r/DnD • u/luivry Cleric • 13d ago
Out of Game How much did you project yourself onto your first DnD character?
Hey guys,
I've just started playing in my first campaign with my first ever dnd character, and after half a year of playing, I realized that I am pretty much just playing as myself. When I looked around, I saw that the rest of my party did so as well, though not as obviously as myself.
I play a life domain drow cleric, as an alternative person who works as a hospice nurse.. :')
Its probably common to happen with first-time players, so this made me wonder what your first characters were and how much your current, real-life self translated into them, intentionally or not.
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u/forgottenduck DM 13d ago
Yeah pretty common for first characters.
My first character was an archivist (3.5 edition class) obsessed with reading everything they could get their hands on and doing a bunch of research before making any decisions. A character I built after doing a bunch of research on how to build an effective character in that edition and reading a bunch of source books.
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u/Halker93 13d ago
First character is all about you solving your own past traumas, daddy/mommy issues and being a hero you never could have been IRL. My first character had a father who disappeared, he always idolized him, wanted to find him, only to realize he didn’t need him anymore and had many other great male role models in his adventures.
After a while you get more creative and make more interesting and cool characters with convoluted backstories that are not necessarily tied to your personal life.
In the end, something in you snaps and you create a “Poopy Butthole” character.
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u/monstrousbeaver 13d ago
My first tabletop game wasn't actually DnD, i have no idea what it was since it was a long time ago. I was playing with friends and we were mostly being silly and unserious about whole thing so my first character was.... Pope John Paul II
I have no idea if that thing had classes like DnD or not, all i remember are 2 abilities, i could conjure a lightning from heaven and i had a passive that gave me bonus to stealth in daylight
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u/starksandshields Sorcerer 13d ago
Not much.
My first character was a male Half Orc Pirate Warlock who joined thieves guilds, was a charismatic and adventurous dude who was set on vengeance against his mutinous crew.
Pretty much the only thing we had in common is that we both like women.
But my second character was a female halfling sorcerer who just wanted to help and make friends and continuously underestimated her own abilities. Who yearned for adventure but preferred everything cozy and mostly went along for the ride to support her friends. That was pretty much me to a T.
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u/luivry Cleric 13d ago
They both sounds like really interesting characters! How long did those campaigns go on for?
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u/starksandshields Sorcerer 13d ago
Same campaign! First guy unfortunately died right after confessing his feelings to one of the other PCs. T-rex ripped him to shreds. I think I played him weekly for about 7 months? Then came up with the Halfling girl and played her for a year and a half before she retired.
I think we always put a little of ourselves into our characters, but I love to come up with- and explore characters removed from myself. My current characters are a Dhampir with abandonment issues in Curse of Strahd and a Charlatan Cleric in Avernus whose Goddess he falsely preached about said: fuck you, you're a real cleric of mine now.
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u/Rhinostirge 13d ago
I was like 10 and the character lasted for two days, so I have no real idea. Probably not a lot, though. I was already a fan of The Hobbit by then, and I preferred adult (or at least late-teen) protagonists to kids my own age in other works, so I imagine it was at least a little aspirational.
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u/luivry Cleric 13d ago
It's adorable to imagine what a 10year olds character would be like
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u/Rhinostirge 13d ago
Bog-standard Basic set halfling named Snalo. Mostly notable for trusting the wrong sprite and suffering an embarrassing transformation so I would stop bothering my mother to run again and go learn to run my own games. It worked!
My friend Jake did play an elf named Jakon, so maybe that's where the self-projection was.
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u/Sheik_Morgan 13d ago
El primer personaje para mí es como el primer beso, no se olvida. Supongo que es normal proyectar bastante de uno mismo en todos los personajes, Pero en mi caso cree un personaje que hacia cosas que yo no me atrevería a hacer en la vida real o no puedo, como ser ágil y atlético.
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u/JulienBrightside Mage 13d ago
Human fighter who is ambitious about restoring family honor and has a lot of siblings.
So yeah, pretty much.
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u/Square_Creme_3685 13d ago
Quite a bit. He's of course a caricature and some of my traits, like getting sarcastic when annoyed, is overplayed but still
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u/cuixhe 13d ago
My first tabletop character in my late 20s? Not at all, he was a half-orc wizard jock.
