10 Responses

1. Dead Orcs  •  March 18, 2009 @5:56 am

   Aww…man…a trip down nostalgia row. My first character was a Magic-User as well: His name was Zen Jagen. His career was tragically short, not having saving throws high enough to defeat Large Spider venom. This was 1981, so we were playing the Original D&D (blue rule book).

   Despite his short career, I was hooked. As for what specifically hooked me? Well, it was two things. First, mapping. Seeing the dungeon revealed a little at time, and wondering what was just beyond the reach of the graph paper was intriguing. Second, buying equipment. Yeah, I know that sounds lame, but I had never played a game where the stuff I bought had a direct effect on the outcome of the game. The concept (at least to an 8th grader at the time) was fascinating.

   I’ve been playing ever since. Great stuff!

2. Ameron  •  March 18, 2009 @8:45 am

   My first character was a fighter armed with a spear (he was a pre-generated character). I joined a group of friend mid-way through the Keep on the Borderlands. During my first encounter I asked my friends what actions I could take. Someone said “you can throw your spear” so I did. Then I spent the next few rounds getting my ass kicked because I was unarmed. From that day on, I’ve NEVER played a character with a spear.

3. wickedmurph  •  March 18, 2009 @9:04 am

   My first character was 2 characters. We played the old Blizzard Pass module, and I made an elf and a dwarf, named Whiplash and Chainmail, respectively. Whiplash fell down a pit and got eaten by a giant rat. I don’t remember what happened to Chainmail, although I’m pretty sure it was bad.

4. Dragon Blogger  •  March 18, 2009 @11:40 am

   I was always the DM, my first delve into dungeons and dragons was when I received the box set as a gift for my birthday. I quickly read the books and started my first DM session with my brother playing his first character which was a fighter. This was back in 1985 and it was Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, though I have played the older and previous boxed set too.

5. Thasmodious  •  March 18, 2009 @8:04 pm

   My first character was a fighter my arch-nemesis “helped” me create. I was 7 years old. He guided me through character generation for a 1st level fighting man then told me, as my DM, he would be generous and “give me” a number of magic items (most wizard based) and a ton of gold to start off my adventuring career. Then he told me I had to fight his high level wizard and he killed me with his first spell then told me that now he gets all my stuff. Then he went off to PvP some other kid in class who had a character at the same level. I thought “what a stupid game”. But it still somehow grabbed a hold of me, the dice, the character sheet, the idea. Fortunately, an actual friend had an older brother who ran actual games and it really started there.

6. Donny_the_DM  •  March 19, 2009 @9:25 am

   MY first character….hmmmmm….That would have been the freakishly tall woodelf fighter/mage/cleric. The name escapes me, but he was an exiled prince. I remember starting the game, a newbie in a group of folks about 5 years older than me (i was 16). I was naked on a slab, and was going to be sacrificed by lizard men.

   Lessee, I broke loose, and my first ever attack roll was a crit that killed their chief! Good times back then, good times.

7. Chameleon  •  March 20, 2009 @2:40 pm

   Oh, man. Tabletopping was never my thing - I was spoiled rotten by an early online RPG-MUD that handled all the dice-rolling and stat-keeping for me. My first/only tabletop character was a thief-acrobat named Rhyselle. She was created to fill a place in an ongoing game that had lost a couple of players and needed refreshing - the DM was a friend and talked me into it. Rhyselle was rescued from a cage in troll’s cave and the females in the party immediately took to her and decided to clean the little ragamuffin up. The guys were unanimously skeptical and distrustful of her, all except the one elf, who found her distasteful (she was a half-elf) - oi, memories!

8. WoWDruid  •  March 24, 2009 @9:06 pm

   Wow…nostalgia time. My first was a Healer of some sort. I was playing with a bunch of guys who were well versed in D&D and I had no idea what was going on other than I liked it. I really, really liked it. The countless Mountain Dew’s, broken pencil tips, the other guys fumbling through books, it was just a great time. I do recall that at one point my characters leg got chopped off by a Giant or an Ogre. Fun stuff.

9. Anonymous  •  March 30, 2009 @10:52 pm

   my very first character was an “Academician” named Araedric.. It was a Mage Kit my DM was excited about, and he convinced me to be excited about it too, so I played it.

   He was particularly boring, but I don’t think he had a handle on wtf he was doing - first encounter was a bunch of zombies that we ended up running from, and the second was a mysterious man on horseback who proceeded to give us draws from a Deck of Many Things - killing 2 of the players, and giving me a HUGE amount of gems, and a Henchman that was 4 levels higher then I was (me being a level 1).

   He then proceeded to kill off my henchman in the cruelest way possible, so I killed myself and quit.

10. Anonymous  •  June 12, 2009 @3:32 pm

    It was a level 4 ranger. I started playing right after getting my license. This was because I lived in the sticks and now having a car allowed me to join my brother’s weekly Friday night game. I drove to his house, and we played. My brother was dm and the other guy was playing 4 characters. i remember it so clearly, the guy just said “here, play this guy,” and I did. (Drug use by the other characters owners had resulted in them being banned from the game just 2 weeks prior.) I was playing the ranger and we were fighting harpies all night long, finally we made it to the nest. We only had moments to search and I rolled a crit! I had no clue as to the significance of this, but by the other guy’s excitement I figured it was something special. “A crit! Of all the times to roll a crit! LUCKY! So on and soforth. I ended up getting a full suit of plate +5 ethereal armor. I was hooked. My brother twisted the rules so my ranger could wear it, and it remains my favorite character even though he maxed out at level 12 I believe.

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