How Old Were You When You Played Your First TTRPG?

[ninjayeti]

I was 10. I overheard a couple of other kids at my school playing and was mesmerized. I went to the mall a couple of days later to buy a copy and they had both the Holmes basic set and the Metzner one. I ended up getting Holmes because it was $1 cheaper.

 

[CleverNickName]

I knew that the entry age for tabletop roleplaying games was going to skew pretty young, but I didn't expect for a full half of us to have started playing before we were teenagers.

There was a lot of pushback in my gaming group when 5E came out. We had been playing 3.5E for almost a decade by that point, and 5E felt extremely simplified and "retro" by comparison. I'm starting to understand why WotC made that choice.

 

[Inglorin]

Christmas of '83 I received the Red Box translated in German. Hooked since then.

 

[Parmandur]

I knew that the entry age for tabletop roleplaying games was going to skew pretty young, but I didn't expect for a full half of us to have started playing before we were teenagers.

There was a lot of pushback in my gaming group when 5E came out. We had been playing 3.5E for almost a decade by that point, and 5E felt extremely simplified and "retro" by comparison. I'm starting to understand why WotC made that choice.

It's still the case, really, that's why WotC puts so much effort into kids products.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

I knew that the entry age for tabletop roleplaying games was going to skew pretty young, but I didn't expect for a full half of us to have started playing before we were teenagers.

If you look at roughly the first half of the 80s, TSR was marketing D&D to kids very heavily. Even aside from Basic D&D, you had the D&D cartoon, the Endless Quest series, ads for D&D in comic books, the LJN toy line, D&D stickers, D&D Shrinky Dinks, and more. I suspect a lot of us fell quite easily into that net.

 

[WayneLigon]

i was 15/16-ish. 1977.

 

[TarionzCousin]

1977. My cousin's friend ran B1: In Search of the Unknown at Thanksgiving. I was nine years old.

I returned home and bought the Basic Set/Blue Book. I think I got the Monster Manual for Xmas.

Within six months, about 20 of us were running and playing. We faked higher levels until the PHB came out next year in June.

I think; it was a few years ago.

 

[cranberry]

12 years old - 1979.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

1977 or 1978 -

We had spent the summer of 1977 playing the Magic Realm board game, and then someone heard of this D&D game.

I recall seeing someone in 7th grade science (1977-78) creating a dungeon on graph paper and him trying to describe what you did in D&D and me not grokking it at all from his description. But someone in our group must have eventually went and got the Holmes Basic Set. I soon after bought the AD&D monster manual - it got released before the PHB. Vague recollection of seeing the AD&D Monster manual at the book store with the Dungeons and Dragons name, and buying it - but having no concept of Basic/Advanced/whatever.

I remember playing B1 and someone having the Holmes book, and I had the MM and we were trying to reconcile some of the discrepancies.

Edit to add: Because of this discrepancy, that's how I can set the time - sometime after MM (1977) came out and before PHB (1978) was released.

Finally me and my pal Rick (of Arden Vul fame) went to a hobby shop a couple of towns over so he could buy the AD&D PHB. We soon shifted all our gaming over to AD&D and never looked back.

Ironically, between 1994 and 2006 I managed then owned a game store - but played no D&D during that time. My game group was all hardcore GURPS players. I have never played more than a session or two of 2e/3e/3.5

 

[Micah Sweet]

I knew that the entry age for tabletop roleplaying games was going to skew pretty young, but I didn't expect for a full half of us to have started playing before we were teenagers.

There was a lot of pushback in my gaming group when 5E came out. We had been playing 3.5E for almost a decade by that point, and 5E felt extremely simplified and "retro" by comparison. I'm starting to understand why WotC made that choice.

Being a kid in the 80's is not the same as being a kid today.