Trivia: When did you first play D&D?

[athos]

I first got the basic D&D blue set around late 76 or early 77. I don't think I did more than actually roll up a few characters and create a dungeon or two, it was too "vague" for me at age 10.

Later in the year, when the PHB, DMG and MM came out for 1st edition AD&D, I was truly hooked. They had a LOT more detail, and I could work better with them. I quickly enlisted 3 guys in the neighborhood and started a campaign. ALL of my paper route money was going into gaming, I was an addict. I clearly remember the judges guild citystates which were wonderful, and then when they released Greyhawk, that was truly a great setting.

I played up to 87 or so, and then took a leave from gaming to do a stent in the army. But when I got out in 92, Dark Sun was fairly new, so I picked up 2nd edition and got all my fellow computer programmers at work hooked on it. Once again, I took a leave of gaming, and didn't get back into it until 3.5 came out where I am holding the line. Too old and too stubborn to go with newer systems so those are the years I learned basic, 1st ed., 2nd ed. and 3.5.

In all fairness, I did learn 4th ed. in like 2008, or at least I think it was then that Living Greyhawk switched over to Living Forgotten Realms, but after a couple months of it, I went back to 3.5 and have forgotten most if not everything about 4th.

Reading this thread it is really amazing how many people started around age 9 or 10. My daughter is in middle school now and loves fantasy books, although she has stopped gaming since they killed Living Greyhawk. I guess kids are really open to the idea of magic, monsters, and alternate worlds, and pick up on gaming quickly.

It is too bad that the video games out now are such a bigger draw than RPGs. I watched my nephew play WoW and someone came up and "spit" on his character. I was shocked. In table top RPGs, such a thing would never happen. Unfortuneately I think the old games and gamers will fade into the wood work as newer and "better" video games come out. But, on the plus side, it looks like a lot of us that got into gaming at a young age are still hanging in there

 

[PeacemakerSG]

I was 10 years old when the call came in during the summer of '77. An invitation to play something I've never heard of, nor understood what it was from the description over the telephone. But a summer night with the entire neighborhood gang sounded good.

The mechanics were kept simple, and while short, the adventure was amazing. My head was spinning with excitement after that fateful evening. A month later, school back in session (7th grade), I overheard some classmates speaking in terms that sounded a lot like that game I had played. They were inhaling the contents of a curious looking book, which turned out to be the Players Handbook. "There are books?!!!", I silently exclaimed. That Christmas I had saved enough paper route money to splurge for the three core books. I devoured them.

I had a wonderful six year run with AD&D, dabbling in a few other RPGs in the duration. A somber 18 year hiatus, from table top gaming, began at the early death of our beloved friend, first and favorite DM, to Leukemia in the fall of 1983 (he was only 20). That plus a transition to college pushed gaming nearly out of my attentions but was not completely forgotten. I continued to accumulate items, most of MERP, lots of TSR/WOTC stuff, and a few other things of interest but I never played. From time to time I found a few hours here and there to continue "work" on my campaign world, story ideas, and notes about improving RPG systems. Life marched on.

In March 2001, by chance, I noticed a poster in front of a WOTC store, a place I had walked by a number of times, glancing but not breaking the threshold. It stated that D&D games were to be held in the store on the weekend. With encouragement from my sweetheart, and courage to risk opening an old wound, I showed up for the game. It was WOTC's effort to introduce 3.0. I picked up where I had been on the first night when I was 10, playing my heart out, rules inexperienced but ready for action. It took only a few session to learn this new version (I skipped playing 2.0 even though I had some of the books). By the end of May I was hooked, again. Then the store manager made me an offer - we'll pay you to DM. From the summer of 2001 through the spring of 2002, I was a professional Dungeon Master. How cool is that! Apparently I was a hit, scoring as many as 21 players in my game some days. By spring's end, WOTC decided to end gaming in the store, choosing to dedicate the floor space to merchandise. I invited a small cadre of players to continue my campaign in my home. That game lasted for almost four years. Afterward I went back to being a player, my first love, as others in this group took turns at running games. In 2009, life interrupted game time and to be fair to the other players, I stopped playing due to the lack of regular availability on my part.

