Making Characters: Generate or Recycle?

[Memoir]

I have the same characters, I just change their names, skin tones and ages xD Usually falls into these categories:

1) Insane Bitch
2) Outright Bitch
3) Hyperactive child-like girl with a dark backstory
4) Super incredible naive girl who's nice to every living thing under the sun
5) Super incredible naive but powerful boy who's outright loyal to whatever faction he belongs to and has a strong heart for justice.

[SgtKlum]

Any character, if you think about it, has something of a recycled nature to it because it'll have been inspired by someone or something from your life's experience.

I personally recycle names from old characters, recycle traits from previous characters, but in general I try to never straight-up copy a previous character of mine. Each one has a hint of originality about it. If I do recycle a name, I'll try to make the two characters as different as possible from each other.

[VioletWhirlwind]

A little of both. I tend to use my "Strong, snarky female character that doesn't take nonsense from anybody" most often, because I'm most familiar with her, but some RPs that's not optimal, or flat out doesn't work at all. So I create someone new, or use another rehash from other characters that I have sitting around. My female leads always seem to take on some aspect of snarkyness though...I can't seem to avoid it. *shrug*

However, even recycled characters can end up vastly different, depending on RP, so it's not necessarily a bad thing.

[Joril]

I do similar characters, adapted for the setting. If the GM asks for a new char, I do that.

[Captain Jordan]

I've done both.

I like to generate new characters for different RPs, but there are some times when recycling is useful. When there's a genre that I've written in before, and a particular character hasn't really had enough time to grow or develop in that genre, I might revamp the character and use them again. I almost never use the exact same character, though, I'm always tweaking and changing them, sometimes making the character better or worse in the process. I generally only do this if there's some kind of story angle I can fit the character into, I rarely recycle characters when they're just blank slates to be developed as the RP evolves.

Generating new characters is a fun experience, however, and I try to do this whenever someone has created a unique setting for an RP. It feels disrespectful to port a character that I've played before into someone's well-crafted world. I may reuse elements of particular characters, but never more than a third of their composition.

I rarely have two characters in the same games, or concurrently-run RPs of the same genre and setting (for example, two Star Trek RPs set after Nemesis), who are the same. I try to create different characters rather than having a single template that I write constantly in order to have different stories evolve. This even applies to the images that portray the characters. Sometimes I will start with an image, and if that image is being used for another character in the same genre, I'll discard it and move on to something else.

[NatsumeHack]

I tend to always make a new character, but there times I need to bring back a old one like the special character I have for Pokemon Rps, I do that.

[Crimson Flame]

I like to reuse characters if I like them. Especially if the RP that character was in dies prematurely. It helps develop them more. It doesn't mean I can't make a new one when I need to though.

[Foster]

This.

Unless I really want to draw up a new character.

This.

Unless I need to generate more characters than are currently residing in my cache.

Which is how I just managed to join another twenty 1x1 RPs.