Gaming! and Future Plans

Well I've been just a little busy here lately and haven't gotten around to posting anything on here. Between school for me and my 3 kids along with working and everything else I've been extremely distracted.

The evil campaign I've been running for the in-laws has been going well, and actually this weekend should be the last session with it again (they are level 23 now). After that the in-laws are wanting to test out the new D&D 5th edition game since my father-in-law bought the books that are available at the moment.
Looks like it could be fun at least, I'm not picky about the game I play as long as I can play. I've heard good and bad things about the new edition and honestly I don't care either way. A game is a game and until I play it I can't make an decision on whether or not I like it. Although being that it is a game I'm sure I will find something to enjoy about it regardless of anything else. I hope that rambling made sense as I didn't intend to start into that, oh well.

I've not had the time or concentration to work on my own game lately, but I still plan on putting more work into it at some point.

As far as updates, me and my wife have decided to go in on working on something creative together and are in the process of working on a Web-comic using 3d figures (I'll be making the panels/pages/images in DAZ Studio). Might turn out well, or might be horrible but either way we are giving it a go as a way for us to do something together, so should be fun either way.

With all three kids in school now it is nice but stressful at the same time as that means they are getting bigger and older. Our oldest daughter wants to play softball again when that comes around (not until spring at least), and the middle daughter is participating in the Youth Football group in our area as a cheerleader, the youngest is only in pre-k and hasn't wanted to get involved in anything yet.

Well enough of my ramblings for now I'll try to post something sooner without a huge break between them this time. Have a good one anyone who happens to read this. :)

Family/D&D/Etc...

So I am staying busy at the moment. Working full time, school is out for the summer at the moment at least, although I did sort of take on a second job. I was paid to build a website for the Doctor's office where my Mother works, and now I am also their IT guy (unless something major comes up). Not a full time job exactly but takes extra time on lunches and weekends when minor things happen.

The In-Laws are still playing the Evil campaign I am running. They are level 20 now and starting a war. And finally with the help of my brother-in-law (the war part is more for him as he really wanted to try a somewhat war like campaign), I have an idea on what to do with this war campaign that they will like!

I'm wanting to run a small campaign at my home as well but sadly I don't have enough people willing to come over and play. Oh well, maybe in the future.

So I've also been making pictures still with Daz-Studio, and I had an idea for a picture that got a little more initiative to get done with the help of my mother. She keeps picking on me about turning my children into "nerds" as she puts it, so I decided to go along with doing this picture for myself and so I could send it to her.

So my wife and daughters helped me make this by designing their own characters for me to setup.

Kim my wife's is the angel with white wings and blue outfit.
Barbara my 9 year old daughter is the red armored mage.
Izabel my 6 year old is the angel with blue/yellow/red wings (and mulan's dress).
Kira my 4 year old is the fairy.
Eric is me, and mine is the female with the spear and shield (character I'm planning out to play for the next time I get to play a game instead of run one)

I sent this to my mother as well just to make her laugh at me which was effective and amusing.

So yeah, more updates later and hopefully some new information on my Silver Divinity game (since this blog is supposed to be about that).

Funerals, Life, and Games

So yeah I've been meaning to post something on here but life always intervenes.

My Grandfather passed away on Wednesday June 11th at 5 A.M. he was 86. His funeral was Saturday and it went as well as a funeral can be expected. His obituary is here (mostly putting it here for myself I suppose) Willie A. (Bill) Fowler.

Father's day was good but depressing as can be expected considering we had a Funeral the day before it. My wife made me catfish and hush-puppies for Father's Day dinner, which is awesome (I rarely get to eat it at home as I'm the only one in the house that will eat it). Mostly I sat around Sunday and actually played Bioshock Infinite. I started it Saturday night after the funeral and spending time with family and I finished it Sunday night. I loved the game to be honest, the story was wonderful and the ending was great!

My oldest daughter is still playing softball and is super excited now as she finally hit the ball!

My Evil D&D campaign I'm running for the In-Laws is going well so far, they've gotten to level 20 now and are in the process of initiating a war. I'm hoping I can handle what I've setup and been working towards for them, but we shall see.

I'm planning on posting more sometime soon to do with my Silver Divinity RPG project. We went to A-Kon and although I had a digital copy of the Savage Worlds book, I found a physical copy there that I bought. I prefer to have a physical book to look at when doing things.

