D&D General Of the 15 D&D characters I can remember playing, 8 of them were human

[el-remmen]

I sat down on whim and decided to try to make a list of every PC I've played in any ongoing campaign since I first started playing D&D to see what if anything my choices said about me. I wish I could remember what levels these reached, but I cannot. I think the highest was 7th (the final character listed) but the rest probably lasted ranging from 2nd to 6th level or so. I can't recall any BECMI or 1E characters, but I mostly DMed back then (such as it was) and many games collapsed before they'd barely begun. My very first character was a BECMI Elf called "Quasar" but I played exactly ONE adventure with him.

• Borinskaya (drow fighter/rogue) - Forgotten Realms - 2E (inactive) [1992-93]
• Mauldin Burr (halfling psionicist/rogue) - Forgotten Realms - 2E (RIP) [1993]
• Alderaan Ebonkin (high elven fighter/magic-user - bladesinger) - Forgotten Realms - 2E (inactive) [1993-94]
• Lil Faust - (halfling rogue) - Forgotten Realms - 2E (inactive) [1993-94]
• Tim-Tim (human wild mage) - Forgotten Realms - 2E (RIP) [1995]*
• Thorn of the North (human ranger) - Forgotten Realms - 2E (RIP) [1996]
• Dwen - (dwarven fighter) - Forgotten Realms - 2E (RIP) [1996]
• Julien Al-Majir (human psionicist) - Forgotten Realms - 2E (inactive) [1997]
• Tooth-puller - (dwarven psionicist/fighter) - Alterran (friend's homebrew) - 2E (inactive) [1997]*
• Autumn Rain of Fallon (human cleric) (inactive) [1998]
• Ethan the Pearl (human wizard - abjurer) (inactive) [1998]*
• Henry Beetle Hough (human fighter) - 2E/3E Aquerra (inactive) [1999-2000]
• Scar Lastborn (lizardfolk fighter) - 3E Aquerra/Spelljammer (inactive) [2000-01]
• Jonas Fawkes (human bard/fighter) - 3E Aquerra (inactive) [2003-04]
• Hol of Ahto (human fighter/cleric) - 3E Aquerra (inactive) [2012-2016]

I have only run 5E and have not played in it.


So breaking it down a little bit:

By Lineage
2 halflings
1 high elf
1 drow
2 dwarves
1 lizardfolk
8 humans

By Class
Psionicists 3 (two multi-classed)
Clerics 2 (one multi-classed)
Fighters 8 (six multi-classed)
Bards 1 (multi-classed)
Ranger 1
Rogues 3 (two multi-classed)
Wizards 3 (one multi-classed)

By Setting
Forgotten Realms 8
Aquerra (my homebrew, but run by someone else) 6
Other homebrew 1

* I brought back these PCs (or alternate versions of them) as NPCs in other games once the original games were inactive.

The oddest thing to me is that despite clerics being my favorite class and gnomes my favorite people, I have only played two of the former and NONE of the latter! Weird.

What are your stats like?

Edited to add another that came to me!

 

[TwoSix]

Ooh, that's tough. Hard to remember pre-college, most of our high school games were very fluid and rarely lasted more than a session or two. Excluding oneshots, since college, I had:

Human wizard [2E, Birthright]
Fire genasi fighter/wizard [2E, Planescape]
Human paladin [2E, homebrew]
Human psion [3E, homebrew]
Human healer [3.5, homebrew]
Aasimar archivist [3.5, homebrew]
Tiefling warlord [4e, homebrew]
Halfling wizard/IotSV [3.5, homebrew]
Halfling spirit shaman [3.5, homebrew]
Human beguiler [3.5, homebrew]
Human barbarian/shaman [3.5, homebrew]
Human beguiler/wizard/ultimate magus [3.5, homebrew]
Halfling summoner [PF1, homebrew]
Hobgoblin sorcerer [5e, homebrew]
Elf rogue/warmage [5e, homebrew]
Elf warmage [5e, homebrew]
Minotaur cleric [5e, homebrew]
Half-elf cleric/rogue/warlock [5e, homebrew]
Human noble [5e, homebrew]
Human magus [5e, Ravenloft]
Half-elf warlock [5e, Ravenloft]
Half-elf diviner (homebrew cleric) [5e, Eberron]
Human wizard [5e, Tal'dorei]
Elf bard [5e, Tal'dorei]
Human druid [5e, Tal'dorei]

Mostly I've played in people's personal settings, although we've moved into some of the published settings more recently. Definitely played humans and strongheart halflings in 3.5 for the bonus feat, still play them a lot now for the bonus feat. I also have an extremely difficult time not playing a spellcaster, I've never played a straight fighter or rogue. Best I've done is some gish types over the years.

