How Many Characters Do You Play?

[Ghost Archer]

After answering 'What was your first character' over in the Champions area I started wondering . . . Just how many characters other players, especially you long-term players, have had in your RPing life?
I counted only those I truly consider as intentionally designed for me, personally to play. Over the years many NPCs have become true characters for me but they where created as just that, NPCs. They became more, which I feel is great, but as for characters I built to play? I realized it is only seven. Seven in 23 years. Anyone else like this or is it just me? Because ALL of my characters have been Hero System can we keep it to just that? If you want to mention other games, that's fine, but I am more curious about Hero.

My seven: Ghost Archer (http://the-wild-hunt.org/hunt/archer.html), Icehawk (http://the-wild-hunt.org/seattle/icehawk.html), Psion (http://the-wild-hunt.org/hunt/psion.html), Probe (http://the-wild-hunt.org/seattle/probe.html), Tark tan ji (http://the-wild-hunt.org/fantasy/tark.html), Goliath (http://the-wild-hunt.org/legacy/nat.html) and Blurr (http://the-wild-hunt.org/midgaard/blurr.html).

[Springald Jack]

I realized it is only seven. Seven in 23 years. Anyone else like this or is it just me? Because ALL of my characters have been Hero System can we keep it to just that? If you want to mention other games, that's fine, but I am more curious about Hero.


Well as I have never been a Player in a Hero Game, just a GM, 0 for that but in the role-playing games I've been in in general I have no idea I could not count but probably at least 3 dozen who saw play. Again this is not counting NPCs

[AliceTheOwl]

At a time? One. I always seem to cap out at one. Not for lack of trying, either.

[ghost-angel]

I've played more than I keep track of, as I'd bounce from game to game. Lots of one shots as I learned new systems....

At the moment: two active, four waiting on the sidelines in case I really just need a one shot for the night.

[Edsel]

I have had a lot of different player characters. However if I had to list what I consider to be the major characters they would be:

Nick Cartridge who was/is a character for a super agents campaign (an UNTIL, PRIMUS or SHIELD sort of game).
Torean Norhill who is my bard in the Fantasy Hero game run by Eosin.
Enigma who is my super-mage for our group's occational Champions game.

I have also played our group's write-up of Iron Man when we play Marvel universe.
I play our write-up of Colossus when we are playing X-Men. They claim I can do a pretty good Russian accent.
Though neither character is an original concept I have played both parts through many games.

[Curufea]

Somewhere between 40 and 60

[TheRavenIs]

I am going to do this so that the first ones are the ones that I play most. (These are all the Champions C's I play)

Main Characters

Bearcat: Male-Wolverine Type, I have played different versions, over 20+ yrs.
Flame: Male-Human Torch, teen/mutant.
Snow Fall: Female-Iceman type.
Cosmic Blue: Female-KOSMOS form Xenosaga.
Ca'Rom Holt: Male Alien-Dawnstar w/cosmic powers, (Champions Team in Space).
Keslin Zane: Male-Dark Force user, (CTiS).

Recoil: Male-Air/Earth Elemental 'Mutant'. (NPC PC for game I GM)

Crossfire: Male-Martial Artist/Gadgeteer, 20+ yrs. (Now NPC)
The Traveler: Male-Extra-Dimensional/Blood/Magic User, 20+ yrs. (Now NPC)

Secondary Characters: TN=Talented Normal

Kameron n'Kadie: Male Alien-TN, Doctor(CTiS).
Tiny Montok: Male Alien-TN w/advanced Armor and Weapons, (CTiS).
Akim: Male Alien-TN w/minor healing powers, (CTiS).

[Just Joe]

I've tended to GM more than play. When I've played, several times I've played in one-shots, usually with a character designed by the GM. I won't count those. Several other times I've played in short-lived campaigns (or campaigns in which my tenure was brief), playing a PC I designed, but only for a few sessions. I'd say there are about a dozen of those. I can think of only four or five that I might have played for ten or more sessions. That's in more than 20 years.

