How/Where were you first introduced to gaming?

[Darraketh]

Excellent poll!

It was a Christmas gift from my mother in 1979!

Edit: Warning, warning memory failure... It was '79 not '78. Hey, it was a long time ago.

Here is a site with a pic of the edition that I received for christmas so many years ago. The site is an archive of old TSR releases. Check it out.

 

[ancient_ones]

My introduction was through the local elementary school book club. I ordered this magazine called dynamite and they had this cool article on this game called D&D with pictures of gamers using these painted minatures. From there I got the red box edition and started DM'ing ever since with a whole bunch of my friends. I still wonder if any of those guys still game.

 

[Henry]

Circus World, 1980. One of the best toy stores there were. I got a bunch of my Kenner star Wars figures from that very same store!

I got the red box set with the Erol Otus artwork on the cover. Morgan Ironwolf and Black Dougal and all those other "first" iconic characters changed my life forever.

I bought the books, found and recruited the players, and DM'ed the sessions. It wasn't until 8 years later that I actually gamed as a PC!

BTW: Since I am reminiscing, and no longer have my books, does anyone else recall the names of the other party members in that basic D&D version? There was Morgan (human female fighter), Black Dougal (human male thief), and a male elf, and a female cleric. I cannot for the life of me remember the other two!

 

[ancient_ones]

Circus World, 1980. One of the best toy stores there were. I got a bunch of my Kenner star Wars figures from that very same store!

I got the red box set with the Erol Otus artwork on the cover. Morgan Ironwolf and Black Dougal and all those other "first" iconic characters changed my life forever.

I bought the books, found and recruited the players, and DM'ed the sessions. It wasn't until 8 years later that I actually gamed as a PC!

BTW: Since I am reminiscing, and no longer have my books, does anyone else recall the names of the other party members in that basic D&D version? There was Morgan (human female fighter), Black Dougal (human male thief), and a male elf, and a female cleric. I cannot for the life of me remember the other two!

Silverleaf the elf and fredrick the dwarf can't remeber the cleric's name I'll have too look it up when I get home.

 

[Neo]

For me i was seven, my family had just emmigrated to Canada (we have since moved back to the UK), we were staying with some relatives in Alberta (in the middle of nowehere called sexsmith) and my cousins used to play AD&D 1st ed in thier spare time.. me and my brother got into it then, he later gave the hobby up, but i have stuck with it for the last 22 years.

After playing it for a few months we talked our folks into buying us the rulebooks, so we went to the drug store and saw AD&D in all it's glory for the first time in a store.

we also later discovered our uncle Tom had been playing Gamma World for years and got into that too, with him buying me and my brother the rules and the original legion of gold adventure for an Xmas present.

Strange how you think back on some of the defining moments of your life...

 

[Wiley]

It was about 4-6 years ago, during a hurricane my uncle came to stay with us, and he brought a huge box filled with various items he owned. The power went out and we were very bored when I asked him what that blue book was(The D&D book with the knight with the blue armor and the energy sword). He explained RPG's to me and I was hooked from that instant. I had played "make believe" in the forests and empty fields for many years, along with console RPGS, so it was a genre I liked. After playing a small sample game two months later, I joined his group and that began my addiction to the mental cocaine that is D&D.

 

[Tsyr]

Silverleaf the elf and fredrick the dwarf can't remeber the cleric's name I'll have too look it up when I get home.

Rebecca

 

[CrusaderX]

My introduction was through the local elementary school book club. I ordered this magazine called dynamite and they had this cool article on this game called D&D with pictures of gamers using these painted minatures.

I remember browsing through that issue of Dynamite at my local mall. They had a great close-up pic of a miniature figure wielding a wicked-looking axe. It might have been an orc, it might have been a human in dark gothic armour...I just remember it being very, very cool to an impressionable young lad like myself

 

[CrusaderX]

I got the red box set with the Erol Otus artwork on the cover. Morgan Ironwolf and Black Dougal and all those other "first" iconic characters changed my life forever.

Yes, same here. Give me Morgan over Mialee any day.

 

[MJEggertson]

Funny, I thought that I was born with that PHB attached to my hip...

I remember my first PnP group, but for the life of me, I have no idea how it all began.