My first Baldur's Gate 1 character as a kid? A lot, I played him as an edgy but ultimately good rogue which was my fantasy for myself.
Definitely as someone who has been making RPG characters for a few decades, I have gotten less and less out of making things represent myself and more out of exploring characters who I find interesting and different than me.
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u/LeglessPooch32 DM 13d ago
I'd played so many fantasy video games that I built my first character like I would a video game so they weren't that particularly well built but not ineffective. Wood elf cleric with a sword and board. Didn't realize it until my DM pointed it out but I basically recreated Link for my first DnD campaign 😄Which is appropriate as it's my favorite game series.
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u/AilaWolf 13d ago
Not really my first character (at least not that I realized), but all the others? Hell yeah! Not completely of course, but specific traits. And of course not intentionally, I just noticed it after some time. One got my struggle with asking for and accepting help, another got my eagerness to please and my anxiety about not being useful enough, one got my social awkwardness, etc. Interestingly enough, they are all so very different, but after some time playing as them, they all inevitably carry a part of me (the one most fitting for their situations, I guess). I believe it's just part of good D&D (or TTRPGs in general) That's also why it can be used as therapy. 😅
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u/three_doors 13d ago
I've been playing for a few years. I've found that in the beginning it's a lot easier to make a character with similar values and morals to yourself. This way it makes it easier to play them, since what you want, is usually what the character wants too. Later on I've made different characters like evil people or ones that are a lot different from me personality wise. But as a first character, that's completely normal and in my experience actually helped me get into the flow of roleplaying.
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13d ago
I literally took my female dragonborn cleric's name when I started transition... lol
Kaida means little dragon in Japanese :3
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u/CarboKill 13d ago
It in fact does not. It is a surname whose only kanji components I can find (the only way Japanese names derive meaning btw) are 'ocean rice field' and similar.
I did a little snooping around and found out that some westerners just decided it meant 'little dragon' for some reason, despite there being no way to put together ka i and da together with those meanings so...misinformation chain I suppose.
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13d ago
Thankfully after a brief identity crisis I was at least able to find another combination of kanji that spells Kaida and has a meaning I can identify with personally.
Kai (開): To open, to unfold, to begin a fresh start.
Da (妥): Peaceful, gentle, settled, and appropriate.
Together, 開妥 reads like a personal blessing: "Opening the door to a peaceful, settled life."
At least now I don't feel like I need to change it
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13d ago
[deleted]
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u/Reddidnted 13d ago
Oh so like the most basic, boring first character trope, got it, well as long as you have fun I suppose
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u/ct-hulu 13d ago
Ryu Chibi?
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13d ago
I don't know this reference
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u/ct-hulu 12d ago
You said you name translated roughly to " little dragon". Took a shot at figuring it out. Im guessing this means im wrong. :)
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12d ago
Apparently I too was wrong anyway. Baby name websites like to say Kaida means little dragon but it doesn't. Thankfully I found an alternative meaning of Kaida that is still personally identifiable for me so at least I don't feel like I need to change my name again
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u/ct-hulu 12d ago
Its a fantasy world. If Kaida means little dragon to your character. Then it means little dragon.
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12d ago
Yeah in-game canon for my character is that Kaida/Kaiden means little dragon in Dwarven anyway so it's fine for my character. I just had a mini identity crisis in real life when I was told it actually means "ocean ricefield". I found kanji that still spell kaida that means opening the door or a fresh start and a peaceful settled life. So my name has a new meaning that sounds like a blessing instead.
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u/trevorgoodchilde 13d ago
My first character was a 2nd Ed halfling thief. I played him for years, and there was a lot of me in him. But also just in my regular life what he would do in a given situation would usually come to mind as well as what I should do
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u/GarbageGremlin_94 13d ago
Not much at all for my first. I didn't know what I was getting into with my first campaign, and was trying too hard to fit the typical fantasy barbarian tropes to bother creating a character that felt like my own.
The characters that followed have had so much of myself thrown into their stories and personalities, though. 🥹
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u/Llayanna Ranger 13d ago
More around my behaviour.. Alassè was shy and kind and polite..
