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When and how did you learn to play D&D?

Started by Iosue, October 28, 2013, 10:32:25 AM

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Iosue

October 28, 2013, 10:32:25 AM
Just a goofy little poll I thought of while reading the recent Holmes thread on RPG.net.

Basically, choose the decade you started playing D&D and the option for how you learned the game. Please choose "by the product" if that mostly the way you learned the rules, even if you first played a game before reading the book(s). Likewise, even if you bought the rules first and read through them before playing, choose "by my group/osmosis" if it was through actual play that you learned the rules. Basically, no matter what your first contact with the game was, what was it that made you say, "Okay, I got this down."?

Edit: While the poll says D&D, feel free to vote even if you broke your cherry with a completely different game.

Sacrosanct

#1
October 28, 2013, 10:40:37 AM
1981.  I convinced my brother to join his B/X game of KotBL group.  I went over to his friend's house with him and saw the game on the table.  I have a bad memory, but I still vividly recall looking at the blue d4 and thinking it was a cool dice.  When I saw the minis and the blue/white map and Rosloff's illio of the owlbear?  I was hooked.

Played B/X for about a year or so before moving to AD&D, although it wasn't an instant transition.  We had begun mix-matching AD&D stuff with B/X stuff together before that.
D&D is not an "everyone gets a ribbon" game.  If you\'re stupid, your PC will die.  If you\'re an asshole, your PC will die (probably from the other PCs).  If you\'re unlucky, your PC may die.  Point?  PC\'s die.  Get over it and roll up a new one.

Exploderwizard

#2
October 28, 2013, 10:44:26 AM
1980. Holmes for short bit, Moldvay by the time I got my own set. Played B/X until 83 when I got huge stack of AD&D books for my birthday.
Quote from: JonWakeGamers, as a whole, are much like primitive cavemen when confronted with a new game. Rather than \'oh, neat, what\'s this do?\', the reaction is to decide if it\'s a sex hole, then hit it with a rock.

Quote from: Old Geezer;724252At some point it seems like D&D is going to disappear up its own ass.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;766997In the randomness of the dice lies the seed for the great oak of creativity and fun. The great virtue of the dice is that they come without boxed text.

K Peterson

#3
October 28, 2013, 11:27:58 AM
1981. Got introduced to D&D with the Holmes set, playing a session with my brother and his friends. Got a copy of Moldvay Basic as a Xmas present that year and played it for the next year or two before moving on to AD&D.

dragoner

#4
October 28, 2013, 11:41:12 AM
'78-79, I was in the school chess club, played wargames since mid-70's with my father, such as the Russian Campaign and Squad Leader; then my sister and her friends brought me in because they needed an extra player.
The most beautiful peonies I ever saw ... were grown in almost pure cat excrement.
-Vonnegut

mcbobbo

#5
October 28, 2013, 11:41:47 AM
It was 1986.  We were at the state fair and I was finished with showing my guilt, so we wound up hanging out in a friend's camper while the vegetable judging was happening.  I was handed a hastily-written sheet of notebook paper and was told I was "like the guy from the hobbit".  We were in a maze being hunted by a minotaur (B2).  I tried to fight it and everyone else ran away.  I died horribly.  I thought the guy running the game could have explained better, so I later asked my mom for my own copy of the rules.  Christmas had a Red Box under the tree.
"It is the mark of an [intelligent] mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it."

Emperor Norton

#6
October 28, 2013, 11:52:20 AM
Late 80s, probably 88-89. Picked up the core 2e books in a walden books after reading it while waiting on my mom and begging her to get them for me and my brother.

I pretty much didn't play with an "established" group, instead just building from my own group of friends, until I was in my late teens.

TristramEvans

#7
October 28, 2013, 12:20:31 PM
D&D specifically? Late 80s, after I'd cut my teeth on Warhammer Fantasy and MSH. Had a group of friends in school that indoctrinated me, mainly because I wanted to play RPGs and they refused to play any RPGs except D&D. And Car Wars for some reason.

Roleplaying Games in general? By myself, at the age of 2.

Tahmoh

#8
October 28, 2013, 12:42:15 PM
Started on HeroQuest in 89-90 then moved onto full AD&D 2nd edition once i found a group in school, group imploded as they do so i got a copy of the black box D&D game and started my own.

jeff37923

#9
October 28, 2013, 01:34:55 PM Last Edit: October 28, 2013, 02:09:49 PM by jeff37923
1981 during a Boy Scout campout, I watched a few of the guys playing AD&D and asked if I could join in. I was handed a character sheet for a henchman and began. After the campout, I took my allowance money earmarked for Star Wars figures and bought Basic D&D. Taught myself the game and have been playing since.

(Of course, it wasn't until a few months later in 1982 that I found the Love Of My Life, Traveller and we have been having a whirlwind romance since then.)
"Meh."

Emperor Norton

#10
October 28, 2013, 02:07:30 PM
Quote from: Emperor Norton;703642Late 80s, probably 88-89. Picked up the core 2e books in a walden books after reading it while waiting on my mom and begging her to get them for me and my brother.

I pretty much didn't play with an "established" group, instead just building from my own group of friends, until I was in my late teens.

Looked it up, had to have been 89, because I know it was still the 80s, but 2e didn't come out until then :P.

languagegeek

#11
October 28, 2013, 02:22:34 PM
1981(?) (age 9). Got the Moldvay Basic box for Christmas. My wee brain knew, just from looking at the box, that this was something magical. That afternoon I got my 5 year-old brother and had a go at B2 - I recall he made a cleric. I had no clue what to do, but there were maps, monsters, and dice.

I just ran B2 last year once again. The magic is still there.

therealjcm

#12
October 28, 2013, 03:11:04 PM
1982, on a rainy day for recess the teacher was giving out board games, and somehow my table got handed a basic set and KotBL. I was the DM, picked up the book and we tried to play.

It was a disaster - a 10 year old trying to learn and run an entirely new type of game on the fly inside 30 minutes, but I somehow got hooked anyway. I'd just read narnia and then the hobbit/lotr (and abandoned shanara) and this game was even better!

Arduin

#13
October 28, 2013, 03:16:58 PM
None of the above.

arminius

#14
October 28, 2013, 03:18:28 PM
Probably 1976-78. First played in a session with older brother and his friends, then later with my own friends. I realized pretty quickly that my friend who was DMing wasn't interpreting the combat charts correctly, so I borrowed the booklets and puzzled through them.
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