Character longevity

[Damona Silvercloud]

Just curious, what's the longest anyone's played a character, and about what's the average real-life span for a char? Example: I've been playing a thief for over 2 years that started out at 1st level. She's also been the only character for all this time. Till now, they've only lasted about 6 months. If you've had a char for a long time, do you find yourself becoming attached to them? (I talk about her like she's real sometimes. It's weird.)

[Vanadin]

My oldest character was created 26/1 1994 - and he's still alive! His name is Walker Ohmsford (big ripoff, I know, but I was a newbie back then) and he's a Chronomancer (mage specialized in time magic). He's not that high leveled, the campaign has been down lenghty periods, but level 11 ain't that bad.

The character I've played the most is Vanadin, created some time 1997. He started out in 2e as a multiclassed Wizard(Alchemist)/Cleric of Ssu-Ma, God of knowledge, and he has risen quite high through the levels. After conversion to 3e he's a Wizard 12/Cleric 5/Loremaster 10 (yeah I know, but we never bothered with level caps in 2e so why should we after conversion?)
This campaign also has to be the most highpowered I've ever heard of.
In Vanadin's group there's now
<UL TYPE=SQUARE>
<LI>one Deva
<LI>one Azure dragon
<LI>one dwarven fighter 20/cleric 8, who is also demigod of armorsmithing
<LI>one 23rd level paladin (don't ask me how it works, he was level 18 and read this holy book that gave him 5 paladin levels)
<LI>one sorceress 18/cleric 8 who is also a demigod of charm
<LI>and of course Vanadin himself who is also demigod of magical item creation. [/list]Needless to say, it's tough for the DM to come up with challenging adventures for us nowadays.

I don't really get that "attached" to my characters, especially since we in my gaming group take turns at DMing. This means that at any given time you have at least three different characters that are active in three different campaigns (and the rest of them are actually normal campaigns )
But some affection is hard not to feel, just have a look at my log-in <--

[Damona Silvercloud]

Hehe, Damona Silvercloud's the name of the thief I mentioned.

With a party of that kind of power, who needs a DM...you guys call the shots. You could walk into any shire or town and just boss people around.

My char's a 12 thief/6 fighter, hmm, maybe I could persuade my DM to let me 'stumble' over a holy fighting-thieving book like that paladin you mentioned.

We haven't converted to 3e, and have no real desire to. We play loosely based around AD&D rules, so we just make things fit our style. Also, we don't use a D&D world, we play in a world the DM made up, taking elements from the TSR worlds. Why switch over to 3e just to learn a new ruleset and modify that one? I'm still wondering though, since you converted, how do you like it, was it hard to pick up? (I know I'm straying off topic, but now I'm all curious)

[Voltric]

I think about 4 to 6 months was the average when I started in high school. We did have one long campaign that last around 18 months before the DM went into the navy. I had two characters. The first a Druid who died at 8th level after about a year and a Paladin who was 6th when we ended.

I have a 5th level Ranger about a year old - started when 3E came out, and a 5th level Cleric about 6 months old. They both are advancing slowly since we play three campaigns at the same time (2 3E D&D and on GURPS). At the end of school and the beginning of college I GMed a GURPS campaign that lasted two years and some of the PCs lived the entiry time.

But the character I had the longest was you guest it "Voltric". He was a Cleric from a live action LARP I was in during college and grad school. I had him for 6 years and played in over 300 sessions. I remember the first time he was killed. It was after I was playing about 2 years. I was really sad after the event. I was so happy when my friends raised me the next event. At the end I sacraficed him to open a gate to save my party but I know I was not going back so it was a glorious finish.

He lives on in memory.

My longest character ever was a 15th level ranger who leveled if about 3 days. This was beacause me and my friends were playing d&d every moment we had the chance and were just choosing random monsters out of the manual. We did this beacause it was the first week we had been playing and we needed some practice. We actually still do this seeing it is our second week now .

Cheers, Void.

[Egglord]

shortestlifespan: about 5 mins (critical hitted by a goblin, then failed res. survival check)

longest: ooh, about 4 years - 28th level elementalist, who i haven't used in ages.

[Azardu]

I had a Ranger/Rogue/Assassin that I played for about one year or so. I think he was level 11 when we abandoned the campaign. Never died once.

[Volar Blackmane]

Hrm, that depends strongly on the GM. Average would be a long time, just because the GM I've played most with doesn't like to kill off characters too easily... Heroic roleplaying like in your regular fantasy book, none of this 'we got whacked by a horde of gibberlings'.

As for my longest character, I can't say I remember how long I've had 'Volar Blackmane'. He was (or is) a Shadowrun street shaman and we played that game for ages. The name just kind of stuck after that. He still does runs occasionally, when he's not sitting in his huge apartment. (With several millions on his bank account.) That he was my first character ever might say something.

Shortest experience: My half elf mage. That GM just decided to be kind so he tossed an otyugh instead of a beholder at our level 4-5 party. And he had just found an item which removed some of the silly racial limitations ad&d had... *sigh*