So, what was your first gaming experience like?  Around the lunch table in junior high or right after college?  D&D or TMNT?  Sheer awesomeness or pure lameness.  Was graph paper involved at any time?

Please provide:

-Year (if you're brave)
-System/Setting
-What Character You Played (or if you GM'd)
-Notable Events
-Highlight
-Lowlight
-The overall perception you had afterwards

Hey, can an admin fix the title, by the way?  I fat-fingered "survey" in the original title there. :deflated:

Quote from: Zachary The First-Year (if you're brave)

1991, in my first year at secondary school.

Quote from: Zachary The First-System/Setting

Red Box D&D, using the canned adventure in the back.

Quote from: Zachary The First-What Character You Played (or if you GM'd)
-Notable Events
-Highlight
-Lowlight

Herein lies the problem, I really don't remember most of the D&D games I played at school, including the first one. We played something like three years of weekly AD&D, but I'm sketchy on details.

There was a bit with a rust monster behind a collapsed wall, and some kobolds. And maybe an ooze.

Me and one of my friends were the main GMs for that entire time, though I'm not sure whether I ran the first one, or he did.

Quote from: Zachary The First-The overall perception you had afterwards

Must have been good, since there was much play afterwards. Just don't remember many specifics.

Year: 1994
System/Setting: AD&D 2E, GM's homebrewed setting.
Character: Envar, the fighter.
Notable Events: It was actually for my 12th birthday - my uncle ran a D&D game for me and some of my school friends and we really got into it. IC, we made an alliance with a minotaur to fight a Rakshasha - the minotaur got killed in the escape. It was pretty fun.
Highlight: The sheer sense of possibility we had starting out.
Lowlight: None I remember.
Overall perception afterwards: We wanted more; unfortunately, we didn't get our act together to meet very regularly, and I got put off gaming at home after some of my friends got rowdy and started slinging dice about (leaving me more than a little concerned for my parents' expensive furniture and glassware...).

Year - 1980, Boxing Day.
System/Setting - J. Eric Holmes edition Basic D&D. The Keep on the jolly old Borderlands.
What Character You Played - I had the inestimable pleasure of being the GM for this my first game (and that of the others).
Notable Events - We had no dice. We used chits in matchboxes.
Highlight - It all worked and we had fun.
Lowlight - I don 't remember.
The overall perception you had afterwards - I wanted to play again the next day.

Year: 13th November, 1981.

System/Setting: D&D Basic Set (Moldvay edition), The Keep on the Borderlands.

Character Played: I GM'ed for my mother and six-year-old brother, both of whom were thoroughly bamboozled by the experience. They played a fighter and a cleric, respectively.

Notable Events: My mother tried to befriend the Minotaur, thinking that he was a lost and lonely soul in need of redemption. It did not end well for her...

Highlight: The sheer wealth of possibilties my 9-year-old mind became open to. Finally my imagination had found a home.

Lowlight: My brother crying every time his character took a hit.

Overall Impression Afterwards: I was utterly hooked. I began writing up my own dungeons and wilderness adventures immediately, expanding off the map provided in B2. My appetite for gaming was (and still is) insatiable.

Year: 1988

System/Setting: Star Wars: The Role-Playing Game

Character: Nossir, I was GMing.

Notable Events: Well, I finally got someone to play with me, even if it was a 12-year-old step-cousin whose favorite movie at the time was Hardbodies.

Highlight: Getting to play.

Lowlight: All of it.  It was an awkward, fumbling affair, halting and uninspiring.  I was terrible, terrible, terrible.  Shy and very doubting...but I kept going.

Overall perception afterwards: "Man...I gotta get better at this, because this gaming thing is the coolest thing I've ever, ever, ever seen."

Year - 1984 or 1985.  I was only like 8 at the time.  My mom was visiting a friend and I was hanging out with her 12-13 year old kid.  To entertain me, he ran me through a game of D&D.

System/Setting - Moldvay Basic D&D / generic dungeon (made out on graph paper).

Character - Unnamed fighter (at least, I'm pretty sure I didn't name him).

Notable Events - Killed goblins, took their stuff, and touched a magic table that increased my strength by one point.

Highlight - The sheer awesomeness of the game; it was so different than anything I'd experienced up to that point.

Lowlight - Having to go home, because I knew it would be a very long time until I played again.

Overall Impression Afterwards - Loved it.  A few months later, I got my grandmother to buy me a set - which, unfortunately, ended up being the expert set (I was too young to understand the difference at the time, despite the multiple warnings on the box).  It was around another year before I actually got to play it again - after I bought a friend the basic set (which was still Moldvay - the Metzner sets didn't appear in my area until late 86 or 87) for a birthday present.  After he played it, he loved it - and the rest is history.

