D&D General How Long Did You Play Only D&D Before Trying Another Game

[greymist]

I'm assuming “another game” refers to RPGs.

I started playing D&D around 1978. The next RPG I can recall playing was WEG Star Wars, in 2022.

 

[hojulation]

Technically played a few games of 2E in the late 90's, but I count my actual beginning with TTRPG's as 2012 when I started DMing a 4E campaign. Within that same year I began GMing a Dragon AGE campaign that lasted several years.

The 4E campaign then shifted to 5E in 2014 and never looked back.

 

[Ath'kethin]

I didn't start with D&D - the first TTRPG I ever played was Earthdawn (1st Edition) - but once I discovered (A)D&D(2e) a few months later I was hooked for years. This would have been ca. 1993. And while I say AD&D 2e, in truth it was a mashup of 2e, 1e, and Basic material - i didn't even realize there was a real difference between 1e and 2e until I'd been playing for a year or two.

I played other stuff alongside it; mostly World of Darkness games but also a bunch of little indie games, most of which more or less aped D&D so I'm not sure if they count, plus Toon, the original Marvel Super Heroes, and original Castle Falkenstein. The high school I attended at the time was on a college campus so I had access to all the college-aimed stores, and it ruled. I ran an Alternity game or two in the late 90s, too, while living in a different college town.

I stopped playing entirely for a few years from 2008 til 2012 ish, picking up again with Pathfinder organized play games, which again are close enough to D&D that I'm not sure it counts as a different game.

 

[LordEntrails]

Started in 1978, 2nd grade. I said a year or so, but don't recall specifics. We (friends, classmates, brother) bought anything we could afford as soon as we could save up. Some of our early non-D&D purchases were Runequest, Gamma World, & Star Frontiers. I think the second round included; Tunnels & Trolls, Gang Busters, Top Secret, Twighlight 2000, and ElfQuest all before AD&D came out?

Hard to answer, as I started playing D&D in the 1970s. There weren't other options right away. The "other" games were Monopoly, Risk, Sorry, etc.

Actually, for the time there were a lot of games released in the 70's. But, distribution was another matter. Luckily we had a Hobby Bench that tended to carry RPGs. Wikipedia says: Empire of the Petal Throne (1974/75), Metamorphosis Alpha (1976), Traveller (1977), Chivalry & Sorcery (1977), Arduin (1977), Superhero: 2044 (1977), RuneQuest (1978), and Gamma World (1978).

Then I played Gamma World - which was really just reskinned D&D.

NO!!! You could roll up a two-headed mutant with psychic powers. It was not the same! Well, to a ten year old they were very different. But by today's enlightened standard? Yea, just flavor and some new tables.

 

[BruceWright]

Actually, for the time there were a lot of games released in the 70's. But, distribution was another matter. Luckily we had a Hobby Bench that tended to carry RPGs. Wikipedia says: Empire of the Petal Throne (1974/75), Metamorphosis Alpha (1976), Traveller (1977), Chivalry & Sorcery (1977), Arduin (1977), Superhero: 2044 (1977), RuneQuest (1978), and Gamma World (1978).

I picked up a copy of Metamorphis Alpha, which required me being old enough to be allowed to ride my bike all the way to Torrance. So that was also setting my timeframe.

 

[Bacon Bits]

I'm discounting my technical first session of Basic D&D because I didn't really play. Me and my friend rolled the attacks of the hireling archers in my friends older brothers campaign during a fight on a ship against a green dragon. I think I was 7, and I didn't even know what I was playing.

Years later I played either Basic or AD&D or an amalgam of both for a few weeks before changing to WEG Star Wars and then to Shadowrun (or vice-versa). Then it was AD&D (1e and 2e) until 3e D&D released.

 

[Wofano Wotanto]

I'm assuming “another game” refers to RPGs.

If so, my proper category doesn't even exist. D&D was my first RPG by less than a week, after which I tried some newly-released Traveller. There was also a little boot Hill, but we played it strictly as a board game so I wouldn't count it as an RPG at all. It was 1977 at the time.

I started with what I'd categorize as gaming (ie not trad card games or "family" boardgames) through a mix of historical miniatures games (using borrowed armies) and hex-and-counter wargames (also using other folks' games at first). The first Metagming microgames started appearing in 1977 as well they were my first gaming purchases, being well with an kid's allowance money budget.

 

[cranberry]

I'd say within a year or so, I tried Gamma World after I started playing D&D, and within two years, I tried Star Frontiers.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

I'm not sure what to pick - I played a SINGLE SESSION of 1e in 1986, then I played a few years worth of only other games:

TMNT, Rifts, Twilight 2000, Robotech, probably a few others, then when 2e came out (1989, right?) we switched to D&D for 90% of our games.

I've played many others over the years (Notably Delta Green, Feng Shui, Mork Borg, Shadowrun, and various Star Wars games), plus several of the D&D "knockoffs" like Pathfinder & 13th Age, and I've read the rules for slews of games that I've never had a chance to play.

But I've mostly played whatever edition of D&D is the current one since 1989.

 

[dragoner]

I really don't know, maybe started as early as '78, my sister and some of her friends got me into it, by 79 I know I was playing melee/wizard and Traveller too. Got Gamma World around that time also.