 

[el-remmen]

Definitely played humans and strongheart halflings in 3.5 for the bonus feat, still play them a lot now for the bonus feat. I also have an extremely difficult time not playing a spellcaster, I've never played a straight fighter or rogue. Best I've done is some gish types over the years.

I have never chosen a race for my characters based on mechanical aspects (though sometimes I choose classes in part b/c I want to try some mechanic I have never before that seems cool). I am a "character idea first" type of player.

On the other hand, because of this I have hard time not multi-classing (and basically since multi-classing became accessible to humans (something we houseruled late in our 2E playing) basically every character I played either planned to multi-class or started that way if made above 1st level.

 

[Mannahnin]

Fun thread. I had compiled/gone through a bunch of my old PCs during the Memorable Characters thread from last summer, so I have a bunch of this data in a Word doc.

Out of the 25 D&D characters I can think of whom I played for long periods, half of them have been human.

The below numbers are only for D&D, of course, and only characters from reasonably long-running games. We played a bunch more short-lived ones in 2nd ed with a particular DM who was a fountain of creativity but often had games crash/became bored of them after a pretty brief run. Not counting conventions or one-shots either, of course, where I tried out lots of other stuff.

I was a huge multi-classing guy for a long time and as a consequence, prior to 3rd ed I mostly played Elves & Half-Elves. I still occasionally do, but mix in more stuff now. Humans being actually good in 3rd ed and 4th was great, and 4th ed giving Fighters so many cool options and abilities encouraged me to finally player some single-classed Fighters.

Races/Lineages
13 Humans
5 Elves
3 Half Elves
1 Trollborn (setting-specific Half Orc variant)
1 Dwarf
1 Spellscale
1 Goliath Revenant (reskinned as a big human animated as a zombie)

Classes
3 Fighters (OD&D, 4E, 4E)
3 Cleric/Fighters (3.0/3.5, 3.5, 3.5)
2 Rangers (3.5)
1 Cleric (War) (5E)
1 Fighter/Magic-User (OD&D)
1 Fighter/Specialty Priest (war)/Wizard (2E)
1 Elementalist Specialty Wizard (Earth) (2E)
1 Sorcerer/Fighter/Knight of the Great Kingdom/Paladin (3.0)
1 Wizard/Paladin/Eldritch Knight/True Elf (3.0/3.5)
1 Rogue/Hexblade/Scout/Fighter (3.5)
1 Skald (4E)
1 Paladin (4E)
1 Artificer (4E)
1 Blackguard (4E)
1 Rogue (4E)
1 Shadowcaster (3.5)
1 Swordsage (3.5)
1 Warblade/Rogue (3.5)
1 Wizard (Diviner) (5E)
1 Half Elf (OSE Advanced)

 

[TwoSix]

I have never chosen a race for my characters based on mechanical aspects (though sometimes I choose classes in part b/c I want to try some mechanic I have never before that seems cool). I am a "character idea first" type of player.

Yea, I generally have trouble with coming up with concepts from a blank slate; even for non-D&D games I prefer games with playbooks or some other built in tropes I can play around with. Within D&D, I usually come up with a mechanical hook or just a class I'm interested in (archer bard, melee druid), and then pick race and other options and derive some roleplaying tics from there.

 

[steeldragons]

Hmmm...this will be a challenge.

Well, like Julie Andrews said, "Let's start at the very beginning...it's a very good place to start."

