D&D 5E Raise your hand if your mom...

[Shroomy]

My dad thought that RPGs were a big waste of money (and probably still does based on his reactions whenever I bring the subject up) but he never forbade me from buying or playing anything - and I remember my mom defending me to another mom after I brought a Dungeon magazine to read at my brother's little league game (I'm pretty sure she brought up how it improved my vocabulary and spelling). I did have one friend in middle school who's dad was an evangelical pastor who disliked anything occult related (no matter how tangentially) and didn't like me bringing any gaming materials over to his house; if I ever did, I wisely kept them hidden away in backpack.

 

[mcbobbo]

Mom got us the Red Box for Christmas in 84.

I did have a friend's parents bar him from speaking to me ever again over D&D though.

As an aside, Dark Dungeons is on YouTube. The wife, boy, and I watched it last night. Good for some laughs...

 

[samursus]

My mom tried to ban D&D when a friend of hers gave her the book "Playing with Fire". When I refused, she was too dependent on me to help raise my brothers and sisters to insist. Plus, I don't know how religious she really was.

 

[aramis erak]

took away your D&D books when you were 10 years old because the news said there was devil worshiping...

I was 11 when I started playing, almost 12. (Was already a board gamer. Tactics II and AH's 1776)

Mom was concerned... but this was before the Pulling incident. My shrink said it was fine, in moderation, so mom set a 1 hour limit per day. (We played 3-4 hours a day 2-3 days a week that summer anyway, just didn't TELL mom.) The next year, I was given Q1 for my birthday; the guys and I had played G1-3 and D1-3 already, so I ran them through it. Mom listened in from out of sight, and never again complained about the Demon angle... once she realized the demons were in the game as targets to be obliterated, not summoned.

 

[Xenu]

The year was 1982 and I was in 6th grade. I saved up birthday money and had my mom order the old Moldvay Basic D&D and Expert D&D box sets -- I believe it was from Sears. My friends and I went gonzo playing D&D. So much so that we'd 'sneak' the rulebooks into class and, not kidding, would hide them in with our regular reading books. We'd sit there reading the rules while the outside was camouflaged with the actual assignment. Not too bright, but it was fun riffing on the "Li'l Rascals".

Anyway, my crusty old teacher Mrs. Motl caught us and informed our parents that in addition to not doing our assigned work, these books were corrupting our minds. Mom confiscated the books, boxes, dice and sold them at the next garage sale. Anyway that was pretty much the last I played until I was in high school, and had a job and the resources to hit the local hobby stores on my own.

 

[was]

There were no gaming stores or groups in my small home town. I did not even know what DnD really was until I left the Navy and went to college. I moved into an apt. with my little brother in a larger city and he introduced me to the game.

 

[Grazzt]

My parents (specifically my dad) bought me the original red box set back in like 81 or 82 for my b-day. Now, in the early to mid 80s my best friend's mom saw Mazes and Monsters and got spooked. Burned (as in took his stuff outside and made a nice big fire) all his gaming stuff. Course, it didn't stop him from playing, and he actually still plays in our group today.

 

[Ludus]

I started in 1983 when a friend introduced me to the game. I was promptly hooked. I was 12, and I asked my mom to take me to a bookstore so I could get the AD&D PHB. In effect, I was asking her to buy the book for me, as my income back then was somewhat dismal.

No problem. Looking back, my mom generally thought the more I read the better, no matter what the books were. Exposure to ideas and all that. I didn't realize this then, but wow I was lucky.

One of my uncles thought D&D was a gateway to Satan worship, but he was a few states away (I'm in the US) and had no influence over me. Still, because of him and random people who went on diatribes about D&D, I rarely talked about the game.

Today, screw that. I'll talk D&D to just about anyone who will listen.

 

[KirayaTiDrekan]

"It is the year 2005..."

Actually, it was 1986 and I went to see The Transformers: The Movie in the theater the same summer I read my mother's copy of Dragons of Autumn Twilight. I noticed the ad in the back for AD&D and then promptly forgot about it when I returned home to my dad.

Fast forward two years and my new, older step-brother introduced me to the Red Box, eventually getting me my own copy for Christmas. I was addicted after that and my dad took away my gaming books on several occasions. Not for religious reasons but because I wasn't doing my homework and failing my classes.

Fast forward again to 1994, I am graduating from high school and got a fair chunk of change from relatives as "college money." I promptly bought the AD&D 2nd Edition Monstrous Manual and Vampire: The Masquerade 2nd Edition. My dad demanded I return then. I didn't.

 

[Teflon Billy]

No, not at all. My parents were just so chuffed that I was doing something intellectual (reading mostly) as a pastime that they were really supportive, despite not really knowing what was going on.

What was going on was my friends and I had seen a new report about this game that made kids listen to heavy metal, worship the devil and kill people, and man....we were in

Didn't quite work out the way we hoped, but it still ate up a lot of my teenage years.

One of the stranger moments I can recall was my Grandma purchasing me the 1E Deities and Demigods (with the Melnibonean and Cthulu Mythos illegally in there) as a gift for my 11th birthday. She was reading a selection from it to the assembled 11 year olds...though she pronounced it "Chill Thu Thu" for some reason.