How did you arrive at D&D?

[Jupp]

Heroquest -> AD&D 1e -> AD&D 2e -> 3E -> AD&D 2e

 

[Galethorn]

It's so embarassing...but this is how it happened...

Everquest-->Baldur's Gate-->D&D 2e Boxed Set (the one with the 'dragon steals the holy simbol from the church' adventure)-->3e when it came out

Yep, so, computer games really started things for me. Basically, I (for various reasons) quit Everquest the summer after 7th grade, and moved into singleplayer RPGs, then learned about pen-and-paper, and thought it sounded a lot more fun than any CRPG...and it turned out I was right.

 

[Belen]

This poll is a bit flawed. I read FR books before I played because I loved fantasy. Yet my friends got me into playing. So I could answer in several ways.

 

[Dracomeander]

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

Gotta love grandma's boardgame night with the cousins. Sorry/Parcheesi/Chutes & Ladders occupied many evenings when I was a kid. Then we broke out Monopoly. The cousins, our friends, & I got into miniatures wargaming and Avalon Hill wargames. Then we discovered Chainmail/Eldritch Wizardry and the miniatures battles entered a whole new realm...fantasy. Then we discovered D&D in the winter of '75/'76. Been playing ever since.

Still enjoy breaking out the old wargames every now and then.

 

[Gentlegamer]

Endless Quest books --> D&D Basic (black box) --> AD&D (Zeb the Destroyer version) --> AD&D (EGG version) After AD&D, there was sporadic play of the D&D Rules Cyclopedia (Mentzer D&D).

 

[Gwaihir]

Same progression for me, from confusing AD&D and the Redbox game all the way through to 3.5e.

Also Boot Hill, Top Secret & Traveller. Statis Pro baseball was a star for a while as well.

Circus World, theres a store I haven't thought about in a LONG time.

 

[skinnydwarf]

Did you come into the RPG hobby via D&D or some other game first?

Quasqueton

When I was in Boy Scout camp some of the older kids were playing it and I thought it was cool, but my mom wouldn't let me play because "those kids do drugs." A year later, I was 13 and a friend was starting up a 2E game and my mom let me play. After that game folded I started running a solo "Skyrealms of Jorune" game with my best friend, and we gamed together for years. After he moved away, KoDT and occasional abortive games in HS sustained my love of gaming until college.

 

[Aust Diamondew]

I once bought a magic deck cause I wanted to learn to play. I then met a couple people who played magic and D&D and they introduced to me to D&D. I quit playing magic after about a year but I still play D&D.

 

[Zander]

I was introduced to RPGs by a friend. But the first time he took me to a game (I think it was D&D), he hadn't explained what an RPG was or anything about the hobby. So I didn't understand that the players were supposed to act co-operatively and the DM's role wasn't purely adversarial. I thought it was stupid that one of the other 'players' (i.e. the DM) could create whatever forces he wanted as and when but I was restricted to one guy! :\

Soon after that the same friend introduced me to the Fighting Fantasy pick-your-own-path gamebooks, starting with Warlock of Firetop Mountain. After we had played a couple of these together (even though they're supposed to be for solo play), he explained that D&D was similar except that the DM took on the role of the book's author. It was then that the penny dropped and I got into D&D.

That was 22 years ago and I've been a D&D nut ever since.

 

[the Jester]

My mom read an article in the paper in 1980 about dnd and we thought it sounded like fun. The next year one of the guys who rode the bus home from school with me and I started hanging out and he played dnd; I also had a semi-neighbor who played Arduin-dnd fusion stuff. Anyhow, they were my introduction; not long after I got the red boxed set.