[GothKidSamurai]

HERO characters? Just one. A half-elf assassin type guy in a PBeM.

[Killer Shrike]

In the category of "ever", I'd really have to sit down and ponder that one long and hard. More than fourty, maybe more than fifty. The number of exceptionally memorable characters is probably more than twenty.


In the category of "at the same time", almost always two, sometimes three, and seldomly one.


Im just counting PC's, with me as a player. Im usually (90%+) the GM, so add to that hundreds of NPC's, of which more than a hundred were memorable repeat appearance characters.

[Trained Chicken]

I have about thirty archetypical characters that I could bust out at any given time for a Champions campaign. Last time I actually got to play in a campaign, I had one main, one sidekick to that main, and one "special guest star" character I tried out for one run just for spice. So, we'll say three.

[Supreme Serpent]

Egad. Tons. I doubt I can even remember them all. I doubt I can even remember all the Champions characters. :think:

[Thia Halmades]

I don't play, I only run. I tend to remember most of my best NPCs, including:

Lord Captain Thia Halmades. :D

[BlackSword]

Currently have three characters. Only one is a weekly campaign, the other two characters are in pick up games where enough friends can get together to support a game.

In all time, maybe 9 - 10.

[Lord Mhoram]

Okay, this is a cut and paste from a thread (http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=24644) I started a long time ago, but here you go. - And this is just my superhero characters (since 1985) - I don't count fantasy or other game systems.

Total Character count (new) - 28.
Characters that I didn't feel got played enough, so I brought them back to play in a different campaign - 10
Characters that I felt I played enough (generally more than one year or so) and consider "core" played characters 9.
Currently playing : 2

Here is the original post:

For my two thousandth post here on the HERO boards(Ed: This is back before the NGD post count adjustment), I'd thought I'd post something I put on my blog - This is a discussion of my journey in and through the game called Champions. Think of it as a bio of me, when I was not me.


The first game in Oregon:

Microchip was a standard Marvel-esque telepath/telekenetic. Mutant, whose powers were activated during a computer explosion that imbedded a microchip in her forehead. The character was built by someone else. Played a little bit, but got tired of her real quickly. She was the character I learned about PRE attacks with, albeit without intent; a character blasted me three times with his most powerful attack, and in each case my TK FF stopped almost all of it so I looked at him and said, in a very condescending voice “Is that the best you can do?”. The GM “That’s a Prescence attack”. Me “okay....what’s that”.
Shellhead a big bruising brick with lots of enrages and berserks. Turned out a lot like the hulk. First character I built. Didn’t understand the rules, so I went with a whole bunch of points and basic character design (althought I wouldn’t have phrased it that way then). Got board of him quickly- was enraged too much.
Gemstone she was a sport Model brick. Flight, some martial arts (and this was under third edition, so that was rare for a brick - she had focused/hero id str, and bought the MA on her normal STR), and other stuff. Cheaper than Shellhead, I had discovered the wonder of Foci. The character ended up in prison because she stopped a zombie summoning by the Zombie Master who had a permit for his fire, and his zombies. I pretty much got hosed by the GM.
Meeb was interesting he was a brick with stretching and other stuff. (I started with bricks a lot, figured out later that I got bored with them too easily). Meeb came about because I asked the GM what SFX could justify 75% damage reduction, and he answered an amoeba. Next session I had meeb. Meeb was an alien, with a 40 ro 50 STR (do not recall which) stretching, clinging, form only shapeshift reduction and armor. At one point we were all falling and I hit first, and reached out with my stretching and caught everyone. The GM said “If you want to do that again you need to buy area affect on your strength”. I had a lot of saved XP so I bought Explosion on my STR. Another player (who was not there for the previous bit) later looking at my sheet asked about that, and hatched a plan. So we conconcted the “Organic Grenade”. He (the team brick) would toss me into the mass of villians and I would explode out with lots of little psuedopods and smack everyone, and cling to them all.



The next Game: Utah (or how I met my wife)

When I started my next champions game I brought over rebuilt version of Chip, Gemstone and Meeb. Chip was the only one I really played much- I was starting with my disaffection for standard bricks. I joined this campaign just as it moved into a post apocalyptic future.