-1977
-D&D, no particular setting.
-Padre Vallente--yeah, I got the "party needs a cleric"
-There was this huge, crazy centrifuge trap, like a carnival ride. I think it was supposed to disorient us.
-The highlight was, of course, that I discovered this great new way to share my imagination with other people.
-The lowlight was getting in trouble for staying over too long with those "reefer-smoking high school boys."
-The implications of the activity were immediately and profoundly obvious to me. I leapt into the hobby with a little kid's single-minded determination and never leapt out.

Quote from: Zachary The First-Year (if you're brave)

1998. I remember it was few weeks after the soccer world cup in France, as I've worn a T-shirt of that event on that day.

Quote from: Zachary The First-System/Setting

The Dark Eye, 3rd Edition.

Quote from: Zachary The First-What Character You Played (or if you GM'd)

A human hunter, with a longbow and the most big-ass spear that the weapon table provided :haw:

Quote from: Zachary The First-Notable Events
-Highlight
-Lowlight

I stabbed a crocodile Braveheart-style, by moving up my spear and letting it run into it :haw:
There aren't any lowlights or other notable events that I remember (I only remember it was a straight hack&slash dungeon), but this moment was awesome.

Quote from: Zachary The First-The overall perception you had afterwards

Loved it. Like Zelda, but with better graphics and way more freedom to tackle challenges :haw:

-Year (if you're brave)

1979, first year in junior high. I played chess in elementary school, and they had a chess/games club at lunch, and I noticed people playing this strange game...

-System/Setting

D&D, "basic" set (the one with the erol otus dragon)

-What Character You Played (or if you GM'd)

A human cleric that couldn't cast any spells.

-Notable Events

She got killed by a Dire Wolf. My second character, an elf, fared better...

-1982, i think (late elementary school)
-moldvay basic d&d
-1st level thief
-walked into the first cave in B2, failed to spot the pit trap at the intersection, fell in and died
-it happened so fast, i just went "huh?" thought, okay, let's try this again, and rolled up a new character (MU)
-absolutely loved it.  started making up my own dungeons shortly thereafter.  obviously struck a chord inside since i'm still gaming after all these years.  

1979, I was 12
Baisc D&D (see below)
I played a thief.
I think it was a homebrew dungeon.
Highlight: I could feel the game's potential, and event though the GM was a tard I was able to infuse enough of my own imagination into the game to enjoy it.
Lowlight: GM was a tard.
I gamed with these guys on and off for about five or six months and then I jumped ship to another group. That summer we discovered Traveller.

My friend kept trying to get me to play a game called Dungeons & Dragons.  On the way to a park one day (we did a lot of walking back then), he ran me through a scenario, using no dice or paper, just words and imagination.

-Year (if you're brave)
1982 - I was 11

-System/Setting
Dungeons & Dragons (red box)

-What Character You Played (or if you GM'd)
I played an human with plate mail and a sword.

-Notable Events
I killed my first goblin

-Highlight
Killing the goblin + the overall experience.

-Lowlight
None at the time, except that later my buddy lost interest in RPGs.  

-The overall perception you had afterwards
I couldn't wait to play more.  

Pete

Year: 1993
System: Draci doupe (czech D&D clone)
Character: Saibon, dwarf ranger
Notable events: I draw my character sheet, first action I do, I let elf from the party to walk into the trap. And I killed some nasty bug with one swing of an axe.
Highlight: Absolutely new experience. My first contact with fantasy and that kind of stuff.
Lowlight: None.
Overall: It was the worst GMed game I've ever seen. Yet, it was still absolutely brilliant and I love it very, very much. Yeah.

Year - 1986

System/Setting - AD&D, Dm's homebrew

What Character You Played - Eppy Glotis, human thief

Notable Events - the four PC's returned from a hunting expedition (wot - my thief ?) to find their village burnt and dark shadows moving away in the distance. Was there any weeping and wailing ? fuck no, we wandered to the next town, got pissed up and heard about the local dungeon for an old gadge down the boozer - minutes later we were hacking at 4 Orcs with swords in a square room underground. BUT IT ALL SEEMED SPECIAL !

Highlight - that we were allowed to game on a Wednesday afternoon at school ('general studies' - you picked something to do, were alloted a room, the teachers got a rest), we'd asked to do archery (we had the gear) but weren't allowed.

Lowlight - the fact that I didn't get to play Helga Hardnipple, dwarf fighter

The overall perception you had afterwards

We'd been listening to Iron Maiden throughout, we'd finished the epic 1st battle, I did a fucking Crit Success - twice ! We were buzzing, talking about what to do next, wallked out of the classroom to see the girls who'd chosen to do dance glistening with perspiration , walking by in leotards and leg warmers :jaw-dropping: - the world seemed alive with possibility and adventures to be had.

Game on !