Greetings to all...

I always find it interesting to ask people this: what was your very first game playing experience? What was your character's name and class? How did it go? And what was your impression of RPGs as opposed to other games you have played?

I'll start.

My very first game was 1979 - D&D's B2 - The Keep on the Borderlands. It was myself, the GM, and another player. I ran a MU with the unimaginative name of "Ram", the other player was a Fighter named Blue Fist. We made our way to the 'Caves of Chaos' and nearly got killed by a Giant Rat. When we were better, we found a bunch of chump change, then got ambushed by a Gnoll and a Troll. Both our characters dumped the loot and ran away. We managed to make our way back to the Keep, only it was locked for the night.
Both of us tried to swim across the moat and drowned.

I thought that it far outstripped any other game because it was powered by imagination and also didn't require us to conform to a set of pre-arranged plans. I really liked the freedom to do whatever I wanted and also the idea of creating a new character that could be however I wanted. -- I was hooked.

What about you? Share your first game experience with us.

78
Holmes Basic
Home brew dungeon

We were in middleschool and the DM thought that naming the characters was silly and childish, so he didn't allow it. I was simply known as Dwarf Fighter.

1991.  TMNT & OS.

I accidentally killed a cop in the scenario with the school taken over by mutant birds.  My first 'accidental' kill.

I learned to rationalize collateral damage at an early age.

Holmes Basic (I believe), 1979. My best friend ran me through the intro dungeon.

First character - a Paladin named Minston Diced (say it out loud). Yes, even at that tender age I though highly of my ability to make up puns. I'm still wrong, of course. I have re-cycled him many times over the years (was my first 3e Character in fact, though I went Fighter that time out), including my first World of Warcraft character.

Second character - female Cleric named Wilma (had a crush on Erin Grey/Wilma Dearing at the time). She, too, has turned up many times in the years since (WoW included). This proves that I am not, in fact, a mysogynist as long as the female in question is hot.

The only thing I have clear memory of was thinking the game was fucking amazing.

Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 1st Edition, in 4th grade.

Remains , IMO, the pinnacle of one-book RPG presentation. It took a long time for anyone to convince me to play AD&D , which I saw as shoddy, unorganized, and with no internal consistency or setting detail to speak of in comparison.

I didn't play but my first gaming experience (about 25+ years ago, I think) was running a RQ game. I felt like God and pretty much ran games that way for a couple of years.

Regards,
David R

8th grade, 1994; played a thief in a miniature dungeon game. Classes really didn't matter, since we didn't do much but run around and fight. But I did pick one locked door in that dungeon.

I played a few more times before one of the players and I decided to buy some books and figure out how the game was really played.

I don't remember the first time I played. Started around  6 years old, playing with an older brother, in 1980 or 81. I have vague memories of playing fighters, thieves. I remember we played Oriental Adventures pretty heavily, when that came out.

I seem to remember Marvel SuperHeroes as well. Or DC - they had a superheroes game.

So - I don't remember my first game, my first character, or what RPGs felt like as compared to other games. The first memory I have of a "game-board" is blue graph paper in a D&D module, actually. I never got the experience of "discovering" roleplaying games. Sort of like I don't remember learning to read.

Got my two fingers chopped off in a trap. I was a thief.

I think I wound up getting killed by a goblin but I don't exactly remember. It was just the one session.

I was about 9. A friend of mine had the Ravenloft module, and I think I played a Fighter. Then we switched to a Lankhmar campaign.

James Bond, around 1989-90 I think. No idea what the characters name was. All I really remember was that he had a prosthetic arm that could extend to grab things and hit people. And that he had to have reconstructive surgery because he was too well known.

A friend in school ran a maze, with a minotaur. I had a halberd, and a lantern. Its rules used only purloined D6's from a board game. I imagine it was created by listening into an older siblings D&D game. I don't recall having things like stats, many rules, or even a name.  Yet that stuck with me and I finally got the connection back to D&D and away I ran.

I seem to recall my first D&D PC being an Elf named (something) Eagle, and my AD&D PC (several years later) was Talos Clawhand, who had a clawed hand, inspired by a short story I read which had "mutant" things in a fantasy environment.

I'm another Holmes Basic, In Search of the Unknown.
I gm'ed. The hardest part was coercing my friends.
Still at it, I guess. ;o)

First game I ever ran was odd. I started playing D&D and my mom was worried because of the whole satan worshiper rumors that were going around. So I had to prove to her that it wasn't anything like that by playing a game with her.

I suppose I could have bored her out of it by spending an hour building a character, but I just used the basic stats and made her a fighter and had a little "find my stolen treasure" adventure that ended about ten minutes into play when she realized there was nothing satanic about walking through a forest and beating up monsters.

I was twelve or thirteen at the time and the whole thing was pretty awkward. But at least she checked it out rather than trying to just ban me from playing it like some of the other kids.

1985 (9 years old). Red Box, I played a fighter by the name of Sir Harald (I wanted to be a knight, but there  were no knight so I got a fighter. He went on to become an Inmortal 2 years later, Saint Patron of Knighthood. My first game was about healing a cursed forest.