Origins of a Gamer: You Trained Your Character in What?!

I am really enjoying all of the Blaugust entries and it has kickstarted my desire to keep up with my blog!  Thanks Belghast!

I've always been one to attempt to blaze my own trail in many things.  Early on in my gaming life I roleplayed quite a bit.  As I've gotten older that has fallen by the wayside.  Part of roleplay for me was also in how I trained my character, what skills I used, and certainly the class and race.

When I was playing Gemstone as a bard, the majority of the bard song spell tree didn't even work.  There were something like 25 songs on the list and only a handful were even useful.  Training up the list, however, did grant bonuses to the ones that worked well.  The more songs you knew the better chance of success for example.  Literally NO ONE trained up the bard tree past the first few.

One of the beautiful things about Gemstone is that you could train any class into any skill.  If you want to be an empath that trains in lockpicking, you can do it.  The cost was way higher than if you are a rogue training in it, however.  My favorite weapons have always been polearms, and bards can use them, but it is very expensive.  I said to hell with it!  I was going to train the way I wanted to, no matter the problems I might encounter down the line.

People on the message boards told me I would gimp my character if I went all songs using a polearm.  I just made it a point to buck the wisdom of my elder bards and play how I wanted to play.  In the end I was more successful than even I had imagined.

I carried this philosophy if taking the road less traveled in many games.  The NON-COOKIE CUTTER approach.  With Everquest I mainly played a Dark Elven warrior, which was one of the worst races to choose, and I tanked in raids.  My secondary character was an Erudite priest who worshiped Quellious.

I like the challenge that sometimes comes with being unique.