How were you introduced to RPGs?

[Hairfoot]

An old question but a good one.

I'm asking how you began playing RPGs in general, not the system/edition you're currently using.

My introduction was a bit unorthodox: my primary school ran Basic D&D as lunchtime activity, with a teacher DMing. I started at age 8 and never looked back.

[ggroy]

Was able to convince my parents to buy me a basic D&D box set, largely as an "impulse buy" without knowing what was actually inside the box.

At the time, I thought the picture on the cover of the box looked really cool.

[cmbarona]

I had always been into sci-fi and fantasy type games, but I think the earliest one I played and actually got into was Phantasy Star IV for the Genesis. Sadly, none of the other PS series has lived up to that standard.

My first introduction to tabletop RPGs was through college friends in the fencing club, who played Vampire: the Masquerade.

[Herremann the Wise]

For me, it was a quick progression from Fighting Fantasy Game Books (themselves from Choose-your-own-adventure books and with City of Thieves/Deathtrap Dungeon being standouts) and then to the Red box and then the AD&D books and modules (with the Talisman board game and numerous fantasy style Lego sets [the original yellow lego castle for one] thrown in the middle for good measure).
[Edit: And how could I forget the TRS-80 game Dungeons of Daggeroth as well!!! Please tell me if you can fit more gaming goodness into 16kb than that!?! And Dark Castle for my old Mac as well... Damn is this nostalgia time for me at the moment or what!]

Yeah... something like that.

I did not play AD&D formally until High School though (1985+).

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

[Vorput]

I voted through friends, but only because my friend gave me a video game (Champions of Krynn [1990]) that got me hooked.

[ggroy]

Originally Posted by Herremann the Wise

For me, it was a quick progression from Fighting Fantasy Game Books (themselves from Choose-your-own-adventure books and with City of Thieves/Deathtrap Dungeon being standouts)

I remember going through several fighting fantasy books, back in the day. One book was really frustrating once one goes over a river. It was a maze that was easy to get lost in and running around in circles, if one does not a draw out a map.

[jdrakeh]

By my third grade Gifted Education teacher. She used D&D (Holmes Basic) as a kind of team-building exercise. This was right before the big scare ignited by Pat Pulling. Shortly afterward, the GE program was abolished at our school and the teacher disappeared (I assume she was fired).

[Herremann the Wise]

Originally Posted by ggroy

I remember going through several fighting fantasy books, back in the day. One book was really frustrating once one goes over a river. It was a maze that was easy to get lost in and running around in circles, if one does not a draw out a map.

Warlock fo Firetop Mountain (the first one). I'm pretty sure I just cheated at the time with that one .

I think the art in City of Thieves and Deathtrap Dungeon by Iain McCaig (who obviously went on to much bigger and better things) combined with the original Talisman art as well as THAT dragon on the Box set pretty much define fantasy for me. It is as much the imagery as it is the ideas that provides the "thing" that my RPG lens gets applied through.

Actually, I think there was another reference there too. Remember an American TV series where this kid had this super computer (from his dad who worked somewhere weird) and he and his friends solved different mysteries (and his Uncle was the blonde haired Simon from Simon & Simon - my goodness that was a favourite). One of the episodes featured this kid and his friends going to see a D&D exhibition with some big dragon model featured. Anyway, I think it was THAT episode of that show when I first heard about D&D. I went out and investigated at the local toy store and came home with the Red box. Can anyone help me out here what the name of that show was?

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

[El Mahdi]

I was strapped to a chair with metal clips that kept my eyelids open and forced to watch episode after episode of the D&D cartoon for three days straight...


Oh, wait a minute...you meant RPG's.


I was invited to play by fellow unit members (so I chose work colleagues). However, they were also my friends. We were all from different avionics specialties (what are called "pointy heads" in the Air Force).

[Punnuendo]

Voted other. Was at the bookstore one day when I was 14 and bought the Mechwarrior 2nd Edition RPG.

[Dice4Hire]

I was introuduced tothe gmae by a freind when I was a bout 8-10 years old, and I remember being confused on how there could be a castle and trees .... in the dungeon. I thought at first it was a game wehre we pretended that we ourselves(or RL selves) got sucked into a dungeon.

