Who got you into Dueling?

Andrea Anderson · Post by **Andrea Anderson** » Tue Feb 25, 2014 9:53 am

Question time!

Who or what got you into dueling? Was there a player who invited you into the community, or did you stumble onto it by accident? Share your story if you like!

Harris is the one who got me interested in the concept of dueling. I met him through a mutual friend over on the Red Dragon Inn when I returned to Role Play. I didn't know anyone and he was really inviting and easy to play with, even if his character was and still is a jerk

! In his profile he had something about "The Green Opal, Pathfinder", and I wondered what it was so I asked my friend and he told me about the title ranks in the duels. I knew about the duels at the time, but I never had any interest in joining.

Through interactions with Harris at the RDI, My character - Seirichi, had some sort of onesided rivalry going on with him. So.. I joined the duels! My goal was simple, it was an IC goal. I wanted Seirichi to make Emerald and beat Harris! Which she did

That's how I was drawn into the community. At the time I never spoke with Harris OOC, so it was really fun to have a purely RP interaction starting a fire to really try out Rings of Honor.

Lilly Hyde · Post by **Lilly Hyde** » Tue Feb 25, 2014 10:26 am

I stumbled into it on AOL. I RP'ed in the RDI there and while browsing the other rooms I saw one with names like "Rand alTan, Gnimish and Karnafexx" and decided to drop in. It was really confusing as all you could see was the play of two duelers in a ring and then a third person saying what happened (which I thought was random at first).

Gnimish actually sent me an IM and gave me a rundown of what was going on and I manged to make Warlord in three weeks going 16-1 to get into the WLT just in time. I was beaten badly but it was a lot of fun!

Post by **Jake** » Tue Feb 25, 2014 10:42 am

Like Lilly, I found my way into the duels via AOL. Randomly found the RDI one day, and my first duel was against Siera Red. I sidestepped her opening thrust, and then she clobbered me. Have been hanging around ever since.

ETA: Am pretty sure my first DoS duel was around Aug/Sep of '93, but it might have been a "spar" (which was the terminology in use at the time for practice duels).

Jake's first appearance on the standings is 3/10/94

G · Post by G » Tue Feb 25, 2014 10:45 am

Lilly Hyde wrote:Gnimish actually sent me an IM and gave me a rundown of what was going on and I manged to make Warlord in three weeks going 16-1 to get into the WLT just in time. I was beaten badly but it was a lot of fun!

I got an IM from the above Warlord who said "Come watch me in my first ever Warlord Tournament. I could really use the support!"

I said "What? What's a Warlord tournament?"

I went, watched, was confused. Didn't go around for a few weeks, Saw the same warlord and at least one other(Aeinglon I think) I knew playing there, tried it out. After the third duel against Merewyne, I was given a copy of the Matrix and I was hooked ever since. I still have the notepad where I recorded the results of about the first thousand or so duels I had, who they were against, the score, my record, the date, the caller, rounds, etc. It's in storage right now, but I remember the format!

So, 16-17 years later... still doing it.

Post by **Kalamere** » Tue Feb 25, 2014 11:49 am

I had gotten a new computer for Christmas and it came pre-installed with AOL. I was in my first year of law school and a complete novice when it came to anything computer related, so "the internet on training wheels" was actually perfect for me at the time. I logged in and very quickly found my way into the Red Dragon Inn. I grew up table top gaming with my friends and I found this was a great way to spend some of my non-studying hours and pretend to be someone other than the stressed L1 that I was.

SaharaRose was the first one to mention I should swing by DoS and try my hand at it. We RP'd together a good deal back then. I also met Potion in the Inn who suggested it. I refrained for a long time. AOL was charging by the hour back then and I wasn't in a rush to find another activity that would keep me online. Finally though, it was the combination of SaharaRose and Merewynn who convinced me to tag along and get into my first duel.

I was hooked near instantly and, thereafter, spent my weekend nights learning the ropes. The school of hard knocks really, frequently facing off with the likes of Bishop, Prince Fyre and Dare L'tan as I tried to figure out the matrix.

The year was 1994. It'll be 20 years ago this coming May
First Standings Kal appears in: May 11th, 1994

I've been dueling pretty much ever since. And that Merewyne woman I mentioned? We celebrated our 16th wedding anniversary back in December.

