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Wraithy
2007-08-28, 09:05 AM
were you introduced? did you just pick up the books? what edition did you start? what mistakes did you make? what was your first character?

Glawackus
2007-08-28, 09:09 AM
My friends introduced me to 3.0, although I held out on getting a PHB and dice until 3.5 ('cause I didn't want to buy a 3.0 book and then have to deal with whatever changes happened).

My first character was an elven ranger in my friend's FR campaign. I made the mistake of getting cocky when a Drow put a knife to my throat. Talk about a great way to start. :S

ALOR
2007-08-28, 09:10 AM
About 16 years ago (has it been that long???), a former friend of mine had learned the game at Boy Scouts. We called it D&D but it was nothing close to it. It wasn't until 1 or 2 years latter when we got the old rules cyclopedia that we actuly started playing D&D. Still what ever game we were playing it was fun. On a side note it also took us years to figure out how to read a d4.

smellie_hippie
2007-08-28, 09:14 AM
21 years ago.
Dungeons and Dragons box set.
Played it on my folks back patio when I was in 6th grade.

Castaras
2007-08-28, 09:21 AM
Got a case of the "Me too!"s when I was...8/9ish, and wanted to do what my mum and dad did. Which was play D&D.

Archonic Energy
2007-08-28, 09:30 AM
actual D&D
GitP UK meetup 1

i was a sorceror.
i casted sleep alot.

Near D&D
Baldurs Gate

i was a wizard.
i casted fireball alot.

GimliFett
2007-08-28, 09:33 AM
[old man rant]
Back in mah day, we didn't have all these fancy books. We had two: The Player's Guide and the DM's guide and they came in a red box with some cheesy plastic dice that you had to mark with this wax crayon-like thing in order to make the numbers stand out well-enough to read. And ya know what? WE LIKED IT!
[/old man rant]

Seriously, what got me started was the 4th D&D Choose Your Own Adventure book: Return to Brookmere. One of my friends in Cub Scouts gave it to me for my 8th birthday. I musta read through that thing at least 50 times (I think there were only 10 endings). A year later, a friend and I would walk to the local comic shop and we came across D&D's Red Box. We played that pretty much daily until we could afford our first hardback book: The 1st ed Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Player's handbook. Even better!

One of the things I still miss from the Red Box was being able to just randomly create a solo adventure. Most of our family trips I sat in the back seat of our suburban listening to tapes and rolling up random dungeons and beating monsters and traps. Greatness!

My first character was an Elf, Glancer Lightbow. I played various incarnations of Glancer (among others) through the release of 2nd Edition.

Charity
2007-08-28, 09:34 AM
~casts his mind back~
Oops I might have needed that
*slump*


In my second year of junior school, my teacher Mrs Golding introduced the precocious little joker to a more constructive creative outlet than disrupting her class... she was a wiley lady... and to all my GM's past and future.. IT'S ALL HER FAULT!


This was of course between hunting mammoths and cave painting 101

fleafly
2007-08-28, 09:42 AM
I had a friend in high school who introduced it to me. We played a couple times but nothing extensive. I've been in a full time group for about a year and i've loved every minute of it. I'm still getting the hang of my new characters and all their attributes though.

TheBoneSplitter
2007-08-28, 10:21 AM
I watched my Mom play that (I may have) when I was young, and it was also how I got into M:TG... but all I played were the old SSI games, briefly played Baldur's Gate I & II, and playing the crap out of NWN. I'm STILL patiently waiting to get into table top, and I have a very good understanding of the rules and know how fun table top can be versus a computer game.

PlatinumJester
2007-08-28, 10:25 AM
When I was 8 I found an old version in a charity shop. I then went round my brother's house who DMed a session for me and his flat mates.

Zephra
2007-08-28, 10:31 AM
three words: My older brother.

It's self explanitory. He also got me into MTG. I have been corrupted.
w00t!

Gaelbert
2007-08-28, 10:32 AM
A few years ago, some of my friends from Boy Scouts introduced me to Dragonlance. In the back of the anthology Dragons in the Archives I noticed an adventure. I didn't know how to read the stuff, but it interested me. I tried to make my own roleplaying system, but it didn't work out too well. Then, one day, I noticed D&D for Dummies was mistakenly placed in the Dragonlance area. I picked it up, and bought it. Soon after, I bought the other 3.5 rulebooks.

Zaggab
2007-08-28, 10:36 AM
I think it was 4 years ago. Some of my friends started playing a Swedish rpg (Drakar och Demoner ~ Dragons and Demons), and dragged me into it. I was like "meh", but one of my friends though it was teh coolest uber thing.

This friend had played Baldur's Gate 1 & 2, Neverwinter Nights and Icewind Dale, and had liked them. So when he saw DnD, he immediately bought a bunch of books, and dragged me into it. I had also played the above games and liked them (BG2 is probably my favorite game of all time), so it wasn't hard for him to it.

Though we hardly knew what we were doing (and my friend cannot exactly be called a good DM), but it was fun. Eventually we played several times per week with a bunch of people (very fluctuating group). But since none of has really read the rule books, and we weren't the most mature or experienced players, it was a little unusual. We did virtually nothing but fight. Everyone powergamed, even though we hardly knew the rules. The character creation rules were: nothing stupid, 4d6 drop lowest, free 18, no stat under 12. And we gained levels very fast, but hardly any treasure (because the DM though it was ridiculous amounts of money).

My first character were Quizzo the half-elf sorcerer, with no no stat under 15. He had a questionably high bluff skill, so I bluffed myself to everything "That is really my sword" *bluff 40+* *sense motive 20* "Why, it is, here you go!". He eventually became the mayor of a small town, the ruler of a keep, unofficial leader of the group and became known as a half-god to some.

