D&D 40th Anniversary Blog Hop Challenge Day 2

This post is part of a series of posts in the D&D 40^th Anniversary Blog Hop Challenge.  The information in many of these posts is related to events that occurred primarily in the1980’s. Since it is now 2014, I can not guarantee complete accuracy with such a large passage of time but I will present the events and information as best as I can recall.

Day 2: First person you introduced to D&D. Which edition? Their first character?

The first two people I introduced to D&D was Ray and Neal Carman.  I had playing for years with Jamie, Dan, and various other people since the second grade.  Ray and Neal moved from Iowa to Oologah with their family and started living just around the block from us.  We met one day and found out that we shared many of the same interests – reading, comic books, and heavy metal music to name just a few.  After we discussed some of our favorite fantasy books and did some trading I brought up playing Dungeons & Dragons.  They had both heard of the game but never played so I got out the books and a short time later they were ready to start rolling some dice.

I used AD&D to introduce the Carman brothers to this hobby.  We would play quite a bit and they fit right in with the rest of the group so there was anywhere from 3 to 7 of us on a regular basis.  It did not stop with AD&D and we would branch out to other games also.  The other games we would regularly play included Villains & Vigilantes, Marvel Super Heroes, Talislanta, and Palladium Fantasy.  For quite a stretch the AD&D campaign was basically put on hold while Neal ran an enjoyable Palladium Fantasy campaign. 

I can not recall the names and other details of their first characters but I do remember that Ray and Neal were like Caramon and Raistlin of Dragonlance fame when it came to their characters.  Ray was the athlete – football, wrestling, and track – so he was interested in playing powerful warrior type characters.  Neal was the quintessential picture of a nerd – tall with a narrow and slim frame, he wore glasses, and was a bookworm – and seemed to always be interested in the magic-user of one type or another.  They seemed to follow that general pattern throughout our games and would switch it up every now and then but would always play the opposite type of character from the other brother.