Fallout 2 was my first RPG without a J at the beginning. I'd recommend Fallout just because of that :p

The best build for enjoyment is of course to have Intelligence of 1, max your strength, endurance and maybe agility, possibly pick Bloody Mess trait, and pick Hand to Hand and Melee weapons as tag skills. It's fun to watch people fly across the area after you punch 'em, in a morbid "well, this is taking a long time, I wonder how long he'll slide" way (since it's not real-time).

A more serious build: My favorite play ever was one where I made a balanced character, didn't max anything and tried to pick roleplaying-the-character-kind-of skills. Then I decided that the floor is lava and if you die or screw up, you're not allowed to load an earlier save. Actually, I just decided not to load an earlier save at all, loading only if I stopped playing earlier. It gave it depth. I died, though, after some 6 hours, to a random encounter with a guy and his big gun. At least I felt emotions over it for once :D

For the beginner Fallout is really a good choice.

1. The character creation screen does a very good job of explaining what everything does as far as stats, perks, and skills are concerned.

2. The combat is purely turn-based which translates into a more comfortable game since you, the player, are able to calmly decide what course of action to take during combat.

3. The setting itself was something quite different at a time when all you had was elves, dwarves, half-elves, orcs, and so on. If you are looking to get away from the stereotypical fantasy themes, you can do no worse than Fallout.

4. Choice and consequence: it's practically Fallout's trademark.

5. Fallout also features an easy way to tell the important characters from the minor ones. It's simple: the very important characters get a face with full speech.

I do recommend that you read the manual. Heck, you can read the manual while playing because the game won't let some random enemy just walk up on you and kill you while you're trying to get information on a specific skill or item.

Divine Divinity is great, don't get me wrong, but for the beginner it's best to start out in a nice and comfy turn-based environment before graduating to the hack-and-slash leagues.

Fallout is pretty good for a beginner, definitely go for that. Divine Divinity is a bit fiddly in comparison, so I wouldn't recommend it all that much.

I think it's worth a mention here that with intelligence 1 you actually WILL be an idiot, you won't be able to put a coherent sentence together and world WILL treat you as such. It is kida funny thou :D

LOL cool - what happens if you have 1 for INT but a huge CHA? you're an idiot but everyone loves you?

Thank you everyone!

I found Divine Divinity to be more accessible and enjoyable than Fallout.

Play Fallout, it's short (DD is NOT short at all) so even if you don't like how things are going you can always create a new character and catch back up fairly quickly. It has a great story and I doubt you'd be terribly puzzled about the mechanics, really. Even if you accidentally pick the "bad" perks you'll still be able to finish the game.

DD is easy to get stuck in and has quite a few big difficulty spikes, especially if you aren't babysitting your gear a lot (they have gems and stuff you have to socket). Also, the skill system lets you work cross class (i.e. a mage can take a warrior skill) which in theory is good, but in practice makes it confusing for most beginners.

In fact, skip DD for now, after Fallout try your hand at Arcanum.

Is the entire reason of your earthly existence to lurk around forums and recommend Arcanum whenever possible? :D

No, sometimes I encourage people to play Titan Quest as well:)

If you need help getting going in FO2, have a read through this for some tips:
http://www.gog.com/en/forum/general/you_are_a_true_expert_at_what_games/post65

I dunno about Fallout 1... it's the sort of game that doesn't hold your hand, and it's possible in at least one part to make it nigh impossible to win. Especially if you aren't familiar with creating an RPG character.