Good times.

Edit: I forgot to say it was DnD 3.5

Draken
2007-08-28, 10:40 AM
Hehe, my story is odd.

It started when I saw the Monster manual 3.0 on a store, I loved to read about monster, but had never ever heard apout RPG, in fact, even after buying the book it took me a long time to find out what D&D was.

Then, it took me a few more time until I found out about RPG, I had the MM already, had a considerable understanding of how the monster sheets worked, and wanted to buy the DMM (Yes. I was buying the books at the wrong order XD) but the DMM I got had a printing problem, and I exchanged it for a PHB.

After that, the rest is pretty obvious.

Reinboom
2007-08-28, 10:41 AM
Eye of the Beholder for the SNES.. er.. sort of.
Amusing to me now, due to remembering I kept rerolling characters everytime high dex showed because it made my AC lower. And of course the rest of the game was automated so I didn't quite understand it.

Next helping came in baldur's gate, which fortunately by then I figured out enough of the game from my mishaps with Eye of the Beholder to actually get it somewhat right.

Then I discovered the new group of friends I made (my MtG friends) also played AD&D, somewhat, and got a game rolling there. This was 2003. We had never heard of 3rd edition, and we kept passing it up when we finally did.

3.5 came last fall (skipped 3) when I discovered thee largest club at my college was something called the "role player's guild".

wadledo
2007-08-28, 10:43 AM
The first time I saw Dnd, I had to DM for a friend, with 4 veterans (3 of whom where older girls [I was 13 at the time :smallredface:]) and 3 new players.
I completely botched it, and made so many off the top of my head calls (you use summon natures ally 1? Moles pop out of the ground around the dragon and start trying to eat its feet. roll 7 d2's) that the veterans where trying not to piss themselves, while the noobs where probably never going to play again.
Afterwards I found out from the original DM that they loved the session and hoped I could DM again soon.
I ended up joining their group as an ancient elf cleric who thought he used to be a god, and basically worshiped himself (Oh mighty me, bestow unto yourself cure light wounds so I may heal my comrades in battle).
hilarity ensued.

freeze43
2007-08-28, 10:47 AM
Roughly 6 or 7 years ago I lived in England, and at that point a bunch of my friends were doing DnD and suggested I started. I decided to go with barbarian dwarf, and found that writing up the background and what have you was very rewarding and very enjoyable. I ended up writing his life history, interweaving it with the rest of the team and made a suggestion for a large quest to the DM. The first session was all of 30 minutes and was the extremely typical sandbox "beat up everyone in the bar" type thing- is that a rite of passage to play dnd or what? Anyway, I didn't do *that* well, fighting a half orc and nearly losing. Thankfully I was saved, beheaded the half orc and that was that. It was a shame of sorts, because that was the only DnD session I had with them (years later I even made a sorceror, but being that I was only in the country for a couple of weeks, that too never eventuated).
However, the other guys played as my character, and at an ambush my guy saved the day, going absolutely beserk (go figure) and slicing up 8 very capable opponents, even when at negative hitpoints managed to slice in two the last guy. The character was a success, and I painted up a dwarf minature. He was never used. Years past, I moved to Australia, and realised that I enjoyed creating perhaps more than playing, and that I loved the group aspects it could deliver, so I bought the 3.5 core books off amazon and the rest they say is history.

nagora
2007-08-28, 10:47 AM
were you introduced? did you just pick up the books? what edition did you start? what mistakes did you make? what was your first character?

My brother bought the original little brown books, didn't have time to run it and gave them to me. A friend and I struggled a bit but probably the biggest blunder I remember was reading out the descriptions of rooms from the first adventure module (Thieves of Badabaskor) including the bits about where the secret doors were!:smalleek:

Nagora was the first character I had that survived past 3rd level and over the course of about 10 real-world years made it to 13th; the characters before him are lost to history. At least until I clear my old boxes out of the loft.

Alyorbase
2007-08-28, 10:52 AM
I watched a friend of mine play in sessions at his college dormroom (I was in high school at the time) and it kinda got me interested in the game. so me and my friend and his younger brother along with a few others ran a campaign. Then I was asked by my friends college group to join them as well. We played in 3.0 or at least when I started playing we were.

First character was a Half-orc Barbarian/1 level of Ranger named Shump. Made the mistake of trying to use an orc double-axe with the ranger TWF feats, later switched to taking the "Monkey Grip" feat and wielding a Greataxe, and shortsword in offhand. Wierdest thing ever, but somehow it worked. Also crit'd on the sorceror for turning my new Greataxe pink with prestidigitation. DM had to rule that I was using non-lethal damage and that I knocked him out for about 3 days. (we were 1st level at the time)

Wraithy
2007-08-28, 10:54 AM
hmm, D&D seems to travel through the scouts alot. It makes me wonder how many sessions were played during the world scout jamboree.

I never joined the scouts (though I do play a scout in D&D regularly), the only reason I know about the jamboree is because it was held near where I live this year (but honestly who would call anything a jamboree?).

GimliFett
2007-08-28, 10:56 AM
hmm, D&D seems to travel through the scouts alot. It makes me wonder how many sessions were played during the world scout jamboree.

I never joined the scouts (though I do play a scout in D&D regularly), the only reason I know about the jamboree is because it was held near where I live this year (but honestly who would call anything a jamboree?).
{emphasis mine}

You a funny man, Dokta Chones! :smallwink:
Jamboree (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/jamboree).
I dunno, I guess because the term is at least 60 years old or something.

OverdrivePrime
2007-08-28, 10:58 AM
I'm loving reading people's origin stories. As for me, back in '91, my friend Mark invited me over to his place to play a game from the 2nd edition starter set. I was a Fytor type guy. Full plate, and packing steel! I had fun, but it was too much set up for the other guys, so we didn't wind up playing again.

Anyway, about two months later, I was talking about Highlander with a couple friends of mine. Keith mentioned how his character in a D&D game would be a much cooler character to have in the show than some random cameo guy who was Duncan MacLeod's friend from somewhere. Sam mentioned that he'd been playing D&D at his old middle school for a few years, and was looking to run a game. I immediately volunteered, and Keith was in like Flynn.

We played Sam's AD&D 2nd edition game for some three years running. Keith was an archer style fighter (drow) with every speed cheese in the books. I played Gareth Stormfury, a fighter with the Barbarian Kit. Somehow, our adventures lasted for three years, despite neither of us being a skill monkey or a magic user. It was heaps of fun, and inspired me to design and run the first of my own worlds.

MostlyHarmless
2007-08-28, 11:01 AM
It was the 70s. I think I was in 3rd grade. I don't recall exactly how it started. I had a friend with similar interests and I think he got me into it with the Basic D&D set. What I do know for certain is that I bought that set and the Expert set and then pretty much all the hardback 1e books and numerous modules. I would hang out at a bookstore in the mall which was three blocks from my house . They carried D&D products and I would pore over the shelves of awesome goodness.

My first character? I think he was a fighter or ranger I named Taran after the Prydain Chronicles icon. I also named my second and third characters Taran as well. What can I say? I was like 8.

Then my friend moved away and nobody else I knew was interested in D&D so I turned to solo play and just designing characters for fun. I drafted huge castles for my 25/25/25 F/MU/C. And every one of my characters was somehow interrelated. It was pretty sad, looking back on it.

In junior high and high school, my interests turned to other things, but housemates in college drew me back in to play 1e and 2e. Then I left and didn't play until I found some online games and 3.0 emerged. My interest waxed again and that's where we're at now. I'm biding my time until my kids are old enough to show an interest. You know what they say, if you can't find players, breed them. :smallwink:

GimliFett
2007-08-28, 11:07 AM
I'm biding my time until my kids are old enough to show an interest. You know what they say, if you can't find players, breed them. :smallwink:

Absolutely, AMEN, Brother! :smallwink:
I started an Eberron game this summer specifically to teach my 8-year-old son (b-day Friday, #9!) and work on my wife's mechanics. He's playing a Warforged Paladin named Hammer (he wanted to do some magick-y things, so Paladin was the easiest way to do it, while keeping him simple, aka still a melee-er). He just made 3rd level, and we've finished their second adventure.

It's been fun, as well as frustrating at times. But that's the way it goes. Now if I could only get him to love reading as much as I did when I was his age (I swear I read every fiction book in my elementary, middle and high schools).

Dragonrider
2007-08-28, 11:22 AM
My brother and I were 9 and 11 at our uncle's house when we got too wound up for our mom to deal with. Uncle Tom sat us down with paper and pencil and set us to rolling up characters with our cousin - "If you calm down and do this, I'll teach you to play." He told us what to do and then left us there for three hours. When he came back, he said "you ready?" and proceeded to do a dungeon with us. We were all fighters. :smalltongue: Two elves and a half-orc.

That was AD&D.....Uncle Tom sent us home with the rulebooks and two sets of dice, and we taught my brother's best friend, who was eight. The three of us would spend about four afternoons a week in ridiculously contrived dungeons, and since our mothers made us include our little brothers (aged five and four!) we would try to play in such a way that they hated it and didn't want to play anymore, and we had a good time.

Wow. Long time ago.

My brother's friend came to visit a couple weeks ago, and we played again. It's way more satisfying now that we're all old enough to roleplay - with four of us (the 5-year-old is now 10), we have three characters and a DM, and it was fun.


@ MostlyHarmless: I named all my early characters all after Lord of the Rings and Prydain characters as well. That was my main source of fantasy so I figured, why not? So I had Arwen and Eilonwy and all that. Of course, my youngest brother is named Taran (not after the character, but sort of inspired by him).

de-trick
2007-08-28, 11:30 AM
I started a year and a bit ago

so 3.5

Walking home my friends would talk about D&D. They started about 2 months earlier than me. They wanted a different friend to play but he didn't want to because he didn't want to become a addicted to D&D, So I ask my friends and they gave me a Trial of what to do in these problems, I passed and the next day I went to the DM's house friends step-dad, I asked and he gave me a shot, but it was funny because I am book smart, but act really dumb some time so I said something stupid and he asked can you breath on your own

SMEE
2007-08-28, 11:52 AM
D&D portuguese red box.
That was in 1997, and I blame a good friend of mine for bringing it to my home during a boring saturday. :smalltongue:

Penguinsushi
2007-08-28, 11:54 AM
Played some whitewolf in high school, decided i liked rpg's.

Was invited to a play in a group at college.

We eventually got around to d&d 3.0

Since then I've contaminated most of my friends...

~PS

StickMan
2007-08-28, 12:17 PM
I started by playing Star wars role playing game oddly enough. One of my friends brought it over and talked me into playing and then it was like I hear dnd is alot like this game cool lets try it.

Totally Guy
2007-08-28, 12:36 PM
actual D&D
GitP UK meetup 1

i was a sorceror.
i casted sleep alot.

I started as a Halfling Rogue in Archonic Energy's party. Meetup was great! I found all the switches and activated the traps. My character had a backstory and everything.

