How did you get started playing??

[Darrin Drader]

I'm curious how everyone was introduced to roleplaying, and how many years ago it was. I'll go first.

When I was about 9 I went to Toys'R'Us with my mother and saw the red box set and the books that went with it (amazing to believe Toys'R'us actually carried D&D, huh?) I brought it home, looked it over, didn't get it and put it away. A couple years passed and an old friend, from like when I was 5, and I remain close friends with him to this day, was in town for a couple weeks. He had been playing D&D with a group down in Arizona, and he taught me the basics. So there we were, a couple 11 year olds with the basic D&D rules and nothing better to do than go dungeon bashing over the course of a weekend. Needless to say, from that point forward I was hooked.

That was 19 years ago, and if memory serves, it was right about the time that AD&D 1st edition was being released. I bought all the 1st edition books, and then the 2nd edition books, and I've pretty well stayed on top of it ever since except for a brief period in the mid '90's when I was too broke to buy any books, and didn't have a lot of time for it anyway.

Well, that's my story and I'm stiking to it. How about everyone else?

 

[Azure Trance]

I didn't start with D&D; the first RPG I played was STAR WARS by WEG. At that time as a 12/13 year old I only barely remembered seeing the first movie. I remember vividly the first conversation regarding it:

GM: You want to play thr RPG Star Wars?
Me: Huh? What's an RPG?
GM: Roleplaying Game. You play as a guy who does stuff, like a smuggler or starfighter pilot or bount hunter.
Me: Oh ... so is it played like on a board or something?
GM: Nope. All with books.
Me: How can you do that?

[of course, the above conversation is what I went through bacl then when I tried to get people into RPGs; I almost always hear: Is it a boardgame or something?]

So I made a character, rolled dice, and got hooked. I didn't have a clue what a YT-1300 was (I pointed at a picture of a Nebulon-B frigate in response to what ship I wanted). Some while later we got into 2nd Edition, and it got all mish-moshed from then on. I played a game as mercenaries who had XWings, and we wanted to call our group 'The Red Dragons.'

Since WEG fell apart though, and I don't own any SW D20 books, D&D has supported me since then.

 

[Richards]

I was introduced to the original D&D by my two cousins. They're also responsible for introducting me to Star Fleet Battles.

Johnathan

 

[EricNoah]

My older brother started hanging out with some new friends, and he wouldn't tell me what they were doing. This was the late 70s. Soon, though, he realized that in me he had a captive audience, and so I rolled up a human fighter, approached the dungeon in module B1, and the rest is history.

 

[haiiro]

A friend got me started on the old boxed D&D, after which I did some improvisational "gaming" with no rules (usually with one other player) for awhile. It still wasn't a primary interest.

I picked up Avalon Hill's Lords of Creation boxed RPG at a chain bookstore (Barnes & Noble, I think)...and I was hooked. It wasn't long before I went looking for the D&D boxed sets at my local gaming store (Compleat Strategist in NYC, the one on 57th street) - but they were all out.

The guy behind the counter recommended 2nd edition, and I never looked back. I started DMing for my best friend, then for other friends. I played this way (one DM, one player) for quite awhile before I started DMing for more than one person. By high school, I was playing all sorts of things.

Very good memories.

 

[phoamslinger]

as I recall, I was reading my subscription to GAMES magazine (that my mom had gotten for me). I had just read an Andre Norton novel that was very D&D in flavor (can't remember the title) and here was a game where you got to be a fighter walking down a hallway and fighting orcs out of Tolkein to get their treasure!

I was hooked and had my hands on a copy as soon as it hit the shelves.

anybody out there besides me remember the FIRST article GAMES ever did and when that was?

answer:fall of '77 or there abouts.

 

[Moe Ronalds]

I don't know how or when, but somewhere down the line I found out that my uncle was playing a game called D&D in his spare time. To me it sounded incredibly cool, and I kept bugging him if he could buy it for me. Finally, for my 11th birthday, he got me the 3E PHB, Hero Builder's guide, and a set of dice. I thumbed through the books and found out that one of my friends used to play with his dad. I started a group with him, and both of our younger siblings, with him as the DM (despite the fact that he had only experience with second edition and hadn't read any of the books at all.)
Eventually, I was looking for a new group because the lack of attention payed to the rules in his games was just too horrendous. I discovered that a kid at school who I kind of knew was into D&D. I brought it up in conversation, and we got a group set up. And the rest, is... well it was only 6 months ago and it hasn't been recorded so I guess it doesn't really count as history, does it?

 

[Crothian]

I think it was 1980 when the neibhor kids first started playing and I joined in. We really had no idea what we were doing, we would play with no DM and randomly roll a dungion.

"Okay we enter a room. 1-2, it's empty, 3-4 it has a monster, 5-6 it's trapped."

Roll a 3

"Okay, there's a monster, let's make it 3 orcs this time"

Fight happen, PCs win

"Okay, theres a door on the 1-2 east wall, 3-4 north wall, 5-6 west wall.

I think you get the idea

 

[el-remmen]

MAZES & MONSTERS, BABY!!!

That T.V. Movie made the game look SOOOO cool, we just had to get our hands on it!

 

[Chauzu]

I started when I was around 10, when I went into my local game shop to buy M:TG cards when I saw an OD&D box being sold. It had a cool cover, so I bought it. Then I saw the game Dragon Nights in ToysRUs and bought that. I tried playing 2nd Ed, but didn't like it.