Do you remember your first RPG purchase?

[HorusZA]

1983. D&D Red Box. Berea Cycles in Hillbrow, Johannesburg, South Africa. R19.95 (which was a lot of money for a 15-year old back then).

EDIT: It's still on my shelf

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

Erm. I remember it. It was a mistake.

I was big into gamebooks as child and I purchased one every time I got pocket money, to the point I just got the library and picked one I hadn't read... but without looking at them too much since I wanted to buy and read them all. The publisher had all gamebook series use the same graphical design, with a cover and a small icon at the bottom middle identifying the specific series.

So one day, around age 10, I stumbled upon a new series and bought those two without opening them:

Those were DSA adventures. Not solo, nothing. Real RPG adventures, in the exact same format. I was very puzzled (I had no rules, no idea what DSA was) and tried to figure it out, wondering about the strange "DM advice to adapt the adventure to other levels" meant. Took some time but I don't regret it.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

Pretty sure my first RPG purchase was dice. They weren't sold in sets at the time so they were mix-and-match. I do still have that first d20, but the rest of them have become irrevocably mixed with the hundreds of other dice I've acquired over the years.

After the dice my next purchases would have been miniatures, but those have also either been long lost or hopelessly mixed with hundreds (really closer to a couple thousand) miniatures and I can't recall at all which they would have been. ONE of the earliest (but I doubt very much that it was THE first) is an elf archer figure with a somewhat morion-style helmet, which is in a box somewhere.

 

[kenada]

I’m pretty sure it was a copy of the 3e PHB. It might have been dice, but I think I got the book first.

 

[was]

first purchase was my own dice set. second purchase was the PHB for 2nd ed.

 

[CleverNickName]

I got my red-box Basic Rules set for my birthday, so while it was the first RPG product I ever owned, it wasn't the first one that I bought.

My first RPG purchase was the blue-box Expert Rules Set. I remember it because by the time I had managed to save up enough of my allowance to buy it, the whole thing was out of print and I couldn't find it anywhere. I ended up buying it from one of my classmates, for $15 and some of my X-Man comic books.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Though I had played for a couple of years I was very poor and couldn't afford to buy any RPG stuff. ( I did create some of my own games and even made some cardboard d8's!)
Then in 1982 I had some birthday money and went to the local gamestore to buy something.
I purchased Starstone by Northern Sages. Can't remember why. Luckily it was great and has become a classic and I now have multiple copies and have run it many times under several systems.

How about you?

Holmes Basic, the original 1977 Basic boxed set was the first actual TSR D&D product which I purchased, besides possibly some copies of The Dragon. I did inherit some other books before that.

 

[Cadence]

I don't remember if I bought Moldvay Basic for myself or not. I must have bought the used copy of 1e Gamma World for myself at the comic/game/record/book store in the neighborhood.

 

[Radaceus]

with my own money?
I think Arms Law, by I.C.E ( around 82, and later bought Spell law, and Campaign Law)

but I talked my mother into buying the Moldvay Basic in 81, soon followed by Expert set

I bought the hardcovers around 83+

 

[jdrakeh]

Eighth printing D&D Basic Set from a garage sale. I seem to recall some extra modules being purchased, too, but I do not recall which ones (I mean, this was over 30 years go, after all). The first RPG thing I ever received as a gift, though, I clearly remember - the Ravenloft Forbidden Lore box set.