Since than I've been playing a Bard in Last Resort 33's party where I get XP for coming up with silly songs about our adventures, I am the primary guinea pig for "use magic device" and I get hurt a lot.

Krimm_Blackleaf
2007-08-28, 12:37 PM
I'd always known the name Dungeons and Dragons, and knew only it was based in fantasy, and it was common practice for nerds. I was introduced to the 3.0 Monster Manual by my friend Jeffrey, who had been playing for a while. I just liked the pictures. I got my own and basically just had it for the awesome pictures within for years and years. One day, when my friend Andy and I were talking we said something along the lines of 'We're nerds, why don't we play D&D?' and so he bought all the necesarry stuff, little did I know it was in the era of 3.5 so I had to get a new MM. So I did, and so we learned, and know I retain undescribible knowledge of it.

purple gelatinous cube o' Doom
2007-08-28, 12:46 PM
I didn't start playing until my second year of college. One of the guys that lived in the same suite as me had played for years. One Saturday after the football game, he was going to the union to find a group, and having nothing else to do, tagged along. I started playing in a group we we found (3.0). When I went home for Thanksgiving that year, I bought the PHB and dice (which I borrowed from others for those 10 weeks for the quarter). About two weeks after that, WOTC announced 3.5.

Trog
2007-08-28, 01:10 PM
I was born a poor elf child... [/Steve Martin]

CrazedGoblin
2007-08-28, 01:12 PM
im not sure but it was about the same time as wraithy and in the same way :smallbiggrin:

Sir_Norbert
2007-08-28, 01:30 PM
Oh, I'd known about it for years and always wanted to find people to play with but never been able to. Then a guy on the other forum I used to belong to made a topic asking if anyone would be interested in playing a game over IRC. Naturally I jumped at the chance.

My first character was Norbert himself -- a boring Roy-type fighter who was perpetually annoyed at being upstaged by the magic-users and eventually having to have his life saved by a pixie (Kimana) in the BBEG fight. First adventure, he fell in love with the elf thief/magic-user (Ravyn); second adventure, after they'd downed the second BBEG they quarrelled because he wanted to take their relationship faster than she was happy with, and he walked out into the night and was never seen again.

Om
2007-08-28, 02:41 PM
Never got started.

tannish2
2007-08-28, 04:50 PM
about 8 years ago, i was 7 or 8ish, me and some friends got bored, my dad offered to DM a game of D&D, i had seen the group of old people playing it since age 2 or 3 and it looked fun... we were all fighters, and a ranger...

smellie_hippie
2007-08-28, 05:44 PM
I was born a poor elf child... [/Steve Martin]

Did you join the circus and invent the opti-grab? :smallamused:

Aeyamar
2007-08-28, 05:46 PM
Four years ago, during my freshman year of highschool, I was hanging out at my friend [Wayril]'s house, and over the course of the day I picked up the 3.0 Players Handbook and started to read it. I thought it was a really interesting system but I never really looked at it again after that day. My next birthday [Wayril] gave me the 3.5 Player's Handbook as a gift along with a full set of red speckled dice (which had an utterly broken d6 that rolled a 5 or 6 about 70% of the time (I actually rolled it about 200 times to check).

Anyway, sophmore year [Wayril] and I start playing in some solo adventures (he was the DM, and I was a first level wizard). I came close to dying in just about every encounter, mostly because I had to fight hordes of goblins and kobolds. Then, after a few weeks, we found out there was actually a DnD group at are school and we both joined that. And so here I am on Giantitp playing DnD almost every day (though only one post at a time.

My first character was a powered down LeShay evoker (essentially an immortal gray elf) named Draco. In truth, my characters haven't really changed much, right now they're all grey elf evokers named Aeyamar. And for some reason every character I make winds up hating the dieties (all for completely different reasons though). It's true, ask ZRS.

ForzaFiori
2007-08-28, 06:00 PM
I had always heard about it, though I thought it was a dead game for the longest time. Anyway, a few years ago (i was like..11, 10 maybe) i was wondering through Books-a-Million, when i saw this "DnD 3.0 starters set". I bought it and played it till I had run out of options. It had like...10 monsters, one map, 6 pre-made adventures, and like 6 pre-made characters (Redgar, Jozan, Mialee, Lidda, Eberk, Tordek, Naull, and some other rogue.). Once I realized that this game wasn't the real DnD (it really sucked now that i look back on it), i went out and bought the 3.0 PHB and MM, and t he 3.5 DMG (i didn't know the difference, lol). I later went back and got the 3.5 PHB, and have a copy of the 3.5 MM on my comp (along with just about every other 3.5 book.) Unfortunately, like M:TG (which i also am into, got sucked into at scout came 3 or 4 years ago), DnD doesn't have a large fan base here, so the only ppl i play DnD with is my sister and one other friend, and I'm the only Magic player I know of.

Amiria
2007-08-28, 06:05 PM
were you introduced? did you just pick up the books? what edition did you start? what mistakes did you make? what was your first character?

A buddy from the karate club invited me. Probably due to talk about computer RPGs (probably Baldur's Gate and Diablo).

We started 2nd Edition AD&D.

I don't make mistakes. Ever.

My first character was the paladin Turin of Irvin, the big brother of Amiria of Irvin (yes, my avatar is one of my favorite D&D characters). His name was shamelessly stolen from the Silmarillion, also the family name (it is a mispelling of Ivrin ... as in the Pools of Ivrin. But I sticked with the mispelling when I realized it). He is still alive and does all kinds of heroic deeds. An active D&D 3.5 character, currently 16th level, although I haven't played him for a year or so.

