What is your earliest and most impressionable childhood memory of reading the original D&D or other games

[Greggy C]

For me it was reading Tunnels and Trolls and the descriptions of combat. Those fights are etched into my brain as they spiked my imagination of what it was like to be an adventurer

Same in 1st edition D&D. The example of combat just brought everything together. Unlike T&T they didn't use names of people to make it more real, but it still worked.

 

[Mezuka]

Reading Basic Moldvay for the first time in English, a language I barely understood at the time. Couldn't figure out how to play D&D! I fond someone who played a month later.

 

[Professor Murder]

I can vividly recall getting my first DnD book, the 1st ed Monster Manual. I was in a Barnes and Noble, and saw the cover, covered with monsters. Now I was I figure 7 or so, and loved monsters and begged my father to get it for me. He warned me that it "wasn't the sort of monster book" I might be expecting, but got it for me anyway. None of the rules stuff made any sense, and there were naked breasts in it, but yeah, seven year old me loved and devoured it. I think like less than a year later, I got invited to sit in on a game, and probably was super annoying, as I called out the name of every monster we encountered based on the DM description. Life changing stuff.

 

[GuyBoy]

I was 13. Got a new pair of rugby boots and the White Box set for Christmas. Best Christmas ever!
Not an active rugby player any more at 58, but still a D&D player.

 

[Tonguez]

I started DnD via 3 Bullywugs and a Carrion Crawler, toys purchased at a discount store

then it would be the intro game in the Red Basic Set, and meeting Aleena

 

[Piratecat]

Someone showed me In Search of the Unknown in 1979, long before I ever saw a rulebook. I was ENTRANCED. I still remember reading about the room of many magic pools, and feeling like someone opened up a door into a world I hadn't even known existed.

It'd be another two years before I actually played.

 

[Yora]

Playing Baldur's Gate. I remember I was really bored during summer break and pulled out my videogame magazine collection to look for games that looked interesting but I never paid any attention to before. That Baldur's Gate thing had gotten really rave reviews half a year earlier, and even though I've never bothered reading reviews in the "Roleplaying Games" section and wasn't into fantasy, I was really damn bored and so I got on my bike to get into town to check if one of the stores had it on the shelf.
Even that game manual was a small tome, showing off all the class abilities, spells, and some of the monsters. It was weird, but awesome, and I'm still coasting on that wave.

 

[billd91]

A friend got the Holmes Basic box for Xmas. We poured over that thing on the bus to school for weeks that spring semester.

 

[J.Quondam]

The illustration of rot grubs utterly horrified me back when I was casually flipping through my older cousin's 1e MM in the early 1980s.
So naturally, as a 10 year old boy, I decided I had to play that game.

Spoiler: the infamous rot grubs picture that has scarred so many impressionable young minds.

This image continues to utterly horrify me to this day.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

It was 1977, and I had just heard of the game when someone posted they were starting to host a game in the school library after school. I asked my folks if I could join. They let me.

I went out and bought the AD&D PHB & MM, a set of purple polyhedral dice, and 2 minis- a human fighter with a 2hd sword and an elf fighter with spear & shield. I made a human fighter as my first PC.

The DM was a Bob Ross/Hobbit lookin’ dude who ran a tough game. My PC was among the last 2 left alongside a human wizard. We both died in the penultimate room of the dungeon in an epic fight with a purple worm.

My compadre only had his quarterstaff, dagger, and a single Magic Missile left when it reared up, cutting us off from escape. He opened with the spell and started swinging the staff. (Mightily, I must add.) I started whiffing with my blade. I landed my first meaningful blow a round or two before a Nat20 got the wizard engulfed.

We traded blows for a few more rounds. Finally, we were both down to 4hp…and initiative was simultaneous. My fighter missed, the worm did not. My PC died, completing the TPK.

…and I’ve been hooked ever since.