A party of adventurers with different skills. ;)

If we're talking about those RPGs where you can only play one, it depends on the game. If I'm not familiar with it yet and I expect it to be tough or complicated, I go with a warrior, assuming it's the most easiest class to deal with. It's not my favorite option though, as I'm always afraid that a warrior will only be half the fun you could have with the game, no flashy spell effects, no secret looting of other people's treasures etc. I think I generally like spellcasters best. Rogues are not really my thing; I envy them for their lockpicking skills but I hate sneaking most of the time, if it slows down the game too much.

I have to admit I didn't play any of the games you list, but I played through Gothic as a warrior, Arx Fatalis as a warrior/mage, Divine Divinity as a female mage, and my favorite classes in NWN are sorcerer and cleric.


Oh yeah, and that too. :D

That's also why I often prefer female characters over male ones, because the latter seldom look good in CRPGs. ;)

And I prefer humans most of the time because they aren't as restricted as other races and not as clearly defined and clichéd as elves and dwarves and similar. Although I have a soft spot for gnomes and halflings and the occasional "monster" race, but they seldom make the best player characters when it comes to efficiency, at least not in D&D games. (Not that I'm a power-gamer or munchkin, I just liked to survive long enough to see the ending of a game and without getting too frustrated in the process.)

Elf or Human?

I played exactly that and hated it... FWIW, I hated DA:O in general, for reasons that didn't have to do with my character at all. Playing a Warrior compounded my dismay on the first play through, though.

I did say etc. ;)

Well, depends on your play style, I guess. Compromises are probably a part of the experience, especially if you wish to go against the classic "role" of any given class.

Class: Mage or if it's less fantasy, something that isn't a direct warrior but more of a tech guy or guerilla type of warrior

Race: Something obscure, usually Elf in fantasy RPGs though. I avoid human if it's possible.

I tend to pick playstyle that is safe but explorable and manipulative.

Speaking of Dragon Age, I played throuygh Origins two times. Once as a mage and the second as a archer but in both playthroughs I had one tank and I didn't think it was any worse than any other character, after all they fill different roles but I can imagine having a tank as main character would be less interesting compared to a mage at least. One rule I had in Origins was to control all characters, that tactic board was a complete POS.

Haha, me too.

I always go for melee classes because i think they're much easier to build and i like to kill enemies in close range. I like to make the "super-soldier" type of guy who goes into a battle and deals most of the damage. I don't have too much patience and i'm very inexperienced at making magic-based classes. I'm always affraid of screwing up my character build, so i rarely go for magical classes. I also tend to focus on making characters with high constitution.

They said it was based on Final Fantasy XII's Gambit System which is ten times better in XII than Origins :P

Maybe so but the problem is that it just makes your companions become AIs, that's not the point of party based RPGs to be honest. Then again I'm against the whole idea of a main character in the first place as the player is suppose to be a puppet master, not playing a hero going on a trip with a few friends to save the world as it almost always is..

If we're talking single-char games, I tend to play characters that start in one corner of the "triangle" but kind of hybridise. Like, take my Oblivion character setup, this is what I'd consider reasonably representative> Majors are Stealth, Illusion, Blade, Marksman, Acrobatics, Mysticism (detection spells) and.... something else I can't remember without checking. Light armor or block I'd say.
So, really a stealth class, but takes complements to hybridise him out.
It depends on the game though, some games penalise these kinds of builds so then I prefer to branch out rather than playing obviously sub-par characters

I forgot about this, this considerably change my playstyle as well. Gotta love games that have balance for both hybrids and sub-par classes.

Depending on what classes, races, and skills are available, i have a few stock characters to send on my adventures.
For warriors I typically have some swordsman named Garrick and some kind of barbarian named Fightgar. My wizard is often named something like "Thelderew", who is supposed to be vaguely like Edwin from Baldur's Gate only less evil and more crotchety (less crotchety if he's an elf or something). I often have two women as my rogue and priest(ess) for "balance", along with a gnome named Steve.

Of course, as I said this is highly dependent on my choice of classes and races, especially since I tend to lean towards more exotic races if they're available. I tried Wizardry 6 once and I my party was a lizardman fighter, a draconian mage, a werewolf priestess, a catgirl alchemist, an ape ("Mook") psychic, and Steve the gnomish bard.

For single character games I often try to build a speed-based fighter-mage hybrid, thought I guess my general playstyle ends up leaning towards basic warrior types. Gotta kill for all that sweet sweet XP. And yes, I make a stereotypically attractive woman as my avatar if I'm able to, unless I'm only testing things in which case I recreate Fightgar as an ugly orcish warrior.

In a single player RPG as you mention it is usually one of the Twins - Azaghail-Kain - Half Elf Mage or his sister Azabeth-Kain Half Elf Rogue (sometimes Muti-Class Mage)

If it is an option and I feel like smashing things then of course its Wulfgahr the Orc Warrior

Depending on how good the graphics are I play as a female (more appealing to watch jiggling around if I'm going to be using the same character for thirty plus hours).

And I usually play a thief - Mostly because I don't like being locked out of things.

Oh yeah, 90+% of my characters have some way of getting where they're not meant to be. Morrowind (slightly more atypical char) had enough magic to waltz through fortresses (fly, open lock, close lock behind you XD)