D&D General Which edition of D&D did you grow up with?

[5ekyu]

I'm likely with the minority in that I didn't "grow up" with D&D. In my first 25 years of roleplaying, I played a single AD&D campaign (Al Quadim) that lasted maybe 3-6 months. I've played dozens of other RPGs during that time, instead.

And then when 5E came out, we tried it out, and found it much more comfortable to work with than earlier editions. And one friend who was part of that, a brand new player and thus getting his first experience in RPGs with D&D 5E, decided that D&D was everything, and has used it to run several years' worth of games since then. So in that sense, 5E is the version of D&D that I've spent the most time playing.

He's still in the baby GM stage, though, where he's trying to modify D&D to be something different, but hasn't really grokked that other games exist (aside from Pathfinder), and that many are better suited to what he wants to do.

If I may ask, what were your other RPG starters and your early formative? Not D&D is just as interesting to me. I started with AD&D but black book Traveller was as big for us early.

 

[akr71]

The Basic D&D rules were the first ones in my home and my father, older brother and I dabbled with it. That would have been the late 70's. We bought the AD&D core books shortly after and I never looked back. I started playing AD&D with my friends in the 80's.

 

[Voadam]

Mention of Bargle in the iconic villians thread got me thinking about how back in the 80s, there were really two streams of D&D players: those who played BECMI and those who played AD&D; I was the latter, and thus had to look up Bargle. I had heard the name before, but didn't know who it was. It was curious to me that such an iconic figure (for BECMI) folks would barely register on my radar, despite playing since the early 80s.

***

One final note: I am less interested in your very first game, and more in which game you grew up with. Meaning, which was your "imprinting" phase? I'll take myself as an example: my very first session (in which I was ushered into the back of a VW bus by a group of kids at a Buddhist festival and handed a character sheet) was probably either Holmes or Moldvay--I can't remember as I was 8 or 9 years old--but then when I got into D&D (some family friends gave me their AD&D books, as they got into early video games - their loss, my gain), it was AD&D all the way. I bought a few BECMI modules over the years, but I was very much indoctrinated into AD&D.

Feel free to share any specifics or your "origin story" in the comments.

I have the reverse of your experience.

My first game was an AD&D 1e game but then my parents got me the Moldvay Basic set which I devoured and played. Later I came back to AD&D but the games were mostly Moldvay with lots of bits of AD&D added on.

 

[Blue]

I started with Red Box Basic. But barely played it - no group. The first version I played more than a little was AD&D. But the formative years of play were AD&D 2nd - we played so much and that's where I matured as a roleplayer.

 

[Guest 6801328]

I am less interested in your very first game, and more in which game you grew up with.

I asked my friend to ask his friend if his older brother could make a character for me. A week or so later a character sheet came back through the supply chain with my first (and maybe still most beloved) character: Eärrámë. My friends played AD&D, and it took me a while to figure out that the character was kind of a weird hybrid of BECMI and AD&D. It was a BECMI character sheet, and his class was "elf", but he had 18/33 strength. It was months before I figured out why things didn't make sense. I finally converted him to elven fighter/magic-user and was good from there.

 

[Ancalagon]

Based on the edition most chosen, I feel this is a bit of a demographic test...

2nd ed is what I grew up with, but my first rpg wasn't d&d, it was advanced fighting fantasy.

 

[Blackrat]

I started with 2e in ’99, but when 3e came along we switched to it. 3/3.5 is the one I grew up with.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

While AD&D 1e is my formative edition for the most part, we actually started with the Elmore redbox basic. For the first year or so we used B/X and 1e together in the same games. However we then dropped the B/X stuff for pure AD&D 1e. So Bargle and poor Aleena are well known to me.

 

[Agamon]

I started with B/X, but I don't think I'm grown up yet. So, all of the above?

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

Started with the classic Basic Red Box. Followed the BECMI series from there on out, or rather BECM, since we switched to AD&D 1e after the Masters Black Box. For whatever reason, we passed on the Immortals level of play.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Based on the edition most chosen, I feel this is a bit of a demographic test...

The valid conclusion to be drawn from any/all EN World Forum Polls:
ENWorlders are old.

