I still remember the moment I first got introduced to "RP," and it was way back in elementary school during the after-school daycare (around third or fourth grade, if I recall correctly).
There wasn't any dice, there wasn't any rules. It was one of the people working there telling us all a story, with us as the characters, and constantly looking to us when "we" were presented with an obstacle and asked us what we could do. People mentioned their hats, their favorite yo-yos, busting out that Yak-Bak they had in their backpack. No matter what "solution" we threw at her, she took it and made it work and continued the story. And it was amazing.
Ever since, whenever something has caught my interest - video game, TV show, comic book - I've found myself making "fan characters" for them and imagining how they'd interact in that world. The earliest one I can remember was a Sonic fan-character "Fists the Echidna" - who was half echidna, half robot (I was nine at the time, so cut me a little slack there
) - that I thought up around the time of Sonic 3's release. I would even trace over pictures I could find of Knuckles and "robotocize" his left side, up until I could draw the character on my own (albeit rather poorly). I do find myself thinking up characters like that still, but I'd like to believe that they are a little more nuanced and creative. Or I could be just kidding myself, who knows? 
That brought me to Dungeons and Dragons (2nd edition. THAC0, y'all!) in the later days of elementary school with a friend of mine named Ben. I could read the handbooks, have ideas for these worlds, and actually use them! It was amazing! I've been playing pen and paper games like that on and off ever since (both in person and through online chat rooms), including running a game here and there.
Even when I got introduced to my first MMO while in training for the military (Vanilla WoW), I found myself developing a backstory for my Night Elf Hunter and even jotting down a few short stories. It wasn't an RP server, though - I had no idea such things existed, in fact - so it was usually just left on the wayside. I did the same thing for my characters in Everquest (naming my Necromancer's minions - like Mr. Happy the Wilted Flesh), FFXI, Champions Online (Favorite was Lard Almighty, the ex-Football player and overweight superhero - everyone had muscular or sexy heroes, I had to!), All-Points Bulletin, even my brief stint in Monster Hunter 3 (loved my grumpy, elderly Lancer and his love of tea. HOOAGH!)...
Then the burnout happened. I was in a hardcore raiding guild trying to push through the latest expansion of WoW, there was in-guild drama and most of our "recruits" were just using us to gear up before applying to a further-progressed guild. One guild leader got replaced with another, who got replaced by my friend that got me into WoW in the first place, and then he just up and quit without a word, leaving me in charge of this crumbling mess. I ducked out and swore off MMOs for good.
I still had my pen-and-papers, at least. I was running a 4e DnD game in a homebrew world with some friends of mine. Slowly, though, that drifted apart too and I had no real outlet. My days dwindled to "go to work, come home, play Team Fortress 2 until I got bored enough to spend the rest of the evening watching YouTube videos."
Sister was playing FFXIV, tried to get me in, I passed. The free trial rolled around, she tried again and I relented. I decided I'd stick to pure casual stuff - no more raiding guilds and the like anymore. Made my Lalafell, stuck around after the trial ended, and slowly worked on leveling him while perusing the official forums. Came across the Lore section - the naming conventions, specifically - and then stumbled on a thread that linked to here. Investigated on a whim, and... well, you can see how that turned out.
So... um... yeah.
There wasn't any dice, there wasn't any rules. It was one of the people working there telling us all a story, with us as the characters, and constantly looking to us when "we" were presented with an obstacle and asked us what we could do. People mentioned their hats, their favorite yo-yos, busting out that Yak-Bak they had in their backpack. No matter what "solution" we threw at her, she took it and made it work and continued the story. And it was amazing.
Ever since, whenever something has caught my interest - video game, TV show, comic book - I've found myself making "fan characters" for them and imagining how they'd interact in that world. The earliest one I can remember was a Sonic fan-character "Fists the Echidna" - who was half echidna, half robot (I was nine at the time, so cut me a little slack there
) - that I thought up around the time of Sonic 3's release. I would even trace over pictures I could find of Knuckles and "robotocize" his left side, up until I could draw the character on my own (albeit rather poorly). I do find myself thinking up characters like that still, but I'd like to believe that they are a little more nuanced and creative. Or I could be just kidding myself, who knows? That brought me to Dungeons and Dragons (2nd edition. THAC0, y'all!) in the later days of elementary school with a friend of mine named Ben. I could read the handbooks, have ideas for these worlds, and actually use them! It was amazing! I've been playing pen and paper games like that on and off ever since (both in person and through online chat rooms), including running a game here and there.
Even when I got introduced to my first MMO while in training for the military (Vanilla WoW), I found myself developing a backstory for my Night Elf Hunter and even jotting down a few short stories. It wasn't an RP server, though - I had no idea such things existed, in fact - so it was usually just left on the wayside. I did the same thing for my characters in Everquest (naming my Necromancer's minions - like Mr. Happy the Wilted Flesh), FFXI, Champions Online (Favorite was Lard Almighty, the ex-Football player and overweight superhero - everyone had muscular or sexy heroes, I had to!), All-Points Bulletin, even my brief stint in Monster Hunter 3 (loved my grumpy, elderly Lancer and his love of tea. HOOAGH!)...
Then the burnout happened. I was in a hardcore raiding guild trying to push through the latest expansion of WoW, there was in-guild drama and most of our "recruits" were just using us to gear up before applying to a further-progressed guild. One guild leader got replaced with another, who got replaced by my friend that got me into WoW in the first place, and then he just up and quit without a word, leaving me in charge of this crumbling mess. I ducked out and swore off MMOs for good.
I still had my pen-and-papers, at least. I was running a 4e DnD game in a homebrew world with some friends of mine. Slowly, though, that drifted apart too and I had no real outlet. My days dwindled to "go to work, come home, play Team Fortress 2 until I got bored enough to spend the rest of the evening watching YouTube videos."
Sister was playing FFXIV, tried to get me in, I passed. The free trial rolled around, she tried again and I relented. I decided I'd stick to pure casual stuff - no more raiding guilds and the like anymore. Made my Lalafell, stuck around after the trial ended, and slowly worked on leveling him while perusing the official forums. Came across the Lore section - the naming conventions, specifically - and then stumbled on a thread that linked to here. Investigated on a whim, and... well, you can see how that turned out.
So... um... yeah.