Well I suppose that is enough updates for the moment, if you actually read through any of this then Thank You! And if you didn't then Thank You anyway!

Evil Campaign/A-Kon/Wife's Costume

So yeah busy as always.

Been playing our Evil campaign when we can which has been fun so far. They are getting into the military/way part of the story which is leading up to the end (which I'm still trying to figure out what exactly that is). Brother-in-law was in the army and went overseas a while back, and as such he has been asked/volunteered to help me get a handle on ideas for the war/military portion of this campaign. Which to be honest the main reason they are participating/starting a war is because he liked the idea of participating in a D&D campaign with a war in it, so I incorporated that into the campaign they were running. Should be interesting as they are now level 20. But hopefully I can handle it well enough for them to enjoy.

So A-Kon is going on in Dallas on June 6th - 8th, and my cousin also lives in Dallas. He has been down to visit a number of times but I've not gotten the chance to go visit him yet. Well the wife and I finally got a little money put back to make a trip up there to see him as well as attend A-Kon! My wife is super excited because she loves my cousin as do I. Me and him are similar in most things (most of our personality, and our sense of humor), although I prefer women and he prefers men, which makes for some amusing conversations.

Anyway, my wife decided she wanted to cosplay in essence. She dyed her hair the other day for it as well. Tonight she wanted to see how everything looked all together and so I took a picture for myself and for her to get an idea of what it all looked like as we don't have a full length mirror or anything in our house. She assumed I would post it on here and I figured why not as she seemed to like the idea. So here is my wonderful wife wearing her outfit for A-Kon.

My wife Kim in her outfit for A-Kon.

Evil Campaign and Other Ramblings

So yeah as always work and home life are keeping me busy, which is draining my mental energy which I keep trying to reserve so I can work on a post or on my Silver Divinity project. But alas I haven't been able to lately. But enough of that onto my ramblings!

On a side note, my oldest daughter (I have 3 daughters) turned 9 April 6th, and she started Softball practice that following Thursday, which her grandmother paid for as her Birthday gift. I'm not much of a sports person myself, well to be honest I like playing with family and that is it, I don't care to watch it either. But I am excited that my daughter is playing if only for the reason that she is excited herself. She has never really played a sport before so this should be fun, I can at least help some; I don't know a lot but I do at least have some experience, the rest of my family are all major sports fans so I did have to grow up with it.

OK, onto other ramblings! The Evil D&D Campaign has been going well and interesting so far. The party has officially reached level 20 as of Saturday. Their adventures in Limbo went better than I expected, although because of children (there are a total of 7-8 in the house with us which causes just a little bit of a distraction constantly) the puzzles didn't get handled as I intended. But it all worked out, I had to explain and answer a couple of the puzzles myself (this was a new experiment with the in-laws, we don't normally do puzzles like I put together for this session) but they still enjoyed it at least. The rest of the dungeon I didn't get to get finished so it was sort of randomized as far as what was going on which was fun, but eventually they got to where they were ready to escape limbo.

They found a nice old man at the end who silenced the Cleric with a gesture as she started mouthing off to him (the Cleric is my wife incidentally and she actually laughed and didn't get annoyed at me when he silenced her...). The old man was random and pointless and a last minute idea partially pulled from my brother-in-law. I was trying to figure out an appropriate treasure for them to find at the end of this randomness and he requested and really wanted a magic talking sword. For some reason I got stuck on the Chronicles of Amber books when he asked about this; I love those books! So I took Corwins Sword Grayswandir, and Brands Werewindle (he dual wields a longs word and short sword) and turned them into talking swords matching at least some of the descriptions from the books for them. I also took Frakir from the second set of books which belonged to Merlin (well as much as someone can possess a magic sentient object) and gave that to my father-in-law. And the last bit that I didn't explain and they never asked (the kids were acting up a bit at that point) but I did prepare and think out, was that the old man was a guardian between worlds and there was a gateway mentioned in the rooms description as well. This gateway was pointless and they never would have gone through, but I made it so that it was a gateway between realities/worlds/existences/ whatever you want to call it. The gateway actually lead to Amber from the books as well, pointless but mostly for my own amusement

My wife and I are thinking on working on another random project together and I won't go into detail yet as we aren't positive yet, but once we get it figured out more I will probably post something here about it.