Montor Dragonwing: Human/Magic-user (B/X, BECM, and into 1e)
Lela "the Cleric", later fully named Lela Uth Mitar: Human (female)/Cleric B/X, BECM, 1e, reintroduced at high level in 2e)
Silvaran : Elf...well, "Elf" for B/X, BECM, and became an Elf/Fighter-MU for 1e.
Carak Hillside: Halfling in BECM, transitioned into a Halfling/Fighter-Thief for 1e.
Rhea WIllowlake: Human (female)/Illusionist (originally) in 1e. Added psionic powers to her at some point. Served a brief stint in a Marvel's FASERIP game where she was a (generally illusionist) sorceress/psychic powered superhero, and was later reworked into a homebrewed Psychic with predominantly telepathic (used to generate several illusion effects) powers and major NPC for my campaign setting.
"Silver": Elf/Thief-Acrobat in 1e.
Aline "Truesight": Half-elf(female)/Ranger-Cleric in 1e & 2e.
Gnimilious "Gnim" Soile "Greatest Magician of Gnomes": Gnome/Illusionist-Thief 1e & 2e.
Jasilith Korindor: Elf/Ranger-Cleric in 2e.
Cyntal: Half-elf (female)/Cleric-Mage in 2e.
...there have been a great number more characters through 1 & 2e...Many never even got around to play or became favored NPCs. I don't recall them all...

Fast forward a couple of decades and we get to my (relatively recent) entrance into a Pathfinder group in a few homebrew settings and other games within Golarion. So, most recently:
Aevareth: Elf/Witch-Psychic.
Arashi: Elf/Druid.
Jevan: Halfling/Ranger.
Korillian "Kori" Bloodmoon: Half-elf/Magus.

Hmmm. Yeah. Humans aren't a huge draw for me. I can be one of those every day.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

For the purposes of winnowing out the "I played this character a few times and got bored," I decided that the characters would all have to be at least 5th level to count as significant:

BECMI D&D
Fairblade Fighter
Shasack Magic-User
Ralif Redhammer Dwarf

AD&D 1e
Scythonarak Elven Assassin
Morgan Talistar Human Magic-User
Beowulf Human Fighter
Dalon Lionheart Human Cleric
Stitch Gnome Cleric

AD&D 2e
Emerlin Watchever Dwarven Cleric
Brother Toril Human Cleric

D&D 3e
Hrothrak Redhammer Dwarven Bard

D&D 4e
Akratos Noone Tiefling Rogue
Osvik Redhammer Dwarven Paladin

D&D 5e
Malrek Redhammer Dwarven Bard
Akratos Noone (again) Tiefling Rogue
Osdred Deepdelve Dwarven Cleric


Six humans
Five clerics
Four dwarves

One metric I noticed is that once I hit 3e, when level limits were tossed out, the percentage of humans drops to zero pretty much (there are maybe one or two that didn't make the level threshold).

 

[Mannahnin]

One metric I noticed is that once I hit 3e, when level limits were tossed out, the percentage of humans drops to zero pretty much (there are maybe one or two that didn't make the level threshold).

This is interesting. For me it was the opposite.

But then, when I was younger and we were playing AD&D we didn't generally get up to high enough level for the level limits to be a real issue.

In AD&D the availability of multiclassing to demihumans made them extremely appealing. After 3rd ed came out and humans got actual racial benefits and more flexible multiclassing, they became a favored choice for me.

 

[Faolyn]

Huh. I'm not sure I've ever played a human in a game where nonhumans were a thing. But on the other hand, I've also very rarely played anthro races. I think a character I made for an upcoming game might be the very first anthro. I've always either played animals or "demihuman" types.

I should probably play a human soon.

 

[Voadam]

As best as I can recall in chronological order. There may have been some more early on that I am forgetting and some I marked with ? at the end I have only vague memories of. I remember the thief I got given to play at my first game though. A ? at the beginning means I can't remember the character's name.

