Got the basic box first(with Keep on the Borderland and actual kinda blue/green dice n crayon). Then some Dragon mags.
First non-DnD thing was a big bunch of Steve Jackson Games' Car Wars! Man, I tricked out a Ghostbusters-mobile with a flamethrower and a turret with a huge cannon! Got some punchouts and a battlemat in that batch...dunno where any of that stuff is today.
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First non-DnD thing was a big bunch of Steve Jackson Games' Car Wars! Man, I tricked out a Ghostbusters-mobile with a flamethrower and a turret with a huge cannon! Got some punchouts and a battlemat in that batch...dunno where any of that stuff is today.
I know for a fact this was the first non-D&D game I bought. For a kid with not that much money, 5.00 for the pocket box was a steal. And you get to blow up your friends with weapon toting armored cars. We had a lot of fun with this one.:)
Probably the AD&D Player's Handbook in the early 1980s. Also, Dragon magazines, featuring samurai and witch NPC classes (#49 and #43).
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It was probably the 6th edition, I remember the wizard on the front, and I bought it in the spring of '78 when I was 12. $10!
Amusingly, I bought it because the store had not yet got in the "new" blue box set yet. I picked that up awhile later. My very first experience with "new" editions of DnD. ;-)
I don't have the white box anymore but based upon the link that Russ posted (thanks Russ!) it appears I have the 7th (Dec 1979) Edition of the blue box. Loved those dice chits. Looks like I also have the First Edition of Expert . I used the color'd in d20 from that in Jason's game Saturday.
And I'll give a shout out to the FLGS:
www.boardroomgames.com -- still in business to this day, amazingly enough. Stop by if you go to GenCon.
-Pete
The blue box set with the red dragon on the cover, 7th printing (contains B2 Keep on the Borderlands), with the famous blue book rules in it. Pretty sure I had dice, not chits. Summer, 1980 is when I was given the set. I know I didn't actually "buy" it, but I asked my parents to buy it, so... :)
Basic set art and edition information can be found here:
http://www.acaeum.com/ddindexes/setpages/basic.html
My parents got me the same one. 7th printing, with B2 Keep on the Borderlands inside. Even now the Keep feels like a second home to me. The red and white d20's got rolled so much that the corners wore down almost to spheres. I don't think anyone would let me use them anymore because they take forever to stop rolling.
My first solo purchase was B1 In Search of the Unknown (brown cover). The "fill in the blanks" component threw me for a loop at first, but it taught me "Hey, I can create what I want with this game!!" So I went back and expanded Caves of Chaos, the nearby lizard men, followed the river, and a campaign setting was born. Good times.
Great link, Russ!
For me it would probably be a second hand copy of the basic 'Fighting Fantasy' rules, with the orange spine, and the weretiger on the front cover bursting out of the dice. I suspect this may have been several years before the advanced rules and dungeoneer came out. Oh, I loved that ogre with the 'knockback' attack on his club in Xortan Throgg's tower though, when Dungeoneer came out. I had fun DMing that fight one school lunchtime.Dungeoneer, the core Advanced Fighting Fantasy rulebook is probably the first true RPG I bought. Simple, fun stuff that expanded on the gamebooks and allowed you to play with your friends. Brilliant!
Oh yeah! I friend of mine had that book back in primary school. He ran a couple of us through the sample adventure over the course of a week. It was fun, but I can't for the life of me remember what it was about!
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There was a Steve Jackson/Ian Livingstone solo game book 'Deathtrap Dungeon' in their Fighting Fantasy Series where you had to navigate a dungeon for a prize, and I think that featured a Bloodbeast. (The picture on the front cover showed the bloodbeast, which had many, many, false eyes.)D&D Basic Set (the Red Box), in 1982?
Or it was a Dever Adventure Path book about going into a Dungeon (survivor gets 500gp) where you work your way past a "Bloodbeast" at the end...hard to tell.
Yes! Thanks for that...that was the one. Steve Jackson/Ian Livingstone.
Got the basic box first(with Keep on the Borderland and actual kinda blue/green dice n crayon). Then some Dragon mags.
First non-DnD thing was a big bunch of Steve Jackson Games' Car Wars! Man, I tricked out a Ghostbusters-mobile with a flamethrower and a turret with a huge cannon! Got some punchouts and a battlemat in that batch...dunno where any of that stuff is today.
\
I've still got all of mine.
I picked up car wars a little later, with some other stuff in between, but what a gas that game was.
And my first purchase was the basic set in 1978.... well, mom bought it for me, actually.
Original D&D boxed set in 1975. My junior year in high school. Best $10 I ever spent -- well, me and my brother. Then came my personal favorite addiction, Empire of the Petal Throne. Twentyfive bucks. That was one expensive game back in the day... I've never gotten rid of any books either... going to need a warehouse one of these days.
