At what age did you start gaming?

[mythusmage]

It was thirty years ago today,
Ol Conan* taught the gang to play,

*Conan Lamotte. Real name. His dad was a hard core Robert E. Howard fan.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

Age 6 for me, in a game run by my mother using the red box basic set. A series of short campaigns followed using basic and the 1e PHB and DMG and monsters from basic.

Oddly enough, the gateway swung the other way for me: playing pen & paper D&D got my family into the SSI gold box games, in turn into Shining Force, finally into Final Fantasy and the like.

I mostly played console games, suitably embelished by the presence of 1-3 other players, all of who were good voice actors and avid roleplayers, during the 2e years (which had something to do with the 2e rules, I expect). Despite that, I did DM and play in some Spelljammer, mostly family games with a few outside the house.

Finally, 3e brought me back into the hobby full-bore.

 

[Stormrunner]

I got started on D&D around, oh, 10 or 11 I guess - 1977 or thereabouts. Ever since I was 4 or 5 I'd been making up stories and drawings of talking dinosaurs and otter-people (Disney's Dinosaur was kind of a nostalgia trip for me). We were camping in the Rockies with my Aunt Jeanie and Uncle Tom, and Tom had a gaming magazine. In those days "gaming" was boardgames and wargames, but this mag had an article about a strange new game. Tom said, "You're always writing stories and stuff, you might be interested in this." I was, and I bugged my parents until they bought the boxed set for Xmas. This was the old blue-and-white set - a few years later the first AD&D books came out, PHB followed by the MM and DMG (DMG was $15, the other two were $12 each; my parents were concerned about spending so much money on a game!). Played AD&D through high school, with occasional excursions into Marvel Super Heroes, Ghostbusters, and Paranoia. In college I got into The Fantasy Trip and then its successor, GURPS, which I played more or less exclusively through college and for several years after. Then the stresses of Real Life intervened, and the old group broke up, and for years I didn't roleplay at all. Recently got back into gaming, first with Magic: the Gathering, then picked up the 3.0 PHB and liked it, started reacquiring all the 3rdEd stuff (missed 2nd Edition altogether). Still have trouble finding people to play with, playing about once every 2-3 months at this point.

 

[Whimsical]

If you are looking for games or gamers where you live, check out the various gamer registries listed at RPGIndex. Then add yourself to these gamer registries. The one that has worked for me the best has been AccessDenied.net.

 

[Doctor Futurity]

Started gaming at age 10 about 23 years ago; It's been an obsession ever since. I know a lot of women who "played for a while".....or at least long enough to convince their beau to get married, at which time gaming became "that silly thing hubby does." Seems to me that I know more guys who washed out of gaming in high school due to the lure of women than I do who left in later years due to social pressures. My suspicion is that you have a smaller group of "late-comers" but those who do get in to it are probably coming back to the hobby from an early introduction, followed by a prolonged absence.

 

[Seeker95]

Imagine that... a true distribution!

 

[Lyriel Aelorothi]

While I mostly definitely had the Warlord action figure, I fear that I was far to old to use it as a teething ring. I started gaming at age 10 when my gather bought me the Basic Dungeons and Dragons boxed set for my birthday and taugh t me now to play.

 

[LizardWizard]

I started playing when I was 11 or 12 (don't remember exactly).
This ol' battered photocopy of the Rules Cyclopedia is still one of my most treasured possessions.

 

[Mishihari Lord]

I have marketing on my mind since I'm taking two classes in that area, and from that point of view, the results of this poll are truly fascinating.

Assuming this poll is not too far off of representative, ~85% of gamers enter the hobby before age 16.

This suggests that in order to grow the hobby, what is needed is an RPG that makes it easy for young teens to start playing.

I wonder if there is such a game? I don't think it's 3e.

 

[Spider_Jerusalem]

Ahoy.

I was a rather innocent seven years old.

A friend invited me to make-believe and they gave me a character called an "ultrafiend" or something.

Every stat was 18, it wore a ninja suit, and it had two vorpal swords that could rip open space and time.

Being offered powergaming from a very young age is inadvisable, by the way.

Spider