At what age did you start gaming?

[dead]

I have a theory that RPG gamers who love the game to death started at an early age. Early age I define as anywhere from 9 to 21.

My theory also says that if you started gaming *after* this age, it is far less likely that you will treat gaming as an integral part of your life. In other words, folks who start gaming "late", will be more likely to just "dabble" or drop out of the hobby all together!

I have no evidence to prove my theory, so I'm conducting some research.

You see, I think in the early years of our life we are innocent and open-minded and happy to take up the joys of a creative hobby. Some folks say they "grow out of it" (whatever that means!!!), while others are hooked for life. However, if we start later on in life -- ie. when we've reached adulthood -- the various negative attitudes in society about gaming as being "anti-social" and "pathetic" ("Get a real life!", these people say) are too ingrained in the said individual and, thus, it is harder for them to "fall in love" with RPGs. This resistance causes folks late to gaming to distance themselves from embracing the hobby which, inevitably, causes them to drop out completely.

Of course, folks, I'm sure there are exceptions! I'm sure there's some folks out there who started gaming at age 25 or 35 and now love the hobby with all their heart.

I started gaming at age 10 with Basic D&D and I've never looked back. Through high-school many of my friends dropped out of gaming. They said: "I think I've grown out of it" (which, of course, earned my undying emnity coz they are implying RPGs are for kids).

Anyway, I'm 29 now, and I've tried to introduce folks of a similar age into the hobby but always strike resistance. When I do get them at the gaming table, it seems that they are there primarily for the "social" experience rather than the pleasure of the *game*. (Yes, gaming is a fantastic social activity, but if the only reason you're turning up to sessions is to "catch up with friends" then I think there is a problem). As a result, these players aren't very committed.

Conversly, we've just introduced my friend's 10-year old daughter to the gaming table and, guess what, she loves it!!!! I think we have a convert.

Anyways, I know the folk on EN World are like me: Life wouldn't be worth living without RPGs!!!!!!!!! So, I wanna see what age such passionate RPG enthusiasts started gaming -- I'm guessing at a young age.

If you did start late, however, my hat is off to you! You've embraced RPGs because you loved them and didn't care what "society" or non-gaming peers thought.

Thankyou.

 

[Orryn Emrys]

It sounds like we're about the same age and started at about the same time. My folks were really into fantasy and science-fiction back them, so my interest in the genre was a foregone conclusion. They got me into Tolkien when I was still in elementary school. After an older kid in my neighborhood introduced me to D&D, my mother did some research on the game, decided it was cool, then she and my dad promptly got involved. My father proceeded to play until I was a junior in high school... my mother continues to play to this day.

I'm definitely a lifer!

 

[Crothian]

I started at the young age of six. It was introduced to me by the older local boys. Oddly enough the guys I game with that are fanatics were introduced to it early in their life, but the women who really love it were introduced to it in late teens.

 

[Greylock]

I started off in table-top war games. Avalon Hill stuff. Formed a club at high school and sponsered game days. It was actually the younger kids in the club, or wanting to join the club, that insisted on introducing DnD.

I finally gave in and learned the game when a friend, again younger (one year), invited me to join his personal campaign. Took twenty years off from DnD, but am now playing with the same old friend again. And that makes me grin...

(Forgot this part: I was 16 when I started playing.)

 

[Wombat]

D&D came out when I was 15; I found out about it at 16 and bought it pretty much immediately

 

[AIM-54]

I was first introduced into the game in grade 7 (I was 12, I think) by some friends in my class at school. I enjoyed it, but for one reason or another it didn't last too long.

Took it up againin grade 9 (at 14) and got my best friends into it to and it stuck ever since, though we've since branched out into other games that fit our particular interests better. And I've since moved away and had to find other outlets, with varying degrees of success.

Nevertheless, it was me DMing out of the 2E PHB that got the whole thing started.

 

[Alhazred]

I starting playing at 11. A couple of kids about my age played a game of their own creation which they called "aventure" (this was in Quebec, and they were French). It was a cross between D&D and the old King's Quest computer games. I hadn't even heard of D&D at that point, and they possibly hadn't either (I lived in Montreal, they lived in the hinterlands; I met them at a friend's cottage). A few months later, my city-dwelling friends and I discovered D&D in a local game and toy store. I've been playing ever since (15 years now).

 

[spyscribe]

As the lone "22-24" so far, I figured I should speak up.

I started playing after being ambushed at my graduate school department christmas party by a couple I had met a few months earlier:

Them: There's something we need to ask you.
Me: Okay...
Them: You're a Buffy fan, right?
Me: Yeah.
Them: And you're a Star Trek fan, right?
Me: Er... yeah.
Them: So here's the question: Are you a gamer?
Me: Actually... no.

They didn't like that answer and a month later I had joined their campaign. Close to three years later I am, "the one who takes compulsive notes for the campaign" (see link to story hour, below).

I didn't have negative associations with D&D, and I had frequently hung out in undergrad with people who played. I had just never done it myself. On reflection, the fact that it took so long to start playing is stranger than the fact that I enjoy it so much now.

Crothian may have a point, I'm pretty sure that if I were a guy, I would have been one of the ones playing Magic in the back of high school biology class.

 

[spyscribe]

<double-post deleted>

 

[qstor]

I started at age 11 with the basic set with the red dragon on the cover and B1 in the box. My friend used to DM. We never knew you were supposed to play just one PC. I had a whole party of 10 characters!

Mike