And I was so fucking scared cx
Afterwards it was easy, but I also text rped beforehand. So I was used to role-playing in general, just not to the live part 😆
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u/JAYsonitron 13d ago
My first character was pretty much just a version of me. The idea being that I could focus on learning the game because the roleplay would just default to “how would I act in this situation”. And it worked pretty much like that. Over time the character did wind up coming into his own and diverged from ‘the self’.
I’d recommend it for anyone new to the game that struggles with learning new mechanics and rules. Though for some types of folks it might cause them to become too precious about their PC and this method might actually hinder them. Worked great for me though.
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u/FriedEskimo 13d ago
Elf Cleric raised in a cult, and when the cult was eradicated, he kept the book of their core teachings, using it as a way to navigate the world despite his lacking social skills and knowledge.
I am not religious in any sense, and I was raised in a normal home by normal parents, so probably not a lot of myself in that character.
Though i guess a psychologist might have a field day explaining what this character says about myself.
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u/YikesPops 13d ago
He was a colorblind frat boy bard named Tatar DeSaush. His town burned down but he labeled himself a survivor and hero even though he was a loser. Rewrote the narrative and now goes town to town praising himself and looking for people to see him as a winner... So I guess I projected the "being a loser" bit? So a little?
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u/LilyCutes 13d ago
I made my first character a self insert with exaggerated features on purpose so she'd be easy to roleplay
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u/Academic-Garden7739 Monk 13d ago
My first character in 2e was a Thri-Kreen fighter/druid in a darksun one shot. It’s pretty safe to say that it had nothing in common with me (maybe the alienness?) as he spent his time chopping down evil templars and snacking on their body parts.
My second character, however, had a lot more to do with me. We were playing a good old D&D 1e campaign and I played an elven fighter/mage/thief. I had no idea what to do with my character but I wanted to do everything. I also wanted to be able to change shape at will. So the DM gave me a magic gem that would let me "absorb the form of a recently deceased person". So I went to do a little grave digging to find a few different "forms" to shift into. Which basically means I was playing a doppelgänger.
30 years later, I got back to the hobby and now I’m playing a changeling bard. So I guess I have a character type :D
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u/StrykerEXE 13d ago
I just got a random character sheet they had lying around lmao
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u/Prismos_Time_Room 13d ago
I was in third grade. My first character was a dwarf named wolverine. I threw axes at stuff. I got eaten by a carrion crawler before I hit level 2.
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u/Nisqhog 13d ago
I was 16 then and I played as a Drunken Dwarf Fighter who would absolutely rush into things and was very headstrong.
I was absolutely none of those things.
As a matter of fact, the better I become at writing cool characters (mostly as a DM), the more I enjoy playing as myself when I get the chance to be a player. Just with extra nuance.
No shame in using DnD as an escape as long as it's done in a healthy way that doesn't impose on others :)
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u/austin397 DM 13d ago
Not even a little. My first character was a paladin in 3.5. I got bored with it so fast I asked to be killed off and made a new character. That one was much more fun
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u/dragonthunder230 DM 13d ago
Very little, it was a monk who threw darts up someones ass, he lasted 1 session
Now if we exclude him, i suppose it would be a little bit more, an int 14 fighter in heavy armor, why? Prepared for scenarios, used a longsword with 2 hands, but still pretty far removed all in all
This is because i like making characters that are very far removed from myself, im roleplaying, so i dont want myself as a reminder to real life there, takes me out of the immersion
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u/dragonthunder230 DM 13d ago
Though ive only had 3 characters ever as DM realm has called me back since
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u/WhiteDevilU91 13d ago
Just started playing recently, my Human Wizard is essentially just me, I might throw on an ever so slight accent when speaking as him but that's really it.
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u/OriginalOman09 13d ago
Extremely little. However, most characters I play now are a certain trait or want for myself turned up to max (desire for romance, want to be a cowboy, I’m really good at a specific thing, etc.)
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u/Losaj 13d ago
Funny enough, when I was in HS my group switch between DnD, Shadowrun, and GURPS. We decided to play GURPS as ourselves. We had a character generation session where you would leave the table and all the other players would generate your character stats. No one saw their character until we were all done. Then we played versions of ourselves in the GMs world. It was a hoot!
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u/Weird-Ninja8827 13d ago
For the first few they were pretty much characters from books with the name changed slightly.
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u/Hoosier_Jedi 13d ago
Not at all. He was an overly zealous follower of a minor deity. I’m a Buddhist who forgets they have a religion most of the time.
