What was your first RPG experience if it WASN'T D&D?

[innerdude]

Simple poll question, here--if D&D wasn't the first RPG you ever played, what was?

I'm interested in hearing stories about people who eventually gravitated to D&D after trying other RPG systems. Or, if the poll doesn't apply to you, talk about why you didn't gravitate to D&D after trying other stuff first, or gravitated to other systems stuff after trying D&D first, etc.

 

[Argyle King]

My first experience was with Rifts. I had a blast playing Rifts in spite of the balance issues with in the system. My first experience was with Rifts because that's what the first group I met played.

I didn't play D&D until 3rd Edition. I still have a large library of books for it; it boggles my mind to consider how much I spent on it. I own a few D&D 4th Edition books, but my collection isn't very big.

Currently, GURPS 4th Edition is my favorite rpg.

 

[Will Doyle]

Dragon Warriors, at about age 9.

I was a nut for the old Fighting Fantasy books, and remember picking up Dragon Warriors thinking they'd be more of the same. I didn't get it at all - where were the "turn to" page references? My elder brother picked them up, got it, and ran a game with his friends. I was blown away.

After that, it was Call of Cthulhu (which at that age we didn't really get, but had great fun with), WFRP, Pendragon, and Paranoia. I didn't play D&D until I was in my mid-teens.

 

[Afroconan]

Although my friends who introduced me to rpgs started with D&D 3E, when they invited me to play they were all starting a Cyberpunk 2020 game. That's how I started, 4 months later I played 3E then Masquerade....

 

[wingsandsword]

The first game I actually ran & played was WEG d6 Star Wars, circa 1997

After a failed attempt to get into D&D in 1991 (I got the "Black Box" basic set, but my friends and me couldn't figure out THAC0 so we just gave up on it), I had largely given up on RPG's.

My father wasn't too pleased when he found I'd gotten a D&D set, he was afraid it was something Satanic. To avoid trouble with the parents, I figured I'd try for another RPG.

The FLGS I went to at the time was more of a model train & general hobby shop that carried a few RPG books. They had some AD&D 2e (it was the late '90's), WEG Star Wars, and a little White Wolf (I remember getting a bad first impression and being freaked out and chased away by the Wraith character sheets that were written up to look like death certificates, not very noob friendly to non-Goths).

I collected d6 Star Wars books as references on the setting (as in the late '90's that was the biggest single reference source on Star Wars), and when I found the local gaming club when I went to college, it turned out that several members were big fans of SWRPG.

I ran my first game that fall, and in January of '98 I started a regular campaign which went a year and a half. The friends I made at that game introduced me to playing D&D (and White Wolf, and other games). By the end of '98 I was in two regular D&D 2e games, running a d6 SWRPG game, and playing in lots of occasional 1-shot games of various systems.

 

[Bedrockgames]

The first one I played was a role playing game version of battletech (I don't know if the GM homebrewed it or if there was an existing system he used). Hooked me in right away and we played almost every day for months before the GM introduced us to D&D (I am pretty sure the first D&D session we had was AD&D 1E). This was around 1986. When I first really started playing D&D as a hardcore GM me and my friends experimented with a ton of systems including Tales from teh Floating Vagabond, TORG, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Star Wars, etc. But by 1992 the bulk of our gaming was either AD&D (usually Ravenloft, Forgotten Realms, Darksun or Spelljammer) or Vampire.

 

[khantroll]

I played the original Gamma World in 1992, with AD&D following that same year.

 

[MatthewJHanson]

D&D red box was first, followed by AD&D.

After that I'm a little fuzzy on the details, but I'm pretty sure was a Palladium Game. I think either Heroes Unlimited, Ninjas & Superspies, or TMNT.

 

[captainsammitch]

d20 star wars when I was an undergrad. good times.

 

[jeffh]

I started with D&D but was familiar with five other systems (four of which I had at least the core rules for) by the time I turned 13, none of which are among the poll options. My first real love RPG-wise, other than D&D, was Mayfair's old DC Heroes system. Didn't answer the poll because I did start with D&D, but the closest applicable thing is an "other" anyway.