The person on the paper. (Most memorable characters.)

[SuperJebba]

One of my most favorite characters was Haxon, a LE favored soul of Hextor. His goal was to be a tyrant, and everything I did was to achieve those ends.

I had a great supporting cast for becoming a tyrant, too. One of my buddies was a necromancer and the other was an assassin. We started by implanting necrotic cysts on prominent people throughout town and killing those who wouldn't succumb.

Then once I had the town council in my pocket, I journeyed into the mountains to a lost cathedral to Hextor. I recovered the Gauntlets of the Blood Lord and and managed to move the temple to the center of town in order to rebuild it. Hextor was pleased with me so he gave me a contingent of 20 tiefling blackguards. It. Was. Awesome!

Then I took the Craft Magic Arms and Armor feat and crafted myself Devil Armor. Same thing as the Demon Armor for the DMG.

After that, I got called to an outlying village to deal with a disturbance there. I found a man tied up on an altar at the bottom of a house. I asked him who the owner of the house was and he said it was him so I killed him. What's awesome is that the adventure stated that anyone who killed someone on the altar automatically gains a level in blackguard and can continue advancing in the class. What was really fun was that the altar was built to Orcus and it was he who granted me the power. Obviously, I wasn't going to do anything for Orcus so he started sending minions after me.

Finally, I managed to attract the attention of the Order of Illumination, an order of goodly knights. We waged an epic battle outside Caedex, the city I built, that culminated with the appearance of a couple of solars. I destroyed them. It was awesome.

The whole campaign, Haxon was ruthless and ambitious and I had a great DM who was great at coming up with material on the fly. I've never had more fun with a character.

 

[Greenfield]

When I create a character I like to sit down and think of the person I'm going to portray before I ever touch a die or even think about numbers.

One of my earliest was Brother Brian, a Cleric of Dagda (Celtic mythology). It just tickled me to wave a kettle in the face of a Vampire to drive him off.

I thought about what a Cleric should be in a world like that, a world where deities take a very active role, and a cleric is the voice of their deity in the mortal world. A cleric wouldn't run on "faith", nor would he ask others to accept what he said on faith. He could absolutely prove that his deity was real, and that what he said was true.

So, looked at this way, how could a cleric be anything but a religious fanatic? A man without anything resembling doubt about the course he had chosen, and who was empowered by his deity to perform miracles, large and small in that deity's name would have to be unwavering in his pursuit of the deity's goals.

So Brother Brian was going to go out and preach the word of Dagda to the unbelievers. He understood that many believed in other gods, and he accepted that.

They were just wrong. And he was going to tell them so.

He got sort of ruined for play after a while though. Went through a Monty Haul module called Castle Amber module ("Expert" D&D, for those who remember it), and came away with wings and a few other things that made him unplayable in any normal game. Backtracking him just seemed wrong though, so I retired him.

But he was fun while he lasted.

 

[xigbar]

I really love "exceptions to the rule" characters. I haven't played it yet, but my female 15 year old Tiefling Wizard should be great fun to roleplay. She was left at an orphanage in a isolated mountain town, and only had red hair and eyes as traces of demon blood, so people just assumed she was an unusual human, and were kind to her. Teachers at the local wizards academy adopted her, so she learned magic from an early age. Her "family" comes to take her from the village, because she is the last descendant of demon royalty. Being neutral good, and not knowing what's going on, she tries to flee, and one of the other students helps her escape to a town a couple of days from the mountain her town is on. The other student distracted the demons, and allowed to her to get away to the town, and she will have been working at the towns library for 6 months when the campaign starts, looking for her friend who saved her. Eberron setting.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

When I create a character I like to sit down and think of the person I'm going to portray before I ever touch a die or even think about numbers.

That's a good starting place, to be sure.

However, I'll take inspiration wherever I find it. Music, videos, movies, books...a weapon entry, a cool spell...whatever.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Azura, Human Paladin 1Ed;

She was born the daughter of a fisherman, and grew up mending nets and catching fish. However, she grew unusually large- nearly 7' tall- and soon found she was unable to safely work in her father's skiff. So she was apprenticed to the local mason, where her uncanny size and strength were an asset. Then she heard The Call. Her god asked her to take up arms in a particular cause. However, as a low-caste peasant, she could not legally carry a sword or most other weapons without risking arrest...and execution. To avoid that risk, she used one of the tools of her trade as weapons- a Maul- and carried other weapons as permitted to her status, like an oversized dagger (shortsword) and sling.

