D&D - how did you start?

[Wraithy]

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]

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]

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]

21 years ago.
Dungeons and Dragons box set.
Played it on my folks back patio when I was in 6th grade.

[Castaras]

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]

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]

[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]

~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]

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]

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]

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]

three words: My older brother.

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

[Gaelbert]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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 ]) 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]

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]

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!

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]

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]

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]

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!
Jamboree.
I dunno, I guess because the term is at least 60 years old or something.

[OverdrivePrime]

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]

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.

[GimliFett]

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.

Absolutely, AMEN, Brother!
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]

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. 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]

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]

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.

[Penguinsushi]

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]

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.