The new vs old gamer thread got me thinking. At first it was fairly specific but now I'm going to be fairly broad. Who introduced you to the game? Secondly do they still play? And do yall still play together?
For instance, I was taught the game by my father. Both him and mother played then and still do today. And yes we still game together. In fact I’m currently running a game for them.
When I was 10, my mom saw the Basic rulebook in a hobbystore and bought it for me for Christmas. She'd never heard of the game, but had a love of fantasy she'd instilled in me and thought it looked like something I'd enjoy. She read the book to figure out how all this worked, then did up a game for me, and I was hooked.
I'm 36 now. My husband and I are part of a regular gaming group. And when my mom comes up to visit on the holidays, there's about a 50% chance that we'll break out a game and she'll dust a halfling off to come along for the ride.
I wish my parent's "got it".
My Cousin started me playing D&D, among other games. My Mom bought me the Red Box 1st edition set. My cousin brought me into AD&D, and from then on it was D&D books for birthdays and Holiday gifts.
I can't remember!
Keziel Tahr...you have one of my favorite board names. I might steal it (with your permission) for my campaign and give it to a cool good guy or bad guy (your choice).
RPG Superstar 2013 Top 32
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I was introduced to D&D by an older kid in my after-school program. I was 9 years old, he was 12. He would bring a binder with some rule printouts on it along with a single set of dice and the Player's Handbook and he ran me a solo campaign that lasted the rest of that school year. After that, he graduated elementary school and moved on to high school. His name was Josh. I never saw him again.
After that, I started using what I knew about D&D to create my own games to play with my friends (who were not in the after-school program) and those kept the dream alive for me until I was about 11 years old and finally saw the 2nd Ed. Player's Handbook at a used bookstore with my mom. I used my allowance to get it. After that, I looked for hobby stores in the phone book and started asking around until I found a place that sold the various types of dice that I would need. When I found it, I managed to talk my mom into taking me there. From that point on, it's all pretty much history.
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My brother and I were talking about this the other day. I was about 9, he was about 12, a guy he went to school with introduced us to it at his house one day. I later played abit is Boy Scouts. My days of real gaming started at 14, My brother, once again, was playing with some friends from highschool and they had a guy drop out. They invited me to play. The DM from that game and his brother both still play, but do not live near me. My brother still plays, he lives in another state as well so we talk about it alot but have not played together since 2nd ed. My brother and I are both visiting home, New Orleans, this comming weekend and we will be playing a one time game with some of MY friends (oh how things changed.) I am looking forward to it. My brother also posts here, his user name is Aberzombie.
lebreton
Why condolences? I think he should be lucky to have such a great person and avid gamer as a brother.
Some classmates told me about D&D when I was 9. I begged Mom for it, and the old blue-boxed basic set showed up under the Christmas tree. Santa has been my hero every since.
For years, I had to settle with talking about the game with my friends at school, since none of them lived close enough to play it with me. I ran myself through endless solo adventures, ceaselessly toiling over my own designs and attempting to incorporate every new gaming product I could get my hands on into my home campaign.
Then, when I was in high school, I got to DM my first real game. A few friends and I played every week for almost a year. Later, in my first attempt at college, I got to DM an extended campaign for some friends in the Navy's Orlando nuke school. I also got to play a few one-shots with various other friends.
I'm now nearing 40, and I still play twice a week with two steady gaming groups: one includes 4 old-school players like myself who are having a great time hacking through the Age of Worms and looking forward to the Savage Tide, and the other includes my wife, my 5-year-old son, and my 7-year-old daughter. I can't quite decide which group is the most fun.
Arrgghh! The secret is out! Yes, it is true. He is my brother. I'm not a real zombie, I just play one here on the message boards. You may offer your condolences to lebreton now.My brother also posts here, his user name is Aberzombie.
lebreton
Fraud! Hack! Pretender! Wannabe! :P
A friend of mine played the computer Baldur's Gate games, and got me into them. Then he got Neverwinter Nights, and got me playing that, too. I heard a few people talking about how the pen and paper was so much better, and was curious how this was possible. I went out to the local Something To Do with my dad (I was 15 at the time, played/DMed my first game with friends on my 16th birthday) and bought the PHB and MM (had to order the DMG), all 3.0. I've been addicted ever since (a whopping three years), and am proud of it!
