My main character is always a wood elf. She is always a rogue type, either ranged or dual wielding. assuming of course the game gives you these choices. For a RPG type game, I won’t play it at all if I don’t have at least have a gender choice. I’ve got to the stage where if the developers can’t be bothered to include this, I can’t be bothered to give them my money. There may be exceptions, but the game would have to be outstanding for me to do so.
The whole wood elf thing though has been going on for a while, my gaming history post mentioned Gauntlet. I used to get very sulky if I couldn’t play the elven archer. I think it may all go back to The Hobbit, which I read (and/or was read to) in the 70s. I absolutely loved the idea of Mirkwood, the elven archers blending into the forest and also the concept of living with nature rather than against it. It’s all tied up in the romanticism of Tolkien and the hippy ideals of both my parents and the time. Although the 70s is mostly remembered for disco, flares and hideous patterns, it was also the early days of social and environmental change. There was a crafts revival, harking back to simpler days where everything was home-made (particularly macramé :P).
So I guess a lot of that has sub-consciously rubbed off. (Though I still do avoid brown and orange like the plague so I have at least been selective about it). I could be quite deep and suggest that my characters therefore are a projection of my childhood hopes, dreams and ideals…. or perhaps humans are boring, other races are ugly and who doesn’t like shooting pointy sticks at things? :P
Oh they are also always red-haired (as close as I can get anyway). I used to dye my hair with henna when I was a teenager and then once I was at University, it was bright pillar-box red. I loved my hair like that so much…, it wouldn’t suit me anymore so my characters get to have it instead :)
I play around with other sorts of characters as alts and occasionally they end up being my main, at least for a while.
The roll call in roughly chronological order:
