Who Started Playing D&D Indirectly?

[Shemeska]

I was familiar with the D&D cartoon and the Endless Quest books from TSR well before I started playing around the advent of 3e.

 

[Imperialus]

Oh, and I forgot to mention Hero Quest.

My friends and I actually turned it into something resembling a proper role playing game years before I ever touched a D&D book.

 

[Dav]

I think my first exposure to the D&D party system was some scifi (or fantasy) novel as a kid which introduced me to the concept of the cleric character.

I also read Niven's Dream Park series which had like a professional LARPing system.

I saw the first Dungeons & Dragons movie sometime after it came out on video, I didn't think much about it as an actual game.

I finally got into roleplaying via the Wheel of Time RPG with some friends, but I had to quit after a month because of the gaming schedule, and then I started Star Wars d20, my best and longest lasting game. Over the summer, we took a hiatus on the SW game and I finally played my first D&D game set in FR where I was a cleric.

So it took me a while from my first interest in the topic to finally playing literal D&D.

 

[PeelSeel2]

I was in a Walden's book store in 1982 and the saw the Moldvay Red box edition of Basic D&D. I did not quite understand what it was, but I wanted it. Luckily, my mom bought it for me. I spent about three weeks with little bits of crushed paper and rolled up characters trying to go through 'Keep on the borderlands' by moving the pieces of paper along the dungeon paths, rolling for random encounters, and invariably dying in combat. Right after that we moved to a new town, and the first people I met in school by chance also played D&D. They had a little bit better grasp on it in that they actually had a group that met to play. We where all 8th graders. Those where the days of Villains and Vigilantes, and D&D.

 

[Mark]

We were playing boardgame based wargames and miniatures wargames when someone brought this new game to the recreation center where our wargaming club met weekly in 1974.

 

[Amphimir Míriel]

I was a huge fan of NES titles like Zelda, Final Fantasy, Dragon Warrior and Willow.

Once, I met a guy through a mutual friend and while I was explaining how the Shadowgate game worked, he smiled and said "Hah, thats exactly how the Dungeons and Dragons game works!"

I first thought he was talking about another videogame, but he invited me over to his place and we rolled up a character...

While this guy is probably the worst DM I have ever played with, I will be forever grateful to him for introducing me to tabletop RPGs

 

[Henrix]

I got into it because my F*LGS had it in -79 when I was lured into the store by the miniatures and SF books, and I asked what it was and got referred to a club where they played it.

So, minis got me into D&D and roleplaying.


* Well, 50% friendly. The guy who directed me to the club did so mostly because he didn't want to explain it. He really hated customers. The other owner was very friendly, though, and is still a friend.


I sort of got back thanks to Baldur's Gate. I hadn't played D&D since 2Ed came out, but played Baldur's Gate and got some sort of longing for it. (Plenty of other RPGs and other games, though.)
Then a friend started DMing 3rd ed when it came out, and I was hooked again.

 

[wingsandsword]

I kinda did. . .

When I was about 11 or 12, I already was a big fan of the console RPG's of that day (Final Fantasy, Dragon Warrior, Legend of Zelda ect.). I'd bought the Hero Quest rpg/boardgame and played it with a friend a lot, but I'd heard rumors and chatter about this other game called Dungeons and Dragons.

But I wasn't allowed to play D&D, my well-meaning father had heard in church a decade prior a sermon about how D&D is satanic and evil and makes kids commit suicide and worship Satan. Well, he didn't know anything other than that about D&D and didn't take kindly to me browsing the rack of D&D books at our local bookstore.

However, when I was at a toy store one time, I saw a cartridge of the NES port of Pool of Radiance, and I thought I could get away with buying that game and sneaking it under the radar. I did, he didn't pay any attention to what I did on the Nintendo, so I played Pool of Radiance for many, many hours. It was pretty literally built on 1e AD&D rules, although it did give me some kind of skewed attitudes (after several years of playing that game my PC's were at 5th and 6th level, the highest levels allowed in the game, being utterly stunned when I met actual D&D players and they said their PCs in their current game were 11th and 12th level, which seemed utterly godlike and beyond anything I had ever seen).

 

[megamania]

My first exposure to it was the cartoon.

Then various comicbooks hinted at the DnD style fantasy.

Then came the animated movie- Fire & Ice

Then a friend of mine tried to get me to try Champions but I declined at the time. I wanted to use my own comicbook characters and he said they were too powerful.

Then a friend of mine and comcicbook / DnD shop owner gave me a book and said to read it, come by Friday night and try it. If I don't like it return the book. If I like it, the book is 50%.

That was like 20 years ago......... Ravenloft, Darksun, Forgotten Realms, Torg, Champions, Hero, CoC, Homebrews, Greyhawk and now Eberron and my own homebrews........ oye.

 

[Roman]

My first (A)D&D experience came in the form of the CRPG Dark Sun: Shattered Lands (and boy was that game good!). I think that was in 1993 or 1994. I started playing the PnP version of 2E AD&D a few years later - perhaps in 1995 or thereabouts. I should note, however, that I had already been playing PnP prior to my encounter with Dark Sun: Shattered Lands, but it wasn't (A)D&D.