Why did you start the hobby?

[beldar1215]

I was in the Big Brothers program and my little brother kept talking about D&D. I had an employee who ran a game and asked if we could come and play. She let us join thier group and I was hooked after the first game. That was somewhere around 1989 I think. Still play almost every weekend with some of the people from that original group!!

Beldar

 

[Tilla the Hun (work)]

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

As did I - in the early 1980's

Ah the fun I had tormenting my older sister... (why did she let me gm??)

 

[Teflon Billy]

"Other" here.

I saw an "expose" on a news program sometime in the late 1980's about a game that made kids...

• Listen to Heavy Metal
• Worship the Devil
• Kill people
• Kill Each other

...at that point I knew I had found a home

D&D in my neck of the woods didn't start out as a geek pastime (though it morphed into that inside of two years).

It started out as something dangerous, psychotic badasses supposedly did

And I wanted to be consdiered a Dangerous, Psychotic Badass in the worst way (I was 12...come on!)

 

[spyscribe]

I was ambushed at the department Christmas party.

 

[PowerWordDumb]

By 1981, I had read the Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit more times than I had fingers to count with (I was 10 by the way).

I'd also discovered those "Choose your own Adventure" books, and loved the interactivity, but not often the scenarios presented therein.

When someone at school offered to show me this "D&D" game which combined the best of both interests, I was hooked. The next christmas, I'd begged and pleaded enough that my parents bought me the basic set and the modules B1-4. Reading the modules was almost as transporting as playing the game, but with a great feeling of knowing something hidden... so I took up DMing so that I would always be the one to know what hidden things were going on. Only recently have I returned to being a player with my new group.

 

[Lola]

I consider it an important step on the path to living completely in my own head, and finally getting taken to "the safe place." The walls are so soft there!

And partly because my brother and I are in eternal competition to "outgeek" each other.

And because it's fun to be badass enough to kill ogres. And take their stuff.

 

[Desdichado]

I guess I forgot "someone gave it to me" as an option. D'oh!

 

[roytheodd]

So, what caused you to first look at D&D anyway? What were you doing previously that was your avenue into the game; that caused D&D to be interesting, in other words? I may not have captured all of them, but what the hey.

...

Just started because friends were doing it.

It was the 1981-82 school year and I was in the fourth grade. Friends started talking about this game called AD&D. We tried emulating the game, but all we knew is the name, that it dealt with fantasy, and that the older kids were talking about playing it. That summer, my friend got the Fiend Folio and we tried again to play using just the one book and some six-sided dice. After summer, I got the D&D Basic Set in the red box and the rest is history.

 

[barsoomcore]

Fritz Leiber, JRR Tolkien, CS Lewis, and others. I blame it all on them.

 

[Anime Kidd]

Parents bought the Hero Quest game for christmas and then a few months later, my cousin got the 'Classic D&D' black box with the red dragon cover in the early 90s, which is now mine.