So I was having a gander at the "who was your first crewleader" thread, and a lot of the replies have similar sentiment to my own experience: your first crewleader isn't always necessarily your mentor. It got me thinking on my past mentor(s) and what they taught me about the game. For me personally, I've had many mentors over the years, who taught me different parts of the game at different times in my development. I expect many other people have had similar experiences, in the fact that no single person taught them everything they currently know about the game. Hell, I've been here for 17 years ish off and on, and I'm still learning shit all the time.

When I first started way back in the day, my irl buddy BigLawson taught me the basics - how to petty, felony, deal drugs etc. From there, I learned things from one of my early crewleaders, Evsie: where to find a toolbar with timers (they weren't always part of the game itself, you young bucks may not know), how to behave in public etc.

After about a decade of being an absolute shitter, I was taught some of the finer points of the game. Toaly gave me my first handjob and taught me how to be responsible and handle situations as they arose, and gave me a starting point on how to be a leader. KingSao and Draven taught me the basics of shooting, before Vazzi and Phil_Steak expanded on that and made me the beast I am today. 

I was always a decent writer, even in school, so I had a decent base to work from there. But I learned the finer points of 'Mafiareturns writing' simply from reading and watching other great writers - Grin, Kates, and Marietta come to mind. I never learned from them directly, but I saw how they presented themselves and their thoughts in how they spoke and I learned much from it.

I learned docs and how to war from Technical, who til this day is one of the best there ever was at it.

I learned the 'shadow game' side of of MR from JTG and Spike, the game within the game that I have tried to stay out of recently if I can help it.

Throughout my time here I have always strived to learn and improve myself as much as possible, and in return try to teach and assist people who wish to learn from me. I could tick off probably a dozen further people who have impacted me here as well on different ways, but I think for now I'd prefer to hear from some of you guys on this. Who taught you the finer points of mafiareturns?

Some idiot taught me how to train a gun, and then he owed me 25 credits. 

Hey, I paid. And you came back, which means everyone you now teach things to owes me 25 credits.

I will accept jails thrown in my name.

Oh yay an ego boost! I'm a Mentor!

See Grace, I am special! Don't be jealous. You taught many to crawl on the web and catch flies and fight crime. 

There's all kinds of people who have taught me things.  My first crew with KTI kinda sank the hook in.  People were kind and engaging and really wanted to make me log on.  You need lots of people to log on for you if you're going to be successful here.

After that, I had a character that lasted a looooong time.  Serotonin invested a lot of energy in me and I was truly appreciative of it.  When I think of first mentors - I'd say it was him.  After that I moved onto a crew with Dakine and Ladyfighter, and we as well lasted a long time.  Both of them were really kind and patient with me.  After them, I felt fairly prepared for upper structure, or so I thought lol.  There's so many ways to play it that I don't know if I'm coming or going some days.

honourable mention goes to Cato, Miss_Niki, JeanRalphio and even Cuntku.  I've had a pretty big variety of mentors that have all added something to my game here - whether it was communication, warring, politics, building etc etc.  

Oooh, I get to shout out the heroes that put up with me and got me to where I am today. Perfect.

My first Crew Leader was TonyCapazzo and that guy was a hardcore RP guy. Similar to you, I was already okay with writing but Capazzo brought us some great ideas to RP withiin the crew and we'd gather up half a dozen or so of us and just write to our hearts content for pages and pages. Mave, Sunshine, Scarfo, KillTheIrishman to name a few - sorry if someone is reading who I missed off the list, blame the weed.

However, it was Scarfo that really taught me most of the mechanics of MR. He was RHM of the crew and he spent hours answering the insane number of questions I had. I was a very inquisitive student, I wanted to know the ins-and-outs of everything. He even went through the history of MR and described certain big wars to me, the politics of it all - he invested untold amount of hours into me. With his help, I became a fast builder and grew to build a pretty big gun that first run.

Unfortunately, I was still rough around the edges and during my very brief stint as LHM and Sponsor, someone I recruited rogued at a few days old. In hindsight they did very little damage but Capazzo being a first time auth took me out of LHM while he discussed it with Godfather Latin and younger-ragier me retired. Shame because they were two really great guys, I wish I had enjoyed that run for longer than the ~40 days I spent there.

However, my first handjob came from Trixie! She'd appreciated my tenacity in the Philly hitroom and so gave me a 1-2 week stint as LHM while she prepared her RHM for auth and then bumped me up into the bigboy slants. I was her RHM for a few weeks or so and then we went to war and died. But she taught me how to hold myself around other uppers, how to handle situations with tact. Really she taught me everything a good RH/CL should know. Our friendship started there and as most people probably know, she's been stuck with me ever since.

