Is D&D 3.5 your first role playing game

[Galethorn]

I've gotta say I'm right with Dalamar; BG was a 'gateway game,' in a manner of speaking. It took me a while (until 2002) to actually get a game going, though. You see, I didn't know any other PnP gamers, so I had the difficult task of converting my CRPG-playing friends, and then GMing for them.

 

[Wombat]

No, but there are many facets to my answer

On the one hand, I was roleplaying long before rpgs -- I injected roleplaying elements into board and miniature games long before I played any rpgs.

And I did, in some respects, come to D&D via earlier edition(s) -- I played OD&D extensively and AD&D 1 & 2 a couple times each.

Just prior to 3.0 coming out, I played many other games and had not played D&D for over 8 years.

And I have not actually played D&D 3.5, never having updated my books and now being firmly in the D20-not-D&D camp.

So, while I answered "came in through earlier editions", there is much more to the answer than that.

 

[Masquerade]

Started playing 3.0 about a year before 3.5 was released. I made the switch immediately.

 

[sniffles]

I've played 2nd ed. AD&D, and once even 1st ed. But I came to roleplaying through RuneQuest.

 

[freebfrost]

OD&D which segued very quickly into 1st edition AD&D, since I didn't realize that they were different games you see...

 

[fiddlerjones]

Being raised in a Christian home (and am still practicing/believing), I was forbidden to play D&D because my parents were unaware of the actual game and had only heard horror stories about it. I loved the Final Fantasy series (back when it was good) and later Baldur's Gate and its ilk. I ended up crafting my own system, which, apart from being rather unbalanced, was pretty good I thought, but was eerily similar to D&D considering my isolation from it. My Grandma even played a couple times and had fun (she, by the way, being one of the strongest adherents to Christianity I have ever met). In high school I had a brief encounter with 2nd ed. but never really got into it. I had my game after all.
Then I went to college. New environment, people who weren't familiar with my game. So I started playing D&D 3.5 and enjoyed it. Now I'm playing in a campaign and running a campaign, both running for almost a year now.

 

[sydbar]

I started with basic, played through all editions of ad&d, i also played gamma world, star frontiers, traveller, space opera, merp, a half dozen other rpg's, and all palladium products since the original palladium crimson edition.

 

[EdL]

I voted other.

Technically, it should be played earlier editions, but...

The first day I played any RPG it was me and a couple of friends from work. One had bought these two 'new' games, Basic D&D and Traveller. The two of us who didn't own them made D&D characters and played for a bit, til there was a rules dispute that got a bit heated. So we took a break and made Traveller characters (mine died on the last roll, so we junked that rule in a hurry!) and played that for a while. We liked the idea and agreed to play more of both. I have no idea what we played the next time we got together, but we ended up playing a bunch of other systems. (I cut my GMing teeth on Runequest.)

In fact, we were (with others we'd sucked into the group by then) making rules of our own based on a hodge-podge of systems (often starting with Melee and Wizard), trying to come up with the 'perfect' system of our own. So how did we end up as D&Ders? Simple, money! That's right, we bought the AD&D rule books, then decided that with such an investment we were darn well going to get our money's worth out of them! (If Steve Jackson had gotten The Fantasy Trip out just a few months earlier...)

 

[amethal]

At one time I'd have said that I've played every edition, but diaglo has shown me that there were some editions I'd never realised existed.

I started on "old" D&D with the basic set but never got beyond the expert set.

I've played 1st edition and 2nd edition AD&D (including "2.5"), 3.0 and 3.5.

 

[Jupp]

Looks like that not too many fresh players are part of the ENWorld community. At least according to this poll. Though it would be interesting to have a poll like this sent to all ENWorlders to get an overview how the community is built up. How many new players, veterans, what system, most interesting sections of ENWorld, etc, etc.