Your intro to RPGs

[El Mahdi]

I'd always heard about D&D but never knew anyone in school who played. After I joined the Air Force I would see the books in the AAFES bookstore all the time, but was reticent to buy them because they said "Advanced" D&D. I eventually found out some of my co-workers had a group that played. They walked me through making a character, I jumped into the middle of their campaign (they were playing Temple, Tower, and Tomb), killed a Stone Golem...and I was hooked!

 

[Achan hiArusa]

Sixth grade, in Florida at Lincoln Sixth Grade center in the gifted pod, year 1984. The guys started chanting D&D and had found the teacher's copy of the Holmes Boxed set. We played B2 Keep on the Borderlands and I played a thief who stole the ring from the Hermit.

 

[alms66]

I had a friend lend me his AD&D 2E players handbook. I read it, made a character (with his help), and joined in his group.

Looking back on it now, with all the systems I've played and owned, I wish my first experience would have been with something *not* D&D. It's towards the bottom of my totem pole when it comes to systems I want to use these days.

For a good old-school dungeon dive though, my group does usually pull out the D&D for that, not that we do that very often, but, just sayin' "if the shoe fits..."

 

[dvvega]

My first knowledge of RPGs was AD&D but I did not realise what it was.

I was about 8 at the time.

A lot of weekends my mother would go with me into the city by train and take me to the biggest bookstore at the time. I would browse and read and it was the best thing for me. Since I had been reading from age 3 I was browsing all sections of the store.

Then one day as we were leaving I saw this stand with a red demon idol hanging over the top that had books on it. I said to myself "i want to see that". My mother dragged me off "oh no you do not". That demon idol was a big negative obviously. I did sneak a look at a later time but of course would never be allowed to own a book.

Two years later a friend gave a talk on Basic D&D (the single book/module/dice box - was it pink?). Some friends got together to play and so history was made. I went out and bought the boxed set with birthday money during one of our school holidays and read the rules through and began imagining.

So my first intro was the idol-stand in the store. My first game was me DMing my friends through Keep on the Borderlands (the module that came in the box).

Of course my friends contend that the talk started us on D&D, but I quietly remembered that idol calling to me from the back of the bookstore.

About 6 months later my mother was on a business trip (her first) and allowed me to put an order in for a gift. I just asked for the 3 AD&D books in print that I knew of ... she came back with 5 (PHB,DMG,MM,FF,DDG).

D

 

[Stormonu]

My dad called me in the room for a news segment on the NBC nightly news. They were reporting on the case about the guy who disappeared in the steam pipes, and were showing pictures from Gencon - with dwarven-forge-like dungeons filled with minis.

I remember shouting I wanted that game for Christmas. Even more surprisingly, considering what the news was about, I got the Holmes set along with two boxes of minis. The rules were over my head, but damn it was fun playing with the minis. And we drew our own wilderness/castle/dungeon on my mom's [ame="http://www.amazon.com/Cardboard-Pattern-Sewing-Cutting-Board-36/dp/B000G6DY2Y/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1311727454&sr=8-1"]folding sewing pattern board[/ame]. I really didn't "get" the rules until about 2-3 years later. Until then, my friends and I just talked out our adventures; no mechanics, no dice rolls.

This was back in '79 I think, when I was in 4th grade, and I loved those weird, wacky games. It's where my best friend's wizard character - Stormonu - came from .

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I've posted this many times and in many threads:

Regardless of how, why or frequency, don't let it bug you.

My very first game of D&D- waaaaay back in the library of East Middle School in Aurora, Colorado in 1977- concluded with my human fighter and another guy's human Mage (down to his last MM spell) facing off against a Purple Worm.

We tried to back out of the room, but it was hungry and we were on the menu.

So the Mage launched his MM while my guy positioned himself between his ally and the worm.

My dice went cold- the Mage actually was doing more damage with his darts and then his staff than my fighter's 2Hd sword. Finally, I got a couple of solid whacks in that really turned the tide of battle.

Then the Worm got a 20...and et the Mage.

A few more rounds go by with the fighter and Worm trading blows. Then came the round in which the 2 combatants had simultaneous initiative...and my guy was down to 4HP.

I rolled poorly, the DM rolled another 20- end of game.

I was bummed for 2/100000ths of a second, but the way things went was sooooooo cool that everyone in the room was stoked.

As we were cleaning up, the DM revealed that the Purple Worm had been whittled down to 4HP as well. It didn't matter- I was hooked and I knew it.

 

[Ulrick]

I started when I was ten years old. But my older brother and his friends had been playing at least 4 years before that. I'd watch them play sometimes but they wouldn't let me join in. Once, I clipped some He-Man pictures from a coloring book on my brother's Dungeon Master's Screen just prior to one of his sessions. I thought they'd look neat. But he took down most of them.

Sometimes I'd sneak a peak at his books. They were truly forbidden tomes. I remember that I could read some of it. But Gygax's diction was far beyond my 6-7 year old brain. The pictures were both puzzling and mysterious. Once, at a restaurant, I imitated the creature on the back of the Dieties and Demigods book,by letting spaghetti hang from my mouth. My mother didn't like that.

I do remember flipping through the Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh and seeing the floor plans of the Haunted House and the Sea Ghost and being somewhat scared.

I remember watching the cartoon on Saturday mornings and wanting to play. But my brother kept saying: "Maybe when you're older."

Finally, when I turned 10, my brother came home from college one day and ran me through a brief solo adventure. My first character was Havok the Dwarf. We only played 2-3 times, one-on-one sessions, before my brother just got too busy to come home very much. But I was hooked. Still am.

 

[Tinker Gnome]

It was the Summer of 2002 and I was 13 going on 14 and my brother asked me if I was interested in playing Dungeons and Dragons with one of his friends. He asked if I would rather play a Wizard or a Sorcerer, he explained the difference between them to me "Wizards get more spells, but can cast them less often, and Sorcerers get less spells, but can cast them more often". I picked a Sorcerer. My first character was a 5th Level Lawful Good Elven Sorcerer. One of my favorite moments when playing him was casting the fireball spell for the first time and wiping out a whole mass of Orcs.

 

[Pheonix0114]

In my senior year of high school I discovered dnd via Baldur's Gate which I decided to play after playing every other Bioware game at the time (except for NWN). This was 2008. I then was stoked on the rules of the game, looked it up online and found the 4e character builder. Me and some friends made some level ones, battled them with each other, and then quit.

The next fall, during my second year of college a guy in my biology class was talking about it one day and I asked to play, he was finishing up a campaign at the time and told me to wait and when they started a new one he would let me know. About a month later I had kinda forgotten about it when he said that I should hang around after class to build my character. I made a half-elf cleric that used mostly ranged spells (4e laser cleric) that was geared to heal. We played for only 4-5 sessions when that game fell apart, but I was hooked and eventually borrowed his books to start dm-ing on my own.

 

[Mark CMG]

The three little booklets in 1974 with some friends in the neighborhood after seeing some older guys play at a local game club. Fun but who knew it would amount to anything?