D&D General Who was your first character, and do you still play them?

[Nikosandros]

It's interesting how many of you played Halflings as your first characters. Was it because of The Hobbit/Lord of the Rings?

I honestly can't recall my reasoning back then, but it does seem extremely likely in my case.

 

[Demetrios1453]

Early 2e elf wizard, back in college. One of my first actions was to cast  sleep and no one warned me about how AoE worked (and 2e was unforgiving about that!) until the DM maliciously chuckled and the players with characters I unknowingly just put to sleep went "Noooooooooooooo!" Luckily it was a pretty easy encounter, so enough people were unaffected and made sure no monsters were able to slit any characters' throats.

 

[Tonguez]

It's interesting how many of you played Halflings as your first characters. Was it because of The Hobbit/Lord of the Rings?

In Basic it was because Halfling was a stealth class without being the Thief

 

[greymist]

1978 I believe. Human thief, name long forgotten. Wasn’t played after that very first session because he died in about 45 minutes from being rolled up!

 

[Gus L]

In 1984 I rolled up a fighter named Charlie. He was grey oozed to death in the Caves of Chaos.

RIP Charlie the Level 2 Fighter.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Lothric Skullsplitter, a half-ogre fighter from around 1983. I haven't played them since, but I guess they would be a goliath barbarian if I remade them now.

 

[Hriston]

My first character was Albion, a human paladin, whom I made in 1981 or shortly thereafter. I named him after the giant son of Neptune whom I read about in Our Island Story by H. E. Marshall, a children's history of England. He was like a representation of my higher self, at least 6 feet tall with blonde hair and blue eyes. He wore plate and wielded a two-handed sword. I recall seeing a character sheet for him advanced up to 10th level, although I don't remember hardly any of the gameplay that got him there.

 

[Niafel]

I don't remember any of my first characters because they were just names slapped on mechanics, with no back story or personality whatsoever. (Well, that's not entirely true--I remember Felix the halfling solely because he was a spoof of the blood-thirsty DM's DMNPC. The DM did not appreciate him.) My first character-character was Shinann, a...human?...ranger. I actually don't remember her original race because after the party jumped down a well in the first session (?) and ended up in a neutral evil plane (??), the goddess of that plane turned her into a member of a homebrew shapechanger race--a boon in exchange for a favor later. This was back in 1989-90, and time has not been kind to my memory (as you've probably already realized), but I seem to recall that this led to a super angsty, drama-filled plotline that the party somehow survived, and her kids eventually became NPCs in the setting.

...I bet I still have her character sheet somewhere.

 

[Burnside]

Backstabber, a Thief from the Mentzer BECMI in fall 1986. 20 or so minutes into my first game, in the very first combat encounter, he was quickly paralyzed, killed, and eaten by a carrion crawler.

 

[uzirath]

It was around 1980, Holmes Basic with chits instead of dice. I still recall the excitement of fumbling for the little things inside these old waxy paper cups. My dad was the DM running In Search of the Unknown for my brother and me at the dining room table. I was a magic user with 2 hit points, tragically killed by a skeleton in an alcove along the first hallway.

Despite my extremely short lifespan, I was hooked and couldn't wait to make my next character.