D&D General Was your first experience with D&D as a player or as a DM?

[Shiroiken]

Player with experienced DM back in 1E. Was apprenticed to DM within a few months and ran my first game within a year.

 

[Older Beholder]

Thanks for the responses so far.

The earliest game I remember playing in was when one of my school friends started a game in the library during lunch breaks. By the time we stuffed down our lunch and got set up we’d have about 45 min for a session, but we’d play most days of the week.

2E had just come out and our DM had the PHB. We played a homebrew version of Dragonlance using Mystara maps. We played for a couple of years until we got into high school and the DM wanted to focus on study.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I'm actually a little surprised how evenly spread the votes are. From this data, meager though it is, there's at least the suggestion that many groups actually do start out with a first-time DM (since option 1 is the most common, but the other two combined, both of which have a first-time DM, are 55.9%.) Meager data, forum poll, early days, etc. etc., I know not to make much of these results. Just surprising, since I expected something a lot closer to like...80% "player with an experienced DM."

(To explain a bit further: in order for us to get to 80% "player with an experienced DM," assuming no one changes their vote, we would need to rack up 61 more votes for that option without even one person voting for the other two. Even getting 30 votes all going to that one option would be pretty dramatic at this point, so these results are significantly different from what I expected.)

 

[billd91]

I'm actually a little surprised how evenly spread the votes are. From this data, meager though it is, there's at least the suggestion that many groups actually do start out with a first-time DM (since option 1 is the most common, but the other two combined, both of which have a first-time DM, are 55.9%.) Meager data, forum poll, early days, etc. etc., I know not to make much of these results. Just surprising, since I expected something a lot closer to like...80% "player with an experienced DM."

I’m not all that surprised since I suspect a lot of people of my generation started in groups where one player had played the game a little, got excited by it, and then evangelized with their Basic D&D box by first-time DMing for a group of newbs.

 

[aco175]

My father had a couple guys from his work come over to show us how to play. One was the DM who seemed to know the rules well enough and the other was a statue who would turn into a PC if someone touched the statue, but nobody did. This was in the red box days where the DM would ask pointed questions such as, "How are you checking out the statue." or "Are you touching the statue." The way a question is asked makes a 9 year old very cautious.

I recall that we all died when a trap cut the party in half leaving some on one side with bugbears or hobgoblins and the others sticking around until we were flanked as well.

Next week, my father had the red box and was the DM for 5-6 of us neighborhood kids.

 

[payn]

I checked option 2, though the DM had experience as a player. He had this odd notion that you, the player, had levels in playing the game. You had to play so much before your level was high enough to allow you to run a game. Then, you had to earn levels as a GM to run higher level games. Was very odd and I have not seen this notion since.

 

[el-remmen]

I voted "As Player with an Experienced DM" - except that. . .

A. They weren't a very experienced DM and doubt that they run more than a handful of sessions before I got involved
B. After that one game I moved on to DMing

Sorry to be that person who chafes against the narrow options of the poll.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

I was just a freshman at a small midwestern college, and I never thought something like this could happen to me. But one week, I was late getting to class, and I had to sit in the back next to the gorgeous graduate teaching assistant. Little did I know when the TA asked if I was interested in dungeons what would await me .....

 

[Mad_Jack]

Sometime in 1981 when I was a 5th or 6th grader, the sitter while my parents were out played and I assume had DM'ed before. She ran my first two characters (Alexis the Dwarf and Antares the Halfling) through a short adventure using Modlvay Basic. I had to cut Alexis's hand off to save him from a cursed sword. At some point later on, rotating DMing with other friends, they ended up with some F-14s.

I’m not all that surprised since I suspect a lot of people of my generation started in groups where one player had played the game a little, got excited by it, and then evangelized with their Basic D&D box by first-time DMing for a group of newbs.

This is my general experience as well - I learned in 1981 when I was nine years old, when one of my younger brother's friends came over to hang out, and that kid's older brother got stuck driving him cuz he had his learners' permit...
Stuck having to hang out at our house for several hours, he brought his D&D stuff with him. He ended up running a quick game for me and our younger brothers, and a couple of years later I got the Basic rules for myself.

Later on, a number of kids in my neighborhood got into it although I'm not sure where some of them originally learned to play - but I know I was the first DM for a few of them.

 

[GetInTheHole]

I was the one to convince my friends to play. I was the one with the initial BE box sets as well as a couple 1st Ed books. I therefore became defacto DM with no experience at all as to how make it actually work.

It was glorious madness.