Ashtar
2007-08-28, 06:06 PM
I was visiting my family in England, aged 8. I had already read the lord of the rings, the hobbit, the Death Dealer books, Redwall and many others.
My godfather gave me a Fighting Fantasy gamebook (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fighting_Fantasy), which I promptly devoured. Clamouring for more I got more and more of these books, until that was no longer sufficient.
I graduated to the 1991 D&D Boxed set, followed shortly after by the 2nd Edition player's handbook. I also played the SSI games on computer, starting with Pools of Radiance on mac.

I first played with my brother and the slowly recruited players from my close friends, translating the English for them first and then when they were really hooked, passing on the books to them to read.

I built dozens of characters at first, but the first character I played was Fura, a elven wizard, played as a DMPC!

adanedhel9
2007-08-28, 06:07 PM
Long before I ever played D&D, I had heard of it from several places. I remember reading about it in some random piece of fiction found at the school library and asking my mom what it was. She seemed to have a real vague idea of what it was from people she knew in college, but all I got from the conversation was "It's a game" and "Smart people play it."

Years later, the above conversation quite forgotten, Shhalahr Windstrider, his brother, a couple friends, and I were in Boy Scouts together. At some campout, Shhalahr brought along a 2.0 revised PHB, and we all gathered around it... I was absolutely clueless, though through discussions with Shhalahr I was able to grasp the basics. For several months after that, D&D was just a concept. We eventually created characters and played our first game, run by Shhalahr's brother. The game started with a human chasing a half-dragon chasing a griffon chasing a wemic chasing a rabbit... all characters or familiars. One character was knocked out before he ever got to do anything, and my character was knocked out shortly thereafter.

Several months later, we started a slightly more serious game with Shhalahr as DM. That was ~10 years ago, and we still play that campaign whenever we can get everyone together. My avatar is my character in that campaign.

Dragonrider
2007-08-28, 06:32 PM
I built dozens of characters at first, but the first character I played was Fura, a elven wizard, played as a DMPC!


We used to do the DMPC thing quite a lot, having as we did only a few players. Come to think of it, I believe I recall us all being so attached to our characters that when we couldn't decide which ones to play, each of us would take two or three favorites and form a part with like ten characters! Madness. Combat was a nightmare. But we had fun.

RAGE KING!
2007-08-28, 07:29 PM
I was at a summer camp when i met an old friend who i had known in grade 1.

I hung out with him at lunch, and he said he had to go play DnD with some other peeps. So i went along and they had a pre-gen paladin for me. I rather enjoyed it, but since then i haven't played any paladins.

about a year ago he D.M'ed a campaign, which was my first REAL DnD (when i made my own character, knew the rules etc.). I was going to buy the books soon, when WotC announced 4.0 ed.

My favourite classes are barbarians, fighters, rogues and rangers. In that order.

Scorpina
2007-08-28, 08:00 PM
I played Baldur's Gate, then played Icewind Dale online with some friends... once we'd completed that and it's sequel, there was nowhere left to go but pen and paper.

FdL
2007-08-28, 08:09 PM
How did it start? In the computer, obviously. Gold box and all, and then the awesomeness that was Eye of the Beholder.

No, scratch that. It began before, with a series of TSR interactive D&D novels in the vein of "choose your own adventure". The spanish editions had black covers. I had quite a few of them, I regret not buying them all actually. Then I got ONE that was AD&D, an advanced version of the same concept, where you had a mini-sheet and had to roll a dice to see which path you took.

Then after heavy familiarisation with rules and imagery with computer games, me and a pal hooked up with some other guys thanks to BBS message networks (yes, I'm older than you). And started playing AD&D 2nd Edition. It was great. It didn't last that long though. But I was converted. Forever. I see no need in playing any other RPG.

MrEdwardNigma
2007-08-28, 08:19 PM
I played my first game of actual DnD a week or two ago at the dutch Giantitp meet-up. I was a barbarian, though my favoured class would probably be rogue, simply for purposes of not having to be explained a lot. I pulled a couple of kobolds out of a tree. It was fun.

Bitzeralisis
2007-08-28, 08:48 PM
OotS made me play D&D...
But some Guild Wars forum person's signature introduced me to OotS...
Then again I was only on a GW forum because I played it...
And I owe my GW playing to a friend of mines...

And I was pressured to play it anyways since I was smart...

It's all so vague!

Thrivol
2007-08-28, 09:09 PM
D&D 3.0 box. Cost about $10, had small plastic things to keep track of characters. I got a friend over, and we had a great time with it (I was DM, of course).

horseboy
2007-08-29, 01:20 AM
Well, there was this add in the back of a comic book. I sold 10 boxes of Captain O greeting cards when I was in 3rd grade. Oh crap, that was like....'82ish. I got the red box set. It sat in my comic collection, off and on for the next 4 years until I found someone to play with.

starwoof
2007-08-29, 01:35 AM
One of my friends invited me to his house and sprung the 3.0 boxed set on me like 7 years ago. I was Tordek, the dwarven fighter! Or possibly Mialee, the elven Wizard. When we played with more than one character I played both. We shafted the new people with Eberk and Lidda because they were lame. But not as lame as Kerwyn who wasn't even small sized, pfeh.

Ok I'm done rambling.:smallbiggrin:

AslanCross
2007-08-29, 01:53 AM
I started with CRPGs. First it was Baldur's Gate II, then Neverwinter Nights 2. I eventually wanted to check out the rules so that I could adapt them for motivational review activities for my students. The activity had worked really well at first but it was kinda messy, so I wanted to use D&D rules to help balance them a bit.

After reading the books I figured it wouldn't hurt to start my own campaign at our school, so I got some of my creative writing club members to join. Since many of them are fantasy geeks (more girls than guys, too), lots of them joined in.

