When I try to use one of the more "hacky" methods of getting a literal "special character" (such as backslash or a brace) then I get a different character: backslash seems to be an open quote, left brace a dash, and right brace a close quote. What happened to my special characters?
\documentclass{minimal}
\begin{document}
\char`\\
\char`\{
\char`\}
\end{document}
produces: "-" (only the two "s are different).
Your special characters are in the wrong font table that is loaded by default! Printing them using a different character set will bring them back!
\documentclass{minimal}
\begin{document}
\texttt{\char`\\}\\
\texttt{\char`\{}\\
\texttt{\char`\}}\\
\end{document}
See Why do lower case mathcal letters show up as random symbols? for some help as to how to print a font table.
As Yiannis wrote, it's the font table. However, using fontenc, you can get them to show up as you want.
\documentclass{minimal}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\begin{document}
\char`\\
\char`\{
\char`\}
\end{document}