Dave was a supersuit, and a rebuild of a character that my best friend in Oregon had (I asked permission). Dave had a sidekick, his helmet. Dave had a speed 5, the helmet had a 3. The helmet was named HARV (hueristic articulate responsive visor - sheesh). Harv had a funky lim on his MP (harv was an EP, Dave was brick with a huge amount of Enhanced senses with usable by other for harv). Sort of an activation roll, but on a 17 he blasted a teammate, and on an 18 he blasted Dave. He was uppity. I named the hero what I did so Harv could say, when getting uppity and Dave trying to turn him off “Dave.... don’t do that Dave.” My first supersuit. That archetype will appear many times.

My first martial artist (another archtype that will appear over and over again) was Warrior. Warren Hirihito Romanovich. He grew up in the gangs of the destroyed NY, and had Ch’i, but not as normal people had it, he could access multiple lifetimes worth of training, and could do just about anything. He was also my first character with Code vs Killing. I gave him a full CaK, because I decided that if I was going to play a character with this limitation, I would go full bore.
Warrior became one of my most successful character. Played for almost a decade before his story was told and I retired him (he ascended to the next vibrational plane of existance). His philisophy was a mishmash of Buddism, Jonathon livingston seagull, starwars and Christianity. He had a student as an NPC that became a GMPC, then later full bore PC in a reincarnated version. Warrior’s order kept getting reincarnated, and they would remember bits of thier past lives, and that is how they had thier “superchi”. With Warrior I didn’t build a new PC for months if not more - something very unusual for me.

Propane ne’e Enigma. My first basic Energy projector. I wanted something different from Warrior, and she was it. I was bored within 6 session. I don’t like basic energy projetors. So I suffered a bit, and then dumped her points into a cosmic pool (a 50 pointer) and played her that way for a while before retiring her.

Moonstone - A basic speedster with a really nasty combo attack. There weren’t really DC limits, so he had a lot of running, a decent ST and an EB (this was before HA or that is what it would have been) that added to his punching damage. One time he pushed all three. KOed the bad guy and himself as well. Always wanted to play him more.

New Knight - Tanith. A Jedi. Played her for a few months (mostly solo) and retired her. She had a short life, but was one of my favorite characters. She had a short career - but her story got told, so I retired her. She ended up in camalot, and ended up the mother of Galahad, and had twins later (she was a Jedi after all). She ended up the guardian of the Holy Grail.

Balrog - a brick / other. He was a high strength demon. He didn’t want to be one, but was transformed into one. After the supermage cleaned up the messes, everyone else who had been changed was normal, but him. So he could do a “hulk” and change into Balrog. He ended up in a new mutants kind of school trying to understand his powers. Played for a decent amount of time. When he went on the shelf I didn’t mind.

Penumbra was built after I saw the first Batman movie, and had to play a clone. He had very minor light manipulation ability and a nifty gadget belt, detective abilities, martial abilities and a cool motorcycle.

Peregirne was a teen super. Archer (Rainbow archer was her aunt, and she picked up her equipment from some that were spilled when RA was beat in a fight). She got some armor and a hoverboard and was off. She was fun, and started dimension hopping. She made yuppie a curse in a middle ages setting. When I first read snowcrash, I thought that Stephenson stole my character due to his telepathy... Peregrine was very much YT.

Superstar - a teen brick with some energy powers - HS football star. My wife built his sister a cheerleader and EP. They could join hands and do a really nasty area effect attack. Played only for a few sessions.

Surge. A martial artist with a small cosmic pool. Played for a while in my wife’s campaign, but not enough. Then this campaign ended- It had been running almost 13 years.

The Rocky Mountain Avengers:
A game that was run by a friend of ours, Brian, that was a player in Lesslie’s campaign.

My first character was Black Cat a darkforce enhanced martial artists. I never got solid campaign numbers from the GM, so I kept layering her defenses. She ended up with more than the Brick in the game. She played for a while, but I wasn’t getting the kind of play in with her that I wanted. She did end up with a scale from Godzilla due to an AVLD that she had that actually did him damage, and made a shield out of it, and got her training from Captain America.