Lucky
2007-08-29, 01:55 AM
My French teacher taught me how to play. My first character was a Human Rogue. Good times.

drawingfreak
2007-08-29, 02:06 AM
My first time playing, I was the DM.

I had been on a serious Fantasy writing spree through most of high school, but I knew squat about weapons other than sword, arrows, dagger...really generic stuff. So in the summer of '04 I went a-searching in the local library. Lo and behold (and with a DC 13 Search check) I found the D&D 3.5 PHB. After investigating the contents within for its weapon info, I got interested in the game itself. I attempted to run a game, knowing little if anything about the system which got one of my friends starting with only 3 HP. Needless to say, that kobold took him out no problem.

I only seriously started gaming that fall. My first character was an elven (or was it half-elf) bard. Somehow, I ended up being the group leader (curse you high Charisma) which was quite the pain for me since I was such a newb. But, I got through it cause I was playing the character as if it were me (which is pretty much what I was gong for during creation).

The_Chilli_God
2007-08-29, 02:15 AM
I suppose I learnt it the normal way.

A friend of mine's father (who had been playing since the early 80's) taught him when he was about 10 or something, and I got to sit in on one particular game they were having. It was still 2nd edition, and I kind of fell asleep at about the point where the party warrior-type and the party thief-type were both caught in the gelatinous cube. That was my first exposure.

My second exposure was about 3 years later (3rd ed was definitely out by then), when I was asked to provide help as a DM assistant to the very same friend. 4th or something-level party, were going to this evil wizard's tower to kill him or something.
Got attacked by one or two Displacer Beasts on the way, and that would have been a TPK if not for DM benevolence.
And when the party went up to the tower, they didn't sneak in or anything. They knocked on the front door and asked the wizard politely to come out.
I'm pretty sure that just called the game over.

My third exposure would be clocking Baldur's Gate II. 'Nuff said.

And then, a year after that DM assistant shtick, the DM kicked one player on account of him being exceedingly immature, and asked me to join in. A whole day was spent teaching me the ropes — most of it based around making my own 1st level party — and then fighting in an EL 1 encounter that TPK'd my 1st level party.
I then made a 5th-level halfling rogue, joined the party (and quickly became Party Treasurer) and it went on from there.

I like to think of this as the "Tree of Teaching," as since my friend got taught by his dad and then taught me, I've taught 4 of my friends how to play, and one of them has taught 5 of his other friends how to play.

Logic
2007-08-29, 02:35 AM
I first saw many of those "old Gold box" computer games that my father was playing, and wanted to play so much, that I went to my room several times for being "too demanding." At the time, I had no idea what that meant, but I was determined to have as much fun as my dad seemed to be having.

My first pen & paper encounter with D&D was at my best friend's house, back in ye olde year of '98. I had no idea what the hell I wanted to be, so I asked for suggestions. Three of the seasoned veterens were Elven Warwizards, and suggested it to me. I decided that if 3 veterens were doing it, they would be able to help me figure out what was going on!

2 hours later, I have a dead elf. That displacer beast one-shotted me, and deprived me of all my 5 HP!

I quit for about 3 months, until my brother got the 3.0 Dungeon's Master Guide for Christmas (and only the DMG).

Using that as a baseline, we (my brother, myself, and a couple of good friends) made our own game, which oddly enough, took a form quite unlike anything that was D20. A few months later, we began playing 3,0, and did so until the 3.5 came out.

Moechi_Vill
2007-08-29, 02:43 AM
I invented freeform rpg and got a friend in who developed it then I developed it a bit on my own (we were going into dice and statistics) then I was forced into D&D through it's dominance on the internet and on the ground (even in Norway). Am now in Hong Kong. D&D still dominant on the internet.

Archonic Energy
2007-08-29, 04:15 AM
I played Baldur's Gate, then played Icewind Dale online with some friends... once we'd completed that and it's sequel, there was nowhere left to go but pen and paper.

stayed on that path till NWN...
theoretically NWN2!
(i have yet to finish that game with C... bloody laptop)

it's also typical that i jump in just before an 'upgrade' but "c'est la vie"

Neragith
2007-08-29, 04:38 AM
I started not to long ago (less than a year ago infact :smallredface: )
I was invited over by a friend who was introduced by his cousin.
First character was a half elf sorcerer. good times. and it was full of mistakes :smallsmile:

Were-Sandwich
2007-08-29, 05:11 AM
three words: My older brother.

It's self explanitory. He also got me into MTG. I have been corrupted.
w00t!

I got my little brother into Magic and D&D too. Itmust be some kind of imbedded psychic thing amongst nerds to introduce younger siblings to nerd stuff. My 8 year old sister constantly pewsters me to play Magic withe her. She hasn't won a game yet, but keeps asking to play anyway. Which is encouraging.

The Prince of Cats
2007-08-29, 06:32 AM
Well, there was this girl I was kind of interested in. Her friends were a little protective and so the best way to spend time with her was to spend time with her friends too. Since they played AD&D, I got myself invited to play AD&D with them. That was five years ago, five and a few months.

I had my own dice, but mainly d10s; I was a Vampire: the Masquerade player. I picked up the rest of the dice just before my first session and we were playing second edition AD&D with as many house rules as book-rules. I was in it for the girl, not the game so much.

I am now married to that gamer, with halflings on the way. I never really took to second edition, nor really 3.5 (I own six 3.5 books if you include the core three) and so I am waiting to see if 4th grabs my attention...

