How did RPGs grab you?

[fusangite]

I was seven years old, and a cute girl asked me if I wanted to come over and play a game with her. I said sure and I ended up playing D&D (with her DMing) until my mom came over to yell at me for missing dinner. 13 years later she was still DMing for me (Me and her brother were the only ones who never left out of that group) and I was still facinated by both her and the stories she told, so I married her. The rate at which my characters die is still rediculusly high...

This is one of the most beautiful things I have ever read on a messageboard.

 

[Wombat]

Around 1972 I got into board wargames (AH, later SPI); about a year later I moved on to miniature wargaming (ACW, Medieval, Victorian Small Wars). I anjoyed these, but there were so many arguments that came up (we were all in our early-to-mid-teens) about winners, losers, line-of-sight, etc., that the whole process was getting frustrating.

Then Brookhurst Hobbies (blessings upon them) sent me their August catalog. There was an ad in there for a new type of wargame involving dragons, heroes, magic swords, and quests for treasure, but not needing minis or a board, being played with paper and pencil. The description was very sketchy, but I sent away for it. Just as I was about to leave for a Labor Day weekend Boy Scout campout, that glorious brown UPS truck pulled up with my package. That weekend, when everyone else was hyped over CB radio and getting blue ribbons, I was learning to speak a new language involving hit dice, armour class, and black puddings that you didn't eat...

And I haven't looked back in 30+ years.

Admittedly, though, I have been fairly profligate in the number of systems I have worked with, though. I dropped D&D about the time it became AD&D ("1st edition") in favour of RuneQuest, Traveller, Champions, Chivalry & Sorcery and a host of others. Since then my "game of games" has shifted several times, including the above-mentioned RuneQuest, Pendragon, Cyberpunk, and Ars Magica. Currently I am playing a 7th Sea variant (where I took the rules and scrapped the horrible map and historically bizarre collection of nations).

 

[Catavarie]

The fact it was Devil Worshiping got me. MUHAHAHAHA

In all seriousness it began when I was a kid reading the "choose your path" books and my cousin introduced me to Vampires and Werewolf. From there I went to D&D and Palladium.

 

[rgard]

I was seven years old, and a cute girl asked me if I wanted to come over and play a game with her. I said sure and I ended up playing D&D (with her DMing) until my mom came over to yell at me for missing dinner. 13 years later she was still DMing for me (Me and her brother were the only ones who never left out of that group) and I was still facinated by both her and the stories she told, so I married her. The rate at which my characters die is still rediculusly high...

Wonderful story...until the last sentence!

 

[Monte At Home]

Sunday School.

Two kids (brothers) were talking about the game they'd played the previous night before Sunday school started when I was about 10. I heard them talking about a magic crown and lizardmen and was entranced. I asked them about it and one of them unhelpfully said "it's a game where you draw a map on graph paper and make other people go through traps and stuff." That kinda strange description of the game was enough, however, and I practically demanded that they let me play the next time...

 

[Ambrus]

Some friends of mine were planning on starting a new campaign and dragged me along to the FLGS to buy themselves some dice. While there I asked the owner if he had any books about dragons. He suggested the 2e Draconomicon.

That was it for me. I started reading it on the drive home and was enthralled. So it was my love of dragons, and the opportunity to play in a game with some that grabbed me.