Dragonstar Red Used a visual traced from Rocket Red in the JLI. He was a supersuit. The GM and I were looking over one of the enemies books (international I think) that had a character with an EB with an RKA linked to it. He said that this was ugly as you could spread the EB and get the OCV bonus with the RKA. And DR was born. He had a breakable unbreakable focus. Mechanically it was unbreakable, but the suit granted +30 bod, no figured characteristics. So I had a lot of his powered systems either downpower or shut off completely depending on how much body he took. Played him for a great while. Really like him. A good deal of his style and power ended up in a later character - ballistic.

Afterburner my last character from this campaign. He was another attempt at a strait MP. He had desolid physical only (he turned into full flame), and rather large pool only for advantages on his EB. (this predated variable advantage). He could also get extra dice with the pool. He was johnny storm’s sun with a quickened aging metabolism.

Kismit was a luck based semimaritalartist. I’ve thought about ressurecting her with a new build. She only played a few times.


Salt Lake Goofyness

Now Brian and I would drive to Salt lake for another Champions game. The GM there was inconsistant and stingy with XP but we wanted to both play so...

I played Afterburner again. Same powers and personality different background.

Now this GM would sometimes noshow with no warning so Brian took on GMing when the other guy didn’t show up (we all commented about how the GM had an activation roll). It was a semi-comic campaign. I played Powerhouse a brick that was a trucker. When he transformed into super ID, his cap spun backwards, his Tshirt became bright white, his jeans became clean and he got a little PH symbol on his shirt. He had a dog Splotch (to ugly to call spot). He was goofy and fun.

My game
About this time I started my campaign (which ran nearly 11 years). I built some characters to be GMPCs that Lesslie would run solo for me.

Dragonfire was a martial artist with fire generation, but it took a lot of energy, so he didn’t use it much. He ended up getting depowered and became the team trainer when I got tired of him.

Pheonix was a energy projecting sidekick to Lesslie’s patriotic The Marshall.

White Tiger was a supersuit martial aritsts (eveyone had supersuit bricks and EPs why not MAs). She had samurai and ninja training and a little magic. Her suit was techmagic. She was also filthy rich and ran a chain of department stores. Really cool character, and I never got to play her enough. She was one I intended to bring back, but in a lot of ways she and Cat (see Tempest ahead) were similar, and I was already playing Cat, so I just kept her on the shelf.

Tempest:
A new player in our game was getting ready to start his own game (and we played them concurrently)

For my first character I played a variation of Surge. Trouble was with his pool, he overwhelmed the GMs plots, and I voluntarily retired him.

My primary character for the decade long campaign was Black Cat. She ended up getting depowered after a while (150+ XP) and became a strait martial artist. I played a possessed by her powers go evil, get depowered, go to jail, get marital insight, get pardoned plot with her.

While Cat was in prison I played Moonstider. An alien bounty hunter with a huge selection of gadgets. He was a blast to play - my favorite of his dodads was a gelsack that hit and caused a funky alien energy discharge and the target was hit with a 2d6 end drain each phase for 2 turns. He was efficient and intense.

Now the team was getting pretty powerful, so the GM decided to add some newer lower powered characters. I brought in a chain smoking annoying little twerp that was a cyber telepath and machine manipulator. He had a bunch of stolen Foci that he used, and later shaped into a cybersuit. I was never satified with playing him (partially I think because he was so annoying). He went by Alter Ego.

Then he got married and moved to Salt lake and we stopped his campaign. Wahhh.

Now back in my game,

I brought Surge back, when the wife brought back Psyche (the two were a love story originally so when she brought back the one, I had to get the other). Third time was a charm, and as he was a GM PC his pool never got in the way of my plots.

Eric was the love interested of Warrior’s student Jennifer (so he was originally an NPC for an NPC/GMPC). When my wife decided to play Jenny as a PC, I decided to play Eric as one as well.

