How long have we all been playing RPGs?

[MerricB]

1979, my older foster brother had started participating in this "secret" hobby he wouldn't tell me about. Later, he realized he had a captive audience in me and so he DM'd our first game. I played a human fighter and we went through B1 In Search Of The Unknown -- he didn't put any monsters in it, though! It was all exploration, a few tricks/traps, and that was it.

Well, the monsters were in the very back of the module... I guess you could fight them after you'd finished the entire exploration!

I missed my first session of D&D. I was participating in my other hobby - that of choral singing. When I got home, I found my brother with a bunch of other children playing (Basic) D&D. I got to play for two minutes before they packed up. I was very disappointed...

I've made up for it now, though!

Looking back, I'm not really sure of the year. I think it was about 1982, but I'm not sure. I wasn't in 1979 when I was in England (though I was a Doctor Who fan before then), and in 1984 I was reading the Fighting Fantasy books and had definitely been introduced to D&D by then...

Cheers!

 

[Agback]

I wanna know WTF happened in 1980-1982 that made everyone start playing D&D.

AD&D came out.

There were some scandals that put D&D in the news.

The US Religious Right started trying to suppress RPGs.

You know what we could do with in this Thirtieth Anniversary Year? A chronology of RP Gaming, showing for each year what successful games came out and other significant events.

Regards,


Agback

 

[Altamont Ravenard]

I answered 1986 because I'm pretty sure I started when I was about 10. I think i saw the D&D cartoon a couple of times, then saw the red box at a hobby store. The rest, as they say, is history. I don't know if the D&D cartoon was playing on saturday mornings, in 1986, though.

AR

 

[Agback]

G'day

Isn't it strange how much less popular this poll is than the one about age. which was posted at the same time? 120 fewer responses!

Regards,


Agback

 

[David Howery]

I'd never heard of the game until I transferred to MT State in 1980, and found it at a mall toy store... I found a group on campus who let me join in. The first adventure I remember playing was homebrewed.. something about zombies in a frozen evil temple. I played an elf who ran away a lot....

 

[Agamon]

Well, I first played in '79, if you want to call it that. Too young to really know what we were doing though. '81 was when I really started getting into it.

 

[Plane Sailing]

April 1974 or 75 there was a 2 page article in the UK "games and puzzles" magazine, along with a 12 room dungeon map. It talked about Dungeons and Dragons (three books in the original white box, you understand). At the age of about 13/14 it sounded great! Only problem was that it cost about 15 times my weekly pocket money... So a friend and I made up rules for the game based on what we could deduce from this one article and started adventuring (house rules are in my blood!)

Pretty much ditched D&D for RuneQuest2 in about 1982, only really came back to D&D with 3e.

 

[Breakdaddy]

1984 is when I started playing.

 

[Golem2176]

My freshman year in high school, I had a group therapy session I think once a week. That is where I met one of my close and best friends. He got me into DnD 1st Edition. He and I din't know about 2nd edition until about 1 year later. Those were the good old days!

 

[D20 Addict]

My freshman year in high school, I had a group therapy session I think once a week. That is where I met one of my close and best friends. He got me into DnD 1st Edition. He and I din't know about 2nd edition until about 1 year later. Those were the good old days!

I was 9 years old at the time, and my brother got me into it. If it weren't for me, he'd still be playing 1st edition, not even knowing that there are two more editions.