Your first tabletop character.

[MJGraham]

I think my first characters was a spear wielding priest of war with two large dogs. He was called Hathaldir, and if you think I stole the name from The Silmarillion, you are right. It was 2nd Ed. AD&D and we were using books like The Viking Campaigns Sourcebook, The Celtic Campaign Sourcebook, and two or three of the Complete X's Handbook. As I recall, I think we only used the Historical Reference books to create our characters. They didn't constrain our choices and I don't think they had any impact on the setting. I don't remember the other characters in our party to well, but I think there was a half troll runecaster, a human beast rider, and probably some kind of elf thief. There must have been some other character because I remember other players. I just have no idea what those characters were.

Our DM was pure old school and boy were we not prepared for that. I guess some might have found him adversarial, but we loved how difficult it was. He was never easy on us. He didn't pull any punches, but he was fair. I don't ever recall feeling that he was fudging the dice in his favour or that we ever got thrown into a situation where we couldn't win if we worked together and had a plan.

Our first and only adventure was a dungeon crawl. I don't remember why were there. It was probably to retrieve some magical macguffin. None of us survived. I don't remember how the other characters died, but I do recall what happened to mine. We may have already lost a member of our party when we encountered a wererat, and yes, none of us had any magical or silver weapon. Silver does work against wererats, right? We had no idea that we couldn't hurt it with any of our weapons and you've probably guessed already that we tried to fight it. I'm not sure how many characters died before we got the hint and ran for it. I know my character ran away, and I'd like to think that at least one other did as well, but I may be wrong because the last thing I can remember is wedging a door shut and hiding in a room with an angry wererat pounding on the only door in or out. I argued with the DM that my character was going to sleep there and cast cause light wounds on the wererat in the morning, but he said that the adventure was over, the rest of the party was dead and there was no reason to continue. I'd like to think that my character survived somehow. Maybe he did find a way to beat the wererat. Maybe he talked his way out of being killed. I don't know. Or better yet, perhaps he's still there in that room to this day, old and decrepit and half crazed, living off of rat carcasses, filthy dungeon water and cure light wound spells.

 

[Lwaxy]

The first I really played with some rules consistency was a DSA paladinish char named Ayla, and she still exists, albeit in a D&D/PF world as an NPC lol

But the very first... no real memory. I remember it being a gnomish mix of wizard and fighter, and we, as kinds maybe 7 or 8 or so, largely ignored char building rules (who needs balance, anyway) and made our worlds in our sandbox. It still is funny to me when people talk of sanboxing a game nowadays

 

[Isida Kep'Tukari]

I started playing when I was 12 or 13, in the early 90's, the middle of AD&D. My father taught my sister and I the ropes, and I think we only played less than a half-dozen games with his old gaming group and DM, mostly because they were scattered across three states.

My character was Anna Cale, a cleric of Nastalisa (a homebrew nature deity of healing). She fought with a tetsubo (mostly because one of the other players said than iron-shod staff was better than a quarterstaff, not because I knew anything about Asian weapons), and was the primary party healer. My sister played a cavalier, from one of the old kits, and was a Cuisinart on two legs.

I played AD&D with my dad, sister, and some of his friends a few more times (I had a second cleric, from a god of strength, in that campaign), and then eventually I went to college, and got in on the ground floor of 3.0.

That's when I made Isida Kep'Tukari, the human monk.

 

[Tonguez]

The very first was the Fighter (aka Aleenas boyfriend), I failed the saving throw but he ended up marrying the resurrected Aleena and becomg the local Baron.
Then there was a halfling (basic) whose name I cant remember, who got killed trying to run from serpent-headed mummies.

 

[KirayaTiDrekan]

My first character was also "The" Fighter from the Red Box, whom I named Duke after the G.I. Joe character. I played him in my older step-brother's campaign in the Isle of Dread and later in a homebrew adventure where he was charmed by a vampire and forced to fight his allies. After that I gave him the last name Deathstalker and set him on the path to becoming a Paladin. Unfortunately, the campaign ended shortly after that and I started DMing.

The first character I can remember actually creating on my own was Kiraya TiDrekan, my Mary Sue NPC in most D&D campaigns I've DMed since high school. She's always a wizard, regardless of edition, and usually one of the behind the scenes power players in the campaign world. Her primary motivation in helping or hindering the PCs is to make up for own mistakes and correct the paradoxes she's created via time travel.

 

[TrippyHippy]

My first character was actually given to me - a Fighter - and was assassinated by another PC - a Thief - after an inter-party conflict in his 2nd level.

The first character I actually created myself was a Magic-User (wizard) called….Wizendocatang Dinz - honestly - and was modelled somewhat (very loosely) on Rhialto the Marvellous from Jack Vance’s Dying Earth. He was a bit of a pretentious fop yet I played him up to very high levels and eventually retired him having arrogantly proclaimed himself a ‘God’. He was taken on as a PC after then. Always enjoyed playing Wizards since then…