Ballistic was my most successful supersuit (the way Cat and Warrior were my Martial artists). He was an excop who flew the suit, but didn’t design it. As he played he started learning how to build it (and later had sort of a funky expand his brain kinda psi accident that gave him a lot of that right away). But after 75 or 100 XP I was getting sorta bored, and I had recently read the Ultimate Supermage, so I replaced his particlebeam mutlipower with a mage multipower, and he was almost a sacrifice for an alien sorceror, and it brought up his magical potential.


Short games, games that died or never really took off.

A game where we were the first with superpowers, I played a character with a bunch of little psi powers. Some telepathy, mind control, prescience, telekenesis, and a little energy control. However these powers hit a kid who was 17 and a total star wars nut, and so he thought he turned into a Jedi (his energy control was a “lightsaber” energy out of his hand). He called himself Padawan. He was a blast to play. He was the irritant of that group. He kept quoting Star wars. Another character “I’ll try”. Padawan “There is no try, only do. Or do not.”

Another lower powered game where the characters were just learning thier powers I built Tempo. He was a muscian (drummer) who got speedster powers. This game died within a month but I loved the character, and, dang it, I still hadn’t played a speedster the way I wanted.


I was intillectually trying to come up with a two character fusion character (a la firestorm) and built Sift a mage with the skills that both her secret IDs had. I played her in a short play be Email game, as a secondary character in the campaign that had Blackcat, and then resurected her for my most recent just starting game as a GM PC in the mystic squad. She still has never really been played much.

The New Game.
I am in the process of starting new champions world, with multiple teams that I can bounce around with. I’m using bits of the long running campaings I was in as part of the background, so it is a sequel campaign, and this allows the players to play some of thier older, more powerful characters. Sift is on the mystic squad. Ballastic and Black Cat are in the legacy team (think JLA or Avengers)

Currently playing in a team that ended up being the “teen Champions” is Terminal Velocity. Another teen speedster.His mother was Shrike from European Enemeis, and his father was a superhero. Dad’s wife found out about his stumble from matrimony and set him up to be killed by Eurostar. She left the team they were on, and thier son hunts me.

The Freak Sqaud.
On of our new players got bit by the GM bug again, and as I have been having problems with my depression I bowed out of GMing my fantasy game to let him run his Champions - and we will likely have our first session this week. I am playing an update to Meeb.

[Storn]

I have no idea... but a lot.

I've run characters then turned them over to other players. I've got characters in every corner of the globe in RDU.

But the ones who are substantial? Who have arcs that are in play or maybe on hiatus, but could be picked up at moment's notice.

Probably about 10 or 12.

[Cancer]

With one exception (a Shadowrun campaign, where I have had two but one just retired), I never play more than one character at a time in a campaign.

Now, since we have an absurd number of campaigns going, that's still a mess of characters.

[Matt Frisbee]

In some D&D games, I've played not only the main character, but his followers as well. But those are the only times I've ever run more than one character at a time.

In total, I'd estimate I've played over 100 characters, but they all tend to be straight-forward, brute force ugly types, since I like to get up front and personal with my character's enemies.

Matt "Dibs-on-She-Hulk" Frisbee

[gamerz123]

Hmm...

To the best of my recollection, here's a list of characters I've generated and played...

"Retired" or no longer have character sheet:

AD&D 1st -- 7
TMNT -- 1
Robotech -- 3
Rifts -- 4
Shadowrun -- 9
GURPS 3rd -- 4
Floating Vagabond -- 1
FASA Star Trek -- 1
d6 Star Wars -- 1
Cthulhu -- 3
HERO -- 1
D&D 3rd -- 2
Spycraft -- 1
FASA Star Trek -- 1
Traveller -- 1
Star Frontiers -- 2
Vampire -- 2 (yeah, I got talked into trying it a few times)

Current active (including a few that I'll be building by the end of Feburary) :

Hero - 5
Sengoku - 1
Star Wars d20 - 1
Cthulhu - 2
D&D 3.5 - 2

Sum total of 54. Probably left out a few.
(Note: Oops. Left out Boot Hill -1, Delta Green -1, and d20 Modern - 1) Total of 57.

