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

[Older Beholder]

I was just curious about people's first experience with D&D.
Feel free to post any further details about how your first ever game went, either as a player or DM.

 

[toucanbuzz]

Self-taught DM from the original Red Box. A few curious friends stumbled with me through some basic adventures. There's many "firsts" I can recall vividly, but oddly enough, my first DMing session with a group isn't one of those. Go figure. I must've stunk.

 

[JEB]

Self-taught from the AD&D 2E rules. The first game I ran for my friend and little brother used the sample adventure site in the 1981 Basic Rulebook ("The Haunted Keep") as a base, but I soon began improvising heavily during play. My first campaign thereafter became even more off-the-cuff with time, and it worked out pretty well... not my style now, though.

 

[Cadence]

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.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Player with a first-time DM for me. It...didn't go super well. Nor did the next two attempts.

 

[Agametorememberbooks]

My friends and I literally just made up the rules and the game with little to no concept of how to play. It wasn’t until we got 2nd edition books and I finally understood THAC0 as a 12 year old that we started playing the game correctly. I’d just make up stories and they’d throw dice.

 

[billd91]

I’m not 100% positive it was my DM’s first time behind the screen. I know he had played before, but I don’t know about DMing. I am sure it was early in his DMing career thought, if not the first time.

 

[Stormonu]

As a first time DM with the Holmes box, with lots of winging it because the rules were a good stretch beyond my understanding at the time (I was only 9 years old). Didn't really start learning the game inside & out until the first red box a couple years later.

 

[Alby87]

First time with a D&D like: Pathfinder 1E homebrew campain, I was a player with an experienced DM. First time with D&D, was during the pandemic, with an online DDAL game. Then, I bought materials and now I have a lot of hours of playing time

 

[Hussar]

First time was with my older brother running Keep on the Borderlands from the old Moldvay Basic set. Me an my brother's friends all made magic users. We all died to stirges very early on.

Cut my teeth on DMing after playing a short time, with rotating DM's with me and my friends. Good times.