Was D&D the game you introduced role playing with?

[Hussar]

The Casual Players thread got me to thinking about introducing new people to the hobby. In that thread there's a bit of a discussion going on about how different versions of D&D might be too complicated to use to introduce new gamers into the hobby.

I thought about my own experiences for a bit and then it hit me. I never really used D&D to introduce people to gaming. I might have used the Basic set once or twice way back when, but, by and large, I haven't used D&D as the gateway to role playing gaming. Way back when it was Star Frontiers and Villains and Vigilantes, both because they are pretty simple systems with easy appeal.

SF I used because it was an easy "in" with anyone who liked Star Trek (I never did have the Fasa Star Trek RPG). And the intro modules that came with the boxed set - Volturnus - were great. Loads of fun and really well written. V&V is also a pretty easy system with a really fun chargen system. You can build just about anything. Not terribly good for long standing campaigns, but great for a pick up game. And, again, superheroes is a pretty easy point of entry. This was back in the days of the first Superman movies and superheroes were pretty cool again.

Later, in the 90's, again it wasn't D&D. It was CCG's. I used both Magic cards (borrowed from a friend) and my own Battletech CCG collection to get the ball rolling. There were more than a few people I managed to rope into TTRPG's through some Magic crack. Nothing like a one hit drug.

Recently, I've been slowly introducing RPG's to my students. Now, since language is a bit of a barrier (they are not native speakers) I have to start easy. So, Settlers of Catan has been the entry point. Lots of back and forth, and it's got a strong collaborative aspect that speaks to role playing. Plus, as the game unfolds, there's a definite sense of story going on.

So, how about you? How have you hooked people? D&D? Or other gateway goodies.

 

[weem]

So, how about you? How have you hooked people? D&D? Or other gateway goodies.

4e really spurred the RPG activity in my area.

I hadn't played since 3e was pretty new, and when 4e was announced I thought I would run 3e (to shake off the dust, and prep for 4e) - but of my friends in this area, I knew one who had played before that would want to play now, and one who had never played (a ttrpg) but was willing to try. So I ran a few games for those two, and then 4e was released.

At that point, when word spread that I was putting together a campaign, there were suddenly a LOT of people who wanted to play - they came out of the woodwork. At this point, I could run 3 campaigns for 5 people, not using any of the same people.

Using 4e I have introduced four people to ttrpg's and two to D&D (who had played other ttrpg's but not D&D).

One of those new to it did not keep playing after 5-6 games. He wasn't that into it... the others? They are hooked.

I have introduced at least one person to ttrpg's using D&D during each edition released, but I'm not sure how many total - it's been too long, hehe.

 

[Doug McCrae]

V&V is simple in many ways, the rules are quite brief and well written, it has some very good ideas, some great fluff (better than anything I've seen until Freedom City), it's just plain cool, and Jeff Dee's art is gorgeous.

But it's got some whacko complicated stuff in there, the worst being the formula for carrying capacity, which involves calculating the cube of a number. That kind of thing was quite typical for FGU games.

 

[RodneyThompson]

I actually came into the hobby through West End Games' Star Wars Roleplaying Game. I had heard of D&D, but didn't really know what it was. I ended up buying the Dark Empire Sourcebook way back when it came out, just for the flavor information in it. When I noticed all the stats seemed to be for some kind of game, I started doing some research...and so I got introduced to the hobby.

Now, even if that hadn't happened, I would have almost certainly gotten into D&D eventually, whether through the guys I gamed with in high school (who were already my friends), or the guys I gamed with in college (same).

It's interesting to think, though, that there may be a whole segment of the gaming population that came in through non-gaming intentions. There's obviously a much wider market for just sci-fi fans, or just fantasy fans, etc. If some percentage of that wider market picks up a gaming book, just for source information, then that's going to grow the hobby.

I heard some griping when the Practical Guides books (PG to Dragons, etc.) were announced, and the same with the Dungeon Survival Guide/Adventurer's Guide to Eberron. Those books aren't necessarily for the entrenched gamer; they're to get people interested in fantasy interested in the world of D&D. Once they see that this game is built on fantastic worlds just as detailed (in many cases, moreso) than the ones in novels and comics and such, it certainly seems easier to draw them into the game. If I was going to try to get someone new into D&D, I'd give them one of those books first, to get them hooked on the concepts and setting first.

 

[Gothmog]

I got hooked when I was 10 on Middle Earth Role Playing (MERP). One of my friend's older brother had the game, and on a weekend sleepover, we played it. I had just finished reading the Hobbit, and the Fellowship, so I was hooked. About six months later, I tried AD&D 1e, and have been at it ever since.

When I pull people into the hobby, I used AD&D 2e during my high school and college years. It was easy to learn and play, and we never had any problems. I tried to get a few folks to play using 3e from 2000-2003 or so, but without much success. Although they liked fantasy/sci-fi, they didn't like the rules-intensive nature of 3e, they said they felt like the rules held them back, and none of them stuck to it for more than 6 months. From 2004-2008 I used Savage Worlds or WHFRP2 for new players, and again, it was pretty easy to maintain their interest and keep them hooked. Now, I use 4e and have one whole group of 6 players who have never gamed before, and they are loving it.

 

[Squizzle]

Introduced via friends and Vampire: The Masquerade, quickly floated over to Mage: The Ascension (RBD HOP!). I started to look at all sorts of systems after than, and then fell into indie-game-loving theorywanking. 4E, being incredibly elegant and very focused (on the "D&D experience", e.g. adventurers striding across the land, growing in power and authority, killing things and taking their stuff), was a natural outgrowth of that.

 

[kitsune9]

Traveller was the first game that I witnessed being played, but D&D Basic Red Box was the first game I got.

 

[Woas]

I was introduced via a diceless game my friends an I created simply known between us as "Quest" during lunch at school/on the bus to and from school/at home/wherever we could. We did that like around grades 5 thru 8 then stopped. After that it was freshman year of college when another friend started up a D&D 3rd Edition game which I partook in.

 

[Ktulu]

Yep, started playing after I bought Baldur's Gate. There was an add for the 2nd ed Core Rules CD, so I gathered my friends and we taught ourselves how to play (more correctly, I learned how to play and taught them).

My current group, ten years later, consists of one original member (who started playing with me), one player who'd never played RPG's before, and two others who began by playing RIFTS.

 

[Crothian]

I started with D&D. In fact it wasn't until seven or eight years later I think that we learned there were other RPGs out there.