Your First Gaming Book?

[The_lurkeR]

The first book I owned was Red Box Basic D&D set, when I was in 3rd grade also. Which I believe would put it around 1981.

I still remember lovingly coloring in the numbers on the dice with the crayon it came with... ahh memories... wish I still had those
I do still have the books though

 

[haiiro]

I think I was about 8 or 9, but I'm sure about the book -- actually, a boxed set: Avalon Hill's Lords of Creation. I didn't "get it" right away -- at the start, I thought the main point was equipping your character (and I still have, um, a gear fetish). In fact, I don't think I got it until a friend introduced me to red box D&D, at which point I realized I could be playing a good game and stopping playing LoC.

Good memories. I still have the dice. They were the old uninked variety, and I painted the numbers in with a toothpick and spray-sealed them. Damn, but they look awful.

 

[was]

I started late. I was 23 and just out of the service when I first read my brother's 2nd ed. PHB.

 

[The Grackle]

My very first AD&D book was the Fiend Folio, b/c my older brother already had all the useful books. The first non-D&D gamebook I ever bought was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Other Strangeness.

 

[Knightfall]

First roleplaying product -- Battle for the Ancient Robot. I forget how old I was. I loved that game, I still own it too. (Wish I could find where I put it.)

[EDIT]Looks like it was 1985 or soon thereafer.[/EDIT]

http://www.gamebooks.org/gallery/1on1_2box.jpg

Battle for the Ancient Robot
Book One: You Are E-Ben, Attack Robot from the Planet Cybos
Book Two: You Are Mikael, Earth's Greatest Star Pilot
Author: James M. Ward
Illustrators: Mark Nelson and Sam Grainger
First Published: June, 1985
ISBN: 0-394-54837-X
Length: 160 pages per book
Plot Summary: Champions of two star-faring races scour the galaxy for pieces of the Ancient Robot, a powerful and dangerous artifact of a lost civilization.

 

[TroyXavier]

ADND 2nd edition Players Handbook. When I got into gaming at 19.

 

[Daniel Knight]

I was 14. First book was the AD&D 2nd Edition Players (with the guy charging on his horse).

Ahhh... days long missed.

 

[Laman Stahros]

Late '70s ('78 or '79), basic d&d (the blue and white cover with dragon on it (could some Please tell me which version of basic that is, I can't seem to remember?)), quickly followed by the 1e ad&d hardbounds. Bye the bye, I was 15 (I think, I am so lousy with dates.).

 

[The Other Librarian]

The first I actually owned was the red box set, bought around age 12. Before that I had read friends books. And before that I played the Fighting Fantasy books, which I guess qualify as 'gamebooks'.

 

[Veritas]

In 1977, I was 12, and it was the Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set, with the colour box and blue/white rulebook (I think the same one as others are mentioning here). I quickly went on to AD&D after that.