The first person I introduced to D&D?
Which Edition? Their first character.
I remember this very well, maybe because it had been a conscious effort when it happened and took some time get there. And when I write "time" I don't mean the time it needs to convince someone, but the time it needs to get "old enough to play". I know, it sounds somewhat arbitrary and I've read about people that started playing as early as 10 years old. It's just that "old enough" is something where the perceptions of all those involved need to align to make it work.
So my seven years younger cousin had to wait until he'd turned 16 to get an offer to join us.
He had been ready the whole time, though. I remember two occasions that showed his early potential. One time my brother and I where playing Hero Quest at my grandparent's house. We had been 12 and 11, so my cousin would have been 5. He was barely able to look over the edge of the table, but he wanted to play so very bad.
Of course we didn't let him, being 7 years older and hitting puberty hard. I couldn't tell you why I remember that so clearly, but it's to this day that I see his excitement and disappointment ...
The second thing I remember is how he had loved our Amiga 500. He was 7 and we had lots of cool games plus two joysticks for two-player-fun, so yeah, what's not to love. When he was over at our house, he would play. When he played, the whole body moved with the joystick and the neighbours would hear him cheering it up. He was good at those games, too.
Naturally he was aware of the fact that we were playing role playing games. Of course he wanted to play. And I believe it was in the year 2002 when I asked the group if they wanted to add him as a player-on-trial. I had been pretty confident that he'd be able to pull it off and they agreed to give it a go.
We weren't playing D&D at the time but had a very intensive campaign Vampire: The Dark Ages going. Anyway, 3E was the hype and I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to get started with D&D.
That's how it started. He has been a player at my table ever since. 3E did take it's toll on how he perceives the game and we don't agree on most topics, system-wise. But he's an excellent player natural gamer.
His first real character had been a magic-user with the name Elmin (yeah, a bit obvious where that name came from), famous for his short fuse. If the group took their time to decide the best way to handle a situation, you could count on him going all in, charging into the situation. This went as far as other players positioning their characters close enough to tackle him, if need be. Despite his suicidal tendencies, he survived every encounter although being a magic user (which was quite the task ...).
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Tomorrow it's about my first dungeons. Enjoy what the others wrote and keep the dice rolling ...
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