 

[Hexer]

Is this only for D&D and/or only Pen&Paper game characters?

I only ever played 2 D&D chars (my first P&P chars ever, too) but I could contribute a little more if its not restricted to that as I have played online RP before I got into D&D (I dont mean MMORPGs or the likes, more freeform stuff that actually involved roleplaying )

The 2 D&D chars I have/had so far are:

Crogan, 3.5 fighter/order of the bow initiate
He was my very first char, widely designed with the help of more experienced friends without a lot of background. He was more of a "what kinda guy could be useful to the party?" type of char. Rather quiet guy in the background, great spotter and good medium distance combat archer (friends nicknamed him "shotgun")

Sceron, 3.5 Warlock/to be Hellfire Warlock (the one I currently play)
Much more interesting to me than the previous char since I've got a lot more ideas for this one and more background also. The whole party origins from the same village where Sceron and his dad were the local hunters though he never was particularly good at that and eventually went to organizing the other hunters instead. Right now he (and the rest of the party) are fascinated and kinda scared by his recently developing powers as a Warlock. He'll become a pretty dark, kinda intimidating kinda character shattering things with his voice, spiderclimbing up everything and teleporting around and all that before finally going down the hellfire route for those rage moments. He will also be a loyal follower to a godess my DM allowed me to make up myself but he has not got in contact with her so far (we're on lvl2 still)

 

[Empirate]

Since I usually sit in the DM's chair, I only ever played two PCs in D&D 3.5:


Ushummu, a Shadar-Kai (Fiend Folio) Shadowwalker (Unapproachable East) Rogue, going into Telflammar Shadowlord

Ushummu's mother was a powerful Shadar-Kai cleric of Mask who never left the Plane of Shadow. In her book, the Shadar-Kai's shadow curse isn't a curse, it's a sign of the god's special blessing. Ushummu's father, however, dwelt on the Material Plane for many years and had quite a few adventures with humanoid friends and companions. When the shadow curse struck and he had to flee failing life to the Plane of Shadow, his new love (U.'s mom) was the only thing saving him from desperation.
So when Ushummu as a babe was taken by his mother into the dark forests to be invested with a seed of Mask's godly essence, his father grieved that his son would never enjoy color and life and light. Ushummu's parents separated soon after, and his father tried to raise him in the spirit of the seelie fey. He even sent him through a portal to the Material Plane when he was grown.
So now Ushummu dwells on the Prime Material and tries to find out what the hell he should believe: is he a stalker of prey, a beast cloaked in shadows, the Hidden Hunter - or a merry fey made for revel and companionship? He's trying hard to make friends and act 'human'. But much of the time, gloomy spells and half-remembered memories of his Shadowy childhood plague him and make him surly and antisocial. And all the while, Mask and his priestess have been hatching plans for him...

Mechanical side: already built into the choice of race (plus template) and class are many stealth-related abilities, super-high Dex, sneak attack, and a little bit of shadow-related supernatural stuff. Pity I never played more than a few sessions with Ushummu!



Damon Mondeval of Stormholt, Human Evoker

This is the PC I'm playing right now. Damon is the child of a minor noble family in the Western Heartlands of Faerûn. Because of his being born with the Talent, he was sent to Calimshan at an early age, to study magic. However, after only a year, the monthly stipend from his family stopped arriving, his hosts turned him out, and the academy evicted him. Damon never found out what had happened at home, and was forced to live in the streets for years, just another orphan boy in the endless slums of Calimport.
His only worldly possession, a big, old and dented, brass oil lamp that had been in his family's possession for ages, became the focus of his longing - and his blooming magic. At night, it would whisper of secrets in the desert, buried beneath the sands, of the power of the storm, and of age-old wonders untold. When Damon was 14, he earned and stole as much money as he could and followed the lure of the desert.
Nearly dying of thirst, he finally reached a ruined city half-covered by sand, and found his new master, a Djinni bound to the city, who taught him the ancient desert magics of sand and storm. Now a powerful mage, Damon has returned to the Western Heartlands to discover what has happened to his family, and to regain his rightful place as heir of Stormholt.

