When and how did you learn to play D&D?

[YourSwordIsMine]

1985 AD&D1e by group osmosis

I used to hang out in our local library who had all the AD&D books on the shelves, and I would stand there looking at them for hours. One day, this guy asked if he could see the book I was looking at. He said he needed to look something up for a game he was in. I asked him where he played and he said there was a game going on right now in one of the meeting rooms. He took me back and introduced me to the DM who happened to be the husband of the Head Librarian. I sat down, they walked me through rolling up a character and thus I played my first game of D&D. Throg Oxenbash, Human Fighter, Wisdom 3. I played weekly for the next 4 months until my family moved out of the area.

Despite later owning the AD&D books, I didn't play D&D in any form until 2000 with 3.0. From then it was a combination of reading and osmosis. I wasn't introduced to B/X until 2009, and it has now become my favorite edition.

 

[MJS]

I learned by reading Unearthed Arcana in 7th grade. It was completely confusing.

you poor soul....what a tome to start with!

 

[Serendipity]

I acquired the Holmes boxed set in the fall of 1980 but it was a friend of a friend who actually had to come over and explain how to play the game (my initial concept of gameplay was a bit borked to say the least). Mind, he started us on 1e AD&D.
Within a year I scored a copy of the Moldvay Basic set which filled in some blanks in terms of explaining things. Mind, I was in single digits age wise at the time, so I feel I did pretty well for myself.

 

[EricNoah]

In the 70s, and I was initiated by my brother, who was initiated by some school friends. Later I initiated some of my friends.

 

[Weather Report]

1986, AD&D, my older brother's friends.

Most memorable encounter: Algoid (1st Ed Fiend Folio).

 

[DaveMage]

1981. My parents bought the basic set as a gift for me.

If they had only known what they were starting....

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Circa 1981, taught myself with the Moldvay Basic rulebook.

 

[Umbran]

In the early 1980s, and not by group/osmosis or by the product. My brother brought it for us one X-mas when he was in undergrad, and he actively taught me, my other brother, and my friends.

He actually had introduced us to RPGs some years earlier with Tunnels and Trolls, again, actively engaging us kids, as something we could do together that we'd all be interested in.

I have a pretty cool brother.

 

[Gilladian]

Circa 1975, my older brother got hooked in Boy Scouts; when banned from playing there (they stayed up all night!) he came home, wrote the rules down as he remembered them, and made me play with him. It was months before we got hold of a set of basic rules (I think he learned on the the three original books) and a set of GEOMORPHS! I still remember gazing with awed amazement at them in the car on the way home from the hobby store, and reading aloud the encounter tables. Giant RATS! It was so thrilling! I voted "70's and osmosis" because really, we did a pretty good job on our own before we had a real set of rules.

 

[innerdude]

The same way all TRUE PLAYERS OF THE ONE TRUE WAY OF DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS learned to, of course.

The BECMI Red Box!