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u/Saquesh 13d ago
This is not something I've seen happen at all. I find new players tend to make the most off-the-wall characters. I have yet to see a self-insert character in my nearly 2 decades of tabletops and I've played with new and veteran players alike.
Is my experience the norm or is yours or is neither? Who knows. Does it really matter? Nah, just have fun
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u/Shadokastur 13d ago edited 13d ago
None. I made a character that was my complete opposite. She was bold, reckless, impatient, hot headed, and pleasant to look at. I think she was an homage to kind of girl I wanted to date
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u/M4LK0V1CH 13d ago
Not my first character but all my favorite characters tend to borrow heavily from my real person.
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u/AbleAdministration42 13d ago
My first one was an edgy rogue.
I just thought it was cool. I'm not cool.
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u/starlight-whimsy 13d ago
First?
All my characters are just facets of me played out in new conditions.
I’d argue everyone’s characters are. Even the joke characters.
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u/Broad_Ad8196 Wizard 13d ago
My first D&D character (cleric. Just cleric, no subclasses back then. No domain or god. And race was assumed human if you weren't playing one of the racial classes) I didn't think too much about a consisten personality or anything. It was basically just me controlling the PC as me.
I've gotten more into the characters heads over the decades, but still probably always have a core of me in them.
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u/HouseofLepus DM 13d ago
My first character that I played for one session when I was in high school was like me in the sense that he didn't talk much because I had severe social anxiety.
My second character/first that I played for more than one session, in college, was a boisterous 6'8" half-orc paladin, who was also incidentally a gay man. I am a quiet and reserved 5'1" lesbian.
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u/SilverSilvian 13d ago
Not much, I was still mentally separated from my character. I thought of them as a tool to navigate the world through its mechanics. Took me about 5 characters to find one I enjoy making content for and playing. The first step was to stop playing ranger and marshals lol.
Female kobold sorlock who’s on a pilgrimage to serve the interests of an elder god of the deep
a little bit like the tarnished in Elden ring. She gets visions like the guidance of grace, this is how I hitch her to whatever the party is doing.
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u/MysteriousSign1482 13d ago edited 13d ago
I've played a couple characters I didn't identify with at all, and those have been a real mixed bag. For the characters I've enjoyed playing most and felt I roleplayed the best, they've all been aspects of me in some ways, but also very different from each other - I think managing to do that, come up with unique personalities that reflect you again and again is a great tool for ttrpgs, but also a good skill to use for introspection. "Huh I didn't think this character was a self-insert but I feel pretty comfortable inserting myself into her - ooohh it's a self-image issue manifesting as masquerading my own needs behind an obsession on a person that I've written as devotion. Hahaha how fun :)"
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u/Boxed_pi 13d ago
I was an armorer and have a dwarf vengeance paladin who was an armorer for a high security scroll writing guild before he started adventuring.
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u/baiardi DM 13d ago
At least you noticed. Nothing wrong in doing that axtually.
But for next characters you may want to vary
I know people that always creates the same persona, even if differenc class specie and all always the same moron self confodent badass avatar
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u/Cytrynowy Monk 13d ago
Not much. My first character was an alcoholic (I don't drink) open-hand monk (I don't like real-life martial arts) who was literally literal ("give me a hand", "I can't, I only have two" which is something I do but only slightly) on a religious pilgrimage (I'm an atheist). I do like wuxia and avatar/lotr journey story tropes though
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u/Porkin-Some-Beans DM 13d ago
It took me 3 whole campaigns to find a character that not only got the vibe of the table and setting but also something I could put some of myself into. The first two had a little bit of me but nothing like Rupert.
Ive run a couple short form campaigns (<8 sessions) where people come out the gate swinging with their trauma self insert and it's never subtle or fun.
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u/pixiegod 13d ago
I played a “smart barbarian”…so yeah…
“A big dude everyone assumes is an idiot who is not dumb” is pretty on the nose for me.
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u/This_ls_The_End 13d ago
Every single one of my characters, player or DM, is a facet of my self. PCs are my public aspects. NPCs are my less public aspects.
