Which year did you start playing D&D

[Krieg]

1979 - High School Game Club moderated by Sister Maria, the coolest nun ever and affectionately nicknamed the Dungeon Delving Daughter of Charity!

A priest and a nun who taught there were wargamrers.

1980 - During recess at my catholic elementary school.

Say what you want about Catholicism but ya gotta give it credit for never falling into the "D&D is the Devil!" trap.

Oh yea.....most of you seem to have started playing before I was born(1983)

I feel like a child. A lot of you guys were playing for some time at the day I was born...

Don't worry you're the ones who are going to carry D&D into the next millenium....and someday you'll be the old farts.

I was a young PFC newly arrived at the 1st Marine Division at Camp Pendleton, CA. I now work across the street from the barracks that I learned to play in. Unfortunately, my gaming group is currently deployed in Iraq. Hopefully, they will still be stationed here when they get back.

Sam

Semper Fi Master Guns

BTW what area at Pendleton? (Spent time at Margarita, Mainside & Edson.)

 

[Shadowdancer]

The summer of 1982. I was home from college. One of my friends from high school, who was also home from college, asked me if I wanted to play. He had just started playing while at college the previous year.

He and I still game together.

 

[Imhotepthewise]

1979. Blue Book. Natch. Diaglo would be pleased.

 

[Brain]

I think it was 1982.

 

[MonsterMash]

Promotes this in the ranks, to try to garner more contributions

 

[Dracomeander]

Winter Break of 1975-76. My cousin got it for Christmas, but it took us 'til the new year to digest the rules and find the time together to actually try an adventure.

Then when summer rolled around, we started a full campaign. Been playing with various groups ever since.

 

[DaveMage]

December 1980 (I was 10).


...been in debt since.

 

[Cecil Solomon]

Began in 1975, with mimeographed start-up rules and the basic set. First "official" dungeon entered was The Palace of the Vampire Queen.

 

[Mr. Lobo]

1977 I'm pretty sure.

I got the Holmes set. My Dad was into LoTR at the time and I tried to get him to DM for me (or was it the other way around?). Anyway, I ended up getting some friends of mine together to play and it was great! We even "recorded" our characters on an old cassette tape player I had. I'll never forget the first playback of that tape when one of my friends started his recording of his character with (imagine a very nasaly voice on tape with the tone set to high):

"My name...is Gandor...."

We fell out - it was so nerdy and funny at the same time. Another high point was when the hardback AD&D rulebooks started coming out and I got the MM. I went to the next session (I was DM) and gravely looked at my players with the new book open in front of me and said something like:

"Guys I hate to say this but we've playing this game all wrong..."

Even though it was printed plain as day I just couldn't get the concept that Basic and "Advanced" D&D were two different games for some reason.

And then I went to College Park with my Dad (he was getting a Masters at the time) on a Saturday afternoon so he could get some books at the college bookstore. That was the longest ride in my life and I bought the DMG! College Park was only about an hour away from where we lived but man it was far. I started reading the DMG on the way back in the car and thought to myself "Man, I know we've kind of skimped on the rules here and there but we really have been playing this game all wrong!"

I used to write up my "modules" in loose-leaf three hole punch notebook paper. Then I would make cover and end sheets, put 'em in my Dad's vice on the workbench, and use Elmer's wood glue to make a "binding". I still have some of those today. Sheesh. That campaign went all the way from the blue book and lasted about three years with heavy gaming up to four times a week (we were in high school back then).

Those were fun times.

 

[Bigwilly]

Around about 1984

Could even have been '83 but I only started roleplaying in '82 and that was with what is now 'Classic' Traveller. My friends and I spent a good couple of years playing through all the published Traveller adventures as well as a good number of homebrew ones. We also dipped our toes into a variety of other RPGs (including Paranoia and Judge Dredd), before I kicked off an AD&D campaign that went on for the next two years until I graduated from university and moved away from my home town.

Bigwilly