And yeah I think this is one of my longest rambling posts so far, and I will end it here with,
Have a good day and thanks for reading.

Home Game and Updates

So yeah, I've been a little behind on most everything lately. Everything has gotten very hectic lately, but hopefully it will all settle down soon. Family having various problems for various reasons that I won't go into (extended family not my wife and children). And I've been having some health issues I'm finally getting looked at which has been making getting things done more difficult. I haven't been able to find time until now to post anything as I have been busy and honestly I've gotten behind in my classes at Pulaski Tech as well. I'm working on getting caught back up in those classes now though.

But enough of me complaining here is some information on what I'm running now.

I've also been working on the Evil Eberron campaign I'm running for my in-laws. They've gotten to level 19 and aren't quite to the end of the campaign yet. We won't get to play for another couple of weeks still, but I've been working on a special random dungeon for them that I'm hoping they will like. It is in essence based in Limbo between the dimensions, and it should have some good randomness going on while they're in there. I'm building a few puzzles and traps for it that I hope they take well. It is a little different from what we normally do, but it should be fun; and I am definitely putting a lot of work into it, which I don't do that often sadly.

Day 28 - D&D 40th Anniversary blog hop challenge!

What's the single most important lesson you've learned from playing D&D?

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I'm not really sure, I don't like questions like this one personally. I've learned how to be more creative I think. When I run a game I tend to pull things out of nowhere, whether it is random creatures or rooms to whole dungeons being built as the characters are going through it with nothing prepared ahead of time.

I've learned the enjoyment of playing a game with people who have similar interests, and the fact that not all people play the same, so two games doing the same exact thing can be completely different from each other depending on who is playing.

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Day 27 - D&D 40th Anniversary blog hop challenge!

If you had to do it all over again, would you do anything different when you first started gaming?

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I honestly wouldn't change anything. Although starting to play at a younger age would have been interesting, I know that no one around me had any interest or even now they don't have any interest in learning how to play. So even if I did learn about the game when I was younger, I wouldn't have had anyone to play it with.

As far as when I did learn, I don't think I would change anything. My in-laws are interesting people for sure, but they are pretty fun to play games with at least. And they are all pretty easy going so learning how to play with them was both fun and easy.

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Day 26 - D&D 40th Anniversary blog hop challenge!

Do you still game with the group that introduced you to the hobby?

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The people who introduced me to role-playing games were my in-laws, so yes I am still playing with the same group of people. They are fun people to play with at least.
I've tried playing with a few other people here and there, and it is always fun but scheduling conflicts always seem to arise sadly.

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Day 25 - D&D 40th Anniversary blog hop challenge!

Longest running campaign/gaming group you've been in.

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As far as how long we played I can't remember exactly, but the longest running campaign I've played in was my Father-in-Laws game where I played my Psion (shaper). She got to level 24 if I remember right.

The longest game I've run personally is the Evil campaign I'm running currently. Been going for a little while now. We took a big break between playing but have picked it back up now.
Currently the party is at level 19, and are not quite close to the end of the campaign. So it could go on for a bit longer. It will also be my first epic level campaign to run as well, so hopefully that will turn out well.

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Day 24 - D&D 40th Anniversary blog hop challenge!

First movie that comes to mind that you associate with D&D.

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To be honest the only movie that comes to mind is the D&D movie from 2000.

It was an amusingly silly movie.

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Day 23 - D&D 40th Anniversary blog hop challenge!

First song that comes to mind that you associate with D&D.

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To be honest there is no song that I can think of that makes me think of D&D at this time. So yeah, short answer.

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Day 22 - D&D 40th Anniversary blog hop challenge!

So yeah got a little busy last few days so playing catch up now sadly. But here goes the last few days.

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First D&D-based novel you ever read.

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The first D&D book I've ever read was a gift from my Sister-in-Law.

It was an Eberron book called The Binding Stone (The Dragon Below, Book 1). It was interesting to read a story based in the world I like playing in for sure. I've not tried to find the other books for it yet, but maybe in the future I will look into them.

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Day 21 - D&D 40th Anniversary blog hop challenge!

First time you sold some of your D&D books?

