Amanda started playing at 15 with 3rd edition.
Made a wizard first! Cool!
She, like a lot of us, knew instantly it was for her.
James was already working at Wizards and met Amanda when she was 18 at GenCon. Been there 24years in Jan.
Christmas of 1977 he was 9 and watched the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings and they used to pretend they were the blue wizards.
Then they got the original box set for Christmas and failed to understand it. But used it as monsters to fuel their kids pretend play.
Chris perkins (one of two GAME ARCHITECTS). He first discovered the Monster Manual next to a display of porn magazines. He thought it was a game of designing monsters.
Jeremey started at 1978 and his sister introduced it to him, and he didn't think it had rules to begin with. He is the other Game Architect.
They had no rulebooks, just an adventure. They just played by making up what they wanted to do. Wow do I love that kind of play.