Which Character have you leveled up that you're most attached to?

[Grouchy Imp_v1legacy]

None of them. In fact, I don't get how some players do it. Once my "vision" for a particular character is over... playing anymore with that character is so boring. The BEST time I have with any character in a game is creation and maybe the first 20 or 30 levels depending on the game. I've got hundreds of hours logged in on Skyrim, and 0 characters have reached level... 55, I think only one is over 50. I'm DONE with a character WAY before they get that old. I have a "build" I'm going for in a character, and I don't usually go any farther than being done with that build.

Pretty much exactly this. I get ideas for character concepts - give them areas of expertise, goals and behavioral traits then I release them into the game world. Once that character has reached the goals I have set for them I shelve them and start a new character.

There is one particular exception to this mindset however, and it revolves around the Elder Scrolls series. My very first character in Daggerfall was a Dunmer Spellsword by the name of Rheagar, and he began my (let's face it) love-affair with the Elder Scrolls. When Morrowind was released I revived Rheagar and made him my first character in that too. When Oblivion came out the first character I made in that was another Dunmer Spellsword by the name of Rheagar, but this time carrying the surname Indarys, to reflect the previous Rheagar's affiliation with House Redoran (rise high enough within Great House Redoran in Morrowind and the player is rewarded with Indarys Manor). Rheagar Indarys was also my first character in Skyrim, and in ES:O. I should note at this point that Rheagar is not immune to the roleplaying ethos laid out by Kyrian007. I have my goals and vision for him in each game, and will shelve him just as I would shelve any other character once I have taken him as far as I believe he should go. He is 'special' only in that he is always my first character.

 

[Erttheking]

My Warframe character. Nearly 500 in-game hours, MR 17, so many precious Prime weapons and Warframes that I've gathered.

Also, I just multi-classed my Sorceror in D&D, gave him a level on Warlock. Get back to me in half a year and we'll see if I'm still obsessing over his nerdy, half-elf ass.

 

[laggyteabag]

Im honestly not that attached to any characters that I have made. If all save files were deleted for every game that I have played, honestly, I don't think that I would mind that much. Even the few max-level characters in WoW, because I have created and recreated these characters across multiple different realms too many times to count, and I like the levelling experience too much.

My girlfriend on the other hand, my days. She becomes grossly attached to pretty much any character that she creates on The Sims.

 

[Eacaraxe_v1legacy]

...As for Pen & Paper RPG characters...

For me, hands-down that would be the Tremere I played in Transylvania Chronicles when I went through it as a player. The skinny of TC is, for those not in the know, it's a Vampire the Dark Ages chronicle that runs as-published from 1197-1998, meaning players start as neonates in the dark ages, and assuming they survive, their characters end the chronicle as young methuselahs. The chronicle has some issues, being it's more or less a "look but don't touch" whistle stop tour of World of Darkness history, but overall it's a pretty fun ride with a good group. That's especially true, for the fact VtM is fairly infamous for ludicrously overpowered NPC's compared to the average PC, and that storytellers are encouraged to make overpowered NPC's and exercise their power with extreme prejudice against players who get too big for their britches; with TC, given enough time, the shoe ends up on the other foot and the players get the ludicrously OP characters.

For a Tremere it's especially difficult to play, being the chronicle takes place in Transylvania (hence the name) which is the Tzimisce's seat of power, the two clans are absolute enemies, and for the first few stories in the chronicle the balance of power is overwhelmingly in the Tzimisce's favor. Add to that the Tremere are, even in the dark ages setting, a totalitarian cult of personality which actively suppresses knowledge of certain personalities and events; PC's learn that information, which means Tremere PC's are more likely than any other to end up declared enemies and actively hunted by their own clan to suppress knowledge.

That character went from an 11th generation nobody to a 5th generation force of nature, and there were only about three NPC's with published stats in the entire game that were more powerful than him, and those three were all 7,000+ year old 4th genners.

 

[DrownedAmmet]

Easily my first Dragon Age: Origins character.

He just feels like how own character, the prologue origin laid the groundwork perfectly, and I was able to craft an actual character through his actions in the game. When I watch other people play that game, even when they choose the same race and class as I did, I still feel like my Warden is unique.

Unlike in Mass Effect where it does give you choices, but those are usually a binary good/evil choice, and every Shepard feels very similar to other Shepards, just varying degrees of asshole-ness.

 

[the December King]

Always my favorite character to play- an inhuman wizard of truly god-like power, supremely confident and almost omniscient.
Pen and paper: From the D&D boxed set of 1983 (Set 1 basic rules), to Ad&D, to 2nd edition, to third, and 3.5, and then the (admittedly awkward and heavily skewed to favoring holdover rulings/abilities/feats from the Epic Handbook in 3.5) jump to Pathfinder, and that's where the character is now, spanning over 30 years of real time.

