How did you start gaming?

[Severus Snape]

Wow, do I feel old.

I remember back when I was 9 years (1980) old Dungeons and Dragons (basic, not even 1st edition AD&D) was getting popular in the school I was in. I asked my mom for the Basic set for my 10th birthday, and I got that AND the Expert set. Played that for a few years, and then when I was 14 I got a paper route and saved up all my money and started buying all the 1st Edition stuff.

Fast forward now to 2010. I still game. And while I love PB (especially HU), AD&D 2E is still my favorite game. 30 years of D&D/AD&D. And the memories I have playing...

[BookWyrm]

I don't know if it counts as "On Your Own", but I was introduced to RPGs when my high-scool science teachers gathered a few of the brightest in their classes one lunch-period and told us about the game they put together. It was AD&D (2nd Edition), and it was good. AD&D was my 'gateway' RPG, which led to MSH, TMNT/AtB, Robotech, Heroes Unltd. and a few others. I eventually became disillusioned with AD&D (MSH passed an ignoble demise), which I gladly replaced with Shadowrun.

[johnkretzer]

My brother started me gaming. After a little hiatus looking for friends of my own to game with I have not stopped since. That...wow...almost 20 years ago. I guess it is not just some phase...

[SkyeFyre]

It was 2002. I used to make fun of the "stupid guys" who would hang out in a spare classroom (highschool) and play role playing games during lunch. Thought it was the dumbest thing ever. Then one day my friend comes over, hands me and my bro a pre-made character sheet for Rifts and says "try it"

After that first session I was hooked and decided to join the "stupid guys" at lunch. Since then I've been an avid Palladium fan. Rifts was my first role playing experience. I've tried others over the years, but I can't stand any system other than the Palladium system.

[GaredBattlespike]

It was Christmas of 1980 (I was about to turn 11 at the end of January) and as a present, I had received the D&D Boxed Set. It was a strange new game and I had no real idea of the rules at first, but for each game session, it was Quality Time with Dad! Each week we'd game and my very first PC (Zocck Castlestorm) would try to out-think problems/foes. My Dad is a Wargamer (I still have his Tobruk WW II board game) and we played many WW II board games before and since, but such quality time is a magic all it's own!

A few years later, after making friends with other gamers, I went and adopted AD&D (1st Ed), as well as Gamma World and Star Frontiers!
On TV, at 6:00 am weekdays, I found Robotech! This was awesome!

By 1989 we were seperating to different Colleges, and the last Games my original crew and I played were:AD&D (2nd Ed), Shadow Run, and the ORIGINAL (soft cover, pre-mass-media-hyped) Vampire. No Mages, a quick bit that werewolves MIGHT exist in that dark world. Then we went our seperate ways.

In college I found Champions and Mechwarrior/Battletech! The Battletech would eventually return me to Robotech!

In 1993 I decided to go to my first Con! It was a magical time, and I even won 3rd place in the Battletech design contest (75 ton with 10 Med Lasers + 16 Double Heat Sinks)! But the BEST thing I got at the Con was a flier for a Gaming Store: The Gamers Guild in Milford, Mass- right off of Route 140! I lived in Norton, Mass and 140 goes through my town N-S across Route 123! I thought it would be be easy to find...LOL!!!

When I found the Guild, became a 2nd home for me, as it had for about 20 or so others! There I found Rifts, got to play my first Rifts PC: Destinova; a Fire Dragon Hatchling! The Guild moved once and then closed it's doors.

But I still Game with some of the old Guild Crew, and have been Playing: Rifts, Palladium Fantasy, Nightbane(N-Spawn when we started), Robotech, Pathfinder, Shadow Run (3rd & 4th), WOD(Mage/Vampire/Werewolf) Aberrant, and sometimes even other games too.

Good Gaming, GaredBattlespike

[kmspade]

My dad got me the DnD boxed set. (It was the red one, I don't know what edition or anything.) I got my friends together and that was pretty much that. I eventually graduated to ADnD and ADnD second edition. From there I discovered Palladium at a convention.

