Do you have to make a new character every time you start a game of Dungeons and Dragons?

Answer 1

Really, that depends on what you mean by "start a game".

Unlike Monopoly, or Risk, or other Board Games, you don't "finish" a role-playing game like Dungeons and Dragons in a single day. Typically, groups will meet at regular intervals - weekly, monthly, and so forth - and play out a long, linked series of stories, using the same characters.

That is often a large part of the attraction of role-playing games - using the same character in a long, linked series of games ... during which time, the character's abilities grow and improve.

But that group might, after several months or a year, decide they want to start over. And then, yes, everyone would make a new character.

As an example, look at The Lord of the Rings films. If played out with a game like Dungeons and Dragons, with the group gathering once a week to play? The entire first gathering, or "session", could be occupied just with Bilbo's birthday party. Obviously, that's not where the story ends, so everyone goes home already looking forward to getting together again, a week later ... to play out The Hobbit's leaving the Shire; that second gathering might end with the Hobbits entering the gates of Bree. And the story is clearly still not done yet, so the third week, the group plays out the events in the Inn, and perhaps through to the Nazgul attack at Wathertop.

And so the game proceeds, over several "sessions" which all link into what is called "a campaign".

Finally, in the end, though? Frodo and Gollum have their wrestling match in Mount Doom, Gollum falls into the lava with the One Ring, the war is won, and everyone heads home. Game over; that's it, the story of Frodo, Sam, Legolas, and so forth is complete.

Which means, the next week's gathering? Will be the start of a new story, with new characters!