Why did you start the hobby?

[TheAuldGrump]

I started playing D&D late '75/early '76. I started as a wargamer playing the old Avalon Hill wargames. Some of my friends oredered the beige box version of D&D from an advertisement in Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine for $10. I decided to give it a try and ordered my own copy a couple/three weeks later.

Ran my first game in 1976 in the basement of the Unitarian Church in Portsmouth New Hampshire. Some folks have horror stories involving organized religion and RPGs, I've never had anything but support. We ran it in the Unitarian church, and one of the players was a Catholic priest. (He played the most unctious, two faced, underhanded cleric I have ever seen... I suspect that the character was based on someone he knew.)

The Auld Grump, I still have the map from that first game, but the rest has gone to it's rest...

 

[Mark]

Ran my first game in 1976 in the basement of the Unitarian Church in Portsmouth New Hampshire. Some folks have horror stories involving organized religion and RPGs, I've never had anything but support.

Unitarians?!?

*shudders*

They burnt an equal sign in my lawn once...

Once...

 

[Tallok]

Other: I found my brother's old AD&D books, so I tried to learn to play. This was fun, but rather inneffective, but that's how it started

 

[fusangite]

Unitarians?!?

*shudders*

They burnt an equal sign in my lawn once...

Once...

As someone sent to Unitarian Sunday school, I found this screamingly funny. Unlike the modern Church of Atheistic Liberalism, the original Unitarians were actually pretty cool, you know: Methodists converted the Central Asian admixture of the Nestorian and Monophysite heresies.

 

[astralpwka]

I first discovered D&D in '82 when I was in 3rd grade. It looked awesome, and I can't explain really why, but I just knew I wanted to play it, and very badly. Being in 3rd grade and knowing nobody that played, I really didn't catch on until 7th grade ('86), when a friend and his older brother ran a game.

I wasn't influenced by the genre in books or movies or whatever... It was a bug... a virus!!!!

It still is.

 

[Agback]

G'day

I read an article called On Evenings Beyond the Fields We Know in the July 1979 issue of Isaac Asimov's SF Magazine. This explained RPGs, and as soon as I read it I wanted to play. The next year I changed schools and found a group who played D&D. I asked to join, they accepted me, and soon I was a die-hard player.

Regards,


Agback

 

[Teflon Billy]

...Methodists converted the Central Asian admixture of the Nestorian and Monophysite heresies.

Still not enough to drag me away from Heavy Metal and Worshipping the Devil

 

[Eternalknight]

It was the Fighting Fantasy, and later Lone Wolf, gamebooks that got me into D&D.

 

[Allanon]

Actually two options, CRPG's and fantasy novel (ahh.. the life of the young nerd <sigh> ).
But mostly fantasy novels so I voted for them.

 

[ArielManx]

As a child I loved the fantastical - unicorns, pegasi, wizards and valiant knights on strong warhorses. I also loved mythology. I read a lot and had an active imagination, and loved playing make-believe. I heard of a game called Dungeons and Dragons but knew no one who played (I think a cousin or two may have, but I was a girl and wouldn't have been included in such things). There were some boys in my class who played M:tG but that was about it.

As I entered my teens though I had less time for reading and imagination and had to focus on school and work. That got even worse in college. I had an intense major in a scientific field and had to immerse myself in it to do well. I don't think I read a single book for pleasure during those 4 years.

About halfway through my college years I met my husband, a gamer. About a month before our wedding, he asked me if I wanted to create a D&D character. All those things I'd so loved as a child came rushing back to me and I realized how much I'd missed it all. I could be a wizard! With a few rolls of the dice Zorra Lightshadow came into being, and with my first session of playing I was hooked (I even got a crit on a hobgoblin and did a little happy dance).

3 1/2 years later I still play that wizard. D&D has become my most-loved hobby. I couldn't give it up now if I tried.

Ariel