In keeping with a personal tradition of never using the same avy for a different account, I have a different avy from the one I used before the boards crashed, but it's still Little Setsuna.
And this one.
Wayyyyyyyyyyy back then, I was a completely different person. I had little understanding of basic forums etiquette (and ended up coming off as an asshole whenever I applied my RL social skills to the net), and I had very poor typing skills (as of my 21st BDay, I have been able to type 400 sentences an hour with ease). But I was creative, and I learned very fast. Within a month, I was using proper grammar and punctuation, and had a general idea of what the basic insults and complements were.
Around this time, I went by the screenname Fishingformyrs. I switched screennames for no apparent reason (that I remember), to ChippZanuff. I posted heavily on WotC's magic forums using both screennames as different personalities, to try and exercise my creative side. Then i all together abandoned the second screenname, sticking with FfM for a while. Between the middle of Darksteel and the start of Fifth Dawn, I discovered Terisia City (it's been forever since I've posted there, so forgive any typos).
That's when I changed screennames almost permanently. I became the Sinfire Titan, and began participating in the massive free-form Chaotic Role Playing they held in that particular part of the forums. I created my first character based on a WotC product: Shinaqu.
Back then I was a real idiot. I didn't even know what the words "Mary Sue" meant. I didn't even know what the words "Armor Class" meant, nor did I know where they came from.
As you can guess, I was a bad (but very descriptive) Chaotic RPer. Shinaqu's background was complicated; the character had been based on what was my favorite card from MTG; Crosis, the Purger. Shinaqu was a Half-Dragon/Half Angel possessed by a demon who had been bested by the Ur-Dragon. He was also a shapeshifter thanks to the innate magic in his blood. Any writers out there are all ready slapping themselves for reading such garbage.
But in spite of his status and origins, I never played him like he was a god of some kind. I always pulled back, and let others take the lime light (but did lend a hand). He was there not to conquer or destroy, but to find his sister (in retrospect, cliche). He made friends, enemies, and disturbing allies (most notably with the resident Dragonic Overlord, another player). In all, the character was a decent start for me. Thank Tzeentch I never tried to stat him out in DnD.
Shinaqu has been the inspiration for a number of characters I've made over the past couple of years. Even now, in my PbP game, the influence from that character lives on (my players will recognize the name if they've read the original thread). Now that my talents as a writer have metamorphosed into something more, shall we say, Genre Savvy, I daresay I'm capable of reworking the original idea into a well-rounded character suited for RPGs.
Midway through my first year on those boards, I picked up my first DnD book: the Draconomicon. Afterwords, I would purchase the BoVD, and the core 3 (the PHB of which was the leather-bound variety). This was the way I got started on the game, though it would be another 6 to 8 months before I actually understood enough of the rules to play the game.
Shortly thereafter, I abandoned Terisia for another forum. I joined up with DeviantArt, and began hosting my poetry on their site while bitching in their Complaints forum. I disappeared from WotC's main site, and wouldn't log in for the next 2 years...
Skip ahead another two months: i joined my first DnD game! I played a human Wizard, going into Demonologist. I was a very eccentric, but very entertaining person (despite my social skills not being up to par for in-depth RP, a problem I have blamed my Asperger's for). The single most impressive thing that character accomplished was plucking out a human eyeball, preserving it, and keeping it until the campaign ended. Following that, I made Thrasher, a Warforged Paladin (and the start of what has become the worst 2nd worst experience I've had in DnD). I died countless times, each time learning a little bit more about the system. I began to sift through what works and what doesn't. I saw why Fireball was a bad spell (but I didn't realize why Glitterdust was so powerful). I realized that losing CLs was a bad thing.
Around this time, I became the group's bookstore. I ended up buying more DnD books than I could carry, and I had no method of transporting all of them due to a lack of a car. I ended up getting a 3-wheeled bike with a basket in the back of it to carry around as many books as I could (the sheer weight of all of those books would cause that bike to tip over if I wasn't sitting in it). I was playing a Cleric with a heavy emphasis on Luck, and used Complete Scoundrel to a great effect with the character. I knew better than to cast healing spells alone, I prepared buffs instead to use on the rest of the party in an effort to support the group effort. I left the healing to one of the 8 DMPCs, seeing as she could do so spontaneously due to Unearthed Arcana.