The first Palladium game I ever played was TMNT, at a convention. (The GM ran Truckin' Turtles.) Since then I've been an almost exclusive Palladium player, starting with TMNT, PFRPG, HU and Robotech. Got Rifts the day it came out and have been playing it ever since. I also played Shadowrun (first edition) and Cyberpunk, but always ended up coming back to Rifts.

[Vrykolas2k]

"Penalties for females" is a myth.
Certain races had caps on some stats, as did femmes as far as Strength goes.
And it was perfectly logical.

[drakinn]

In 1989 I read a Robotech novel and saw a Robotech game book in a book store. In 1990 I saw a Rifts book while looking for a Robotech book and the rest as they say is history.

[The Dark Elf]

1988 TMNT - my brother GM'd. ( I'd taking the **** out of him years before saying "how can you write for fun?!"). What did I know?....

[sHaka]

I started in about 1989 (I was eight) with the discovery of Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone's Fighting Fantasy game books. Then they released an Advanced Fighting Fantasy and I was hooked on RPGing and we played epic improvised sessions for years. From there I picked up AD&D 1st ed (though barely played it, preffering the rules lite AFF) and picked up copies of Dragon magazine when they intermittantly appeared on UK shelves (all the while getting into early Warhammer 40K Rogue Trader, Blood Bowl and Battletech in the background).

One day in Dragon (probably Xmas time 1993) I saw an ad with the picture of two SAMAS strafing a Baal-rog and thought, "That looks AWESOME!". I went into a Virgin Megastore (who used to stock RPGs!) and picked up the Rifts core book, loved it and asked for books for Xmas - my sweet old grandma got me CB1 + WB1-4 and i've been hooked on Palladium since.

(I remember my mum leafing through, reading the disclaimer and asked if these books were "ok". I still smile when I read those)

There's been years of playing Star Wars D6, Werewolf and Cyberpunk, but I always come home to Palladium.

[Aaryq]

1 or 2 weekends a month every month since as long back as I can remember, my parents would take me and my family over to Keith's house (my dad's Police Partner) for 1st Edition AD&D. It was mom, dad, my brother, Keith (his partner), Mary (Keith's wife), Becky and Harry (Keith's oldest kids)For me, at first it was just time to watch what they do for a bit, get bored and then play with the other kids. I kept asking to play and my folks kept telling me I was too young and would stop paying attention, get distracted and leave. 2 different nights, I sat there and quietly paid attention. After that, when we got home, my dad helped me roll up a character. A Human Ranger (played as a Samurai) named Yoshi. He helped me roll up the character and told me to get ready because next time I would be playing too.
I don't remember how old I was, but I know it was before the 4th grade (Keith was killed in a gunfight at a bar with a mentally derranged man). I played every time we got together until he died. I was a kid and they took that into account, but they never fudged a dice roll and only bent rules that I just couldn't understand (adult concepts...not dirty adult, just stuff kids don't get).
After Keith died, the gaming stopped until my brother graduated and joined the Army. I found some of his books (Robotech, and Heroes Unlimited Revised Edition). I loved the concept and mechanics and created a few characters and designed a few campaigns. In the end of my 5th grade year, I got 2 of my friends (we'd been friends since kindergarten) interested. We played every nearly every weekend without fail. Back in 2001 we started a campaign eventually dubbed "the cool mission" This lasted from 2001 until 2004 on a regular basis and officially ended in 2006 (with an open ending available if the third of our trio decides he ever wants to pick it up)
One friend is still a regular gamer with me (an online game). Palladium has been nearly my exclusive play, except when I'm in a situation where there I really have an RP itch, at which point I will learn another system (D&D 3.5 and 4.0 as of now) just long enough to play (then data dump most of the rules).