Surfing HalfOrc
2007-08-29, 06:51 AM
I sarted in 1979-1980ish... I was still in Junior High, 9th grade. A friend of mine had bought the rules, we rolled up a few characters and bashed our way through the Keep on the Borderlands. After that, I bought my own set of the Eric Holmes boxed set rules, then received the PHB, DMG and MM for Christmas.

Later, I bought the Tom Moldvey/David Cook (?) Basic/Expert rules and used them quite a bit through High School (Loved the simpler style), then joined the Navy.

Unfortunatly, (for me) Dragonlance was the biggest thing going, and the group I joined had a Kender for a character, and the player played his Kender as the most obnoxious goofball around. Joined a second group, who ALSO had a Kender, and apparantly he also didn't understand the difference between "childlike" and "childish." Two drink-spiking, stuff-stealing, fight-starting idiots was enough for me, so I quit D&D for a long time after that. :smallfrown:

When 3rd Ed came out, I saw the Orange Box, said "What the Heck," and bought it. Loved 3rd Ed, and play every week, as well as 1st. Ed in a couple of Online play-by-post games. Then I stumbled across GitP, and have been quite happy ever since!:smallbiggrin:

ranger89
2007-08-29, 07:12 AM
I played one game (badly) when I was a wee little lad back in '79 or '80. It was me and by childhood best friend. I think we rolled a dice or two, got frustrated and quit.

Flash forward to 2000. At party and the topic of playing D&D as a kid came up, a few people said they still had their 1e and 2e books, and over half the room said they had played at least once and wouldn't mind giving it another go. First session was 17 (!) people and complete chaos. The person who bravely volunteered to DM this madness almost had a mental breakdown. A few weeks after that awful experience, three of us decided to have a real session. What followed is referred to as the "Golden Age" because 3-5 of us were able to play 3 or 4 nights a week for hours on end for about a year. Ah, to be young without responsiblities again. :smallfrown: Anyway, we're still going strong though we only play about 2-3 times per month now.

Edit: Woo-hoo! I'm no longer a Pixie as of this post! :smallcool:

banjo1985
2007-08-29, 07:13 AM
I started about 11 years ago, my dad took me to play Dragonlance at the local gaming club. I started with AD&D and went onto 3 & 3.5. That got me onto a load of other rpg systems, and for the last 2 years or so I've hardly played D&D. But happily I'm starting to get back into it, and am crafting a campaign at the minute.

Aramil Liadon
2007-08-29, 11:18 AM
Last year, one of my friends was pulling the PHB from his backpack and I was like, "Hey! I've heard of that game!" so he somehow introduced me to other friends and I joined the group.

Weird. I made more friends ion a week that I did in the past 3 years combined.

bosssmiley
2007-08-29, 11:39 AM
actual D&D
GitP UK meetup 1

i was a sorceror.
i casted sleep alot.

Near D&D
Baldurs Gate

i was a wizard.
i casted fireball alot.

Starcraft

he was a archon
he moaned "power overwhelming" a lot

Egg? Red box OD&D via the classic Brit gaming gateway drugs of "LOTR", "Fighting Fantasy", "Heroquest" and "WFB". Hooked for life.

I R specimen case of gamerdom. :smallsmile:

The Prince of Cats
2007-08-29, 01:06 PM
Ah, Heroquest... I have such happy memories of that game.

When the time comes to introduce our little halfling (boy or girl, I don't mind) to roleplay, I think Heroquest would be a good starting point...

Castaras
2007-08-29, 01:07 PM
Egg? Red box OD&D via the classic Brit gaming gateway drugs of "LOTR", "Fighting Fantasy", "Heroquest" and "WFB". Hooked for life.


Ooo, Fighting Fantasy. I have a few of those books somewhere...

*Goes to look*

Dragonrider
2007-08-29, 01:19 PM
This morning I was making marshmallow chocolate cookies (had to throw that in for the jealousy aspect :smallwink:) and my grandpa came into the kitchen and announced to me, "Your third brother is shaping up to be a real geek."

I kind of laughed and was like "What's he doing?"

Well, he was over there, involved in some fantasy game with a bunch of little LEGO guys, playing all by himself. He's 3 1/2. he has them in lightsaber fights and battling it out with all this complex dialogue and roleplaying, and one of them is like "Now - I will kill you!" and the other one goes "Not if I have anything to say about it!" and they get in a great big fight and in the end the first one goes "Ha! I have killed you!" and stands victorious.

I'm standing there going, "We have GOT to teach this kid D&D."

He's a mature 3 but not quite old enough yet...maybe in another year he'll have the attention span (and the literary skill - he's already learning to read) to play a real dungeon. We gotta catch him early and make sure he's well hooked. :smallsmile:

Old_Man
2007-08-29, 02:41 PM
Late '70's and my friend's older brother came back from UW Whitewater with Arneson's Dungeonmaster's Index (Yes, Index not Guide or Screen) along with some bastardized "mimeographed" copies of the rest of the original rules and character sheets and some lead figures. (Ah, the smell of the purple/blue ditto ink.) That was the only copy of the Index that I have ever seen, and for years, I thought that I had imagined it (just like the Boba Fett cartoon.) A few years later ('81???), I got the red/blue boxes and the ADD books for Xmass.

Harold
2007-08-29, 02:42 PM
My cousins introduced me to v.3 but my dad played D&D about 20 years ago, and he still had AD&D books so, I was playing AD&D when pretty much everyone else I knew were playing v.3.x.

potatocubed
2007-08-29, 03:10 PM
Red box OD&D via the classic Brit gaming gateway drugs of "LOTR", "Fighting Fantasy", "Heroquest" and "WFB". Hooked for life.