I mean, seriously, 5e is selling better than every RPG in history combined, including itself.*
And we have 1 respondent here who started with it?
Sampling issue.







* technically impossible, I know, but that's how it feels.

 

[Ancalagon]

The valid conclusion to be drawn from any/all EN World Forum Polls:
ENWorlders are old.

I mean, seriously, 5e is selling better than every RPG in history combined, including itself.*
And we have 1 respondent here who started with it?
Sampling issue.

What is interesting is that the board seems pretty pro 5e overall, clearly the edition is appealing to older members?

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

The valid conclusion to be drawn from any/all EN World Forum Polls:
ENWorlders are old.

I mean, seriously, 5e is selling better than every RPG in history combined, including itself.*
And we have 1 respondent here who started with it?
Sampling issue.







* technically impossible, I know, but that's how it feels.

Youngins don't do forums these days, they are like old folks homes.

 

[RSIxidor]

Title of the thread and title of the poll itself have slightly different answers. I didn't play D&D as a kid. I started with 4E around 25 or 26. I loved it and hated it about equally. Now I play both 5E and Pathfinder and find that I also both love and hate each about equally. Somewhere in the middle I played some PBTA games (I realize not technically within the topic here) and I found I loved those more than I hated them but it's so easy to get someone to play a game of 5E or even a variant of 5E like AIME, so that's what I play the most.

 

[ART!]

I started with OD&D, but my most hard-core D&Ding - and memories thereof - are from AD&D. I am somewhat delighted to see AD&D getting about 50% of the votes.

 

[Tony Vargas]

What is interesting is that the board seems pretty pro 5e overall, clearly the edition is appealing to older members?

Absolutely. Appeal (or even mere acceptability) to established & returning players was one of the 90' waves in the perfect storm that swamped 4e, and they weren't about to repeat that mistake. 5e is a cunning/well-executed compromise among acceptability to the base, nostalgia for the returning player, and accessibility to the new.

(Also, I think one thing that's overlooked when considering 'appeal to new players,' is, however ironically, the importance of nostalgia. With a property that has a history & rep from a decades-ago fad, even new players often are drawn to it wanting that bygone experience - out of curiosity rather than nostalgia, but it demands the design make similar sacrifices. That kind of new player needs to hear the old-timers, however grumpily, acknowledging that, yes, this is the real thing.)

 

[Enrico Poli1]

The valid conclusion to be drawn from any/all EN World Forum Polls:
ENWorlders are old.

I mean, seriously, 5e is selling better than every RPG in history combined, including itself.*
And we have 1 respondent here who started with it?
Sampling issue.







* technically impossible, I know, but that's how it feels.

Exactly. I'm 41, but I didn't expect so many were in my age range.

Maybe Enworld needs to try to attract younger gamers...

 

[GreyLord]

I didn't really grow up with any of them per se, but my first exposure to D&D was with some people who were playing the Original Version. I didn't have any of the rules and just played as they played. There were boys around that allowed me in their little group of players.

I didn't get a set till later.

I eventually got the Original D&D but it was after I got the Basic Set that came out after them. It is sort of weird.

One of the oddities (and perhaps it is how we remember things) is I distinctly remember that the Holmes set that I originally received (didn't buy it, was given it) had in the rules that elves could be fighters or Magic-users but had to choose which one they were to be each adventure and could switch back and forth.

However, when I have asked later about it people say that was never in Holmes, and though I lost my original, the ones I have bought later have never had that rule in it either (elves basically play as they ended up being like in B/X instead). One of the weird things I've never been able to figure out.

 

[Twiggly the Gnome]

No sure how to answer this. I and my friends started with the red box, and muddled through a few sessions. We eventually got one of my friend's uncle to DM for us using 1E. Sometime later, I began to DM using a hybrid 1E/2E rule set. We got burned out on D&D, and branched out to other games. D&D adjacent, I ran a Alternity Dragonlance campaign. By the time 3E came around, I was pretty much "grown up".

 

[collin]

First game I played was basic D&D box set, circa late 1979. After that, I was introduced to AD&D 1e and went from there, playing fairly regularly during my later high school years and somewhat regularly during college (1e and 2e). I REALLY started taking an interest when 3e came out. I bought all of the books at that point.