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

[Neonchameleon]

Mine were GURPS and WFRP. Which has given me a life-long amusement at anyone who claims that any edition of D&D has ever been remotely gritty.

 

[innerdude]

First non-D&D game I actively played, rather than just read or brainstormed content for, was GURPS in 2011.

 

[der_kluge]

I had a friend that went on and on incessantly about GURPS in high school, but I never played it. In 6th grade, my sister gave me the red box, which she had purchased, but never could figure out what to do with it. Nor could I. It wasn't for lack of trying. I loved reading it, but I never grasped the concept of the game until I was in high school, and was invited to play 1e. When I went to purchase my own books, 2e was what was available.

As for non-D&D, in college we played quite a bit of Shadowrun, and my friends and I enjoyed "Teenagers from Outer Space" which was a silly little game from Mayfair. I think I played one session of Cyberpunk, where I rolled up (I kid you not) a naked cop (randomly).

I dabbled in Pathfinder, but never bought the books (Why, when the SRD is so complete?). I'm currently running a bastardized version of LFG (Low Fantasy Gaming) for my Ravenloft game. I ran a H.A.R.P. one-shot at a convention once, and had a brief love-affair with that system. And that might be about it, honestly.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I think we looked through the classic Traveller LBBs, but our first non-AD&D experience was probably RuneQuest, which we played once or twice, but found a little too fiddly for our middle school tastes.

The non-D&D game we really got into was Villains & Vigilantes, a gleefully unbalanced and crazily random superhero RPG. We played a ton of that.

 

[Kannik]

My first RPG I bought, then ran, then played was Top Secret. The box cover immediately piqued my interest and I immediately began saving up to buy it! (I haven't played a spycraftian game in ages, definitively would love to do so again.)

It was only about 3 or so years later when I first played D&D (reluctantly at first, but I fell in love with it pretty quick).

First superhero game was 4e Champions (the BBB); the point-buy non-defined-list nature of the game was an eye opener for me, took me a bit, with the guidance of an experienced GM from our group, to grasp it (and then I loved the freedom of the concept).

Those earlyish years were rife with different games. In that same group we played Traveller, Cyberpunk (original and 2020), WEG Star Wars, Robotech, Rifts, Gangbusters, almost GURPS once, almost Rolemaster as well I think?

Good times.

 

[John Dallman]

It depends if you count En Guarde as an actual RPG, rather than a precursor to the form. If it's an RPG - and I'm genuinely unsure - it was my first non-D&D family RPG. If not, I'm not sure, but it might well have been the first edition of DragonQuest. Incidentally, anyone who'd played the game and seen the box-front artwork of a happy-looking barbarian holding the severed head of a dragon would be asking "How about his 200 dead comrades?"

My first ever RPG was OD&D in autumn 1979, and AD&D1e within a week or two of that.

 

[Mannahnin]

As for non-D&D, in college we played quite a bit of Shadowrun, and my friends and I enjoyed "Teenagers from Outer Space" which was a silly little game from Mayfair.

R. Talsorian Games, no? This is one I had and enjoyed making characters for, but as a home-schooled kid, when I was a teenager I was underinformed to actually run it.

I ran a H.A.R.P. one-shot at a convention once, and had a brief love-affair with that system. And that might be about it, honestly.

Oh, damn, I remember reading that and thinking it was cool.

 

[der_kluge]

R. Talsorian Games, no? This is one I had and enjoyed making characters for, but as a home-schooled kid, when I was a teenager I was underinformed to actually run it.


Oh, damn, I remember reading that and thinking it was cool.

Oh, maybe it was R. Talsorian. I didn't actually own it, it was my friends. But god we had a lot of fun with that. I actually wrote a Pascal program in college to help make characters for it.

I got to meet the designer behind HARP, and attempted doing some writing for them, but they weren't interested in what I was giving them. I absolutely loved that character creation system, and I think I own about 5-6 HARP books. The combat was pretty cumbersome, though.

 

[payn]

I know y'all are talking about first non D&D RPGs, and imma let you finish, but Heroquest is the best gateway drug of all time.

 

[Mannahnin]

I know y'all are talking about first non D&D RPGs, and imma let you finish, but Heroquest is the best gateway drug of all time.

My brother and I had ADVANCED HeroQuest, which had dungeon tiles instead of a fixed board, rules for random dungeon generation and stocking, and for character advancement.

...although we had Red Box D&D and maybe a few other RPGs first.