I got the white box for Christmas when I was 9. But the first I ever bought myself was the blue boxed set a couple of months later.
Don't even ask me what I've bought since then. I don't want to think about it.
My very first book was a Portuguese translation of the D&D Red Box. The second was an adventure module, translated to Portuguese... Hill of Terror, or something like that... The world was celebrating Christmas on the year 1989 a.d.
I was on my first college year and my life changed forever... I know it sounds geek, or that I had an epiphany, but the truth is my life would be very different if I had not tumble across RPG on that day.
Curiously, those were the only books I am aware of being translated to Portuguese by a Portuguese company. All other translations were made in Brazil, with their very special Portuguese :)
3.0 Player's Handbook.
Unless the instruction manual to Baldur's Gate counts.
It was the AD&D 2nd edition playerhandbook...that much used and taped book still sits on my gaming shelf alongside my newer books
First RPG book purchase was the AD&D 1st edition Players Handbook. Must have been 1981 or 1982. Got it at Waldenbooks in the local mall. I think I bought it, got the keys to the car from my parents, and then just sat out in the parking lot, away from the crowds, and starting reading it.
I believe it was 1997. I bought the AD&D box set with the audio cd; it had a Jeff Easley cover (guy on tower, huge freaking dragon) and Macho Man Randy Savage was the voice of Bonecruncher the ogre. I love that, on the audio cd, the adventurers called each other "cleric", "fighter", "mage" and "thief". I would like to try and start a conversation like that.
"Graphic Designer, did you want this dummy cover with a spine or simply as it is?"
"Verily, Studio Artist, I would like that dummy cover with a spine."
"Half inch or full inch, Graphic Designer?"
Etc.
After that I think I bought the issue of Dungeon (when it was bimonthly) of the guy with the lantern being menaced by the scarecrow or the Henchman themed Dragon magazine. That was when I realized that I needed the bigger rulebooks.
Good times.
Red Box D & D, though it was bought for me, so I'm not sure if that's what you mean. First one that I actually purchased myself was actually the 3rd edition player's handbook.
hard back Monster Manual, the summer 0f '77 or '78. When I discovered the pseudo-dragon my halfling wizard was riding was -not- dog sized as we had guessed. My next book, the Players Handbook, corrected the halfling wizard as well. By that time, I owned an inn in Hobbitown, catering to the veterans of the Great War, and had a breeding pair of familiars who had just hatched their first nest of eggs. Oh well.
hard back Monster Manual, the summer 0f '77 or '78. When I discovered the pseudo-dragon my halfling wizard was riding was -not- dog sized as we had guessed. My next book, the Players Handbook, corrected the halfling wizard as well. By that time, I owned an inn in Hobbitown, catering to the veterans of the Great War, and had a breeding pair of familiars who had just hatched their first nest of eggs. Oh well.
<sigh>
Aw, neat. <:) I still remember reading that psuedodragon entry for the first time too, and being lost in the picture as I tried to mentally insert one next to my NG wizard's side.
Reading old D&D texts during childhood was just so magical because you knew you were going to interact with their content. You were going to live it. Don't you remember just going through the MM for the first time, reading each monster and being transported away in a manner never occuring with books or movies?
Who would have thought this would have been the subject of my "My first time" essay?
I got the 1st edition Player's Handbook and Dungeon Master's Guide at the same time. I still have them.
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I believe it was 1997. I bought the AD&D box set with the audio cd; it had a Jeff Easley cover (guy on tower, huge freaking dragon) and Macho Man Randy Savage was the voice of Bonecruncher the ogre. I love that, on the audio cd, the adventurers called each other "cleric", "fighter", "mage" and "thief". I would like to try and start a conversation like that.
"Graphic Designer, did you want this dummy cover with a spine or simply as it is?"
"Verily, Studio Artist, I would like that dummy cover with a spine."
"Half inch or full inch, Graphic Designer?"
Etc.After that I think I bought the issue of Dungeon (when it was bimonthly) of the guy with the lantern being menaced by the scarecrow or the Henchman themed Dragon magazine. That was when I realized that I needed the bigger rulebooks.
Good times.
This was the first RPG product I received - I bought the 2e PHB and DMG shortly thereafter.
I loved that CD! I'm almost certain I lost it, but I'll never forget the way she said "It's a...gelatinous CUBE!!"
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My boyfriend bought me the 3e core books to try and get me into D&D. His first hint that things might be difficult was when my very first character was heavily encumbered at all times. I couldn't go without basically every gadget in the PHB, "just in case" I needed them. It was like I was going camping in real life, and no, I've never actually gone camping in real life, why do you ask?
The first book I ever bought myself was the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting. How did the Reading Rainbows song go? "Take a look, it's in a book, I can go anywherrrre". I'm a book person in general, but I still remember that certain magic of opening a book where you really could go anywhere... with a fishing net, a 10 ft pole, 1 lb. of soap, a signal whistle ("Can it sound like a duck calling?"), and a winter blanket, amongst other things.
