My first time playing 3.0 and one of earliest D&D games overall was also my friend's first trial at DMing. I was the only player he had, he wanted to start a group after he knew the rules better, but he wanted to learn things a bit with me first. I didn't use pre-gens, though. I made all 4 of my characters, including personalities. I talk to myself anyway, so controlling 4 people wasn't much of a stretch. And they were so awesomely disfunctional!
The barbarian guy ("Max Power," thank you, Simpsons, for that idea
) was dating the bard, but he had a drinking problem (he'd break down and cry about how much of a failure he was when drunk), was kinda clueless, and had a wandering eye. The bard, to be fair, dressed more provacatively than he liked and enjoyed casual flirting.
The cleric was very quiet and devout, and decided to take a vow of celibacy. The paladin he shared a tent with was a "pimping paladin,"* very informal and fun-loving. And I mean that. I eventually made up pimping rules as a cha-based profession, he wore a flashy cape, big hat (+2 bonus on pmp checks) and pounded a shiny rock into a stick to be his pimping cane, which he frequently used to finish off enemies in combat (treated as a club). They would purposely antagonize each other in many ways. For example, the paladin would play his lute late into the night. He had no perform ranks. The cleric would be sure to loudly chant his prayers at the crack of dawn in retaliation.
It worked out fairly well, we only had a few sessions, but it could have lasted for a long time if we wanted. And some of my favorite personal D&D-isms and "personal rules" for future characters came from that short time. For one example...the group encountered an air elemental that was friendly, but no one knew Auran and we couldn't speak to it. Since then, any character I make, if he has a positive int score and has Auran as a bonus language choice, will learn Auran. And since then it's taken on greater meanings. In one game, my character and his unrequited love were forced apart and into hiding by a powerful dragonmarked household. Auran was the "secret language" they'd use for what rare communications they could have, often in the form of notes left where it was figured only their counterpart would think to look.
*1) I was a teenager back then, obviously I wasn't very mature. Not that I am now, either...
2) He still held ot the letter of the law of the paladin code and was as good and lawful as any other paladin.
3) I'm pretty sure this pre-dates Shilsen's much more awesome and thoroughly thought-out Sir Cedric, and even if it didn't, I wasn't aware of Cedric back then.
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