Quote from: Drohem;534425I would say that the majority of gamers learned how to play from someone else rather than just picking up the rules and reading them without any influence from another person on how to interpret and view the rules.  (Naturally, now there will be a slew of posts where people state that is exactly how they learned how to play RPGs, LOL!)

This is exactly how I learned how to play.  I asked for D&D and picked up Traveller myself when a local hobby shop opened up and learned to play form the books, Traveller being a stronger influence than D&D.  Some of my earliest role-playing experiences included GM-less play, solo-play with the rules, and creating homebrew rules for Star Wars action figures.  I saw it as a natural evolution of the games I'd already been playing with action figures, toy cars, Legos, and so on, using rules as a physics engine to help decide what happens next.  So perhaps the real imprint was how I'd been playing with action figures, toy cars, and Legos.

Quote from: Drohem;534425I think that in this learning process, a gamer is 'imprinted' with the sensibilities of the gaming culture at the time (more specifically, the decade influencing game culture).

I think there is some truth to the imprint idea, and as someone who was never imprinted by a strong GM or GMing style, I think there can be a downside to it, as there always is when learning from someone else.  To paraphrase Pink Floyd's song Mother:

Hush now player, player, dont you cry.
GM's gonna make all your nightmares come true.
GM's gonna put all his fears into you.
GM's gonna keep you right here under his wing.
He wont let you fly, but he might let you sing.
GM will keep player cozy and warm.
Ooooh player ooooh player oooooh player,
Of course GM'll help to build a style.

Quote from: Drohem;534501OK, for all the self-taught people, do you think that the friends/people that you first gamed with had any lasting influence or contribution to your 'RPG Imprint?'

The first person I role-played with I'd already been "role-playing" without rules with for years, with action figures, toy cars, Legos, and so on.  I'd also played a lot of board games with him and his family.  When I first asked for D&D, I had assumed it would be some type of board game.  What I realized is that it was more like playing with action figures, toy cars, and Legos with rules.  So what I did early on what a lot like that and included play with rules but without a GM or, sometimes, even other players.  As such, the influences that I carried into role-playing were formed before I ever saw an RPG.  

Where I think my experience differs from people who learned from a GM is that I never had strong GM issues that a lot of other people seem to have had, including competitive GMs, killer GMs, Monty Haul GMs, controlling GMs, manipulative GMs, and so on.  I've always thought of myself as more of a player than a GM, too.

Quote from: John Morrow;534925The first person I role-played with I'd already been "role-playing" without rules with for years, with action figures, toy cars, Legos, and so on.  I'd also played a lot of board games with him and his family.  When I first asked for D&D, I had assumed it would be some type of board game.  What I realized is that it was more like playing with action figures, toy cars, and Legos with rules.  So what I did early on what a lot like that and included play with rules but without a GM or, sometimes, even other players.  As such, the influences that I carried into role-playing were formed before I ever saw an RPG.  

Where I think my experience differs from people who learned from a GM is that I never had strong GM issues that a lot of other people seem to have had, including competitive GMs, killer GMs, Monty Haul GMs, controlling GMs, manipulative GMs, and so on.  I've always thought of myself as more of a player than a GM, too.

First of all, 10 gazillion points for combining Pink Floyd and role-playing!

Well, sure, I think that if you go back even further you (plural 'you' here) can trace all of your gaming roots to child's 'Let's Play' experiences since those experiences, and time in one's life, is the font of all imagination.  

Upon hearing your experience, and other posters, without having a GM and/or group to guide their initial RPG experiences, I think that there is some significance in that fact; and not in terms of either a positive or negative, but in just a formative frame of reference.

Quote from: John Morrow;534925The first person I role-played with I'd already been "role-playing" without rules with for years, with action figures, toy cars, Legos, and so on.  I'd also played a lot of board games with him and his family.  When I first asked for D&D, I had assumed it would be some type of board game.  What I realized is that it was more like playing with action figures, toy cars, and Legos with rules.  So what I did early on what a lot like that and included play with rules but without a GM or, sometimes, even other players.  As such, the influences that I carried into role-playing were formed before I ever saw an RPG.  

Where I think my experience differs from people who learned from a GM is that I never had strong GM issues that a lot of other people seem to have had, including competitive GMs, killer GMs, Monty Haul GMs, controlling GMs, manipulative GMs, and so on.  I've always thought of myself as more of a player than a GM, too.

My experiences are almost exactly the same as yours. I would add playing adventure path books like Grail Quest and Lone Wolf as big influences too.

Quote from: John Morrow;534925The first person I role-played with I'd already been "role-playing" without rules with for years, with action figures, toy cars, Legos, and so on.  I'd also played a lot of board games with him and his family.  When I first asked for D&D, I had assumed it would be some type of board game.  What I realized is that it was more like playing with action figures, toy cars, and Legos with rules.  So what I did early on what a lot like that and included play with rules but without a GM or, sometimes, even other players.  As such, the influences that I carried into role-playing were formed before I ever saw an RPG.  

This also matches my pre-formal RPG experience.  I "role played" with action figures, models, and other toys all the time.  D&D added the concept of formalized rules and a Dungeon Master.  In retrospect, I think those were highly dubious contributions.

The first time I looked at D&D, I saw the comment in the Basic book about using metal miniatures.  I had seen these miniatures at the store, and knew how big they were.  I then compared it to the map of the Caves of Chaos, which I thought was a gameboard.  I wondered how in hell I was supposed to fit those miniatures in those tiny squares.  

I was sold on D&D by being told that I could use it to play Star Trek and Star Wars, just as I had already been doing, but better.  The Basic D&D book informed me that it was just like participating in a good movie or novel.

