What formed your idea of what D&D is to you?

[Achan hiArusa]

Using the Metzer Red Box with the Moldvay Expert Set, a 1st Edition AD&D Player's Handbook, and B2 Keep on the Borderlands from the Holmes Set (along with parts from that set, I had taken it apart and lost everything but the Monsters and the Reference page).

And people wonder why I like tinkering with games so much.

 

[Sollir Furryfoot]

Started with AD&D but didn't have a group to play with until about a year or two after 3e came out. Both Piratecat's Defenders of Daybreak and Sepulchrave's Tales of Wyre heavily influenced how I planned for my campaign. Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft was an earlier inspiration, but those two story hours were the ideal which I set my games to when I started DMing.

 

[DungeonmasterCal]

I guess I have two examples. My first D&D experiences taught me the value of winging the rules when necessary and the importance of good descriptions. The second one was the value of a good story that linked all the adventures together to form an epic story arc that everyone loved and talk about 9 years later.

 

[thedungeondelver]

Reading a classmate's copy of A2 SECRET OF THE SLAVERS STOCKADE at lunch one day in elementary school.

Buying a copy of B2 KEEP ON THE BORDERLANDS - without actually owning a rule-book first.

 

[jdrakeh]

I think the first camapign I played in did most of the defining. Thankfully, I lucked out and had a decent DM. Had I been stuck with a bad DM, this also would have defined D&D for me, however. Had my first D&D experience mirrored some that I experienced later in life, it most assuredly would have been my last D&D experience.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I feel that this ideal is independent of edition or system and has more to do with who you are gaming with and the particular environment in which you gamed. From that point on, nothing can ever truly compare, whether it's objectively 'better' or not, subjectively you will always compare it to the experience which formed that ideal.

I guess I'm a bit of a counterexample. While I still vividly remember my first D&D experience (1977, after school in library at East Middle School, Aurora CO- TPK...just barely), and have been a member of several long-lasting and incredibly fun groups, what really formed my concept of the ideal of D&D is the system itself in comparison to other games.

Over time, I've played hundreds of different RPGs in a variety of genres. Although there was much innovation from other RPG designers, eventually, some of the FRPGs just seemed like clones of each other.

D&D just did things differently, and usually with more flexibility. For me, many of the "sacred cows" of D&D were part of what I really liked about the game. I can find a myriad of FRPGs that don't have alignment systems- D&D's was the most detailed I knew. Many (if not most) of them have spells that are reusable as long as the spellcaster can power them, whereas until the 3Ed Sorcerer, the Vancian mage was the only full arcane caster in the game.

I'm not saying that these mechanics were inherently better- after all, my favorite 3 games are (in order) HERO, M&M, and 3.X D&D.

But those (and other) artifacts of the system are unique to D&D, and they make you think in a different way. You manage your resources differently in (pre-4Ed) D&D than in almost any other game out there.

That gave D&D a particular identity to me, one I liked and sought out.

 

[Khuxan]

The multitude of books and resources for the d20 System. From the beginning, I had little sense of D&D as a fixed or a static thing. Dungeons and Dragons was just the engine for Dragonstar, Arcana Evolved, Iron Lords of Jupiter, Grimm, True20, Mutants and Masterminds, etc. I have never seen D&D as distinct or having its own flavour, instead I considered it a means to an end.

I think this sense that the d20 System was perfect for all genres and all settings was damaging. I thought that every game could be squashed into the d20 System when in fact it would be better suited to One-Roll Engine, or GURPS, or HERO, etc. I do this even now with other rule systems - for a while, I tried to adapt Spirit of the Century into all genres, then it was Houses of the Blooded, and now it's the 4C System.

 

[Zustiur]

Initially, gold box games cemented my idea of what DnD was, and thus my pen and paper games were quite similar, but then, we were playing 2E at the time. Constant combat with hardly any story worked in 2E because you needed the EXP. Back when it WAS EXP instead of XP (at least in my group. I have no idea what the books called it at the time).
3E rolled around and I TPK'd the first session due to that same mentality. I toned it down and had fun exploring different parts of role playing. The different parts of DnD... and then I got caught up in EN world in all it's glory.

I'd been following EN world since before the release of 3E, but only after my first few months of 3E did I discover story hours. Oh man. Piratecat and Sagiro's story hours! Those are the epitome of DnD to me now. They're everything I strive for in a plot based campaign. If the system doesn't fit those story hours (including all the necessary sacred cows) then it's just not DnD to me.

In a few weeks I'll be starting a new 3E campaign, but this time focussed on the characters. I have no preconceived campaign plot to get in my way this time, just tonnes of ideas. If I reach my target - all the better, but if I don't, I'll still have a blast along the way.

 

[Desdichado]

I'd say either 1) none; D&D was always an ideal that was never realized in my youth, or 2) the last coupla years or so playing 3.5 and having a better time with it than I ever did with any of my high school games.

 

[Jan van Leyden]

My formation period is far from over, what with only close to 26 years experience.

I tend to meander from the straight path and try something new with a changed focus every few years.

We had rules-heavy stuff like Harnmaster or DSA as well as more free-form games like GURPS.

I've run story-intensive campaigns as well as dungeon crawling ones. Whenever the time comes to think about a new campaign, I wander in the direction I want to explore at just that time.

My idea of what RPGs (or D&D) are for me is very changeable - and I like it that way!