How long have you played D&D?

[barsoomcore]

1977 for me. Same summer as Star Wars.

We're a pretty experienced bunch on this board, aren't we?

I like the one-year increments. Look at the wacky spikes: 10, 15, 20 and 25 years ago. Is that just people rounding off or did something happen in those periods to bring in a new wave of players?

He said, generalizing madly from a pathetically small sample.

 

[GravyFingerz]

11 years. Started playing in 1993 when I was 10 ... wait, it's 12 years ... crap.

 

[Taren Nighteyes]

Ha!

29+. 1976. It was a very good year.

Indeed it was. I was born on April 22 of that very same year

 

[Ruined]

I'm glad the question was asked. Usually I have this kneejerk response 'I started playing when I was 11.' But this has always been a guestimate. So why not look on the internet for dates things were released and popular?

In 1983 I was 11 yrs old. But that was when the Dungeons and Dragons cartoon came out, and I was already familiar with the system. Dragon's Lair came out at the arcades, and I was all over that, even making characters named 'Dirk the Daring' for tabletop. Oh yeah, and these:

http://www.millionaireplayboy.com/toys/dndscary.php

So looking further back, turns out I started playing in 1981. I also vaguely recall teachers taking away my DMG in fifth grade because I was paying more attention to it than her. Ah, the nostalgia.

 

[Treebore]

March 04, 1985 is the date on my very first character sheet with a name of Treebore. I was holed up on a military base with nothing to do but work out at the gym or go running. Since I couldn't do that for many hours a day a new friend of mine showed me this game we could play to pass the time. So now thanks to a guy from Pennsylvania named Jim Shellhimer (sp?) I am a RPG addict. And glad of it.

 

[Truth Seeker]

Going on 21 years...lord, one hell of a ride,

 

[dinsdale]

Wasn't sure exactly when I started, but then I remembered I got the Red Box set the same Christmas as the Dark Tower board game. A quick google search tells me Dark Tower was released in 1981, so its 24+ years.

 

[T. Foster]

I started playing D&D almost 21 years ago but haven't been playing straight through. We played D&D incessantly from 1984 to about 1990 (2E AD&D drove us away, more or less), played other rpgs (with occasional nostalgia-driven D&D one-offs) till 1997, didn't play at all after that until last year.

 

[Thorin Stoutfoot]

I wrote 20+ years, but for 10 of those years (the terrible 2e days) I wasn't playing or buying or even in the hobby in any meaningful years. It was 3E that brought me back.

 

[Blue_Kryptonite]

29 years 5 months today. How's that for remembering? I ordered it for my birthday, and got it a few days before the actual day. Come September 10 it will 30 years even.

Friday, October 25, 1974 1:15 PM EST.

A priest and a nun who taught there were wargamrers. They brought back this weird new game from a wargame convention. If we earned Friday Free Time in my 4th grade Catholic School class, we got to choose to join the game. My character, a Fighting Man named Random after the character in the Chronicles of Amber I was reading, lasted til the third room in the dungeon. Since then, no breaks at all, even when I had to have help eating. So from the time I was a week away from turning 9 years old until today. And until I die. Or later.

My wife has been playing for 22 years (as long as we've been together) and our sons have both played since they were eight as well. One is 18 now (He's on the boards here), the other is 14. My main campaign is still running, upgrading through various editions and changing worlds three times, but with continuous generational storylines and legacies, since 1978 or so. I meant to put it down for good this year and run Eberron, but I had some ideas...