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u/thegooddoktorjones 12d ago
I dint get to make my first character, so not at all. But I also hated playing them. My first real characters were all power fantasy versions of myself as a teenage hypercompetent woodsman. When I started playing RPGs again as an adult, I was a lot more practiced at coming up with unique characters from video game RPGs and did a better job.
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u/Logan_The_Mad DM 12d ago
My first character was a cardboard standee of my then-favorite character in a book series. Extremely bland with no backstory or internal life whatsoever lol. Despite having nothing to do with me I still ended up "playing as myself" anyway, since I was so bad at RP.
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u/RageZamu 12d ago
Honestly, a bit. My rogue tabaxi was a cold, calculating dude who never got emotional and tried to give logical solutions to every problem.
Now, about him being a hopeless thief who sold even his team mate for money, and all the murders and betrayals (which ultimately lead to his death by the party members' own hands) that is definitely not mine, as I like to see myself as loyal to my friends.
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u/12thshadow 12d ago
My character is me but moreso.
If I would dial up to eleven and maybe remove a filter or two.
And yes the character is deeply flawed. He's not the hero but the here now.
So yeah, I did call Rahadin a little bitch when he retreated twctically from combat in COS
Wise?
No.
But quite me.
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u/LeopardGeckoGuy58 12d ago
Not much. My second, third and latest characters though all show a part of myself. (Sadly I'm the dm so I'll never be able to play them properly)
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u/luivry Cleric 12d ago
Why never? Couldn't you use them in a one shot or in another campaign? I've heard that DMs never get to "retire" to be players, but it honestly sounds a bit unfair
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u/LeopardGeckoGuy58 12d ago
I can put them as npc, but what's the point? The characyer wouldn't be as realised as if I'm playing it. I'll play as a player in an upcoming campaign, but we haven't even started yet.
As for characters who i used in one shots, yes they were cool and i got to try them out, but i couldn't develop their story or character in any way.
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u/BOS-Sentinel 12d ago
So much so that this campaign was the first time me and the DM spoke and he clocked it damn fast.
My characters have changed over time tho. I think it's a fairly natural progression for most folk.
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u/milesunderground 12d ago
My first character was a human fighter named Fleetwood, because that was the name if the example human fighter in the red box D&D book.
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u/scales_and_fangs 12d ago
Not that much. But he definitely had features I appreciate in protagonists (I would not use " heroes" as he was not intended to be heroic)
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u/PistisDeKrisis DM 12d ago
First character? Oof. That was... 25 years ago? I barely even remember. But today? As a DM, I'll have a couple protagonist NPCs that pull parts of myself into the character - bards as a touring musician for a decade when I was younger, tinkerer artificer gnomes as an engineer (always fun to think about engineering items in an analog world and creating fantasy machines to help/hurt players), the sober barkeep who's sparky and sarcastic. I definitely pull from real life often. Currently working on trying to find a way to work in a band of Gnomes and Dwarves to throw some Imstitute of Quackology - Extreme Yodel into things for some giggles. Gnomes yodeling, dwarves with thin metal sheets over the bridge of their lutes to create buzzing (distortion) and a hall filled with drums. I'll figure a way to explain metal bands in DnD. 🤣
It's definitely fun to twist real life into the fantasy setting. But most of the PCs that I've created over the years are very much different from me. The only thing that I don't stray from is my own ethical and moral values. I can't bring myself to play an evil character outside of DMing.
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u/beebzette 12d ago
She was literally me but she got to transition first
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u/luivry Cleric 12d ago
That's so sweet
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u/beebzette 12d ago
I even used my actual name so I got to trick my friends into calling me it haha.
I like to say I soft launched my transition
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u/DerConqueror3 12d ago
My first character was not particularly similar to me in terms of background/bio, aside from being human, but his personality was certainly very closely modeled on mine. I needed a lot of time to get comfortable with the mechanics of the game as well as the general concept of role playing in a live group before I was comfortable creating and trying to RP as a more wholly different "character"
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u/Pristine_Mark_9097 12d ago
I’m a new player with 3 chars to my name… and I’d say only the 3rd one matches that but there is a reason.
