How long have you been gaming?

[aramis erak]

I was in Ketchikan from 81-83, when I first played D&D in 81. I can still picture the hobby shop that had the minis and D&D stuff. I was in heaven. Then we moved to anchorage in 83, but only stayed for six months so I didn’t get much opportunity to see game stores.

In 83, Longs was closing. (I was sad.)
Hobbycraft's 8 locations only had RPGs in stock at 2 (to myknowledge) - Dimond Center and Eagle River.
Gamekeeper had 2 locations, both with one 4' rack each.
Spenard Hobby - 1 location 12' of 10' tall shelves...
Book Cache 3 of the then 8 locations in Anchorage had RPGs. Downtown, Eagle River, and one in midtown... but book Cache was down to downtown only by 90.
And Joyce quit her Book Cache franchise, and became Gulliver's Bargain Books (Boniface Mall) around 83.
Waldenbooks Northway mall and midtown started carrying D&D in about 84... BDalton had TSR boxed sets and AD&D books.

 

[MonkeezOnFire]

Well aren't I special, I'm the only one in the 6 to 10 years category. At first I thought maybe it just needed time for more responses to come in, but then I noticed that this was originally from 2017 soooo yea. At least 2 years ago I'd still be in the same category so I technically didn't cheat.

The first time I played I was in high school and a bunch of us decided to try to play 3.5 using the SRD. We played a couple sessions and had some fun but it petered out. A couple years later we would try again a couple more times with 4e and then with Pathfinder, each time only getting a few sessions in before collectively moving on to other things. I remember those sessions fondly though, we had a lot of laughs as we struggled to learn how to role play. It wasn't until the launch of 5th edition that I started to game on a consistent basis.

 

[Jd Smith1]

1979. Started in Traveller, moved to D&D (white box, brown books).

 

[Staffan]

I got my first RPG for Christmas 1984. It was the Swedish RPG Drakar och Demoner, which had a BRP/Runequest base but this version was a full rewrite instead of just a translation. I also got the Swedish translation of MERP at the same time but that was WAY too complicated for me at the time.

 

[Blackrat]

My start was in late ’99 I think, so about 20 years. Just before 3e rolled out. The first year we played AD&D which was an ongoing campaign that I joined into, and then switched to 3e. My first character was a halfling rogue, which was then converted to 3e.

 

[ccs]

40 years today!
Christmas 1980 - Christmas 2020.
Best Christmas present ever.

Or 39 years & 362 days if you want to be pedantic & count from the day I actually 1st played.

 

[Erekose]

Roughly 36 years. - started with D&D, Traveller, and then added in Runequest, FASA Star Trek, MERP, and Stormbringer.

 

[5atbu]

41 years and about 10 months

 

[Delazar]

Red box

 

[Cadence]

1981 with Moldvay Basic.