Rakeesh · Post by **Rakeesh** » Tue Feb 25, 2014 1:20 pm

I think that I found RDI some time after getting bored running around and hunting other players and stealing their arrows in the online version of Hunt the Wumpus (I may have been one of the original online grief Player-Killers; I obsessively played this game for years). I liked roleplaying and D&D as a concept, but was a couple of years younger than everyone in my school at the time and didn't have much of a social outlet until I got older.

So, I found RDI (and simultaneously, MUDs) 20ish years ago randomly. I didn't duel at first, and was more interested in Guilds (:x) as it seemed more D&D like.

Eventually, after maybe a year or two, I started asking questions about DoS. Dalamar was the Overlord at the time and was happy to help me out as a newcomer to DoS. I was still only 13 and struggled pretty hard to wrap my head around it all, but I kept playing for a couple of years, until Dalamar lost OL and split; he was really the only person that I'd ever chatted with at the time, and I started to prep hard for getting into college. So, I quit for a little while too.

Once college started, I created some new characters and kept working at DoS in a quiet way. Eventually, it all sort of just finally clicked for me. Once I felt like I wasn't road-kill anymore, I brought Rakeesh to Rhy'Din and drew over some folks (Aenlyn, Firynth, Silvanoth, Ashin) from a MUD that I played at the time and taught them to duel. We formed COM and got involved with TDL, and I started to slowly get to know folks like Harris, Napoleon, Jake, Kal, and numerous others over the years. I only did TDL for a while, but eventually moved over to regular dueling here at ROH.

Now, I'm 30. Oi. In short, I guess I'd attribute Dalamar to getting me into dueling. His crazy Overlord reign inspired me to want to be that good, and his help encouraged me to keep trying even though I got knocked around pretty bad for my first few years.

Arthour · Post by **Arthour** » Tue Feb 25, 2014 2:12 pm

Who got me into dueling?.....Technically, Rakeesh did, as I didn't have an account here before the SL with the Khul'din (Spelling? or was it Myr'Khul?) came about. It's sort of carried on from there

Anubis Karos · Post by **Anubis Karos** » Tue Feb 25, 2014 2:34 pm

Cass's wife at the time got me into it. About a year after that(and six months after the duels slowly started to become my main outlet for RP), I brought Anubis in as part of an SL with Jaycy. He was from the slaver SL milieu, and honestly, at the time, I intended for him to be a one-shot crossover type as far as the duels went. I certainly never imagined that he'd supplant Cass as my main dueling character.

G · Post by G » Tue Feb 25, 2014 4:27 pm

Gnort13 1: 4: 0 11/19/96

Yeaaaaaah baby.

Morgan le Fay · Post by **Morgan le Fay** » Tue Feb 25, 2014 4:30 pm

I forgot where I can go to find the earliest standings. DZ standings search only got me as far back as 2007.

G · Post by G » Tue Feb 25, 2014 4:31 pm

One Cycle! ONE CYCLE!!!!

DaGnortMan 57: 60: 3 01/28/97
DaGnortman 0: 1: 0 01/28/97

Post by **Kalamere** » Tue Feb 25, 2014 4:54 pm

Morgan le Fay wrote:I forgot where I can go to find the earliest standings. DZ standings search only got me as far back as 2007.

http://www.badside.org/dos/standings_list.php

Not searchable though.

Post by **Jake** » Tue Feb 25, 2014 4:56 pm

Kalamere wrote:
Morgan le Fay wrote:I forgot where I can go to find the earliest standings. DZ standings search only got me as far back as 2007.
http://www.badside.org/dos/standings_list.php

Not searchable though.

Fixed!

Post by **Jake** » Tue Feb 25, 2014 5:02 pm

Morgan le Fay wrote:I forgot where I can go to find the earliest standings. DZ standings search only got me as far back as 2007.

Under MorganFay, the first appearance was 5/8/95

Morgan le Fay · Post by **Morgan le Fay** » Tue Feb 25, 2014 5:10 pm

Commoner MorganFay 1: 0: 0 - 05/08/95

Noting Jake was M@A on this standings. Percival (my gateway) was GM. I'm surprised that my first duel was a win. I imagine it's more because I had no sense of strategy so Percival had no idea what I would be expected to do.

More on how I found DOS when I get home.

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