How long have you played D&D?

[Meadred]

Well, I began playing Basic D&D back in 1983, so I'm beginning my 22nd year as a player/DM of Dungeons & Dragons. Geez, I don't feel that old!

Cheers,
Meadred

 

[Laslo Tremaine]

Oh well, it was worth a shot, there can't be all that many D&D playing Catholic priests.

In that case, I will add Fr. Franklin SJ.

At Seattle Prep (a jesuit highschool) we had a weekly D&D activity hall. I think it went for two years. Fr. Franklin did not play though, he just kept the peace.

And I also put myself down for 28 years (having started playing in 1977), but I'm one of those people who started off with D&D and then went on to other RPGs, having come back in 2000 with the 3rd edition. So the real number of years playing D&D is more like 12.

 

[Hellefire]

25 years last xmas.

Aaron

 

[RFisher]

I would have made this poll: What year did you start?

 

[BigFreekinGoblinoid]

... It'd be nice if we could get at least 1,000 participants on polls like this. Someone should put in a community news scoop for the front page to spur more people to vote. (nudge nudge)

423 accurate replies ( sample size ) gives us a margin of error of +/- 4 % and a confidence level of 90%. 1068 would give us +/- 3 % and a 95% confidence rating. Or somewhere around there !

 

[Mark]

423 accurate replies ( sample size ) gives us a margin of error of +/- 4 % and a confidence level of 90%. 1068 would give us +/- 3 % and a 95% confidence rating. Or somewhere around there !

Thanks!

What is your analysis if we get 1,000, 5,000, or even 10,000 of the total board population? What is your analysis if we get 1,000 and assume the gaming population is one million? What if we get 5,000 or 10,000 to reply (of the estimated 25,000 supposed board members) and assume the gaming population is one million? What if everyone on the boards votes (27,178 members) in a poll such as this if we assume the gaming population is one million?

I'm kinda wondering at what point a poll on EN World is fairly representative of the larger D&D playing public (regardless of such things as most not being influenced by information gained through the boards, etc.).

 

[BigFreekinGoblinoid]

Unfortunately,

There is really no accurate way of complete accuracy in applying these results to the larger gaming demographic outside of internet savvy gamers who post on messageboards. If I had to venture a guess though, I'd bet they wouldn't change the overall response distribution too much, but there are likely respondants we are missing on both ends of the age spectrum .

These numbers are for an even larger (qualified) sample size:

2,401 +/- 2% margin of error/95% confidence

16.590 +/- 1% margin of error/99% confidence

450 is what we used to shoot for in the internet based research I used to sell, as the cost of obtaining more than that was way more than what it was worth in terms of increased confidence - ie, most marketing/product decisions our corporate clients were making didn't need more than that

 

[Mark]

Thanks, BFG! That straightens me out on a few things I wondered about and gives me some additional insight. I appreciate it.

 

[grodog]

Only 27+ years for me (thought I did the math wrong---it won't be 28 years until this summer).

1977 was a very good year for the 7-year-old grodog: I was introduced to D&D, Star Wars was released, I was given the Ballantine tan covers boxed set of Hobbit/LOTR for Christmas (that may have been later, but I think it was '77; I'd already read the Hobbit a few times), and we moved to a wonderful victorian house that fired my imagination like no other

 

[Kuld]

18 years for me as well. My, how time's fun when your having flies!