That first campaign was nuts, but fun. None of us had anyone to teach us; I picked up the books, read them, and jumped right into the DM's chair. It's amazing how much I've learned so fast, and I look back on that first campaign with both nostalgia for the fun and shame for how dumb some things were. :D
My brother taught me how to play when I was 10, and it was a great icebreaker when meeting new people when my dad was stationed overseas. For the last 18 years (!!!), I've enjoyed it immensely, and I have no intentions of quitting.
On a side note, packed my RPG stuff this weekend, and between my hubby & I, we had six good-sized boxes of game stuff.
I was at band practice after school in junior high, and some of my friends were talking about D&D. I was 12 maybe 13.
Conversation:
Ben: I don't think we are going to get by that fire elemental
Alex: Yeah but I STILL want that armor. It's FLAMING FIRE armor.
ME: Hey what are ya'll talikng about? A video game?
Ben: No we started playing Dungeons and Dragons and it's really cool.
Alex: Yeah you should come there's 5 or 6 of us going over to Ben's house and staying the weekend.
Ben: Yeah you should come over we need a wizard. You can play a wizard? Blow stuff up?!
LoL It was something like that. I do still play with a few of them every now or then but not offend. People moved away to college, grad/law/med school, military, work, marriage, kids. We try to get together once or twice a year to play, and about 5 of our original very large group still show up. All be it fatter and more grey. I do still play regularly, but with a different group.
Fizz
My brother got me started when I was ten and he eighteen. I am 34 now. He went to university and came back with books and tales. My family played for a while together. We started with the boxes and soon made the switch to AD&D. He told me the game would be better if I didn't read the DM part of the expert book, so I snuck into his room to swipe it then read it under the covers with a candle. I burned the edge of the book. He ridiculed my first attempts to DM, but I got friends my own age involved and have never looked back. He met his ex-wife through D&D. We were estranged for a very long time. I will always be grateful to him. This hobby kept me sane through some very dark times in South Africa.
I had been curious about D&D for a few months when I saw the Player's Handbook at Barnes and Noble. I ended up getting it as a gift that Winter Solstice. I didn't have anyone to teach me so I read through the PHB and then got the DMG and the MM. I proceeded to teach some other people how to play and have been hooked ever since. Needless to say learning how to play without someone to hel me learn or teach me has lead to a lot of mistakes in using the rules. I have been playing since last March, just over a year.
I can't remember!
Keziel Tahr...you have one of my favorite board names. I might steal it (with your permission) for my campaign and give it to a cool good guy or bad guy (your choice).
Why thank you! I'm honored. Actually the name comes from a BBEG in a book I'm writing. I converted him over to a character in another game, and just picked up using it as a screen name.
I'm still working on the novel, so if you see the name in print somewhere (I wish! But that would mean I haver to FINISH it first) you can have the right to say "I knew him when..."
Otherwise, make it a very bad guy and pronounce the (tm) after his name each time. ;)
I was introduced to the game by my next door neighbor who got it for xmas; he invited some of us to play and we made up guys, learned the rules by playing, and did a module; he doesnt play anymore and hasnt more or less since then, but I still play regularly with at least one of the guys from that original game. Other than that; everyone else is new and has only been in the game about 10 or 15 years. I did teach my lil bro about the game; sometimes he still plays though he is only 35 now and is a big time rocket scientist in another state :) sigh; I never got to gm a proper game for him; just let him look at my books and stuff and we talked a bit; but am sure it was my influence that got him into the game.
A friend of mine back in school when I was 14 (I think) introduced me to the (then brand-new) red and blue basic and expert set of D&D rules, and I´ve been hooked to RPGs ever since. I met the guy a few times since school was over (he dropped out early), but he does not play any more AFAIK.
Then I played mainly with some guys I met because one was the son of a good friend of my mother for several years, then I found another group in my hometown through an ad in a RPG magazine of that time (about 1987 or so), and I still play with several from that last group today (in fact, a game is scheduled next weekend with about 50% of the original group of those olden days.)
