Quick, while everyone is focused on the 5.24 PHB...

[Reynard]

...let's talk about our first NON-D&D game experiences.

I think my first non D&D game was Heroes Unlimited, the Palladium Supers game. I always loved comics as a kid and when I learned (via Dragon Magazine ads) that there were super hero RPGs, I had to get one. It happened that I landed on HU first. It wouldn't be my favorite supers RPG, but it was actually a nice bridge by virtue of it being class and level based. My young mind wrapped around the idiosyncrasies of supers RPGs more easily, I think, than it might have with Champions or something. I soon discovered the Mayfair DC Heroes RPG (again due to Dragon magazine ads) and fell in love with point based, open supers designs. Eventually A friend in the army gifted me his whole Champions 4E (BBB) edition library and that was my go to for years until Mutants and Masterminds 2E found (for me) a perfect balance between the simplicity of d20 task resolution and the possibility and complexity of point based character generation.

What was your first non D&D game, and was it your first RPG or did you discover some version of D&D first?

 

[Crusadius]

I first played red box D&D / AD&D. But I think my first non-D&D game was Middle-Earth Role Play.

 

[monsmord]

The TSR Marvel Super Heroes RPG (FASERIP). I received the MERP box (1984) first, but never got to play it.

ETA: The D&D red and blue box sets were first, though.

 

[VenerableBede]

I don’t remember if I played Pathfinder 1e or Star Wars 3.5e first (after DnD 3.5)… but since those are nearly identical to 3.5, I think a much better experience for branching out was Call of Cthulhu. Don’t remember which edition… 6e? We played it pulp-style, with a little more focus on combat in addition to mysteries. I have good memories of those days.

 

[Umbran]

What was your first non D&D game, and was it your first RPG or did you discover some version of D&D first?

My first RPG was Tunnels & Trolls. My eldest brother introduced his younger siblings and a couple of our friends to it sometime before I was 12, but I can't remember the year precisely.

 

[payn]

D&D 2E was first, but Traveller was the first non-D&D RPG for me. While I like fantasy, sci-fi is more my bag. Despite Star Wars being a nice meld of sci-fi and fantasy, I have never enjoyed that IP as a TTRPG. Then again, Ive never liked attempts to Lord of the Rings my D&D either. Early on in my RPG life, I wanted to build my own stories and saw the game as a group exercise when a lot of media that had singular protagonists that didnt seem to match on paper what they did on film. Not everyone can be Frodo or Luke. Also, I found that genre themed games without the IP baggage just had a much fresher palette to work from. So, while a lot of media drove me to want to write and experience these stories, I preferred a generic slate to work with. Traveller did that very well for my favorite genre and still does today.

 

[TwoSix]

Hmm. I started D&D with 2e back in 1990. The first non-D&D game I played was 2 sessions of West End Star Wars at the end of freshmen year in college, so sometime in early 1997.

The first long-term non-D&D game I played was Werewolf, this would have been in 1998 or so.

 

[aramis erak]

What was your first non D&D game, and was it your first RPG or did you discover some version of D&D first?

My first non-D&D game was Star Frontiers... played at lunch for about a week. Fall 1983. Good GM, but too large a group. He later seems to have become a working astronomer and space artist.

I left his group for a smaller group playing Traveller. And, if one can't tell from the technicolor starburst, Traveller became a bit of a lifelong passion.

My first RPG was AD&D. A little over 2 years prior. then, a few months later, Moldvay.

 

[Aldarc]

Surprisingly, despite starting in 2000 with 3e D&D, Numenera was my first non-D&D/OGL game.

 

[Lord Shark]

I don't recall, but it was likely Villains and Vigilantes or Gamma World.