Usually don't play more than one character in a game at a time. However, I'll be running 2 characters the current Cthulhu game because the GM says the mortality level is pretty high and wants everyone to run simultaneous characters.

In the D&D 3.5 game, I have two characters but alternate between the two of them. Can't decide between Wizard and Bard, so I play one for awhile and the other for awhile. Don't level as fast as everyone else, but the variation is nice since this campaign's been the longest continuous by far that I've been in, almost 5 years myself and 8 for the most senior member.(We update the characters to newer editions as they come out.)

[rjcurrie]

I can't remember ever playing more than a single character at a time, except in Ars Magica, where it's more or less the norm (although, usually only a single charcter was active in any given adventure). I've played in a lot of different campaigns (long and short) and really don't remember most of the characters.

However, I do remember most of the Champions characters I've played when I wasn't GMing:

Professor Plasma -- scientist with fire powers

Rick Davies the Resilient Rubber-Man -- superhero fan with stretching powers

Challenger -- normal in a powersuit that gives him increased DEX and STR and makes him one heck of a martial, patriotic son of the original Challenger (a Captain America-type)

Brainstorm/White Hand -- a mentalist who discovered that the medalion that gave him his powers actually contained the soul of the man who was due to be the savior of the universe.

Whiz Kid -- teenage genius/speedster

Gauntlet -- an average guy in an alien powered armor suit (basically a brick) that he acquired through what would today be called a reality TV show.

Silver Bow -- female martial artist/archer with swinging -- originally conceived as a Hawkeye/Spider-man sort of cross who took on a more spiritual nature after the primary religious hero in the campaign died in her arms and she had an encounter with what she believed was an angel.

Friction Lass -- a spoiled brat of a debutante with the ability to control friction and air resistance. She liked sex and shopping as much as (if not more than) superheroing.

Angelika Kroft (aka the Angel of Death) -- a lesbian former assassin who turned to good

Rapport -- a short lived character with cyberkinetic powers.

Forethought -- female mentalist with some precognitive powers whose powers had activated when she was raped.

Dynamo -- computer scientist with electrical and cyberkinetic powers, essentially a rewritten version of Rapport for a different campaign.

Crimson Fist -- a golden-aged blaster with an ancient Egyptian amulet that gave him his power.

Crimson Ace -- a version of myself with Captain Mavel-like powers and a goal of becoming as much a celebrity as a superhero.

I have used versions of many of these characters (as well as a couple of my V&V characters) as either PCs or NPCs in my SuperSquad America convention games.

Rod Currie
http://www.supersquadamerica.com

[Eosin]

Let's see

Fantasy
1st ED D&D - Ebon Seeker (played for 7 years) 11th level Archer-Ranger. Killed In Action
2nd ED D&D - Tharon Fesk (Played for 2 years) 8th level cleric.
2nd ED D&D - Erenial FR Elven Ranger 18 /Wizard 20
Fantasy Hero - Lorin Gronican (Archer)... close to 6 months
High Fantasy - Vargas (Ranger) on and off for 3 years. Killed in Action

Dark Champions
Urieal - Olympic class gymnast and vigilate. Killed in Action.
The Kid - super boy genius with a terminal disease. 4-5 years.
Crucible - Cop gifted with the ability to see evil. Played x 3 sessions.

Champions
Flare - Nuke (Squadron Supreme) homage. 2 years.
Striker - Martial Brick (Telekenitic) on par with USAgent.
Sunfire - X-men energy projector.

Fringe Worthy
Andrew Eldrich - stage magician and very fringe worthy.


There have been other incidental characters who got played for an abortive game or two but these are the ones who had a good deal of play.

[Seenar]

Egad. Tons. I doubt I can even remember them all. I doubt I can even remember all the Champions characters. :think:

Um what he saide.

[megaplayboy]

A dozen or three. At a time, maybe 4(for 2-3 games).

