshard (A stone that grafts to the head or heart that enhances abilities to near god like levels.) has defeated the Elder War God of his Home world and assumed his Mantle and the the new name Shogun, and has become the right had to the goddess of a Pantheon that is similar to the Q Conitnuum from Star Trek (The Gods of the Gods if you will.) Even now over twenty years later, he is still a respeced and major forcce in my game world as an NPC.
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1st edition box set (the one before the Erol Otus cover)
A Fighter/Magic User/Thief Elf named Elector. (I was thinking of electricity, not politics at the time, but there you go.)
He was part of the first group of AD&D characters we played and one of the two that lived from junior high all the way through high school. The other character was played by my best friend at the time and while the characters started out as friends, they slowly became rivals. These two characters became patrons (in a Godfather-esque way) of rival factions amongst the other player characters. We actually had tons of fun with our characters doing this, using the other characters as chess pieces - although that wasn't really our goal. Our goal was to be the first with one of every magic item in the book. I seem to recall we both got close before we retired the characters. I think I still have Elector's final Permanent Character Record Sheet somewhere in my filing cabinet...
Why an Elf F/MU/T? Well, dude, what couldn't he do (except cast healing, but that's what potions were for)? Deep character motivation was not really necessary for our group, it was 1st edition after all.
Thanks so much everybody. I love hearing why people are interested in what has become one of my favorite past times!
way back in 1982. It was a pre-generated fighter. Basic ragtag no frills hack-n-slash fighter...because it was a quick way to get in an ongoing game that my cousin was running. After that I was stuck. Rolling up as many characters as I could and playing them at every opportunity. man I love this game...lol
Rage