How Did You Start Playing?

[Contrarian]

I voted "Heard about it and bought a game", since I saw some guys (acquaintances at best) playing at lunch at school (grade school), and was very taken with what I saw.

That's very similar to how I discovered the game, except I had to spend three years convincing my parents the game wasn't satanic before I could get a copy. My parents never were reality-based.

When I at Toys R Us at short time later and saw the AD&D books, I bought them (or that is to say, I convinced my grandmother to buy them for me). In fact, most of my early D&D purchases were via Toys R Us (they carried all the books, back then - 79/80/81). It wasn't until much later (almost a decade ... and that is still two decades ago) that I ever went to an official "game store".

Toys R Us sold (TSR) miniatures, too. A toy store that sold lead to children. Those were the good old days, eh?

You know, come to think of it, I never went to a '"game store" until the 1990s, either. Before that, I bought my gaming stuff at book stores, comic book shops, toy stores (My 1E DMG still has a Circus World price tag on it), mail order, and at conventions.

Is it weird that I was going to game conventions before I was going to game stores?

(Oh, for you youngsters living in or near Michigan, I remember when Meijer sold TSR products. Really. For a short while in the 80s, our little hobby was everywhere.)

 

[theredrobedwizard]

My father and grandfather were really into Civil War era historical miniatures games back in the early 70s. Around 74-76 they switched more to fantasy wargames. In 1978, they drove up to Wisconsin to go to something called GenCon (primarily a wargamer paradise in those days) and met a man named Gary who was demoing a game called Dungeons and Dragons. They were both hooked. My dad continued to play through college. Grandpa stopped playing around 1982 primarily due to lapsed interest and financial responsibility.

Fast forward to 1990. I was a wee lad of 7 when my dad ran me through the intro adventure in the red box (friggin' Bargle! *shakes fist*). I was hooked. Every time I went to visit him and my step mom, he'd run me and a couple of other local kids through dungeons. It was a grand old time.

Third generation gamer. Generation 4 is on its way. Hopefully, in a few years, I can teach her to play too.

tl;dr - Friend/Family introduced me.

-TRRW

 

[AnonymousOne]

Well ... It all starts back when I was a kid.

My dad, though never a gamer, was a huge fan of Lord of the Rings and Tolkien's other works along with the writings of adventure novelists like Clive Cussler and Tom Clancy, as such I had a literary upbringing steeped in adventure and fantasy. Fast forward a few years and I'm playing video games like Warcraft II, Starcraft, Warcraft III, Civ IV, etc. I also picked up Magic the Gathering in middle-school and had my first brush with WotC. (I still have my ridiculous Urza Block green Deck...)

I also began reading other fantasy writers like Terry Goodkind and Robert Jordan. Continued computer gaming in HS and got into playing chess.

College ... Junior Year ... Myself and a bunch of friends are low on money, all basically big geeks, and decided, what the hell why not? One guy had played a lot of AD&D back when he was in HS and one other guy had played on and off for a few years and given the history of fantasy appreciation that we all seemed to have, we dove in head first and haven't looked back. The rest of us we at least familiar with the concept of a turn-based game, or with the fantasy Role Playing idea.

Now, I'm building a campaign world (Which I will post up here for critique when I'm done), prepping and maxing a character for our campaign next semester. I'm hooked on 3.5e.

 

[Aus_Snow]

Fighting Fantasy? Choose Your Own Adventure, even?

Well, for RPGs per se, I was introduced to B/X back in what is termed grade school in the US, I believe.

So yeah, friends again. Seems to be by far the most common way people get into it.

 

[Glyfair]

A mix of the above

I heard about the game* and bought it at a hobby store (not a game store). Of course, this was before there were any game stores (at least in my area there weren't any in '77 or '78 when I got into the game).

However, I stayed with the hobby because of the game store my friends opened. Without the opportunity to get into a game nearly any night of the week I wished, I'm not sure I would still be roleplaying today.

* Incidently, I heard about the game from a local newspaper article that covered a local groups D&D games. Eventually I would become part of the group, and they would open the FLGS that I spent much of my time at.

 

[Delta]

Other -- Saw ads & great reviews in "Games" magazine, asked for it as a gift, got it for my birthday (I think), age 10 or so. Taught it to all my friends; I've basically been a life-long DM.

 

[Vigilance]

This thread's question is a flawed premise.

The issue with the FLGS isn't whether that was the absolute rock-bottom first place you ever, ever heard of a RPG.

It's a question of where are you going to get the most game exposure, to games like Champions and GURPs.

It's also a question of keeping groups together as people quit/move, or getting into a game quickly once you move to a new town.

LGS make *all* these tasks easier.

And yeah, you can do all this online now but in my personal experience, the quickest way to inject new blood into an old gaming group, or get my game on quickly in a new town, is through the LGS.

 

[Plane Sailing]

None of the poll options exactly!

In 1975 "Games and Puzzles" magazine had a two page review of D&D (White box OD&D) including a little dungeon map and some basic description. I was 14 and the cost of D&D was way out of my reach (approx 26 weeks pocket money) so I got together with a friend and wrote some rules for playing 'our' D&D, drew up some dungeons and off we went. The rules would have been about half a side of A4, I guess. We had a blast!

Later on, someone introduced OD&D to the wargames club which I was a member of, and as a result I went into London and bought the Greyhawk supplement from Games Workshop when it was a back room in a back street near Crystal Palace football ground

FWIW there weren't any GS in those days, let alone LGS or FLGS!

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

This thread's question is a flawed premise.

The issue with the FLGS isn't whether that was the absolute rock-bottom first place you ever, ever heard of a RPG.

It's a question of where are you going to get the most game exposure, to games like Champions and GURPs.

Make your own poll.

 

[Vigilance]

Make your own poll.

I wasn't aware I needed your permission to disagree polls.