Mechanics: Damon is a simple Evoker in a low-level game. His spell selection emphasises his desert&storms theme. The Spellcasting Thematics and Energy Substitution (Lightning) feats give Damon a 'stormy' feel, and I'll take Storm Bolt at the next opportunity. I also have the Bloodline of Fire regional feat, refitted as Bloodline of Storms. Due to high caster level on my lightning spells, blasting is actually a viable strategy for me - not least because we started at 3rd level and won't see higher than 8th in this campaign.
I'll never forget the look on my co-gamers' faces when my Mount spell summoned a dromedar for our proud Cormyrian Paladin to ride on!

 

[marcielle]

Most memorable character was someone else's

Pass, Human cleric of Pelor

Preachiest preacher. His player and the DM arranged it so he would often say something slightly wrong and be totally misunderstood. He ended up being run out of a village because they though he was a gay pedo. Then he ended up getting run out of a highly magical city cos they thought he was a demon traficker. THEN, he got sold out to demons cos we players thought he was fallen. After a miserable and hilarious existence, he finally met an end befitting someone of his long suffering nobility.

He was impaled by a lounge rhino upon returning from a long day of getting ambushed by krakens ( father, then son, then hormonally-fueled-vengeful-mother).

 

[FEADIN]

When I started 30 years ago the back story was not the important part it was more roll playing than role playing even if the wonders of the adventures were very important to me, when I look back and think to all the marvels my PC lived (and died sometimes) I think I'm going to cry.
The PC who lived on from the earlier days got a personnality adventure after adventure because the evnts and those they met changed their lives.
One example:
I started to play a female cleric of Anu (summérian god of air and weather) in ADD in some adventures, nothing special and no real backstory reaching 12th level I decided to multiclass to Thief (my favorite class I think...) I leveled up quickly (for this older edition) went to 2ed and I one day I thoudht about her past I decided she was married to another priest that they divorced and this was the reason behind the change of class that they had 3 childs (twins!!!) and so on.
One day she met another PC played by a friend a plaldin follower of Thor he fell in love with me I had 26 Charisma a very big score on those days and we had a child who became a paladin played by this friend.
In the last adventure we played together his paladin was killed by the sword master with a trick from Loki he went to Vallhala and became a demi god.
Some years later the same DM made another adventure where we met again with some other heroes beyond the rainbow bridge and tried to stop again the coming of Ragnarok.
This PC started with no background but has played so many adventures than she is more living than some real life persons.

 

[Summer-Knight925]

When I started 30 years ago the back story was not the important part it was more roll playing than role playing even if the wonders of the adventures were very important to me, when I look back and think to all the marvels my PC lived (and died sometimes) I think I'm going to cry.
The PC who lived on from the earlier days got a personnality adventure after adventure because the evnts and those they met changed their lives.
One example:
I started to play a female cleric of Anu (summérian god of air and weather) in ADD in some adventures, nothing special and no real backstory reaching 12th level I decided to multiclass to Thief (my favorite class I think...) I leveled up quickly (for this older edition) went to 2ed and I one day I thoudht about her past I decided she was married to another priest that they divorced and this was the reason behind the change of class that they had 3 childs (twins!!!) and so on.
One day she met another PC played by a friend a plaldin follower of Thor he fell in love with me I had 26 Charisma a very big score on those days and we had a child who became a paladin played by this friend.
In the last adventure we played together his paladin was killed by the sword master with a trick from Loki he went to Vallhala and became a demi god.
Some years later the same DM made another adventure where we met again with some other heroes beyond the rainbow bridge and tried to stop again the coming of Ragnarok.
This PC started with no background but has played so many adventures than she is more living than some real life persons.

that brought a tear to my eye
but seriously, letting the character become themselves is alot of fun, sitting down and picking out everything you want from 1st level to 20th is how some people play, but not me, I ,et the character become who they become, like right now I am playing an orc barbarian with an orc double axe...after rolling scores and finding a belt of giant strength +6, my strength is a 28 (rolled an 18 [+4] +4 for being an orc [puts it at 22] then ability score increases (hes 12th level, 2 in strength, 1 in constitution] and the belt=28) AND when raging he has a 32 strength, not to mention the cleric in the group as the strength domain so he always enlarges me, but did I plan any of this out?
no.
that belt changed what he was going to be about
orginially I want to play an orc barbarian who you could never hit, not he never misses

also his 7 charisma earned him the proper name of Ogen the Foul (who is roleplayed as a total...well it starts with a D and rhymes with trick, not sure if I can say that on this thread