I've had a huge number of people mentor me in smaller ways, give me opportunities, smooth off my rougher edges and perfect me. But those three - TonyCapazzo, Scarfo and Trixie, those three really started me off strong and I would not be anything without them. But don't tell Trix that.

PS: If you read this Scarfo, get active you aussie fuck.

Ooo something I forgot to mention in my thread - I've been given lots of compliments on my IRC skills, setting up rooms and helping with commands etc. Those types of things are much less prevalent now than they used to be - but I learned most of it from tiggy, Izzy, and mario back in the day. I used to pester them in #Help quite often. Good times.

Whilst I had experience from many moons ago in a world similar to this, my first experience on MR saw me land in a crew led by a complete alcoholic named Frank Gallagher, or Drunky as some referred to him.

He taught me pretty much everything about how to navigate this world and helped me grow from a complete noob to someone who knew a few things or two. Granted, 4 days a week (minimum...) I would receive a call from the local law enforcement telling me that he was unconscious outside of the pub around the corner and I needed to come collect him but besides that, he was a legend.

After an unfortunate end there, I then found my way to a crew led by one Chris Vaughn. He was another who had mastery over various aspects of the game. He fine tuned certain parts of what I knew and showed me how the Rock handled business, smacking jebronies whenever the smackdown needed to be laid out.

I will always have the utmost respect for both of these two men.

Success! You have transferred 1.00 credits to Wayne. The note "here is the credit you earned from me teaching Dean about how demoting works" was included.

A valuable lesson indeed. I think perhaps you learned something as well there. Always make sure you cover all the bases when teaching something that could result in you losing units or life.

In game, I'd probably give it to Sal_Giaquinto (Mafia and RP), Ant (hitting), Satanta (leading), and Kendra & VendettaJames (appreciating the social side of the game). Most of the rest I learned by competing with people rather than being mentored by them.

Out of game, and I feel obligated to mention this, mario did an awful lot for me given where I am now. Back then I was a really annoying kid who wanted to learn how to build websites. I may not be a ZendMissionary, but I've done my best to keep the faith.

Mercury was my first real mentor she taught me the basics of leveling, navigating the site, and how to RP. I learned the way of the gun from both Subtle and Weedall. My first hand position came from Subtle as well though I was mostly just filling the spot after the others were authed. I didn't truly learn what it meant to be part of upper structure until I met Kompton and led my first crew in Los Angeles under him.

This is a social game and there have been a lot of mentors, each one helping improve and get better. I stumbled upon this game a couple of years ago. Did the standard noob missions, and being a gamer, I ended up running with a guy named Garou and his crew. I know they got into some trouble (my first intro to the real politics of the game), but he taught me a lot. Tethys and Annie Oakley took over after that. I ran into a small string of bad luck and I floundered around after that. I took an unplanned break thanks to a fire burning my apartment down (I wasn't there and wasn't my fault). I finally refound the game and gave it another shot. Hustlin Hoe and Ester Scarpati picked me right up and set me on the path along with help from Hero. After that, I got picked up by Kaya and Joe_Campisi who helped bring me to where I am now. Am I a "pro"? Not even close. But thanks to the aforementioned people (as well as many others whose names I have tragically forgotten), I am a lot better now than I was before. 

"If I have seen further, it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants"- Sir Isaac Newton

I know you  will all believe this: no  one  NO ONE  mentored me in this game.  I would ask questions and get flippant answers, no answer, or very little information. So I had to observe this means  my ideas of the game come from the patterns I have seen and not what any Mentor taught me. Why?

Because of the widespread  paranoia  mentality most the people here have.  It is slightly better now, or better hidden. When I came to the game no one believed I was a new player. So  this is the creature you created .

I have had a few mentors like yourself in my time here DonnieBrasco taught me to wack then Draven and SpacePole helped fine tune it for me Epster and Valerie taught me the jail breaking and gaining units thing Mr Pickle Silk Hayley Draven and Melis helped with Roleplaying. Though yeah probs more i forgot to mention as well Though i took ideas from others to help me with being a Crew leader Simplicity The Civilian LadyFighter Technical just to name a few.

I am rather new to the game. Haven't played much actually. But now I want to play and give this game an honest chance. So far, my mentor has been BalsamicVin. If anyone else wants to lend some mentoring-ship (if that's even a word) - hit me up!