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I've actually never sold any of my books at this time. I've usually kept whatever I've bought or whatever has been given to me. Maybe eventually, but i like the idea of going back and looking at things for reference.

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Day 20 - D&D 40th Anniversary blog hop challenge!

First non-D&D you played.

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The first game that wasn't "D&D" exactly was Castles and Crusades, but the similarities in game play makes me not want to count this one.

For me I would consider my first to be Victoriana 2nd edition. To put the reason down sounds silly but here it goes.

My wife and I both play Dungeons and Dragon Online, and Star Wars Online.We have been playing DDO for a while now actually. When I first started (before my wife joined me, but just barely before) I played alone for a while and when I mentioned I played to one of my friends, one of his other friends played also. He gave me his characters information so that he could invite me into the guild he was in on there.

Looking at it now I consider this a wonderful thing. The guild is called Blades of Serenity and the leaders of the guild are a married couple. To be honest the only reason we still play is to chat with them and a few other members (Mr. Anthony especially, who really helped us get started in understanding the game). Well to shorten this story now; My wife and I got the opportunity to meet the guild leaders and friends (Joe, Amy, and Anthony). When we did they asked about a tabletop game to play and I told them we were up for something we haven't played before, so Anthony chose to use Victoriana. All in all it was probably one of the best tabletop gaming experiences I've ever had personally, and we've gotten to meet up with them again (we played Deadlands that time which was awesome!)

We're planning on visiting them again so we'll have to see what else we come up with to play, either way should be fun.

I realize also that I got a little off subject with this post, but I still answered the question at least.

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Day 19 - D&D 40th Anniversary blog hop challenge!

First gamer who just annoyed the hell out of you.

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There has only been one gamer so far who has annoyed me greatly. Luckily here lately he is toning himself back so it's getting more tolerable. He likes to play ranged attacking characters and likes to try to build something that can supposedly kill everything before anyone gets close to it. As a DM it's annoying but manageable to work around him. But as a fellow player for me it's annoying as it takes a lot of the challenge and fun out of the game when someone tries to do that.

Now don't get me wrong I'm all for building a character that can hold their own. I do it myself, but I don't play mine in a way to overpower everything we come across. To me taking the challenge out takes the fun out of the game (I feel the same for electronic games, no challenge and I get bored and can't finish the game). So yeah. Had my sister-in-law tell me she likes it when I DM as I manage this certain player well.

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Day 18 - D&D 40th Anniversary blog hop challenge!

First gaming convention you ever attended.

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The first and only gaming convention I have ever attended was Troll Con put on by Troll Lord games who make Castles and Crusades.

It was an interesting convention but I went with a friend and we got there a little late so the main events were already over sadly. It was interesting but ultimately we didn't do or get anything from it.

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Updates and Blog Blitz!

So I didn't really post at all this weekend, so of course today I am catching up on the D&D Anniversary  Challenge.

I realize that I just posted 4 posts (including this one) all in one day within like Thirty Minutes of each other, but yeah I was excited a little.

I noticed this morning that I almost have 100 posts (98 to be exact, which I realize isn't a lot compared to other blogs), I still only have 12 followers sadly. But I noticed that I now have over 10,000 page views which made me happy at least.

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So on a side note as well, I have been participating in the Blog Blitz being put on by DL Hammons over at Cruising Altitude 2.0.

It is fun and nice I think for the people who get blitzed; so if you want to sign up just click the Blog Blitz link above or the picture below or the picture lower on the side menu!

It's easy and doesn't take much time out of your day, and it is something nice to do for the other bloggers around.

Day 17 - D&D 40th Anniversary blog hop challenge!

First time you heard that D&D was somehow "evil."

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This one I like. The first time I heard was a year or two after I started playing, and it was from my Father. My mother looked at me funny when she found out (my family does not play anything besides board games), but she understands it is just a game. Of course by that point I was already 19 or 20 (I don't remember exactly) so they really didn't have a huge say-so in what I wanted to do anyways.

Which that now makes me realize I've only been playing for something like 8 - 9 years personally, as I will turn 28 in May of this year.

My father though gave me a whole rant about it being evil and what not. I laughed. I have done, and still do occasionally look online for information about how D&D is evil. I won't link to any of the sites I've read, but their easy to find. They are fun to read to see how people say that D&D is evil and corrupts, and even summons Demons and the like!