I still think that is a cool scenario.

My church ran some games also soon after, and my school had an RPG club at the time, but I mostly played with my brothers at home, and the friend above. I did not have a real group till I hit university, back in 1987.

Since then, expect for a 2 year break when I came to Japan( my books were home and I thought I was done with the hobby), I have been playing ever since.

[Quantarum]

Saw some guys playing basic D&D in Junior High. Came across them in the library and asked what they were doing, they asked me to play and I was hooked. Within a month I had taken over as DM. I still get that chill of expectation and it keeps me coming back for more. -Q.

[catsclaw227]

In 1978, we had just moved across country and I was starting 7th grade at a new school in a totally new environment (small town in South Carolina to hip upper-middle class Southern California). My mom bought me a new AD&D DMG and PHB.

The picture of the Efreeti on the cover of the DMG got me immediately. That book also had the smallest print of any book I had owned to date.

I didn't get to DM a game for a few months though, when I wrangled a couple of guys in my apartments to let me DM some encounters in a small dungeon I made. It had rot grub, two orcs, and a potion of speed.

[amysrevenge]

Went to a new school for high school, joined up with an existing group by early October. I have no exact memory of first broaching the subject (was I invited, or did I ask to join for instance?), but it was very natural for me. Zero to king of the munchkins* in about 2 weeks.

*I still hold my own in the realm of munchkinnery, but I am very much a big-fish-small-pond sort of king. I can't compete with the pros of CharOp.

[samursus]

I see I am the first in the Organanized Event Category.... I think I was 10 or so (1981) and was introduced to D&D through a club at the Boys and Girls Club....

[darjr]

I first saw kids playing with, what I now know, the Holmes boxed set. It was a hand me down from the owners older brother. The older brother had graduated to AD&D. I couldn't stop talking about it and annoyed my parents until they purchased the Moldvay box for myself. My older sister, unbeknown to me had already started an AD&D game.

[Jan van Leyden]

Other.

We had been playing the board game "Verlies" a lot with a copy from our library. When I read in a board game magazine that "Verlies" had been canceled I desperately wanted to get my own copy and drove hundred of kilometers through the countryside; board games were usually sold in toy shops also carrying bicycles and baby outfit.

When I had no luck I read the announcement again and noticed that the English version, called "Dungeon" would still be available. The ad of a mail order shop offered this game and I ordered it immediately, only to realise that I had order a game called "Dungeons & Dragons" instead. Being too shy to admit my error I decided to wait and see, and several days later a shiny Red Box arrived at my home. The rest is history...

[Meridius]

One of my friends ran a website, and she had a little RPG on it. I participated but it was mostly dead. That sparked (renewed) interest, as I've been reading up on RPG's earlier.

Later, another friend suggested our group of people should start a D&D campaign, and she envisioned me as the perfect Greatsword-wielding barbarian... :P

About a year later, the idea actually became reality, and her boyfriend started to DM a game. Our first game was actually played out in the 'lunchroom' of the university-building we where attending at. Some of us had evening colleges so we used it as I time fill. I was hooked. I got myself a standard 3.0 Dwarven fighter who became (in-)famous for dying numerous times, smashing his weapon to bits regularly (annoying house rule made to pester those (me) who ignore 2-19 and only roll 1 or 20) and on one occasion for slamming a Bugbear straight through a wall (was a low level campaign, and a weak wall), which gave a LOT of satisfaction for something imaginary.

The game ended due to people quitting due to time constraints. 2 Years later I started my own campaign. Which now has mostly the same group, and a couple of new additions.

[Dykstrav]

I found the old 1E Player's Handbook and Dungeon Master's Guide in the local public library when I was eight years old. I checked them out and read them, and the concept of a fantasy role-playing game amazed me. Unfortunately, it was nearly a year before I was able to find a game. Some teenagers played a game in the conference room at the library over the summer and they let me watch, but wouldn't let me play (at first). When players started dropping out, I got in and the rest is history.

[kenmarable]

Stuff looked cool in the store, so I bought some (Red Box and Lost City).

First group play experience was soon afterward in an after-school class run by a local teenager. The group was just me, someone who dropped out half-way through who I don't remember, and another kid who wound up being one of my best friends for 20ish years.