It's GM's Day! Tell us about your first GM!

[Reynard]

My first DM was my friend Rob. He had gotten the Holmes edition for Xmas in 1980. He had played before with some of the older kids from the Boy Scouts and was willing to DM me. We lived out in the boonies and getting a group together was tough. As a result, I put together a group of 6 first level adventurers and went into the dungeons. The group whittled down until it was the lone fighter who made it out of the dungeon alive to reach 2nd level.

Funneling before funneling was cool?

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

I was nine years old when a slightly older hessian kid introduced my brother and I to D&D. It was a completely bizarre version of the game, with stats and levels way beyond the standard range. The DMPC had a wizard that lived in his hair. I got a pair of lightning-charged crystal daggers that I thought were the coolest things ever. Despite it only tangentially resembling D&D, we were hooked from there on out.

 

[Laurefindel]

My first DM was one of my friend’s older brother’s group of friends with whom we played a LARP or two (yes, I LARPed before tabletop RPG. It was sold to us “kinda like a LARP but without the live-action part”). We played at the community center two evenings per month, I think. 2e AD&D was fresh out of the presses and the DM was still adjusting things on the fly; I’m not even sure the 2e Monster Manual was out yet at first. We, the players, wouldn’t know better anyway and were having a blast.

I haven’t seen him in ages, now I kinda want to reach out and say hi… and thank you!

 

[payn]

Neighborhood friend. His father let him play in some of his games. He told me you had to play the game before you could GM. As in leveling in real life. He could GZm me for a bit but he wasn’t high enough level to run a campaign.

Seemed weird to me then, but I’ve heard enough “players can’t read the DMG” stories to better understand where it comes from.

 

[DragonLancer]

I was about 14 years old and had been wanting to get into D&D since I was about 9. My GM was a guy named Chris (and we are still contact all but a couple hundred miles between us). He wasn't all that into D&D but introduced me to Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Runequest and Call of Cthulhu. Definitely one of the best GMs I've ever had.

 

[Bedrockgames]

My first GM was a guy on my friend's street who was about a year or two ahead of us in school (I was probably 10 at the time). He also was the person who introduced me to great movies like Highlander and The Terminator (and games like Kings Quest). He ran us through some kind of version of MechWarrior I believe and his style was the perfect introduction to me. It was very much about here is the situation and what is happening, what do you do? We learned to interface with the mechanics but it was more about us saying what we wanted to do and him figuring out how to resolve it. I don't think I had ever been so immersed by a medium before. I pretty much owe the guy my life long enjoyment of the hobby (but in fairness I think he still owes me a 1.25 that I lent him to by a slurpee at 7 Eleven

 

[Xenolith234]

My first DM, Scott, was my Boy Scout troop leader. He ran AD&D 2e during lock-in trips. Though I never ran 2e and 3.0 was just landing in stores, I have a lot of nostalgia for 2e but can’t separate my mind’s eye of D&D from the Lockwood art style in 3e.

 

[KYRON45]

My first DM was Mike.
On the basement floor at Max house.
One sheet of paper for a map/grid. No minis. The dice that came in the red box.
He claims he has a document that says hes the worlds greatest DM. This can't be possible because I was one of his first 2 players and I never signed such a document.
There was an elf with dreadlocks and a shower cap. That's all I have to say about that.
Game on brother. Game on.

 

[Black Dougal]

Mine was Jeremiah, he was the son of one of a woman who worked at my daycare. I was 7 he was 13 the year was 1981.

Some older kids in my apartment complex showed me all these cool "figurines" and books that caught my attention (PHB Tramp cover Moldvay Basic). I asked for D&D for Xmas. I got the books and took them to daycare and found out Jeremiah actually knew how to play.

I do not recall the 1st adventure but I know we played D&D, Gamma World, and paper football almost everyday at daycare. I also started visiting him with some other kids on the weekends as we grew up as he lived down the street and we'd play Telengard/Phantasie/Ultima and basketball while dodging his two giant Newfoundland dogs. His mother had to put up with us outside of daycare now as well lol. She was awesome, Ms Katherine. She would make sure we were fed and got outside and really helped me adjust to my parents' divorce.

We're still friends to this day. And did I need to find D&D and meet folks like him at that age. My parents had recently divorced and it was ugly and D&D and new friends were great for me. It was like a whole new world to my kid brain lol.

 

[gnarlygninja]

My first GM was...kind of terrible. She was dating a friend I was going to college with, who invited me to join a Firefly campaign. I'd never played a pen and paper rpg before, and I'd never seen the show, but it beat going home after class, so I joined up. None of us, excepting the creepy old guy, had ever played before so no one seemed to notice she had no idea how the game worked, and was not very good at keeping the group on track/managing problem players. She was good at making things up on the fly, but eventually the group got too big and too many experienced players joined for that to cover up the other issues. She was also pretty terrible as a player, because she still would not learn the rules to the game but was an awful spotlight hog. For those reasons and some out of game ones I'm glad she's in the rear view mirror.