D&D General This and official D&D novels colored what D&D is for me.

[payn]

Yeah same but I didn’t consider RPGs as like a table thing

When Nintendo Power put out essentially the FF monster manual, it all just clicked for me.

 

[Shiroiken]

I avoid MMOs like the plague so never played EverQuest.

As someone from the old days of MUDs, I was the same. We used to refer to it as EverCrack due to the addictive nature it had.

However, the Dragonlance and Drizzt novels were my initial forays into D&D fiction as well. I think by the mid-to-late 90s I had read just about every D&D novel that had been published. I ate up the FR novels like candy.

I only brought my much-read copies of the DL Chronicles with me when I moved to NZ. I suspect all the others ended up being donated to a book sale or something.

(For context, 1999 is the year I graduated from high school.)

Dragonlance was key for me as well. I didn't get into the Realms until college, because that was the setting the DM there used.

 

[Chaltab]

Honestly for me it was Neverwinter Nights (the Bioware game) that ended up being my gateway drug. I still didn't play actual D&D regularly for several years after that, but it introduced me to the world. And Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance not too long after.

 

[Velderan]

When Nintendo Power put out essentially the FF monster manual, it all just clicked for me.

While the cup of coffee I had with BECMI predated this, it was the free copy of Dragon Warrior Nintendo Power was giving out with a subscription that was probably my entry point into my lifelong love of RPGs.

 

[DarkCrisis]

While the cup of coffee I had with BECMI predated this, it was the free copy of Dragon Warrior Nintendo Power was giving out with a subscription that was probably my entry point into my lifelong love of RPGs.

I still remember getting the mag and game in the mail. Good times.

 

[J-H]

Baldur's Gate II in college, then 3.5 on forums until I played 5e in person, and then all 5e.

 

[TwoSix]

Playing the SSI Gold Box Game "Pool of Radiance" (1988) -> Buying the Dragonlance Chronicles (1989) -> Buying the 2e Player's Handbook (1990) was my order of indoctrination.

 

[Azzy]

I had been playing D&D before I ever read any D&D-fantasy novels. So the fiction was never a driving motivator—especially since I wasn't impressed by much outside of the DL Chronicles and Legends. The only D&D-branded media I was aware of was the cartoon from back when I was even younger. At the time, MMOs didn't exist, so the only fantasy CRPGs I played were the SSI "Gold Box" games.

 

[Azzy]

I Must be a bit older then. Final Fantasy on the Nintendo entertainment system.

FF was a fun game, I have fond memories of that and the Zelda games (as well as some other NES games).

 

[Sacrosanct]

I Must be a bit older then. Final Fantasy on the Nintendo entertainment system.