"Gateway Drug"

[Dannyalcatraz]

Its hard to think clearly with that much precision about times that far gone.

AD&D was clearly the first, in late 1977 or early 1978. Shortly thereafter- and I mean within a year, but with no more precision than that- I was exposed to Traveller*, Gamma World, Boot Hill and The Fantasy Trip (I bought Traveller and TFT) by Buddy Lavezzi, my primary gaming buddy of the day. He also got me hooked on Task Force Games' Star Fleet Battles and Starfire.

Shortly after them came the first edition of Champions (which was to become HERO).

And that was it up until the 1990s, when I got exposed to and/or tried another 90+ games.









* Yes, I'm another person with a character who died during creation. I got greedy, and went for one more tour in the space marines...

 

[jimmifett]

For me, Gurps 3E was both my intro to p&p rpgs and non-dnd rpgs at the same time. It appealed to that early jr high simulationist in me (evolved into an epic level programmer). Elves, unicorns, dragons and fantasy stuff were for girls. Fantasy for guys was vampires and werewolves and stuff.

Fast Forward 20 years...

My elf riding an armored war-unicorn can fire an arrow across a battle field and hit the dragon riding general in the eye; and vampires are angsty, sparkle, and get into slap fights with werewolves over girls ._.

WHAT HAPPENED!??!?!?!?!

 

[Zil]

What I am wondering here is what was it that made people stumble upon other RPGs, and made them want to keep playing them. To me, having played many non-D&D RPGs is what marks someone as a "hard core gamer." So, what was your first non-D&D RPG and what made you start playing it?

Traveller, probably a month or so after starting with AD&D. What really hooked me about Traveller was the Third Imperium setting. I like the classic SF Asimovian/Piper like universe. The "game within a game" character generation also was a big draw even if it could kill you.

The Traveller campaigns never lasted as long as the D&D campaigns, but I'd still play Traveller in a flash if someone was starting up a game. Have fond memories of some one-shot "grounder-pounder" games playing mercenaries in hostile territory just trying to stay alive using Avalon Hill's Gettysburg board game for the maps of the territory we were in.

 

[CarlZog]

I started gaming as a board wargamer (Avalon Hill, SPI). When Metagaming's MicroGames showed up in a local shop, I bought 'em all -- including Melee and Wizard. This was my intro to RPGs. D&D came later.

 

[Theo R Cwithin]

There were a handful that we played now and then (early-mid 80s), but our main "second" game was Star Frontiers. We started playing it because we were into sci-fi and Star Fleet Battles, but didn't realize until later that there was an actual Star Trek rpg already out there. Stupid kids. We also played James Bond and Dr. Who because we were fans of, well, James Bond and Dr.Who. Different groups played Marvel Supers from time to time, as well.

Really, the main reason I played most of the RPGs I played as a kid was simply because some random friend would get a game but didn't want to learn the rules, so they always left that & GMing to me.



.

 

[jaerdaph]

The first non-AD&D game I ever played was either Pacesetter Chill or Call of Cthulhu - I can't remember anymore which one I played first though. I did buy Call of Cthulhu books before I bought Chill ones though, as I only have the Mayfair edition of Chill - except for the Elvira sourcebook.

Back then I was pretty much all AD&D, all the time. I regret that now, because I missed out on cool things I would have enjoyed like FASA Trek and James Bond if I was more than marginally aware of them.

 

[Treebore]

I started with 1E AD&D, then went to Paladium Fantasy thanks to a guy named Kent Small. I am particularly glad of it because it taught me almost right away how much impact mechanics can have on how a game "feels". This led to me immediately back tracking to earlier D&D and even variants on D&D, like Judges Guild and Arduin. Which also led to me having a lot of collectors items today, that I bought well before they were collectors items. I played a lot of different RPG's after that, Rolemaster, Spacemaster, MERP, Traveller, RIFTS, Synnibar and more.

 

[Gilladian]

It was probably Boot Hill, tho it might have been Metamorphosis Alpha. I know that the first non-dnd game I DM'd was Gamma World. We played lots of other things (RQ, Traveler, I helped PLAYTEST the game that became The Fantasy Trip), but I think Gamma World was what I enjoyed the most.

 

[GodDelusion]

Started with AD&D in '83 and then went to Paranoia...

God, those were the days of wonder.

 

[gamerprinter]

My first game was D&D red box - the next door neighbor's grandson came to visit and he brought it with him, that was 1977. Though it was almost a year later when I started to play regularly and that was AD&D 1e.

I don't think it was until the army that I ever played anything else, and truth tell I'm not sure which game it was. However, during my army days, I played Traveller, Space Opera, Aftermath, Elfquest, though even then AD&D was my preferred game. I did get lots of Harn stuff back then too.

When I was in the army in Alaska, I got into Twilight 2000 and Paranoia as well, but still AD&D was my preferred game.

When I got out, within a month I found a group of gamers playing AD&D and that is the group that I currently still play with. We stuck with AD&D 2e even as 3.0 came into existence. I was lucky enough to skip the whole 3.0 to 3.5 mess, and finally about 6 years ago, started playing 3.5.

I did buy VtM, though no one around here played it, so it was read only, but I did get my group to try one game of HOL, which was a blast.

So I was only playing 3.5 for about 3 years when I moved to Pathfinder. While I played D&D since forever, I've only been in 3x for a very short time, one campaign really. And this is where I sit today.

GP