Why did you start the hobby?

[DaveStebbins]

1980. Some friends and I went down to the local coffeehouse for Tuesday evening game night. We saw some college kids playing this game at a table in the corner and just hung out and listened (quietly). It sounded like loads of fun, even though we had no idea what was going on.

Next week when we showed up, one of the college kids took us aside and showed us how to roll up characters and play. We were immediately hooked and bought the AD&D PHB from one of the other players (who always had a trunk full of stuff to sell). The first guy DMed for us for about three game sessions (weeks), then said we had it down pretty well and went back to his group. My friends nominated me as DM and we started playing at our own table after that.

-Dave

 

[Steverooo]

I wanted to be a RANGER!!!

I'd had friends who played, in high school, but without a car, I never got to. They RPGed, I hiked. In college, I finally got invited to a game. Of course, I became a Ranger. That PC never died, but I had to quit playing him several years later, as 33rd level PCs were "too hard to handle", back in the 1e days...

I had wanted to play for a long time, before getting into my first game. Still do...

Why? Too much Fantasy & Sci-Fi, I guess, and too little hiking & camping...

 

[johnsemlak]

I voted 'fantasy books and novels' The most influential of which were the Chronicles of Narnia and Tolkien's books.

However, the primary impetus for starting must be my Grandmother getting me the game when I was 10 as a present (bless her heart )

 

[Cthulhu's Librarian]

My Mom gave me the Otus cover Basic Set for my 10th birthday. Little did she know what havoc she was setting into motion...

I had seen the LoTR animated film a a few years earlier, and from that point on I had been very excited every time the animated Hobbit was shown on TV, and my Uncle read bits and pieces of the LoTR to my cousin & I. When I was in 3rd grade, I tried reading the Hobbit for the first time, and it took me FOREVER, but I finished it. The next year, my Mom, who is a teacher, saw ads for it in a kids science magazine called Odyssey, and she bought it for me, thinking it would keep me occupied for a while. Well, I may have been occupied, but I also became a pain in the butt for her, always begging her to buy a new RPG book everytime we went to the mall. Didn't matter what book, but I had to have something.

 

[MerakSpielman]

I voted Computer Games, but it's really a tie with that and books. My dad read the whole family fantasy books from a very young age - from as long ago as I can remember. I remember him reading The Prydain Chronicles to mom, me, and my brother when I was, like, four. But I also remember playing through the Bard's Tale series of computer games at a young age. I guess I just have fantasy in my blood.

 

[Celtavian]

re

I received the Red Basic Set Box for Christmas and haven't stopped playing since.

 

[hunter1828]

I became interested when I started reading Real World mythology and legends, mostly Arthurian legends, plus some Robin Hood, and also Greek, Roman, Egyptian and Scandinavian/Germanic mythology.

My dad had the old blue box Basic Set but never had time to game, so after only owning it a month or so he gave it to me becaue of my interest in mythology and legends. That was 1977 and I was introduced to two things: Star Wars and D&D. The world has never been the same since.

hunter1828

 

[takyris]

Voted for friends, but it was really a combination of that and books.

 

[Aeolius]

Back around 1979, I was pilfering in my oldest brother's closet, where he and my other older brother kept books, comics, and other hobby-related materials. There on the top shelf, still wrapped in plastic, was the Basic D&D boxed set. Being the youngest of three brothers, it was only natural to "borrow" the unused D&D set. Within days of my discovery and with no knowledge of my find, my best friend purchased the Basic set at a local toy store, thus I feel that my introduction to D&D was serendipitous destiny.

Years later, my oldest brother took a somewhat closed-minded view towards D&D and other activities he viewed as tools of "the occult"; a view which he carries to this day. I am ever so glad that I was there to "rescue" that Basic set, before he burned it.

(I did end up burning his entire model rocket collection, after he had tired of them and had moved on to a new hobby, but that's a different story)

 

[Bloodsparrow]

As I've said before in other threads, it was a few weeks after meeting the gal who would become my best friend. She had played before with an ex-boyfriend and I was a total Drama Geek who had watched the cartoon. We had met because of a guy who she had a crush on when he was working on a play I was in at the time. ("Into the Woods", I was Little Red Riding Hood and he was in the orchestra.)

She and I were at a Gamekeeper that had a manager who was really into D&D, and he was having a "Summer Fantasy Festival" where he held games in the store for about a week. (He also had a "name that monster" contest... We went back to her house and she dug out her Monstrous Manual for me to look through... It was a beholder and I won a Ral Partha Imports miniature of a Barbarian. )

It appealed to my desire to "act out" as it were. Particularly when I started to shift more towards the technical side of theatre.