All in all it is an amusing read at times. And the few people I have introduced to the games I usually mention this to them after they've played their first game so they can see the amusement.

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Day 16 - D&D 40th Anniversary blog hop challenge!

Did you remember your first Edition War?

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This sort of ties into the last question. I've never participated in an edition war and I find the idea silly. Everyone is entitled to their opinion and the right to defend that opinion, but having a "war" over a game meant for fun and what not is just a silly thought to me.

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Day 15 - D&D 40th Anniversary blog hop challenge!

What was the first edition of D&D you didn't enjoy? Why?

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I've only played a couple of editions and I enjoyed both; along with most any game I've played.

I'm not picky when it comes to games as long as the other players are fun and the DM is amusing and/or good. I haven't gotten to play a huge variety of games so far, but what I have I have enjoyed no matter the genre or rules.

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Day 14 - D&D 40th Anniversary blog hop challenge!

Did you meet your significant other while playing D&D? Does she still play?

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I didn't meet my wife while playing, but she and her dad are the ones who introduced me to tabletop games. We play together still, although I have gotten more into it than she is. She likes playing a lot but just likes doing certain things and doesn't do much to prepare outside of the game. I took it and ran obviously.

So yeah I didn't meet her that way but we play together and she is the reason I've even gotten involved in D&D at all. I believe my wife is an awesome woman, partially because of all this.

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Day 13 - D&D 40th Anniversary blog hop challenge!

First Miniature(s) you used for D&D.

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Honestly the groups I've played with don't really use miniatures. We tried for a while with one of my Father-in-laws campaigns, but only one person in our group liked it, and my Father-in-law didn't.

For that game I was actually playing the Kalashtar Psion I've mentioned in previous posts. I don't know where the figure was from but it was a sorceress figure or something of the like that my Father-in-law had in his box of figures. I did use a figure of my own though to represent my construct, as I tended to focus on that. It was an Obsidian Guard figure from Heroscape.

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Day 12 - D&D 40th Anniversary blog hop challenge!

First store where you bought your gaming supplies. Does it still exist?

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Considering I haven't been gaming for quite as long as some of the other people participating in this, I don't have an older store or anything. The first physical store I bought stuff from for the first time was a gaming store in St. Louis, Missouri where I bought my dice bag, an a few gaming books for my kids.

Considering that was only a few years ago I'm assuming it is still open although I am not completely sure of that as I don't remember the name of it to check and see.

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Day 11 - D&D 40th Anniversary blog hop challenge!

First splatbook you begged your DM to approve.

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The first book I've ever asked and to be approved would have been the Expanded Psionics Handbook. I love the concept of Psionics personally, and I really wanted to play a character out of that. Probably the next two books I discussed with my Dm were the Complete Psionics book for a prestige class, and the Draconomicon so I could try to have a Dragon companion. All in all that was all for one character only, and it turned out to be an great character to play.

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Day 10 - D&D 40th Anniversary blog hop challenge!

First gaming magazine you ever bought?

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To be honest I have never bought a gaming magazine of any kind. I've gotten a copy of Dragon magazine given to me as part of a box of random D&D related books, but that is the closest I've ever gotten to a gaming magazine.

I'd like to be able to get a copy of more or something, but not likely to happen any time soon sadly.

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Day 9 - D&D 40th Anniversary blog hop challenge!

First campaign setting (published or home-brew) you played in.

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The first game setting I played in was Eberron. I personally like Eberron a lot, partially for the whole non restrictive alignment on creatures and the like.

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Day 8 - D&D 40th Anniversary blog hop challenge!

First Set of polyhedral dice you owned. Do you still use them?

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The first set of dice I owned were a set my wife had gotten from her father. I took out a handful that I liked, and that she didn't want. The ones I picked are actually the ones I still use to this point, although if we play need them I do have a set of small 6 sided dice that we bought when we visited St. Louis the first time a couple of years ago.

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9 Year Wedding Anniversary

So Sunday February 9th marked the 9 year wedding anniversary for my wife and I. We pretty much spent the entire weekend away from home and computers, which was great!

I did get a little behind with the D&D anniversary posts for this month, but I plan to get up to date with that today at some point.

Day 7 - D&D 40th Anniversary blog hop challenge!

