What do you try and achieve with your character?

[Lord Ipplepop]

I prefer my characters to be straight forward, in that they are the "classic" characters (no half-fiend, Elven Paladin/Illusionist), with a twist of some sort.

Examples from my own private Rogues Gallery:
Adrian (1ed)- Human Paladin. Worshipped Zues in a (mostly) European-styled setting. He actually made a deal with Asmodeus to work together to keep ORcus from taking over. I'm not getting into the Hell (pun intended) that it caused; however, he was a standard 1ed Paladin with a backstory, and a major stoyline twist.

Luther- (3.x Human bard) Standard bard (ho hum) whose personality split 4 for 1. At various times, he thought he was a LG Paladin (who worshipped the High Lord Ipplepop), a CN Gnome Illusionist, a TN Human child, and a gay Elven seamstress. Eventually, it got pretty boring, so he bought off a personality every 4 levels (every time he gained a feat, he lost a random personality... with the possibility of losing himself).

I have never, to my recollection, had a half-fiend, half-celestial fighter mage. I grew up with 1ed and stayed there my entire career... regardless of the edition I was in.

 

[UniversalMonster]

Out of the box (decidedly)

Here's my latest character: I came up with Mischief just before a session and left him broken with stats in the wrong places. (A vestige warlock with only an average Con- Vestige powers are all con-based).

The Fearless DM

It turns out, he can still kick ass as a "sort of" rogue- using curse+hand crossbow and curse+sickle gives him a 2d6+4 or 2d6 at will basic melee and ranged attack. I plan on getting Dex melee training and a weapon proficiency in rapier (or Katar) and then maaayyybe re-training one of my encounter powers in order to fix him, but he's survived one adventure this way. I might as well keep him. It's been an interesting character to play.

 

[Shemeska]

I'm not sure that I fit either catagory really. I start out with a character with a history and some in-game goals, but the character and their goals may change, perhaps radically so depending on how they evolve through the campaign, especially depending on PC and NPC interactions.

For instance, the last character I played was an elven druid, TN pretty standard motivations for his kind, in a campaign set in Netheril era FR. By the end of the campaign not only was he NE, but he'd been permenantly transformed into a shadow dragon (retaining all the druid abilities), and was lairing with and being heavily influenced by a female shadow dragon who had popped up earlier on in the campaign. Massive personality change, made for some seriously in-depth conversations with other PCs, some of whom had issues with his changes in heart at times, and his actions as he'd transitioned from TN elf to TN half-dragon to NE shadow dragon. And through the changes, he rationalized it all with his class and campaign specific ethos. Made for a really cool time playing, and barely resembled how he'd started the game, both mechanically and otherwise.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

I have played D&D since about 1976. I've played every version except 4E, which I've only read. I have never felt it NECESSARY to "go outside the box" to have a thoroughly fun, enjoyable character. I've done it, of course, but VERY little. 90% of PC's I've played have been not only by-the-book, but by-the-CORE-books characters and I don't feel as if I've missed out on a thing.