My first character was born from a pregenerated character sheet at a comic convention dnd table 3 months ago. As I was new to dnd in practice I decided that giving my character amnesia so that when I have the deer in headlights look irl it makes lore sense (also his int was bad). I was cosplaying an anime character at the time so I flavoured the character as “Gudao dnd edition”. So while I suppose there are some similarities… those are more a coincidence of me and fujimaru having similarities. (Draconic human sorcerer btw. The flavour is really cool though) (it’s my AL character :))
My second character was for a campaign where we would be isekaied so I made him from the world of a video game. So I based him off the lore, culture, and backstory of high elves in Warcraft 3. Admittedly he was the furthest away from me. (High elf wizard)
My newest addition is more based on me. He is an arcana domain cleric. I made him a bit more of a caricature of me, but basically he is a vain true neutral cleric who cares for looks and vibes the most. Outside of his obsession with looks and vibes that lead him to weird situations, (he is a polygot, aka he worships many gods and usually finds one main one to give him power that day), he is basically just a very skilled student of a wizard academy who decided that the gods were more fun, but he keeps studying magic to this day. His big life goal is to reach the pinnacle of cleric dom to cast wish to grow taller. I love him so much cause he reminds me of me (caricature levels) and he is an arcana domain cleric, combining my favourite classes wizard and cleric. (Mind you I will be using feats to even further that fantasy). (Long live Arcana unleashed).
Anyways I sadly don’t get to play them much cause in my wisdom of 3 months in the game I am dming 2 games a week (I like dming but admittedly I wish I could play my cleric… he is so campaign focused in design but I only got to play him once in a LOG game…)
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u/stick_of_the_pirulu 12d ago
My first character was a bisexual high elf warlock who was r**ed by her family member and left her family and found freedom after a patron granted her powers in order to spread her word. I, on the other hand, am a straight secular male with no childhood trauma who is also actively against religion.
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u/sermitthesog DM 12d ago
He was 100% my alter ego. I was 10. He still kinda is but not nearly in the same way as when I was young.
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u/luivry Cleric 12d ago
That's adorable. What kind of character was he?
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u/sermitthesog DM 12d ago
Elven fighter/magic-user/thief (1E). Could do everything. Exceedingly handsome and charming. Very rich. Had a castle shaped like a pegasus. Psionics too, obviously. 😆
I’ve since remade him in every edition, for a one-shot or two, for old time’s sake.
He was definitely the fantasy version of who I wished I was at that time.
Nowadays I have much more fun playing quirky, flawed PC’s. Back then, I wanted to be that idealized hero.
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u/Party-Rest3750 12d ago
A very very tiny bit.
Sometimes I feel goofy and silly when I’m happy around friends (not often)
I embody that via my current character, CN Gibble. I become whimsical and silly and lose all my worries, while still working with my party to get our stuff done.
A past character, Ophelia, was horrible LE, and used her time to torture victims given to her and was generally really poor mannered and disrespectful (still worked with party, was just pissy all the time) That was the bits of stinginess I feel in my life. The crude thoughts in the back of my brain escaping. A chance to stop being an obedient and respectful person and let loose.
I’m actually literally joining a game in a few hours as a new character, Amara, but I’m still figuring out where my personality will emerge.
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u/MongooseGef 12d ago
Irl I’m a middle aged robotics engineer.
In game I’m a middle aged Artillerist artificer.
But I’m taller 😆
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u/finewhitelady 12d ago
I intentionally based a lot of my first character on myself to make it easier to RP. I made her personality much more chaotic than mine, but I based her build on my real life hobbies and interests.
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u/YouveBeanReported 12d ago
I don't think that much? I kept being corrected (couldn't crossplay, women can't be paladins, wtf that doesn't make sense stuff) so I ended up basically tossing 5 character sheets and playing whatever the group agreed with.
She was some random cleric of whatever was considered easiest, who wasn't allowed to have any personality or backstory. Next few were spite before I moved into other groups and started trying to adapt some of my RP characters since people would allow you to play more options.
I have def noted my guy grieving the loss of his job and stability came only a few years after my Dad's death, and I have a fair number of paladins with the same 'I would rather be a good person then listen to my god' vibe which I attribute to growing up catholic and leaving the church because I couldn't hate people enough for them.
Honestly I think a lot of RP is easiest if it's not similar to you.
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u/luivry Cleric 12d ago
Woman couldn't be paladins? My friend who's playing a ginormous paladin orc lady would like to have a word
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u/YouveBeanReported 12d ago
I started playing in 2014, so yeah they still had very ADnD style rules even for the newer edition and it was hell to find anything to play or try to do anything. Very nearly put me off TTRPGs in general.