[Blue]

Too many to count. I'd only be guessing.

[Rapier]

Wow. That's a lot of characters.

2 D&D
6 AD&D
4 Champions
2 Fantasy Hero
3 ShadowRun
2 Gurps
1 Rifts
1 Jorune
2 CyberPunk
2 StarFleet Battles
3 Silent Death Civs
2 TMNT

That's all the characters I can think of off the top of my head. I've GMed quite a few of those also so I've played a LOT more characters but they were not necessarily "mine."

[teh bunneh]

Going back in time, from the current game to what I can remember, listing only the games I played and not GMPCs, not counting any one-shots...

D&D3.5: Lars Valgard (Human Fighter) and Zook Farsil (Gnome Wizard)
Star Wars d6: Shasi Phade (Zalgon Jedi-wannabe)
Champions: Chevelier (armored skill-hound martial artist weaponmistress)
GURPS Diskworld: "Dutch" (Barbarian Heroine)
Fantasy Hero: Floppsy (Lapine Witch-hunter)
Palladium FRPG: Sir Aric (Human "paladin")
Champions: Myrmidon (powered armor) and Blur!! (speedster)
7th Sea R&K: Nikolai Vladomirovich (Ussuran Black Knight)
Star Wars d6: Vince Marou (Human ex-Imperial Guardsman)
Shadowrun: Lizard (Human ex-corporate mage)
GURPS Fantasy: Thadeous Artimidorus (Griffon ambassador)
DC Universe/Champions: Johan Constantine (son of John Constantine) and Kent Marlow (heir to Superman's legacy)
GURPS Fantasy: Cindy the Vixen (catgirl thief/wizard/fighter)

That goes back about 10 years. Beyond that my memory gets hazy. I know there's a Pendragon game back there, and a Star Trek, and a few Cyberpunk games. A lot of MERP and Rolemaster, and some Cyberspace, too. Quite a bit of AD&D (2nd ed) as well. I'd have to hunt around for my old character sheets. Mostly I GM, so I've had a lot of favorite NPCs and GMPCs in that time, too.

[Lord Mhoram]

Let's see outside of Champions-

D&D 1st Ed - 6
Rolemsater - 4
Spacemaster - 2
Mythus - 2
Fantasy Hero - 8
D&D 3/3.5 - 4 - I play solo, and my wife runs the game, so I usually play 2 characters at at time. I retired the first pair, and am playing the second.
D20Modern - 1
Star Hero - 2

[Vondy]