**ETA, I'm 25 now and graduated in 2004 at the age of 18 if that helps with the math

[strtkwr]

1990, I got TMNT as a birthday gift. From there I branched out into the other lines (Robotech, HU), and other games (D&D, Shadowrun).

[JuliusCreed]

I was 12 years old. The year was 1982. the place was Omaha, Nebraska. My mother introduced me to a neighbor's kid who played D&D. We hit it off from the start, became fast friends and gamed together every chance we got. after a couple years we moved and my gaming days ended for a while (couldn't afford to buy them) I often wonder whatever became of him... mayhap he's here? Bruce? BRUCE?! You out there old friend?

[Cyrano de Maniac]

I had two first starts, the first of which fizzled. On a family trip to the Twin Cities, probably around 1987 or 1988, we ate at a restaurant in what is now known as Bandana Square, and downstairs there was this little hobby shop. Nosing about I found a GURPS Basic Set 2nd Edition, and came to the impression that this box of stuff could be used to create any game you wanted. After the family was packing into the car I realized I really wanted this thing, and asked if I could go back and get it, and borrow some money from Mom & Dad (I was a good saver, so they knew I had the money available to repay them for it back at home). Upon opening it up back home it really wasn't what I was expecting, and it sat on the shelf for a while. Eventually I brought it over to a friends house, and we tried running the canned adventure at the back of one of the books. We didn't know what we were doing, and as such it kind of bombed. I did create a character of my own though, and I think I still have the character sheet.

Fast forward to my freshman year of college. I'm one of the student monitors for the honors dorm computer lab, which on Saturdays really is more of a Warhammer game room. As there's really not much for me to do in my official capacity, I kind of nose around and watch people playing. A guy named Paul notices my interest in the games and invites me to create a character for the Champions game he's running Saturday evenings (well, technically the bulk of it was Sunday mornings, you know how that goes). Anyway, it was an easy one for me given I had my own superhero I'd thought up as a kid and Paul was pretty impressed with what I came up with as it was the only non-munchkin use of a Multipower that he'd ever seen. Anyway, many many hours of gaming later and I was hooked.

Some other new college friends and a Gamma World game were followed by incredibly fun times with Rifts. My first Rifts character ended up with the name Paul in honor of my first GM.

Brent

[durfast]

1990. I actually got started with Rifts but I came to love Palladium Fantasy.

[drakinn]

tons of great stories thanks all

[St. Evil]

I was a zitty giant 10yr old who met 4 brothers who wanted a 4th in the party of the 1st ed of an "other game". Hard to believe it has been 28 years since I first rolled the dice.

[Cinos]

Back in like, '92, I got some of the old D6 West End Star Wars games and instantly started GMing them for about 14 of my school friends (generally about 3-6 years older then I was at the time). Eventually one of them picked up a Rifts book, and I switched over. Soon after that, I picked up what is now my solid group of gamers after I did a mini-course (in Middle School, since I'm fairly sure they where just a random thing my School did, basically 4 week courses that students could run, mostly just teachers and normal faculty, a few outsiders teaching random hobbyist stuff like Dance, or a weird set of art, or skiing) teaching how to play it, and doing dissertations on RPGs for the class (since they got onto me that I was just planning on spending the 1 month course on screwing off, I had to put in pretend work). I've since been playing and Modding RPG's with that group, and a few others.

[rc_brooks]

I got started into proper RPG's (played Battletech with some vague Mechwarrior thrown in to enhance our pilots) in 89 (I was 13) with GURPS. Started playing with a couple cousins. We used to play it out in the woods. Ah... the memories. Such great times! We then moved on to D&D, AD&D and Palladium Fantasy. We played all sorts though. I remember a long stint playing Tunnels and Trolls early on (Buffalo Games or something wasn't it?). Rune Quest was another favorite early on. I loved the supers RPGS. Cut my super hero teeth on Villains and Vigilantes then onto Heroes Unlimited, Marvel and Champions. I would say it was 93 or 94 when I first started playing Rifts. There were so many great games out there. Though we too played video games, we cherished our RPGs where you could make your own characters and adventures, and not be confined by the programming.