First D&D product you ever bought. Do you still have it?

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The first product I ever bought myself was the 3.5 Players Handbook. No fancy story here or anything; my father-in-law was the only one who had one in our group of about 6 players, so I wanted to buy one for myself and so we would have an extra one to pass around. Luckily now there are more copies owned between us so it makes it easier during play. I still have it and use it quite a bit when we play D&D, or my wife uses it when I'm running the game.

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Day 6 - D&D 40th Anniversary blog hop challenge!

First character death. How did you handle it?

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To be honest the only character I have ever had die was the Druid/Psion that I messed up and my father-in-law killed him so I could build a full on Psion instead. So I don't think that one counts much as it was a willing death. The group I normally play with (my in-laws) don't really do the character deaths much and tend to gimp the damage to instead incapacitate the character rather than kill.

Now I did actually kill my first character while I was running a game the other weekend. I killed 2 actually and they surprisingly took it better than I expected them to, which was great of them.

One was my father-in-laws character who fell from a trap that did more damage than I felt comfortable gimping; so I just let it go through and it dropped him.

The second was a friend that plays with us, and his character dropped something like 15 minutes after the first. He got the attention of a Death Giant they were fighting and the Giant ran up ad smacked him full on and did 164 damage on a full attack and dropped him to about -60 something. 

They got resurrected so they were fine, and they took it well when their characters dropped which surprised me.

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Day 5 - D&D 40th Anniversary blog hop challenge!

I guess I should actually write what the question is supposed to be in here before I answer it.

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First character to go from 1st level to the highest level possible in a given edition (or what's the highest level character you've ever ran).

Although I've never had a character reach a maximum level I have had a character go beyond level 20. Our DM (my father-in-law) ran a 2 session run with our epic characters but didn't like trying to handle everything the party could do, so it was a short run sadly.

My character to reach a level beyond 20 is also the favorite character I've played. Ganitari was her name and she was a True Neutral Kalashtar Psion (shaper)/Ectopic Adept/Dragon Rider. Sounds silly, but with the Draconomicon book my father-in-law let me get a small Silver Dragon Companion. I like pets and so she was focused on using constructs over other powers, although she still could hurt enemies pretty well with her own powers. By the time we reached the end of the game the Silver Dragon had just barely gotten big enough for my character to ride (hence the Dragon Rider prestige class). By the end of it she could summon two Huge Astral Constructs, along with the Silver Dragon companion, and of course her own powers. She could definitely survive by herself for a while when necessary, which she actually had to a couple of times. Her hit points were low so usually 1-2 big hits would do her in, but luckily massive constructs make very good distractions, so she never got hit hard enough all at once to do her in at least.

By the time we ended our short epic run the party had reached level 25. All in all a fun game, but for my first completely psionic character I thought it was awesome.

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Day 4 - D&D 40th Anniversary blog hop challenge!

The first dragon that comes to mind that I fought was a blue dragon. I don't remember much about the fight itself, the only thing I really remember was my father-in-law looking at me funny because I wanted to take some of the dragon scales and sew them into my robe. They didn't give any benefit but the thought was amusing at the time.

Day 3 - D&D 40th Anniversary blog hop challenge!

The first dungeon I remember exploring was as a level 1 druid. I don’t remember the whole thing exactly, but it was full of undead (Zombies and Skeletons), and after a while that gave way to Kobolds. It was fun and painful at the same time as I was still learning and got hit quite a bit. But still fun.

Day 2 - D&D 40th Anniversary blog hop challenge!

The first person I think I introduced to D&D would have been my friend Timothy (Timmy as we called him). It was 3.5 edition also, and his first character was a Druid. Sadly he didn't play with us for very long (his wife didn't like it apparently).

Day 1 - D&D 40th Anniversary blog hop challenge!

I suppose that the first people to introduce me to D&D would have been my wife and my father-in-law. So yeah, I wasn't playing anything even closely related to D&D while I was younger.

The edition they introduced me to and that we still play mostly is 3.5 edition.

My first character that I actually made started out as a Druid. As I got more into the game I found my father-in-laws Psionics books and loved them. I multi-classed my Druid into a Psion (shaper) as well which completely destroyed the play-ability of the character from what I could tell. He let me kill it off and replace it with a full on Psion which is still my favorite character at this time.