That Cleric retired due to the rest of thew party's hatred of him (read: The DM's girlfriend, her cousin, and the DM himself, all hated my character's guts after three sessions). The DM brought back one of my previous characters, who had died due to sheer luck of the dice. I was allowed to play him again. The DM was kind enough to let me level him up.
I got greedy. I took a Reserve feat (Storm Bolt), knowing that the DM had previously allowed Complete Mage because his girlfriend had one too. The DM had misread the feats, believing they cost a spell slot each day, rather than requiring you to prepare the spell of that type to use it. This turned out to be the straw that broke his back. When he realized I would be blasting everything in sight for 3d6 damage each turn we were in combat, he flipped. He killed my character mere minutes after the argument had ended (and tried to pretend he wasn't upset about the feat). I knew the feat was strong, but I realized the disadvantage of using it instead of casting the actual spell (in other words, I knew why the feats were printed in the first place).
I left that group that night. My best friend remained with them for a good 2 months before finally ditching them quietly. I ended up doing nothing but theoretical work on pen and paper. Eventually, I got bored. I wanted to see if anyone else nearby played, so I signed onto the WotC forums for the first time in 2 years.
That's the day everything changed. I found the CO boards through sheer luck. I posted my first thread there, an attempt to abuse the Ultimate Magus using Complete Champion's Spontaneous Divination feature. I was quickly disproved, but found something that could keep me occupied almost indefinitely. I had found a veritable gold mine of untapped knowledge to investigate and extrapolate on. I embraced CO, and let my quick learning skills take over.
Within 3 months, I had mastered more of 3.5 than I ever thought I could. I understood the differences between Wizards and Fighters. I still fervently argued in favor of Evocation, but recognized that Conjuration and Transmutation were stronger. I began running campaigns IRL, exposing myself to Tome of Magic and the Book of 9 Swords over the course of 4 months. I was fascinated by how easy it was to optimize the system to the point where the basic MM wouldn't stand a chance. I hardly flinched at Charger builds. I could point out why the Truenamer didn't work as written and could rattle off the DCs needed to use utterances against any CR. I begun understanding the system in it's deepest form.
People began to recognize my screen name again. I went from Scrub to Dedicated Min/Maxer in under half a year. I stumbled across things that were truly unique, such as the Double-Lich Kobold or the 4500lbs Warforged Leaper (who killed things by using a Reserve Feat to land on top of them), and contributed to the social circle whatever I could. I began climbing through the ranks of CO in an effort to understand everything right and wrong with the games I played. I began looking at the sheer numbers, not the flavor behind them. i didn't need the flavor (I'm goddamn writer). I did have a little trouble with numbers though, but I had help with that part.
I started the Skies of Arcadia PbP game. It flopped, but taught me something in doing so. I wrote the Incarnum Handbook, and fell in love with a splat book. That's when my name took off like a rocket. My inbox still has 50-some-odd PMs in it thanks to those two creations alone. I began understanding what needed to be fixed. I started making classes to try and rebalance the playing field.
And then Gleemax got hit with a x4 Crit. The server trouble started up, and G0 began messing up the whole site (not that Gleemax was a step backwards from the original WotC boards to begin with). I was pissed off every time I tried to post a reply. I brought my deviant's account back to life for a brief time to bitch again. Then, I stumbled across a thread about Meg. I read the troubles people were having with this site, and G0 in general. There, I saw the link to BG. I shifted from Gleemax to these boards within another month, and found myself comfortable here. I tried to transfer the Skies games to these boards (and brought a few people with me as a result), but again I fumbled it (sorry guys). I learned more from my mistakes, and began contributing more to the Optimizer society.
My insight and knowledge grew rapidly, now that I had a stable and small-scale site to browse. BG became my default Home Page, and I have a hard time prying myself from the computer. I've since thrashed several posters who were deemed to dumb to live (one of which has since reformed, somewhat). I'm now one of the Dreadnoughts of these forums, and will remain one for an unforeseen amount of time (at least next Tuesday).
