Was Dragon (or any RPG mag) your first exposure to gaming?

[Grimstaff]

I've noticed alot of comments along the line of "Dragon magazine was my first exposure to D&D" or "I noticed Dragon magazine in my brother's room one day".

How many people out there were first exposed to gaming by picking up this venerable magazine?

It saddens me that after september there will never be another bored 11-year-old kid scanning the magazine racks while Mom is looking at diet tips and find Dragon magazine there to inspire him or her to join the gaming community.

Is Wotsbro destroying their future customer base?

 

[Hussar]

Considering how few newstands actually carry Dungeon or Dragon outside of hobby shops, the odds of the bored 11 year old finding a Dragon magazine is pretty damn slight.

For about a decade or so it would be a pretty rare newstand that would have either magazine.

My first experience was with the Moldvay Basic set. Now there's something to get choked up about.

 

[Grimstaff]

Considering how few newstands actually carry Dungeon or Dragon outside of hobby shops, the odds of the bored 11 year old finding a Dragon magazine is pretty damn slight.

Actually, I bought my last issue of Dragon (the one with the little Modron guy on it) while grocery shopping the other day, though I usually pick it up at either the bookstore in the mall or at the FYE record store. I've bought it at the airport before, too.

 

[KB9JMQ]

I had just started gaming when I got my first Dragon. It has been part of my gaming ever since.
I will say that I like Dungeon better and get more out of it though throughout the years.

 

[Doug McCrae]

When I first got into gaming as a teenager White Dwarf was my main source of information about the hobby. But there hasn't been a quality gaming mag like early WD since the 80s. For many years now I've been getting that sort of info online.

We used to mock Dragon back then. I bought a few issues but frankly, it was rubbish. Five page articles on the ecology of the flind. New D&D classes. Unfunny cartoons. Essays from EGG about some tiny aspect of Greyhawk. All useless to us.

 

[Theron]

I got into RPGs through the Wargamer's Entrance Door. My first gaming magazines were Strategy and Tactics, Avalon Hill's The General, and Space Gamer.

 

[Vrecknidj]

Actually, I wandered into my local library when I discovered Dragon magazine, but, close enough.

Dave

 

[Thurbane]

I was introduced to D&D before I ever read an issue of Dragon, but most of my earliest memories of D&D include a couple of issues at the gaming table...

 

[Aus_Snow]

Nope.

Fighting Fantasy and such came first, if that sort of thing counts.

Then B/X, X1, Elf.

Then. . . everything else.

 

[Steel_Wind]

I was exposed to the game by seeing miniatures set up on a dungeon bristleboard layout in my friend's basement in 1976. These were the remnants of his older brother's OD&D campaign.

I was in grade 7, but one look at that and I was sold! 31 years later, and miniatures all over a dungeon map on a table still works for me.

I couldnt' afford to buy OD&D back then, so the the first RPG product I ever owned was a copy of the Strategic Review.

I'd say that counts.