How did you learn how to play?

[Grazzt]

1981 (or 82...cant remember now)....my dad bought me the red boxed set for my b-day that year. Taught myself how to play...then taught my brother and sister, and a couple of friends...and off we went. Moved to AD&D in early to mid 1983 and there ya go.

 

[Henry]

I was introduced through (YOU GUESSED IT!) The Basic Moldvay-edited basic D&D with the Erol Otus "Fighter w/spear and mage w/torch fighting a Dragon" on the cover. I bought it in a Circus World in 1981 and read it myself - my first exposure to D&D.

Later, I learned to really play (get "good" at it) from playing with newfound high-school friends in the late 80's. Until that time, I DM'ed with one to three players, and used every structure from dice rolling to freeform story-play to determine combats and luck.

The problem now is that there's nothing like that basic box set on the market. To explain further, at the time, the only competition were traditional toys and video games. Video games (atari and coleco, mostly) were in their infancy, and expensive to play. traditional toys were cool, but limiting (usually there were set rules that allowed little variation). RPGs were a totally new medium that allowed guidelines for story-based play that I had been engaging in for years, and its versatility couldn't be beaten by space invaders, or defender, or donkey kong. There was noother toy quite like it.

Now, set-top and PC games are hugely variable, more than the average kid needs it to be, anyway, and there is lots of choice, AND you can wait a year and the $50.00 game becomes $20 or $10. With RPGs, the book costs hover between $20 and $40, and have a hard time competing with the visual feasts of electronic games.

What hobby gaming needs is an inexspensive medium so original, so different that there is literally nothing like it in order to capture minds again without the need for other players to show it. And no, I don't know the answer, or I'd be a millionaire.

 

[MonsterMash]

I voted for option #1 but it was really more of a combination of #1 & #2.

Kind of similar to my experience - my older brother saw it advertised in my wargaming magazine and he got it for his birthday in September 1977, back when I was 11 years old. He was the first DM, but we pretty much learned it together.

 

[Rel]

Oddly enough, I learned how to play during my stint in the Boy Scouts. I still say it's the only valuable thing I learned from that organization.

Same here regarding where I was first exposed to the game.

But I can tie a really good "Two Half Hitches", boil an egg over an open fire in a paper cup and I'm a pretty good canoeist and backpacker. So my experience differs from yours in the second sentence.

 

[Kanegrundar]

I learned D&D by reading first the Basic set (the one that same with Keep on the Borderlands) and then by reading the 1E PHB.

Kane

 

[FreeXenon]

Yes, but isn't that technically learning from someone else? I mean, you learned the *rules* from the books, but the concept from someone else. It's the concept that I'm interested in.

I was introduced to the game and shown the basic concepts... roll this, roll that... write this, erase that... not truly understanding why. Completely overwhelmed by a massive amount of rules and things to keep track of. You cannot truly learn the game in two sessions. I was introduced to the game by my friend (in those 2 seesions), but I truly learned the game by reading the books, and trial and error with another (We had no mentor or other to guide us in the learning process.).

If you are asking for how we were introduced... then it would definitely be from another.

 

[IronWolf]

I learned on my own by reading the books. I lived in the country when I learned how to play so there weren't a lot of groups that got together or even played as it was just too hard to get a group of people together. So I read the rules and read the example scenarios and dialogs and went from there.

 

[diaglo]

i was playing wargames and thought wouldn't it be cool if you could play the minis as just a single.

when i asked a friend about it, he told me that was what he and his older brother were doing with a game. so i went and played with them. it was exactly what i wanted.

 

[Furby076]

Learn on a book

When the question was asked, I would have thought 90% would respond, learned how to play by someone else. It doesn't mean you learned completely, or even most of the basics, just that you were taught something.

Since most people are introduced into this game by other people, I don't understand the polling figures. Everyone I know has been introduced by someone else. (Who buys a set of books they are not sure if others will play with them?)

As such, my first character was a human ranger in ad&D 2nd edition. Started at level 6 playing curse of the azure bonds. At the end we each got a wish, I wished for girdle of giant strength. The DM made it a percentage chance, so I said Cloud giant strength (i think 50%) but I rolled a 98%...wish I would have asked for Storm Giant strength

Anyhow, I was introduced....told to roll a few dice, and went from there. I bought the books after playing the second session.

 

[John Q. Mayhem]

I voted "Other," but it's really a combination of "learned by self" and "tought by friend." I played twice with a friend, but that was a while before I got the books; when I procured 'em at last, I basically had to teach myself all over.