Much the same here, except without the OD&D. I started with Fighting Fantasy (book number 4, Starship Traveller), moved onto Heroquest (I was the wizard, then the GM), Car Wars (I spent most of my time building cars instead of playing it...), Games Workshop...

I actually came to D&D because my Dad used to visit this all-purpose hobby shop and it had a shelf of roleplaying games he'd leave me to look at while he talked to the shopkeep about wood. I got the D&D Rules Cyclopedia (when 'elf' was a character class), followed by Werewolf and Vampire, then me and my brother pitched in to get a complete set of AD&D books. I think between us we cleaned that shop out of RPG stuff over the next 10 years or so.

Scorpina
2007-08-29, 04:43 PM
stayed on that path till NWN...
theoretically NWN2!
(i have yet to finish that game with C... bloody laptop)

it's also typical that i jump in just before an 'upgrade' but "c'est la vie"

Half our computers weren't capable of running NWN at the time we decided to go for D&D.

Geode
2007-08-29, 05:54 PM
First day at college in 1981. My first "class" was an AP math test in a large lecture hall. I was talking with the guy next to me while we waited for the exams to be handed out. He said he was running a DnD game in the evening with some friends and they needed another player. They gave me a half-orc fighter because they said a fighter was easiest for a beginner, and a half-orc because I rolled a 4 for Intelligence :P I played in other games and ran other characters, but we also kept that first game going for four years. We retired those first characters, aged and high level by then, just before we graduated.

Frojoe21
2007-08-29, 06:05 PM
I saw an add for the Dark Sun campaign setting in the back of a comic book about 7 years ago and it piqued my interest. I remembered seeing it parodied in cartoons like Dexter's Lab and stuff like that, and it seemed kinda fun, but I didn't know where to buy it. A year later I'm in a bookstore, and I see the 3.0 Players handbook. After about two months, I got my grandparents to buy it for me, but I didn't have anyone to play with. Another year passes, and I'm in high school. I find out some other people play, so we do. And thats how it all began.

Balkash
2007-08-29, 06:06 PM
wow. i remember about 7 years ago, when i was in 4th grade, my friend, his older brother, and i played a true roleplaying D&D. we had true homebrew character sheets (basically the only thing that mattered was HP and everything was so base its funny). well basically when a fight would occur, he had three plastic toy swords, so we would actually just fight it out in his room. his older brother was DM, and he'd lose most of the time on purpose. but i remember how fun it was, i was hooked. finally ive been inproving until about last year i finally owned the core rulebooks, and just read them cover to cover. and now ive built my own character, and DM for my friends.

Tom_Violence
2007-08-29, 06:12 PM
Never have! Probably never will!

Charity
2007-08-29, 07:41 PM
Quick lads Geekrush him!

Kiero
2007-08-29, 07:54 PM
I was given Red Box D&D by my aunt for my 12th birthday in 1991. I read it, then formed a group with my friends at school, me and another guy were the GMs for most of the games over the next three years of weekly sessions. Though we moved on from Red Box fairly quickly to AD&D2e via a brief stint of Rules Cyclopedia D&D.

Don't remember a great deal about it, though.

Ivellios
2007-08-29, 08:01 PM
I started playing when a friend of mine asked me one day in junior high school if I wanted to play dungeons and dragons. I had no idea what I was getting into at the time, no idea it was so extensive.

My first character was an elven sorcerer named Ivellios... I played him up through 9th level. He didn't die or anything, but when school started up it was hard to keep playing. Years later, my current character is essentially a recreation of my original D&D character. Because of past characters and campains, I have experience playing as a various casters, barbarians, and monks.

MostlyHarmless
2007-08-30, 11:28 AM
He's a mature 3 but not quite old enough yet...maybe in another year he'll have the attention span (and the literary skill - he's already learning to read) to play a real dungeon. We gotta catch him early and make sure he's well hooked. :smallsmile:

Yes. To paraphrase Monty Python, you must "stamp them when they're small". (spoken in a high falsetto complete with British accent).


I'm afraid my 7 year old doesn't even have the attention span, much less my 4 year old. Well, who knew there were so many other old farts around here. Leave it to a thread like this to start dating how old people are.

Do some others of you have the apparently collectible copy of Deities and Demigods with Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser? I think the pantheon was from the Lankmar series or something. I never read the books, but liked the heroes.

Old_Man
2007-08-30, 02:34 PM
Do some others of you have the apparently collectible copy of Deities and Demigods with Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser? I think the pantheon was from the Lankmar series or something. I never read the books, but liked the heroes.

Yes, the Nehwon mythos as taken from Fritz Lieber's stories about the adventures of the Gray Mouser and Fafhrd in the land of Lankhmar. They are good books and I consider them "a must read" (along with Abraham Merritt, Alfred Elton van Vogt, Clark A Smith, C. S. Lewis, E. R. Eddison, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Fletcher Pratt, George MacDonald, Jack Vance, J.R.R. Tolkien, H. G. Wells, H.P. Lovecraft, L. Sprague de Camp, Michael Moorcock, Poul Anderson, Robert E. Howard, Roger Zelazny, and William Morris.)

I didn't know it was a collectible. I thought only the printing with Cthulhu was???

EDIT: did I miss any "essential" authors? :smallbiggrin:

MostlyHarmless
2007-08-30, 06:03 PM
Well, I believe they released a later edition of it, still in 1e rules, without the Nehwon pantheon, due to infringement or something. I don't believe mine has Cthulhu tho. I don't know how valuable that makes my copy, but I'm proud to own it, complete with these little D&D stickers I got somewhere and peppered my books with them. They were color stickers of monsters from the MM. I know I put a few of them in my MM on top of the line drawn images.