I've only ever kept persistent characters on two Proboards forums, an Eragon and Harry Potter respectively,  and both are so many years long dead that I can say that without it being advertisement.  It has been so long since I had a persistent character last more than six months at most that I have forgotten what it's like.  My question for discussion is thus:  is it better to have just a couple of characters that you RP in multiple threads, or is it better to create a new character for every thread you enter (tailoring that character to the theme of that thread)?  Am I a bad roleplayer for making "throwaway" characters that are forgotten after their RP finishes or dies?

For me, it would seem like if I am creating a Harry Potter character - by way of example - that that character simply couldn't be adapted to anything medieval-related like Eragon. Conversely, it'd be difficult for me to tweak a medieval-based character to be in a superhero (one of the reasons why I don't typically RP in superhero threads :P) or sci-fi modernized thread.  I know it can sometimes be hard to keep track of characters in your head if you create a new one for every thread, but I think the creation is half the fun.  That half is slowly starting to melt for me though; hence my asking if it's more acceptable for me to just keep three or four characters on hand and make sure I can adapt them to any thread I wish to join.