1st edition Monster Manual (I had photocopies of a friend's original boxed set and supplements, but that obviously doesn't count).
For me it was Fighting Fantasy's 'Out of the Pit' and 'Titan' rpg when I was very young like 11 or something.
First D&D stuff I bought was Dragon magazine because the cover art looked cool and it was always beside White Dwarf magazine in the Newsagents.
Then a while later (and after getting fed up of other systems) I decided to get the 2nd edition PHB and DMG around 1998-99 or somewhere like that. I hated it and thought it was too complicated -thankfully 3.0 came along soon after and was smashing! :D
The Tom Moldvay Basic Set, 1981.
Ditto.
Does 'Mountain of Mirrors' count? Revenge of the Rainbow Dragons would be second.
A4: Assault on the Aerie of the Slave Lords or the AD&D PH (second cover with the wizard). I got them the same weekend though do not remember which was first. Had OA, DMG, MMII, FF, WSG & DSG by the end of that year.
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Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4, Legendary Games
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Does 'Mountain of Mirrors' count? Revenge of the Rainbow Dragons would be second.
Funny, Mountain of Mirrors was the first one of those choose your own adventure D&D books I bought (my brother had a bunch of another publisher's choose your own adventure books from lots of genres - the only title of those I remember was "Inside UFO 54-40") and Revenge... the second. I eventually picked up Pillars of Pentegarn, Return to Brookmere, and Revolt of the Dwarves, and the OG of the series, Dungeon of Dread. I actually referenced Mountain of Mirrors and the ice pillar inside the mountain in a conversation with somebody recently.
But, to answer the question:
Received: AD&D Monster Manual (then PH, then DMG, then amusingly the magenta/green dragon Basic box with B2 inside)
Bought: Probably Dragon #51 (I bought #50 and the Fineous Treasury shortly thereafter). First adventure I bought was, of all things, C2 Ghost Tower of Inverness.
Complete Bard's handbook, 2ed.
Playing a Riddlemaster was loads of fun:)
The Tom Moldvay Basic Set, 1981. Or maybe Dragon #57.
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My first RPG book was a strange one: West End Games' "The World of Indiana Jones", which included a campaign book for the Indy world, as well as a rules book which detailed the rules. It was planned to release many campaign books with this 'WorldBook' system (or was it 'MasterBook'?), but only a few licensed settings were ever released.
It is notable, however, that D&D 3rd Edition's skill system bears remarkable similarity to the MasterBook system. I always wondered how much inspiration the 3E design crew drew from this system.
Anyway, the next books I purchased were the 3rd Edition core rulebooks, and since then, I have been ravenously purchasing new rulebooks and supplements (most notably, every Pathfinder-related product Paizo has released to date).
Does 'Mountain of Mirrors' count? Revenge of the Rainbow Dragons would be second.Funny, Mountain of Mirrors was the first one of those choose your own adventure D&D books I bought (my brother had a bunch of another publisher's choose your own adventure books from lots of genres - the only title of those I remember was "Inside UFO 54-40") and Revenge... the second. I eventually picked up Pillars of Pentegarn, Return to Brookmere, and Revolt of the Dwarves, and the OG of the series, Dungeon of Dread. I actually referenced Mountain of Mirrors and the ice pillar inside the mountain in a conversation with somebody recently.
But, to answer the question:
Received: AD&D Monster Manual (then PH, then DMG, then amusingly the magenta/green dragon Basic box with B2 inside)
Bought: Probably Dragon #51 (I bought #50 and the Fineous Treasury shortly thereafter). First adventure I bought was, of all things, C2 Ghost Tower of Inverness.
I still have Mountain of Mirrors and its sequal (Winter Wizard?). At one point I had them all, but only those two along with the PH and OA survived the fire. Or rather the looters who went through the what was left of the house after the fire. I have seen others at used book stores and thought they might be fun to recollect.
City of Greyhawk boxed set...purchased in 1989.
My mother insisted that I start reading more and dragged me kicking and screaming to the local Waldenbooks. Visions whirled in my head of the chore of last summers school required reading....Sounder..Lord of the Flies...Of Mice and Men.... and then I stumbled into a section of the store with dice and guys with swords plastered across book covers.... I had never heard of dungeons and dragons, known anyone who played it, or really had any clue other than I liked the cover art and it sounded better than the morbid plot of Sounder (vague memories of the main character's father dying in a lumber accident, his dog getting shot and then limping around all wounded and bloody for the rest of the book....great sixth grade reading) it took me about a week to figure out I needed a rule book. The joys of being eleven.
Mine was the adventure module B1: In Search of the Unknown (with a d4 and a d10) in 1981... And I STILL have it in my collection today, although it's a bit banged up.
Ultradan