D&D General How old were you when you started playing D&D?

[John R Davis]

16, but played other RPGs before dnd

 

[kenada]

I first started playing D&D in college (around 2001). I’m 40 now. I’d played Hero Quest growing up but somehow missed D&D. Most of us were more interested in video games I guess.

 

[Mannahnin]

1985; when I was 10 I got the Mentzer Basic set for my birthday.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

I believe it was 1983 (age 9) when I first saw D&D being played by the older siblings at my friends house. Red box soon was bought from the local toy store and then Blue Box, then AD&D books. Then a break from college until 2015 when my son wanted to play 5e and I got reacquainted with the game.

 

[smcc360]

I’m 50 now, nine or ten when I started. My first RPGs were the historical stuff TSR was putting out at the time: Top Secret, Boot Hill, and Gangbusters. After that, our DM showed up with AD&D.

 

[The Green Hermit]

I seem to be a bit of an outlier here. I'm now in my late thirties, and I've only been playing a few years.

Never got into TTRPGs as a kid. Didn't know anyone who played DnD; we all played Warhammer.

Same here. I was always interested, but knew absolutely nobody who knew how to play.

 

[pukunui]

I was in 7th grade, which was in 93-94, so I was either 12 or 13. Don’t remember precisely. I went with the 13-15 bracket.

Some of my friends/classmates invited me to join them playing AD&D 2e. One of them had the loose-leaf, ring-bound Monstrous Manual.

I have no memory of my first character. At some point I ended up as the DM, though. None of us really knew what we were doing rules-wise but we had a lot of fun anyway.

EDIT: In case you don’t feel like doing the math, I’ll be turning 40 in two months.

 

[cbwjm]

I have so many characters written up on line-ruled paper from back in the day. I never bothered with official character sheets until 2e. Of course now anyone with a printer can just print their own, of whatever style works for them.

I actually wonder if looked through my old stuff that's still at my dad's, whether or not I'll find a ringbinder with multiple characters and adventures from my 2e days, all written on the line-ruled paper that was bought for school.

 

[Dire Bare]

I'm old enough I don't quite remember exactly when I first discovered D&D, but it was in elementary school (early 80's).

Friend of mine who collected comics also had several of the orange-spine AD&D hardcovers. No PHB or DMG, but the "catalog" books including the Monster Manual, Monster Manual II, Fiend Folio, and Deities & Demigods. I fell in love (with D&D, not my friend, although he's a pretty cool guy).

I begged my folks to take me to the hobby store . . . and picked up the Red Box with the Elmore cover. Took me a while to realize that, at the time, D&D and AD&D were similar-but-different games.

I was also such a painfully shy introverted nerd, that I didn't have the confidence to ask my equally shy-and-nerdy friends to play D&D with me. I kept waiting for one of them to bring up the idea. So, didn't actually play the game until high school . . . shame, because in retrospect, most of them would have been down with the idea!

EDIT: Oh, and I'm . . . 48 now, but prematurely gray. Sigh.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

I've got most of my old stuff, but I have misplaced one of my folders containing some of my favorite characters of old. It has to be somewhere here, because I know we didn't leave anything behind the last time we moved. At least, I hope so...

I actually wonder if looked through my old stuff that's still at my dad's, whether or not I'll find a ringbinder with multiple characters and adventures from my 2e days, all written on the line-ruled paper that was bought for school.