? Human Thief - AD&D 1e
? Dwarf - B/X
? Elf - B/X?
? (Human) Fighter? - B/X
? Gray Elf Fighter? - 1e
? Gnome Fighter? - 1e
? Human Druid - 1e
? Dwarf Fighter? - 1e
? Minotaur Fighter - 1e
? Human Barbarian - 1e
? Human Cleric - 1e
? Human Magic-User - 1e
Voadam Human Fighter/Wizard - AD&D 2e
? Dwarf Thief - 2e
? Elf Thief/Wizard - 2e
Wieve Dragonslayer Elf Cleric/Wizard - 2e
? Elf Transmuter - 2e
?Warrick Human Fighter 2e
Voadam Human Fighter/Magic-User - 1e
Voadam Human Ranger/Monk/Wizard - 3.0
Voadam Human Ranger/Wizard - 3.5
Harl Gurrok Ghelspad Mountain Dwarf Barbarian - 3.5
Jaros Blak Human Rogue - 3.5
Kyron Shadowstalker Luminous Cleric - 3.5 (with a 3.0 race)
Kur Blackfang Orc Barbarian/Rogue - 3.5
Jair Feyfriend Human Druid - 3.5
Sir Vanden Hagel Human Soulknife/Paladin - 3.5
Gregor Hanville Giant Giant - 3.5 (with Arcana Unearthed race and class)
Haakon Advanced Gargoyle Fighter/Barbarian - 3.5
Enthalus Moonwillow Elven Bard - 3.5
Aristogoras Human Soulknife - 3.5
Wollf Henger Aranea Rogue/Warshaper - 3.5
Voadam the Traveller Human Ranger/Wizard - 3.5
Snargle Jungle Troll Barbarian - 3.5
Konrad Stonefish Dwarf Monk -3.5
Hael Boudin Duergar Ranger -3.5
Aeligim Telrunya Elf Hexblade -3.5
Heartseer Jitock Pterran Telepath -3.5
Voadam the Green Wizard Human Barbarian/Wizard -3.5
Thoma Griffith Orc Barbarian -3.5
Bruce Selya Human Acrobat - 3.5
Wollf Henger Aranea Rogue/Warshaper - 3.5
Kinan Goleman Half-Ogre Noble 3.5
Xi-Selorn Giant Warmain - 3.5 (with Arcana Unearthed race and class)
Snargle Fiendish Troll Rogue - 3.5
Jack Morrow Half-Elf Ranger - 3.5
Voadam Aasimar Wizard - 3.5
Voadam Human Ranger/Wizard - 3.5
Kalenestarianthalus 'Kalen' Floriandin Gray Elven Beguiler - 3.5
Voadam Human Ranger/Monk/Rogue - Everquest RPG
Lorricallior Wild Elf Dragonfire Adept - 3.5
Orman Stahl Human Swashbuckler - 3.5
Voadam Human Ranger - 3.5
Garn Half-Orc Rogue - 3.5
Robert Sack Halfling Complete Book of Eldritch Might Bard
Josea Cabranes Gnome Druid - 3.5
Arne Derro Unholy Warrior - 3.5
Raggi Half-Giant Druid - 3.5
Jakobee Cyr Human Warlock - 3.5
Sir Conrad Cyr Tiefling Soulknife - 3.5
Voadam Aasimar Wizard - 3.5
Kordunn Asteroth Gold Dwarf Paladin/Sorcerer - 3.5
Inquisitor Miltiades Human Cleric - 3.5
Sir Merrick Garland Aasimar Fighter - 3.5
Richard Human Wizard - 4e
Voadam Human Ranger - 4e
Voadam Human Warlord - 4e
Voadam Human Swordmage - 4e
Voadam Genasi Swordmage - 4e
Voadam Human Wizard - Pathfinder 1e
Voadam Human Ranger/Wizard - Pathfinder 1e
Sansu Carney Tielfing Soulknife - Pathfinder 1e
Voadam Human Fighter/Monk/Wizard - Pathfinder 1e
Anton Canter Human Sorcerer - Pathfinder 1e
Father Andrew MacKenzie Human Wisdom - d20 Modern
? Human - d20 homebrew
? Human - d20 homebrew
Voadam Human Bard - 5e
? Half-Orc Barbarian - 5e
Konrad Marxhammer Dwarf Cleric - 5e
Ezmerelda Flesh Golem Fighter/Wizard - 5e

A lot of the 3.5 ones were played here.

So 81 characters total. A pretty good mix of standards and fairly exotic concepts.

19 different incarnations of my eponymous viking wizard character across eight different editions/game systems using nine different classes in various switch class/multiclass/gestalt/single class configurations.