Obviously it makes a better NPC, as the knowledge of the campaign it's involved in can be used to guide less knowledgeable characters/ aquire mysterious answers and/or drive the plot. Wise old wizard stuff, "prophecy-prophecy" bollocks.

When I do play it, outrageous things always happen. The last campaign it was involved in, spanning the last year, saw a group of level 7 traveling companions become full-tier mythic characters of around level 20/10, and right up to the climactic battle at the end, my character was unable to cast any serious spells of higher than level 4, as any effort beyond this would have caused the irremovable Spear of Athena embedded in it's side to reopen the wound, and risk it's demise.

Great fun.

P.S, DRUNK: I sacrificed all of that, combat-wise, to remain relatively passive, right up until the last battle, when the mythic characters, despite putting out over a thousand points of damage a round, each, were unable to submit the Will of Nyarlathotep (a custom Elder God in our campaign). Then I was allowed to access my full power. I had a BLAST.

 

[Kyrian007]

I get ideas for character concepts - give them areas of expertise, goals and behavioral traits then I release them into the game world. Once that character has reached the goals I have set for them I shelve them and start a new character.

There is one particular exception to this mindset however, and it revolves around the Elder Scrolls series. My very first character in Daggerfall was a Dunmer Spellsword by the name of Rheagar, and he began my (let's face it) love-affair with the Elder Scrolls. When Morrowind was released I revived Rheagar and made him my first character in that too. When Oblivion came out the first character I made in that was another Dunmer Spellsword by the name of Rheagar, but this time carrying the surname Indarys, to reflect the previous Rheagar's affiliation with House Redoran (rise high enough within Great House Redoran in Morrowind and the player is rewarded with Indarys Manor). Rheagar Indarys was also my first character in Skyrim, and in ES:O. I should note at this point that Rheagar is not immune to the roleplaying ethos laid out by Kyrian007. I have my goals and vision for him in each game, and will shelve him just as I would shelve any other character once I have taken him as far as I believe he should go. He is 'special' only in that he is always my first character.

That fits with how I tackle Bethesda games, with the exception that my "canon" character is usually the second one I make rather than the first. I usually create a "throwaway" character to level up a ways first... to test the combat system, find some exploits, soak some time to get some bugs patched. I usually take this character "off the rails" early on and avoid going much into the main story. Like my first Skyrim character, Hump the Orc. Basic fighter type, took him as far as bleak falls, then instead of going to Whiterun I set off to the west and wound up going 20 levels or so out by Markarth. Never learned a shout, never fought any dragons. Just did it to familiarize myself with leveling, the perks, the combat, stealth... And when I made my first "serious" character I was ready.

 

[Eacaraxe_v1legacy]

That fits with how I tackle Bethesda games...when I made my first "serious" character I was ready.

This is why Morrowind and Oblivion are my two least-favorite Elder Scrolls games. The design philosophy being organic character growth and all, Morrowind was a bit of a step backwards with its interplay between skill increases and attributes, but recoverable due to most NPC's not being very powerful; Vivec could be killed at about level 25-30 by a smart and experienced player, 50, maybe, by someone not fluent in the game's mechanics. Oblivion was nothing short of a full-scale clusterfuck with its level scaling, because you could end up with characters too weak to beat scaled NPC's, and the true min-max path was just to never sleep and stay at level 1.

Don't get me wrong, I loved Morrowind for its expansiveness, atmosphere, world building, story, and design philosophy. None of that mitigates how much its character growth mechanics left to be desired. The only redeeming quality of Oblivion, in my mind, were its graphics and art direction (minus character models), because the game was goddamn gorgeous for its time.

Daggerfall was pretty much the best iteration of the system even if it wasn't perfect, because attribute gains weren't linked to skill increases on a per-level basis. That is until Skyrim, when Bethesda simply removed attributes from the equation and added perks with passive bonuses which simply replicated the effect of raising attributes over time.

I always wonder, when someone gripes about how "casual-ified" or "simplified" Skyrim was, exactly how much time they really spent Morrowind or Oblivion to realize and accept how flawed those games' level-up mechanics were. In my experience, a whole lot of the "well I spent 200 hours in Morrowind so I know what I'm talking about!" camp doesn't, because more often than not they're not even literate in the difference between major skills, minor skills, the relation of the two to level-up mechanics, and how that relates to attribute raises upon leveling up -- which is pretty much the first, least forgettable, lesson about character growth mechanics in Morrowind and Obvivion. This also tends to be the same camp that complains how "weak" Destruction is in Skyrim, which makes their sense of perspective and real understanding of the game's mechanics highly suspect, to say the least.