How/Where were you first introduced to gaming?

[Archangel]

Oh, the memories...

My first exposure to D&D and gaming was when a friend of mine gave me some monster cards (a displacer beast, a blink dog, and a salamander - these were the big cards, like 5.5 by 4.25, not the trading card sized ones) about 18 years ago. He also let me borrow the "red books". Ooh, it was all so very fascinating for my 12 year old imagination. I remember how the salamander looked like a demonic pirate (with the earrings and all).

Sadly, there were no games to join and I could not get anyone to play (I played some two player games for a while). My friend eventually moved away, taking his books with him.

I did not get to play in a real group until I was 18, although like a previous poster, I had some made up rules using 2d6 from boards games (based off of computer games and my memories of D&D).

During my first year playing, I had lost my license and my dad (who also introduced me to the world of fantasy novels) offered to join the group (I was in my first year of technical college and the DM and some of the players were my dad's age anyway). It was cool, because it allowed us to bond before he passed away a year later (from a heart attack).

Anyway, that was fun.

 

[Silver Dragon]

Some friend of mine in grade 8/9 (forget which) introduced me to the game. To be honest, at the time it was the dice I was most interested in. A few weeks later I was into it, and from there I just kept going.

 

[MaxKaladin]

Twas the summer of 1983 about a month before my 13th birthday. I went to a friend's house where he and one of our friends were about to start playing this 'D&D' game the friend had gotten for his birthday. They convinced me to play and 'explained' the rules. It was the red box set and I was sent through the dungeon provided in there. I had fun, so I decided I wanted the game for myself.

That weekend, I convinced my stepmother to take me to the nearest bookstore (which was in the next town, our town only had one of those bookstores that stocks nothing but coffee table books, romance novels, and greeting cards) so I could buy them. Strangely enough, I ran into a couple of kids I knew from my school there who tried to talk me into buying the AD&D books instead, but I didn't. (I never played with them and lost track of one, but the other is now the district attorney of that town )

Anyway, I got home and stayed up until about 2 that morning reading both books in the set cover to cover. I discovered two things of importance. One was just how mangled the rules my friends had explaned to me were (they took the concept of house rules to a whole new level). The other was the concept of the campaign, which was so similar to the way I had played various games years earlier complete with continuity and ongoing storylines that I was hooked.

 

[Mistwell]

Jewish summer-camp. Church isn't accurate, and summer-camp is mostly accurate, so I choose summer-camp.

BTW, might want to just put "religious group" instead of "church group".

 

[Breakstone]

When I was young (11 or so), I'd purchased a Star Wars Anthology book. Being a voracious reader, I read the Author's Notes at the beginning of the book, in which the author told about how he used to play the Star Wars Roleplaying Game. That got me hooked, so I searched and searched for said roleplaying game, though I never found it.

Through that searching, I somehow came upon D&D (I think it was through the internet or something). I went to the local comic book shop, and asked about it, and a short squat guy showed me a Player's Handbook, and said how he liked to play Gnomes. I thought it was quite appropriate of him, although I said nothing at the time. Sam, the comic book owner, ordered the Introduction to AD&D Box Set for me.

Over the next few days I dreamt about the adventures I'd have. The box arrived. I read it, and taught my pop, who, unfortunately, wasn't very interested.

I then taught my brother, who caught on quite quickly.

I then taught my neighbors, who loved it (although the brother couldn't quite grasp the rules).

I then remembered a school aquaintance who had mentioned D&D before at Karate. So I called him up, talked for a long time, and eventually started a group with him and a friend of his named Ian who I had barely known through one day at P.E.

I don't play with the original aquaintance anymore, but Ian's still gaming with me.

 

[Shadowdancer]

I first heard about D&D through a Newsweek magazine article I read about the missing college student whose story was the inspiration/basis for "Mazes and Monsters." This was while I was in high school. From the story, I got a negative impression of the game.

When I was attending a junior college in my hometown, a gaming organization formed at my school. I knew several of the group members, and didn't like them very much. They asked me to come check out one of their gaming sessions, but I told them no.

Later, when I went away to a four-year college, my best friend from back home (who was attending another college) wrote me a letter telling me that he had started playing D&D with a group at his school, and it was a lot of fun. He had heard about the game from his older brother, who was working in another state. His brother was playing with a group of co-workers, and really enjoyed it.

So that summer, when me and my friend were both home from college, we got a couple of other friends together and started playing. That was 1980, and I've been playing ever since. And my friend who introduced me to the game is still in the group I game with today.

 

[Edena_of_Neith]

I don't remember!

Heh. Been gaming too long.

 

[Eternalknight]

I have to vote 'other'. I started gaming when I discovered the Fighting Fantasy books. After reading a bit in the back about various games (D&D, Runequest and another one I can't quite recall) I decided to hunt these games down. D&D was the first one I found.

 

[Richards]

My two cousins Harry and Tom got me (and my two younger brothers as well) into D&D when I was in junior high. They lived about an hour away and we didn't see them that often, but one time when they came over they brought their D&D stuff and a bunch of pre-made PCs for us to choose from. (Heh, those were pretty bad...I remember they had tried programming a random-number generator on their computer to determine the stats, but forgot to roll 1d6 three times and add them up; they just randomly determined a number between 3 and 18. I think my first PC - a druid named "Jon" [they had named them for us, as well] - had something like a 4 Dex, and that was only because my other PC choices were worse!) My cousins had each made half a dungeon complex, and when we "crossed the border" they switched out who was DMing. We had a good time (although it took me awhile to get into the proper "heroic" mode; when we met up with our first monsters - four giant rats - I had my PC flee; seemed like a smart move at the time for a guy with 3 hp), good enough that that Christmas, we each received one of the three main AD&D books from our parents. (I got the DMG, James got the PHB, and Joseph got the MM.)

I played AD&D with my brothers (and later also my sister, and a friend of my brother's) all through junior high and high school, then kind of got out of the habit during college. I was "reintroduced" to gaming when my crew partner - we were a missile combat crew, pulling alert in an underground bunker in North Dakota - brought a couple issues of Dragon with him one alert. I devoured those, and he bought me an issue of Dungeon for my birthday, and that was it - I was hooked.

Now, I game with my two sons: passing the game on to the next generation!

Johnathan

 

[Tsyr]

I'm vaugly surprised we havn't got a single vote for "the internet", but otherwise, this pole is turning out more or less how I expected... interesting...