D&D 40th Anniversary Blog Hop - Day 1

First person who introduced you to D&D. Which edition? Your first character?

I was introduced to D&D in third grade by a kid who would become one of my closest friends.Chad Stump was a year older than me. We were in the TAG class at our school and neither of us had partners for any of the group work (since we were both the third man for respective grades).

I've already discussed the way we originally "played D&D" here. Let's just say it involved a lot of GI Joes and DC Super Powers action figures.

The first edition we played was 2nd edition, though we had a few 1e and basic books that were used as well. My first character was a minotaur fighter (gladiator) and he didn't last long. I'm glad that the whole ordeal didn't sour me to D&D. Chad and I stopped gaming with that DM after that and Chad decided he'd run some solo D&D for me. I then created Will, the avariel fighter.


Will was wish fulfillment. I've always been overweight. I wasn't strong. I had friends but I was never really popular. Girls didn't really talk to me, though at that point in my life I'd been trying to talk to them.

Will didn't have those problems though. He was an elf. They are thin and athletic. They're as attractive is it gets (at least in my young mind). Will was a fighter too, he wasn't a weakling.

Oh yeah, and he had wings. So there was that...

Most importantly though, Will was a hero. The superficial stuff aside, Will was an idealistic hero. He was hope (which is what he named the flying ship he eventually captained). A lot of the adventures I played as Will may have faded from my mind, but that feeling of hope associated with him, that's still there.