How did RPGs grab you?

[rgard]

In 1976 or so I went to the South Hills Hobby shop near Pittsburgh to buy a 1/35th scale Hunting Tiger (Jadg Tiger I think) Tamiya model kit. While browsing everything in the store (I stayed awhile as it took me 2.5 hours of travel on 4 different buses) I stumbled across the blue boxed set and read the back of it. I had just finished reading the Lord of the Rings and had just started the ERB Barsoom series so the boxed set caught my attention.

I didn't buy any 1/35th scale tanks that day and went home with the blue boxed set. So, 31 years later...

Thanks,
Rich

 

[rgard]

I think it was the chain mail bikinis.

...PICTURES of chain mail bikinis, not wearing them obviously. Heh, yeah.

As long as you aren't that guy who always plays the hot elf chick, everything is fine and we believe you!


Rich

 

[LostSoul]

My dad played, and we were too young, so it was cool.

When we looked at the books, it was the pictures - especially the maps.

 

[drscott46]

My slightly over-involved parents (I was the oldest child) were looking for something to balance the scales with my natural left-brained-ness. How they settled on the Mentzer Red Box circa 1983, I'll never know. I know they found it in a toy store; I don't know why. I grew up in an extremely conservative area (Southwestern Ohio) where not many players existed and bad propaganda was common.

They spent much of the rest of my youth trying to restrict me from playing it.

The funny thing is that I don't think I really played in a real game with more than one or two other players until about 1992 (ninth grade), when I ran a three-year Forgotten Realms campaign. Mostly I subsisted on novels like the Dragonlance Chronicles and reading through the rulebooks 15643 times. So I'd owned the Basic and Expert boxed sets, and later the 2e PHB and other books, for a total of nine years before I actually got to DM a game the way it was meant to be. I didn't even really play my own PC until college.

After moving cross-country to Portland about a year and a half ago, I decided to pick it up again after about eight or nine years away from the table as a way to get involved. Who knew that Yahoo! Groups would work so well that I'd find myself embroiled in simultaneous WFRP and D&D campaigns? In a lot of ways it's really my first extended campaigns ever as a player. And at thirty I'm one of the younger ones in my group, too.

 

[FATDRAGONGAMES]

A buddy had gotten the D&D B/X sets for Christmas and brought them over on New years Eve to play. One look at the dice and I was hooked. My first actual campaign was with a group of guys still using the OD&D books mixed with stuff from the B/X set.

 

[fusangite]

When you first became interested in RPGs, what was it that catpured your attention?

As I say in my ENnies bio, I was sent to a child psychiatrist when I was nine and he prescribed the Basic D&D boxed set. Once I started reading it, I was hooked.

 

[Odhanan]

When you first became interested in RPGs, what was it that catpured your attention?

For me , to be honest, was the AD&D PHB cover with the thieves trying to get the gem out of the statues eye. That cover just oozed adventure.

It was during a game my older brother was playing in. He got bored, and the DM allowed me to take over his character. What hooked me right there? The exploration of unknown subterranean and mysterious areas under the town cemetery with all matters of undead and more fantastic monsters. The dungeon crawling, medieval mystery and "be a hero with spells and swords" parts of the whole thing. I was hooked instantly.

 

[bulletmeat]

as stated further up, games like dragon quest and legend of zelda planted the seed. animes like record of lodoss war gave that seed water.

I also remember, a long time ago, playing a game like d&d with a dm screen with a photo of a wizard that looked the like gandalf. It was a pre written adventure with minis. I distinctly remember being captured and having to find my loot on a weapons rack. the weapons rack was an actual mini too. This was around 1990. does anyone know the name of this game?

That sounds alot like the MB Hero Quest game.

I know for me, we had a game day in school to make up your own game. One kid just used D&D and I fell in love with it. But I never knew what it was. Than I saw a cover of a Dragon mag in the school library with a barbarian running in a swamp and a dragon just peaking over the top of the water. I only had time to read the Snarf in the back when they closed the library for renovation and never renewed the subscription.

Three years later during freshman year a guy who I hated and often fought with (stuck a pen in his arm). Over heard me talking about the Dragon and invited me to a game. After that we became best friends.

 

[Moon-Lancer]

i checked Google images, and yeah i'm pretty sure it was hero quest. I have a very good visual memory but a lousy one for names. thanks. For a long time i diden't know the name and that bugged me.

 

[VirgilCaine]

I should have started RPGs in middle school. I was making up interstellar empires then...but I didn't get into it until 11th grade or so.