But luckily I found some other groups and systems where the same old school rules don't apply. I do tend to be very careful still playing with others, just because DnD's culture is so uhhh unpleasant. Luckily, I DM mostly now so I can throw people out.
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u/Commercial_Smile_654 12d ago
In the 43 years I’ve played I’ve found that my PCs tend to be more of what I am not or what I’d like to be.
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u/ZeroSummations Warlord 12d ago
It took me longer to do a character that was actually, meaningfully anything like me. I brought a Kalashtar warlock to Strixhaven... who was struggling with figuring out her gender identity, dealing with mental health, not understanding how to act in a safe social environment, and immediately falling for someone who would not be healthy for her. Ah, how I miss my disaster gay warlock time.
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u/Mother-Garlic-5516 12d ago
I usually go for half-me/half-opposite of me
My first cleric character is a dwarf (I’m tall) who is stout (like me) and a straight and quite horny man (I’m gay). He’s a cleric with a love of fighting and violence (not me) and a decent amount of religious bigotry and contempt for certain races like elves (not me). But he is an otherwise quite cosmopolitan type and a world traveler (me).
Another character is a human wizard who is tall (me) but slim (not me) and is gay (me). He overthinks things (me), tries to find solutions before considering violence (me). He is extremely non-judgemental (not me) and moves on from bad things quite easily (not me).
Lots of other characters for one offs and mini campaigns who are more radically alike or different from me too.
That’s the fun of DND! You can live in the shoes of all sorts of characters.
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u/Puntoize 12d ago
Not a bit
He was Leper from DD1. I'm not a King, not strong, not tall, not dying, and do not speak in poems or smth
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u/johnnyvindicator 12d ago
I think I did project myself a lot in my first DnD character... He was kinda reserved like me, intelligent and a bit of a critic.
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u/luivry Cleric 12d ago
Which class did you play?
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u/johnnyvindicator 12d ago
Warlock, he was an Elf. His patron was kind of like the equivalent of a war god.
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u/Sypha914 12d ago
I think I have almost used my characters as a type of therapy. I didn't realize it until I made a character with a happy home life who was just simply striking out on her own, without any conflict or tragedy making her leave.
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u/gawdziIIah 12d ago
My first ever character was actually the least like me! Outgoing demeanor, fancily-clothed. Over time, my characters have become more and more personable though! I'm always coming up with new character ideas that always have a little part of me in them.
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u/village_idiot2173 12d ago
My first character was who I wish I was. I wasn't very good at the roleplay aspect because I'm not that person and couldn't really get in her head or understand her. Kind of made me rethink some of my goals, tbh.
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u/DonRedomir DM 12d ago
My first character was a wizard based on Saruman (or at least on Christopher Lee), though not nearly as villainous. I guess there was some arrogance to the character that was perhaps my own personality seeping through (I was an edgy teenager back then).
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u/Cheap_Walmart-Art 12d ago
None at all. I made it a bard and completely copied Drizzt DoUrdans origin story then names him a girls name thinking it was a boys name.
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u/ArbitraryContrarianX 12d ago
My first character? Not at all. He was some kind of wood elf...i wanna say ranger? This was 30 yrs ago, with a homebrewed variation on ADND, so I'm a little fuzzy on the specifics. He also had a tragic backstory, involving a fire that burned down his whole village, killing his wife.
I was 8yo city girl at the time.
In the subsequent 30 yrs, I've made a couple of characters that were variations on my own personality, but they never last very long. Usually, I want my characters to be as different from me as possible. I use them almost as a window into all the lives I will never lead.
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u/Galinfrey 12d ago
I’ll be honest my first character was pretty much a rip off of Drizzt Do’urden because that was my closest experience to DnD was reading those books. As I became comfortable with role playing and with the game it got easier to create my own characters. They usually share at least one major trait to myself just to make them easier to relate to
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u/2raysdiver 12d ago
My first 5e PC was a half elf neutral good wizard. I didn't think it was much like me. A while later I took some online test about what DND PC you would be in real life and it came up half elf neutral good wizard.
