My first wargame was Avalon Hill's Outdoor Survival... about 1978... on loan from my therapist.
My first RPG played was AD&D, in 81 or so.
My first RPG purchase was the basic book and the dice pack... Picked up from Long's Drugs, Anchorage. They had 1.5 full aisles of games... only half an aisle of which was the typical family-fare stuff. The rest included a lot of Avalon Hill, Yaquinto, SPI, and 3M titles... but also a standard 4' rack section of RPGs... AD&D, D&D Basic (Moldvay), Dallas, DragonQuest... mostly AD&D modules...
it was great to be a geek in Anchorage in the early 80s... except for that whole satanic panic about 1982-1986... but still kept alive into the 2010's in Anchorage by several preachers. (Last book burning I heard of was in 2012...)