Presently, I am relocating my family and will look to join or create a new group. Reinvigorated after 18 years, I now spend more time in effort to complete a novel and a gaming system with an accumulated 34 years of playing, scheming, and dreaming. That first adventure, long ago on a warm summer night has not been forgotten. I have memorialized it in chapter one of my novel-in-progress. It's good to dream.

RIP Peter, and thanks.

 

[HRSegovia]

My cousin had just been introduced, and I spent the weekends with him. He lived in a town of only 6,000. The place was much like "Courage: The Cowardly Dog" and night time often left much to the imagination. Combine that with the imagination of a 7-year-old and D&D... it was 1984.

Two 12-year-old twins (boy and girl) had moved into the 3-lot trailer park next door. They brought the game with them. However, they were only there for about a month.

After they left, we tried to carry-on the tradition, but we didn't even understand the rules. The numbers were arbitrary and ambiguous and we were rolling d6's. At 7, it was more related to how high you rolled. If the number was pretty high, we'd cheer like we knew what we were doing.

We were Red Doogle and Silverleaf... the Wizard and Elf.

Our adventures were simple and probably made no sense, but they were ours and untainted by reality. Forget physics, science, psychology and everything you learn in school. We were only 7 and 8 years old. Anything was possible and the world beyond (even the real world) was a great mystery full of wonder.

http://maps.google.com/maps?oe=utf-...d=HKLC97y4LA4JaHf6-aHiYg&cbp=12,98.62,,0,4.54

 

[PeacemakerSG]

Thanks billd91. Although, I've posted a few times before but they were wiped out when EN changed forum software.

 

[kallisti23]

I played my first game of D&D back in 1982, at my family Christmas gathering at my Grandparents' home. I received the Frank Mentzer Basic Set as a gift from my Grandfather, and my Father and I, after perusing the instructions and coloring the dice (yeah, the dice that came with the set didn't have the numbers painted on, but rather engraved into the plastic, and included a white crayon to fill them in) played the sample solo adventure (the "Your First D&D Game" chapter) with me as the solo player and him as the DM. Sadly, my PC was killed by the ghouls near the very end of the adventure. That didn't deter me, though... I was pumped to go back and hunt down that nasty Magic-User Bargle and avenge the death of the Cleric Alina and her would-be savior. Twenty-Eight years later, I still consider that to be my all-time favorite Christmas gift... My 'Rosebud', if you will (Citizen Kane reference)...

 

[Stormonu]

I got the Holmes set for Christmas, back in '79. I was a bit too young to understand the rules (about 9 years old), so we just played with the miniatures I talked my dad into buying and made the stuff up as my friends went. I started to use the real rules around '82-'83.

 

[DizzySaxophone]

I started playing around 7 years ago, the spring break of my junior year of high school, when a group of friends and I went to a game store that one of my friends army enlister's wife had owned. We went in because he wanted to buy Axis and Allies, but ended up not buying it. I saw some of the intro box sets for 3.5, and saw some people playing in the store while we were there. After observing them play for about 30 minutes, I bought the set and we immediately went back to a friends house and started playing. We fell in love with the game, and ended up going back to the store every day during spring break (as luckily we started that Friday night school had let out) to buy more of the core books, dice, minis, etc… We didn't have enough money to each buy the books each and since I was the only one with a job at the time, I bought all the books and studied them and became our GM.

This group played until we graduated and then we split when we went to University and the Army. Luckily, two of my friends who also knew the rest of the group also went to the same University as me, and were also music majors. I invited them to play with me, since they originally didn't. This group is still together, with my girlfriend and a couple of other people that like to drop in and play.