In 1998, I moved into an new apartment, and my next-door neighbour turned out to be an RPGer as well. I´m playing with this group since then as well. My fiancee is part of this group, and I would not have met her otherwise, even though we needed five years to come together...
Oh, and somebody mentioned moving with RPG stuff: I don´t want to move anytime soon, its about 15 meters of books, magazines and binders (and some boxes), and several boxes of LARP stuff, and numerous books on history and related themes, and so on... Last time I moved, I had about 50 boxes of stuff, mostly books.
Stefan
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I got the 3e PHB when I was but a wee young'un (okay, I was ten or so), but I didn't actually learn how to play until a couple of years later, when I was taught how to play by Dirk Gently's stepfather. I had tried too teach myself, but my pre-teen brain couldn't wrap around the whole concept of skill checks (kind of a random thing to have a hard time with, but OK...)
I got the 3e PHB when I was but a wee young'un (okay, I was ten or so), but I didn't actually learn how to play until a couple of years later, when I was taught how to play by Dirk Gently's stepfather. I had tried too teach myself, but my pre-teen brain couldn't wrap around the whole concept of skill checks (kind of a random thing to have a hard time with, but OK...)
Dirk and Mr. Shiny tought me, even though i still didn't get it ( needed help with character classes, skill points, multi classing(big mistakes)) Finally one day i understood.
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An older friend of mine that I camped with every summer was the first of our group to get into D&D. I was probably 7 or so, and I was hooked for good (even if I didn't understand the rules very well). The next Xmas, just about every present I opened was D&D related. I still remember getting flak from my grandmother when I opened the DMG and she saw the picture of the 20' devil on the front.
A friend of mine from junior high..."Ray'Kal" on these boards....27 years ago. We still game together---he and I alternate DMing for our gaming group every two weeks.
I was introduced to real D&D (well, AD&D back then) by my sixth grade teacher. He was a young guy; I was probably one of his first students. But the groundwork had been layed by Magic: The Gathering, and the ground layed for THAT was when my father read me stories from Greek Mythology in lieu of a bed time story. I would even go so far to say that one of the reasons I became an artist is because of D&D; I loved the images as much as the game and wanted to contribute to that.
After I got the basic AD&D box set, I introduced some of my eleven year old friends to the game. I'm proud to say that I continue introducing new people to the game, even a decade later.
I saw the red D&D basic box set in a Sears catalog. I picked it out for a Christmas present when I was very young. I then learned AD&D from a uncle visiting on his way to college in Arizona. It's been my hobie since.
A friend of mine invited me to play with his cousin when I was 13 or 14 years old. We played 1st ed. and I was hooked.
My 1st character was Lowenthal the Illusionist. The name coming from a game I was playing back then on my Commodore 64, Temple of Apshai Trilogy.
Anyway, today I still play with one of the friends I made in that group.
My high school girlfriend’s father was taking night classes, going for his teaching certification. One weekend, he had to go to campus and do some extra work and invited us along. It was Northridge College, Southern California. I had just finished reading Lord of the Rings a few days before and thought the campus looked just like the Shire. Daddy took us to the library and while he was busy with whatever, I noticed this group of people huddled around some weird contraption in a large cleared space near the center of the building. We sauntered over. What I saw blew my mind. There were people sitting on these tall barstools with long sticks in hand, kind of like the ones you see in the movies as the military guys move units mini’s on a battle map. There was a scale model of some sort of floor plan, done up like a scale-model train fanatic’s wet-dream; all in wood and stone with walls and floors all painted up, little torches (unlit) and these miniature people and everything. One guy was narrating some story to the people with the sticks and then they would move the figurines a little further down the corridor and then the narrator would start up again. After about half an hour there was a pause in the action. The figurines were picked up, and the narrator started pulling on a rope nearby. The entire floor-plan model began to winch into the air. Looking up I saw the pulleys and whatnot mounted in the ceiling. When it was far enough out of the way, the figures were put down in the new setting that was covered over by the first one. They repeated the move-story-move-story thing for about another twenty minutes then things got real exciting. They started rolling the most bizarre dice I’d ever seen, yelling about damage, and spells, and all kinds of crazy stuff. After they were done beating up whoever they were beating up, they hunted for “treasure”, secret doors, and stuff like that. Then girl-friend’s daddy came and said he was done, it was time to go. Never saw any of them again.
