What's your earliest memory of d&d?

[EastCoastDragon]

I loved the cartoon as a kid, because it was around the same time I learned about the D&D electronic board game. As soon as my brother taught me how to play it, I was hooked! What's yours?

PS: I'm feeling retro lately and want to buy the electronic game. Anyone selling one? Here's what I was looking at on eBay, but I haven't set up an account there yet. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

VINTAGE 1980 DUNGEONS & DRAGONS COMPUTER LABYRINTH GAME - eBay (item 330528822739 end time Feb-13-11 20:11:51 PST)

Mattel 1980 Dungeons & Dragons Electronic Labyrinth MIB - eBay (item 190496174045 end time Feb-04-11 20:17:33 PST)

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I still remember my first adventure: East Middle School in Aurora, CO. 1977. My Fighter and the party Wizard were the last survivors of the party...

We entered a huge room with a floor obscured by mist. When we had crossed about halfway, a Purple Worm reared up and attacked. The MU launched his Magic Missile while we tried to retreat. This did NOT deter it, and it was on us before we could reach the exit.

We swung at it with staff and 2 Handed Sword, with the Wizard having the hot hand, hitting almost every time while my Fighter whiffed and whiffed and whiffed.

Right about the time I landed my first solid blow, the Purple Worm nat 20ed the Wizard, engulfing him, leaving only my guy standing.

We traded blows back & forth in a battle suddenly grown close. Both of us were at 4HP...and the DM and I rolled simultaneous initiative. He hit, I didn't. End of game....one room before the dungeon's exit.

 

[Stumblewyk]

Some time during the winter of early 1994, Study Hall, Sophomore year of High School.

My friend Nate decided he was going to introduce me to the game (AD&D 2e), since he had earlier convinced me to try out Magic: the Gathering. So, we sat in study hall, and he helped me make my first character, Ander - a gnome Cleric/Illusionist.

I was enthralled with the idea that I could choose EVERYTHING about this little guy. Hair color? Greenish brown. Eyes? Green. Height? A little taller than average for a gnome. Weight? Pudgy.

Equipment? I was in heaven. Ander totally had a signet ring. He loads up on torches. He has way too many belt pouches. Two-handed sword. Spellbook. Armor.

Looking back on it, he broke soooooo many rules. But we were kids; Nate learned the rules wrong from the older cousin who taught him, I learned them wrong from him, and I'm 100% sure I taught them wrong to my other friends who I introduced to the game back then.

Anyway...my first introduction to the game was character creation. I didn't get to actually play until about a week after that. But by that time Ander was so built up in my head that I remember the anticipation was absolutely killing me.

 

[jonesy]

The tag is boardgames? Huh. We went many years before we even had miniatures.

My first memory is from the fourth grade. Sixth graders used to play D&D between classes, and I sometimes watched them from the sidelines. One of them was a friend from my neighbourhood and he sold me the Mentzer Basic box. Next day I went out and bought the Expert set. Then we started setting up games in the hallway. Sometimes the school library when a teacher joined (he was the computer sciences teacher, I think).

The first adventure was totally made up, ad-libbed, and improvised. I think it was several sessions before we got the hang of any of the rules. I don't remember anything about the adventure, except that there were a lot of dinosaurs for some reason. And I killed our thief with a fireball.

 

[papastebu]

Mine is of the boxed set, 1976 or 77, I can't recall exactly, but my brother yelled at me about reading the book all the way to the back, where the story, NPC, and map information was. Mom bought that for us, I think at his request. He still has all of that stuff at his house, somewhere. I'll bet he never even looks at it.

 

[billd91]

I first heard about it from a kid on the bus on the way to school back in 5th grade, 1979. His older brothers played it and he played at least a little as well. I was playing by summer of 1981 after another friend got a copy of the Holmes boxed set for Xmas.

 

[Umbran]

My earliest memory of D&D is of my oldest brother coming home from college for X-mas break, with gifts of a 1e PHB and DMG, and running my friends and me through U1: Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh.

My earliest memory of gaming is somewhat older, when he was sill in high school and brought Tunnels and Trolls home to play with us.

 

[Relique du Madde]

Long ago, in the 80s... my older brother was talking to our neighbor about their dnd game... He mentioned how they found a pond with alot of gold and treasure on it's bottem. One of the group members then decided to strip down and jump into the pond in order to scavenge the treasure. What the character didn't know was that the water was acidic (or something), and his character died. I don'T remember if they rezzed him.

 

[Janx]

i'd seen the cartoon when I was a kid. read the FR novels all through high school.

Junior year, my buddy and I saved up some dough and mail-ordered the 2E PH, 2e DMG and some dice.

They sent me the 1E PH by mistake.

So when the stuff came in, a few days later, my friend came over after school and we made my 1st PC, Ask, a F/T. We started the game just outside of Arabel of FR. I did some stuff, almost died, cheated by citing a save vs. death rule that I thought I saw in the DMG, and got some money.

The second game, we played in an empty building my friend had, in January. it was cold. We made up PCs for 2 more friends.

The third game was at another friend's house, and by then, we had 8 players.


My buddy is still the GM for the group back home, 20 years later. The group has shrunk, but its the same friends from school. In away, D&D has kept friends together that I've known for 30 years.

I did ultimately get the right 2e PH. I've still got those books, and the dice (though I had to replace the d20, after the Incident).

 

[Ebon Shar]

I remember with some regret that I used to make fun of the kids who played D&D back in middle school (late'70s). I hung around with some kids who were a bad influence and, while secretly yearning to play myself, I didn't have the willpower or self-confidence to oppose them. It wasn't until I moved to another school district that I had the opportunity to actually play. I was thrilled that my first character rolled an 18/98 for strength. At the time I didn't realize how rare that stat was. Even though the character was a human male, I named him Galadriel because that was the only fantasy sounding name I could think of.