Well, I started role playing when I was seven (about 27 years ago), though I've regularly been the default gamemaster. I've also been in groups with ongoing campaigns and fairly rare character death. Still, characters that were designed for me that I had more than a fleeting attachment to?
Ritzdjamar (AD&D 1st Ed, Human Mage 27), 8 year active career, but other gamemasters (that group rotated) used him as an NPC off an for years after that. He became important to another of my character's stories with many cameos. He was a member of a group called the "Warriors Grimm" that started as an old-school module-busting band that eventually acquired personalities (of all things) and their own storyline before the group was retired. There were three players, we all played 2 characters each, rotating which one was the lead. One GM handed me his "updated" character sheet long after his retirement at 20th level. He was now 7 levels higher and had every 1st Ed. Spell ever published. Ouch. I haven't played him in... 19 years.
Cedric Anvilslammer (AD&D1st Ed, Dwarven Fighter 17), 8 year active career, but like Ritzdjamar became an NPC. A lot of fun, and was important in a background sense to the same latter-day character as Ritzdjamar (though he didn't make more than one cameo in her career). He was a lot of fun (and the product of the monty-haul nature of module dwellers). I haven't played him in... 19 years.
Ediard (AD&D 1st Ed, 1/2 Elven Noble, Fighter-Magic User 12/12). 5 year active career (on and off). He was a member of a band in Ravenloft who made their way through the various realms on a paddle-style river-boat. He was infected with lycanthropcy, though he finally learned to control it. Its been about a decade since he saw action.
Claudia: my signature character who was foisted on me against my will but then became something of a muse and had a 15 year career. She's existed in numerous mechanical incarnations and travelled many worlds. I'm in the process of distilling an "essential claudia." She was the character, even when I tried to retire her, or was serving as GM, that the players (from more than one group), kept insisting I play. Part of her story is a love-hate relationship with Ritzdjamar and the fact that she was fostered, as a baby, with Cedric. She's also met several literary swords and sorcery characters, and been several to literary fantasy worlds (not to mention modern earth, solomon kane's africa, and arthurian britian). The last time she was played was about five years ago.
Dirk Small, Private Eye (Hobbit): starred in about 12 adventures as "Dirk Small, Private Eye!" All in one city, they were basically a hard-boiled fairy tale with a lot of 1920's shtick and slang in an otherwise fantasy environment. Its been almost a decade since he saw action.
Judah Aaron Kol-Tov: my occult-pulp character. He's been in an occassional one shot here and there over the last ten years (the person who ran that game only runs rarely), but nothing permanent or meaningful. I wish I could play him more. Incidentally, this is the character below, but 30 years earlier. Last adventure: 2 years ago.
Anthem: my "superhero" character of many campaigns, and the head of the Freedom Patrol in my Freedom Patrol Campaign (which alternated with fantasy for close to thirteen years). He exists in two versions: one is my champions character version (which I never played much, though I wanted to). The other is the freedom patrol version. The Patrol isn't really a super-hero game. Its more the 1950's with super-powered (non-costumed generally) protagonists and a lot of occult, atomic horror, red-scare, cold-war, x-files conspiracy schtick. Last Adventure: 2 years ago.
Chester Montgomery: many years ago we had a 2300AD Campaign. Chester was a former colonel turned "private military contractor." He was also the star of several short stories I wrote in high-school. Last adventure... a decade ago.
Pinstripe: psychotic dark champions vigilante. Really psychotic. He hasn't seen action in about four years. It was the game we played in between other games.So, the answer is - in 27 years of gaming - 9 that I felt some attachment to and played more than a few times, but only 5 of them were regular characters, and of those 5 "main characters," only 2 have seen action within the last decade. These days, alas, I only run a solo PBEM game (no playing at all). And the truth is, going back over the last ten or twelve years, in which I had the same cohesive group, they'd only remember Claudia and Anthem as "my characters."

[Trebuchet]

Currently I'm playing four:

Zl'f; a fast MA in our standard Champions campaign

Justicar; an EB/MA in a Dark Champions game

Master Zhang Kwan; a Shaolin monk in our Pulp Hero game

Azure; a flying EB in our high-level (500 pt) online game we start tomorrow.

[Blue]

I think I missed the point. Rather than "How many characters have you ever played", I imagine this is more like "how many active characters do you have".

In that spirit:
Vampire: 2 Vamps, 2 Ghouls
D&D: 6 (All updated to 3e, regardless of where they started)
Champions: 3 (Have two other PCs but don't have chance to play them)
Exalted: 1
Traveler: 1
Mage (sort of): 1

There are tons of others that I don't expect their campaigns to ever get picked up again.

As for the most I play at one time in a game: 4 (2 Vampires, 2 Ghouls)

The Breakdown: Vampire: 1 Gangrel (Moira) Her ghoul, Samuel (think quasimodo after corrective surgery) 1 Brujah (Bradley) His ghoul, Sister Mary Elizabeth "Beth" (Former nun) D&D: 1 16th Level Cleric 1 9th level Kobold Rogue 1 7th level Monk 1 Rogue/Duelist equivalent of 7th 1 6th level Half Orc Teen (with an outrageous intimidate score) 1 11th level Druid in Mystara Champions: Anthem (Martial Artist) Uncle Slam (Brick) Audra Blue (Cyber Techie) (with an option on Sleepwalker (Brick) and Lucretia (Gun-Fu).) Exalted: 1 Solar Priest Traveler: 1 ship's Security Officer Mage: (actually a bastardized version of Mage called "Primals") 1 guy with power over animals, weilder of the Dog-Canon! (Don't ask!)