Eighteen months later, coming out of Air Force Basic Training with my official “Dear John” letter still in hand, I was on my way to my first permanent duty station when I found out the guy in the cab on the way to the airport with me actually played this odd little game. We were both going to the same base and he would be more than happy to introduce me to the game. We got together about two months later, at his apartment near the base. I started playing there. He lasted about a year, then he got picked up on drug charges and his wife turned him in for abuse. Never saw him again. But that started it and it’s been peddle to the metal ever since.
One note: I remembered the name of the narrator at the library. Later, that name would slap me in the face, printed on a booklet for an alternate gaming system that went into direct competition with D&D and would later be in on the spate of copyright infringement lawsuits that Gygax and TSR got hit with. The name of the narrator was Dave Hargrave. Is this the same guy who later wrote the Arduin Grimoire game system? I don’t know. There’s every possibility that the guy I saw simply had the same name, played fantasy RPG’s, etc. I keep telling myself, “Nah, couldn’t be…could it?” I never had a chance to ask. Nice to dream though, isn’t it?
I learned to play from my dad, who desperately wanted to play again and had two young willing minds to warp in the form of his children. My first character was a knight named Rose who rode a rainbow horse and was really pretty. :D
When we first started to play, I totally didn't get it. I was about 8, I think. Then, when I was about 12 him and I started to play World of Warcraft II, which was then followed by Baldur's Gate I and II, and the Neverwinter Nights. All the while, while he would take his turn on the computer, my brother and I would read the first edition books. I especially loved the MM and the Dieties books. The Cthullu would give me bad dreams, and still do, but I couldn't stop looking at the pictures.
We tried to start playing again after he bought all the core books for 3.0 but that failed miserably. We kept playing video games and then, about 2 1/2 or so years ago, he met some old school gamers that needed some more players. I was about 16. I was given the role of the gnome cleric EllyJo Belle and it's been a long spiral downwards ever since.
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Unfourtunatly for myself, I wasn't introduced to D&D until i was 16 but the first day i played got me hooked pretty much for the rest of my life. heres the catch, i'm only 17 so the rest of my life has only been about this long but whatever. the first version i played was 3.5. i really got into D&D however when Kikai13 joined our gaming group about half a year ago and he brought all this stuff like Greyhawk, and Mini's, thousands of Mini's it was great. my avatar was the first mini i ever used as my character.
i'll turn 18 next month so then i can officially say i've been playing for two years... woo!
My dad was a big wargamer in the 70s - He designed a hex-map game of Alexander's Persian campaign for his university honours thesis! He used to play AD&D with his army buddies when we were living in England. When I got back to Australia mum and dad got me the red basic set for my birthday when I was maybe 8 or something? I can't quite remember.
I told my best freind Ben about it and it turned out his older brother (who was in the air force) played D&D and AD&D. The two of us little kids got together and took turns DMing for our other friends, making it up as we went along. I still remmeber my first character, Erik Dragonsbane the fighter. He had a foolscap sheet full of magic items and was level 18 by the time we graduated to AD&D.
Since then I've introduced many people to D&D. Seems like in the very early days the military had a lot to do with propagating the game, at least in my experience.
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My older brother started playing when he was ten years old. He had several friends that were into it and got him started. This was in '79. I was only five at the time, but I somehow forced my way into the game sessions. They never really took me seriously, but when I started correcting my older brother on rules at age 7, he stopped playing and said that it was a "stupid game for little babies." I was totally hooked, however. I'm one of those weird people who bigtime resisted second edition. I felt that I was a purist, and never really played 2nd ed. However, I didn't feel the same about 3.0. When those rules came out, I jumped on them in a heartbeat. I now play 3.5, but will NEVER convert to a fourth edition!! (I will consider 5.0.)
Heard it would make us kill our parents and commit suicide (early 80's, folks, bear with me, here). We played, but no one went bonkers. So we played WHILE LISTENING TO BLACK SABBATH, and still no one lost it. We all stopped listening to Black Sabbath (to the best of my knowledge), but some of us still play. And, still, no one who played has killed their parents or commited suicide. False advertising, man.