Quote from: Drohem;534932Well, sure, I think that if you go back even further you (plural 'you' here) can trace all of your gaming roots to child's 'Let's Play' experiences since those experiences, and time in one's life, is the font of all imagination.

Yeah, I don't think an interest in roleplaying games reflects some particular emphasis on playing with models or action figures.

Quote from: Drohem;534932Upon hearing your experience, and other posters, without having a GM and/or group to guide their initial RPG experiences, I think that there is some significance in that fact; and not in terms of either a positive or negative, but in just a formative frame of reference.

As I noted upthread . . .

Quote from: Black Vulmea;534520I think there's a difference in imprinting in when a gamer started to referee.

I was taught by another gamer who refereed our games, and I started refereeing myself in a fairly short period of time - we're talking like a couple of weeks later. We played one weekend, he left his blue box with me 'til the next weekend, and the following weekend I ran my first dungeon.

Quote from: John Morrow;534925Where I think my experience differs from people who learned from a GM is that I never had strong GM issues that a lot of other people seem to have had, including competitive GMs, killer GMs, Monty Haul GMs, controlling GMs, manipulative GMs, and so on.  I've always thought of myself as more of a player than a GM, too.

Hrmmm??? My first GM, Doug, was both a Killer GM and a Monty Haul GM. Surviving to reach 4th or 5th level was a real challenge... and it seemed we never played long enough for many of us to reach that level, as we switched out and tried different games (like Traveller, RuneQuest, T&T, TFT, and later C&S.)

We didn't suddenly switch from playing wargames to RPGs exclusively either. We played some RPGs, we'd take a break for awhile and play some wargames, then we'd go back to playing in one of our friends RPG campaign again. It was all about exchanging ideas and trying out different things.

When I finally did get my hands on the white bookset, It seemed my games ran much better and people had alot more fun when I acted as an impartial referee, simply describing locales and encounters and then calling on the players to describe and detail their actions and reactions in the game world.

My Imprint would be Warhammer and Call of Cthulhu. I have/had an awesome Warhammer GM, that I still strive to be as good as him. CoC I learned myself, from my deep love for weird horror, started accidentally upon reading Lovecraft's Pickman's Model (still my favourite story of his) in a gaming magazine of my father, when I was of tender age of 12.

An important factor would be that my father played RPGs quite a bit, although he doesn't do that much anymore (sometimes he comes to a game I GM, when he has a free day and I have a slot for him). He played mostly Warhammer while in military, and it was the first RPG I ever learned of .

Quote from: Black Vulmea;534706A stupid rule which was sensibly dropped from 1e AD&D and even more sensibly never appeared in many other games at all.

Oh god, I remember Call of Cuthullu games where if you had an idea you then had to make an Idea Roll to see if your character could also think of it.

God am I glad we don't do that any more.

Played 3.5 in college.  First RPG.  We played ourselves sucked into a fantasy world.  Boy, that's nerdy.

Quote from: jadrax;534992Oh god, I remember Call of Cuthullu games where if you had an idea you then had to make an Idea Roll to see if your character could also think of it.

God am I glad we don't do that any more.

OMG that's bad GMing. Idea Rolls are for the ability to process the obvious, general awareness, hunches and the like where skills like Spot Hidden and Psychology wouldn't apply. Not to determine whether you can role play your character's decisions or not.

Quote from: Benoist;534997OMG that's bad GMing. Idea Rolls are for the ability to process the obvious, general awareness, hunches and the like where skills like Spot Hidden and Psychology wouldn't apply. Not to determine whether you can role play your character's decisions or not.

Yeah, well to be fair, we were all like 12 or something at the time.

To be honest, I don't think a lot of our rule interpretations were exactly awe-inspiring. This was the game where our standard tactic was to drop Azathoth on it, and I once spent six rounds fighting a Dark Young (or somthing) with us both inside of Azathoth because we had got it onto our head that only Azathoth's attack was material (the fight ended when they electrocuted Azathoth with me inside him using some electricity pylons, which now I think back does not make a whole load of sense).

Well I certainly had some... interesting game sessions of that ilk myself back when we were kids, that's for sure. Taking Shub Niggurath spawns with rocket launchers and dynamite sticks dropped from an Hispano Suiza. LOL Good times, good times.

Quote from: Benoist;535026Well I certainly had some... interesting game sessions of that ilk myself back when we were kids, that's for sure. Taking Shub Niggurath spawns with rocket launchers and dynamite sticks dropped from an Hispano Suiza. LOL Good times, good times.

That sounds like a typical game of Synibarr.

I'd love to try that game again just to see if I could have as much fun with it as I did 25-30 years ago.

B/X, then AD&D (1e then 2e).  Parallel to this was Star Frontiers, FASERIP, Robotech, TMNT, Cyberpunk.

Formative stuff:
* My two first regular DMs were, respectively, an "I'm smarter than you, listen to my brilliant story" type, and a literal "rocks fall everybody dies" crybaby.  I can definitely see how my own early style was a reaction to both of these, no doubt.

* Zero exposure (outside of seeing ads) to stuff like Traveller or HERO or Rolemaster for years and years.  Some GURPS exposure later, but that was after I had already blossomed into a first-stage GM.  Allergic reaction to the realism of GURPS.  I think this lack of exposure (or perhaps "lack of a GM who ran a badass Traveller game so I could grok it") certainly affected my gamer-brain.

* late 90s-early 00s during a significant "no tabletop going on" break, I spent some time involved in a Vampire LARP.  Some interesting takeaways (and some negative role modeling) from that period for sure.