How did you arrive at D&D?

[The_Universe]

I started with D6 Star Wars, and then came to D&D with 3rd Edition.

 

[The Shaman]

I started with Parcheesi.

Well, it is a board game, and then later I learned to play D&D, so...

 

[Henry]

Moldvay Boxed set, 1981, Circus World Toy Store. More addictive heroin has not been made.

 

[Ruined]

My cousins came down to visit from Indiana and the oldest two had started playing a bit. They showed me the ropes and I really liked it. So the next time I went to the mall with parents, I had them buy me the DMG. The game didn't make a lot of sense without the Player's Handbook, but I absorbed every bit I could. I was an only child, so it wasn't like I had games going on anyway. Eventually I got the red boxed set for Xmas, near the same time that the D&D cartoon started, and it was all downhill from there.

 

[HellHound]

1980 Basic Rules -> Expert Rules -> AD&D1e -> DragonLance -> ANYTHING BUT D&D -> years of CyberPunk & Vampire -> D&D3e

 

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

Whatever the box set was with the blue book with the dragon on the cover and the Keep on the Borderlands. I can't keep the old versions straight.

Edit: Christmas of '80, so probably 2nd Ed/7th printing (thanks, Diaglo) My dad bought it for me.

 

[diaglo]

Whatever the box set was with the blue book with the dragon on the cover and the Keep on the Borderlands. I can't keep the old versions straight.

2edD&D or 3edD&D

Holmes Basic

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

But for the date and location, that could be the same story for me. I still remember walking with my dad through Montgomery Ward to get to KB Toys to buy the basic D&D red boxed set. Alot of my OD&D/AD&D 1e products still have faded KB Toys pricetags on them.

Before that, a kid a few grades higher introduced my brother and I to role-playing through a very debased version of D&D. It used four six-sided dice and had stats and levels in the hundreds. It was one of those completely gonzo campaigns where just about anything goes. His character had a wizard named Wizo living in his hair, my character had two crystal daggers that shot bolts of lightning. Really ridiculous stuff, but absolutely fun.

But even before that, I was a fan of the choose-your-own adventure books that TSR put out.

It was spring of 1982 at the KB Toys store at the mall in Bloomington, Illinois

 

[wingsandsword]

I started playing console RPG's on the old NES, Final Fantasy, Dragon Warrior I and II and the NES version of Pool of Radiance especially. When I was in junior high (~91) I had a friend that tried to get me involved with D&D but my dad strictly forbade me, because the preacher said D&D was satanic. So I put aside gaming for a few years and then found the d6 Star Wars RPG (~96), which sailed blissfully under my dad's "anti D&D" radar. When I found a gaming club in college (fall '97) I was introduced to AD&D 2e and played that for several years (in increasingly house ruled editions that were unknowingly drifting in the direction of 3e, like dropping racial level limits and multiclassing restrictions, and having ability scores increase every few levels), then I jumped to 3e the day it came out and haven't looked back.

 

[Old One]

Old Grognard (is that redundant?)...

I have always loved board games...from Sorry/Chutes & Ladders to Risk. Started board wargames with the older AH classics...Waterloo, Tactic II, Panzerblitz/leader, etc...in the mid-70s. Didn't actually get into D&D until my first year in college (1981) with the same Blue Box set Rodrigo referenced>

~ OO