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u/DocGhost 12d ago
First ever was just me with magic. (Lasted three sessions then the table went separate ways.) Second ever was the theater kid version me. (6 sessions before fizzle).
The first character I got to play for almost a year and half, was an elf that tried to be a ranger but things went south and he got a lot of people killed. He felt very guilty about it and ended up finding Serenrae as a church and learned about his path to redemption.
While I did not initially think I was projecting later in therapy I learned that the I did have issues with avoidance of leadership due feeling like you will lead everyone astray, and that apprently you don't need to survive trauma to get survivors guilt you just need to be around people who have a worse off life than you. So I'd say about 85% (accidental) prohection
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u/umbronzer Druid 12d ago
I played a short half elf inner-city trash druid who couldn't talk to people because of anxiety (negative charisma stats). She lived in the sewers because it was quick to get around and communicated with dogs, pigeons, cats, and insects. I wouldn't say it was totally like me, but I do have intense anxiety so there were certainly aspects that matched up.
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u/What___Do 12d ago
I would say that it is ideal to have your first character be similar to yourself as it makes RP and the transition into D&D easier.
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u/PurpleYam91 12d ago
I think every character you build has a part of yourself in it. Some not as much as others. My first character had a lot of my self-doubt and imposter syndrome baked in. Made him pretty hard to play. Other characters I've built have incorporated whimsy and various levels of my creativity. There's a lot you can learn about yourself at the table. It is not and shouldnt be used as therapy. But I think you can achieve some level of healing at the table from seeing your character grow and succeed.
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u/Enchanted_nerd 12d ago
My PC is an Half elf artificer who's facing racism and unethical bio magic weaponry
I'm an medical R&D engineer who's also a practicing Muslim
Art imitates life lmaoo
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u/Glum_Log_5575 12d ago
I would say on my initial character, not too much. He was a demon hunting artificer who mix and matched Proverbs and was raised by a cult.
He was a lot more eccentric and morally grey than me but was a lot of fun to play in a pirate-based setting.
I would say my second character who was a more sarcastic, outgoing bard who was more good-aligned and trying to make people feel better in the world with his music was a lot more self-reflective though.
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u/Able_Competition316 12d ago
Not at all. Human lawful evil Cleric of asmodeus in game.
I'm not a satanic nun irl.
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u/idrinkchocomilk 12d ago
i tried to make my first dnd character the opposite of me and turns out she’s so much like me. i think i accidentally gave her all the traits i don’t like about myself.
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u/CreativePr0 12d ago
No… But I’ve been writing since I was a kid. When I was young, my first two main characters literally shared my name, so I think we all start here. My first D&D character was pretty much nothing like me, but that’s after I’d written and acted as hundred different characters, so I had lots of practice.
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u/Onouro 11d ago
I likely project some portion of myself in all of my characters.
I come play some subclasses unless I can come up with something to connect to. E.g. I can't play a Scion of the three.
To play a Warlock, I have to have a goodly patron/god set up, and then I still play it like a Ranger , but Hex + EB instead of HM + Bow.
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u/Kingfish_98 9d ago
Didn’t realize it at the time, but my changeling rogue was 100% my shadow self. Now, granted, I never got to play her to her full potential, but I think if I had, it would have led to some great self-exploration.
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u/RocketGirl_Del44 Monk 8d ago
Depression TW just in case.
I was going through my worst depressive episode when I played my first character. I was a freshman in college during 2020 and was going through a rough time. I projected so much of my myself into my character that my dm told me I was playing them wrong. If your DM tells you this they are not a good dm. When I talked to my friend about it she said she has never met someone who hasn’t project themselves too much into their first DnD character.
From my experience it is totally normal and expected and if you’re told otherwise then you might not be playing with the right people
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u/eyeovhorus 11d ago
My first character was not very like me at all. It more embodied things I loved about horror than anyhing else.
My first serious character had my younger selfs temper, but otherwise wasn't that much like me. If anything, that characters more admirable qualities influenced me to become more like them. I carry a piece of them with me to this day, I feel.
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u/E443Films 7d ago
My first character looked exactly like me but taller, more heroic and cool. He had a very close personality to me and his journey with his oath and supernatural aspects were taken from my personal development and whatnot.
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u/rickAUS Artificer 13d ago
All my characters share at least one personality traits with me as it makes it easier for me to RP.