Even on today's games (MMO's included) they just don't have the freedom of pen and paper games (though I do love me the Elder Scrolls series of games).

[Warwolf]

Unlike alot of you folks, I began with video games; the old nintendo, with mario world and duck hunt.

Well, if we're counting video games then I started back in December of 1990 when I got my NES for Christmas. Shadowgate was the first videogame I ever played (the way I remember it anyway).

[Tensu]

Video games I guess would have to be my start since I've had my NES since I was three ,the thing still work too compared to most of the newer systems I have, that was back in 1988 and before then I would apparently play pong, snake, and other computer games my dad had a year or so before that. Now I'll admit the only real games I remember first playing on the computer where when I was 5 or so and they where wheel of fortune and jeopardy games but hey I'll take my parents word that I have been gaming since I was 2 because I don't remember a time when I didn't have a NES and I remember playing an Atari at my uncles and supposedly he got rid of his Atari in 1987-88.

Wow rambling on there for a while.

Anyways my first real table top or pen and paper rpg/gaming experience was when some friend of mine who had similar video game tastes invited me to join them for a Rifts and PFRPG. Before then I had tried playing D&D a couple of time but could never seem to get through even one game. Still can't stand D&D and I'm not a huge fan of the D20 system.

[mastermesh]

1990s... Sometime in the 1990s. Palladiumbooks had an ad in a Marvel comics, think it was xmen? ... me, my brother, a friend on the other side of the block and his brother were in to comics back then so went ahead and ordered. The friend got Heroes and Villians Unlimited and Rifts. I got Beyond the Supernatural and Ninjas and Superspies.

Went to college in 94, and learned a few new systems up there... World of Darkness stuff, and started collecting books from that company too... and hung out in the local comic book shop often to see what new was in...

Rest is history.

Actually, roleplaying got me started towards theater in some ways, so it can be partly held responsible for me getting a theater minor in college, lol.

[Hendrik]

Hi there,

April 1984.

A friend of my mother wanted to make me a present. She asked what the boy likes and my mother said games and books. The friend went to a toy store and asked for a toy that does both. Apparently, the dealer suggested Das Schwarze Auge (a German roleplaying game) which had just come out and I got that. I read it, loved it, got 3 friends to game with me and have been lovestruck with RPGs ever since - all the worlds at my fingertips!

D&D was my second game, same year. I was hungry for more and had everything that had come out for Das Schwarze Auge ... and D&D had just come out for the first time in a German translation (AD&D was not even translated yet) and I loved the red box with the dragon, so I got that. In 1985 I was invited to a group of players who played AD&D in English and the DM Thomas knew Don Turnbull of TSR UK. For Christmas in 1985 I got my parents to get me all the AD&D books via Thomas directly from TSR UK (Unearthed Arcana and the The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh have been very dear to me ever since!) - which was payable only because we got a discount (thanks to Thomas and Don)

Early 1986 I stumbled over PFRPG ...

Ah, great times!

Cheers
Hendrik

[GeraldClamar]

Ah, the fond memories. My mother bought us (my brother and me) our first adventure when I was but 10 years old. It was the AD&D adventure "Cult of the Reptile God". Since then we have DMed and played in Dungeons and Dragons. After a few years, my mom bought me my first Rifts book, Conversion book 1. I was hooked on Rifts after that. We had even joined a game club at Gamers Paradise which was then located in the Town and Country mall in Arlington Heights. My favorite shop is still Games Plus to this day.

[Illendaver]

I had played video games ever since I was about 2. I can vividly recall sitting on the back of my dads big beat up recliner and telling him how he should build his towns in Transportation Tycoon, and whining when dad shot me in Doom. When I got old enough to read, my dad would make me read a chapter in DragonLance books and tell him what happend before we could do anything fun (like go to the zoo or more video games). Then he had me try Magic: The Gathering to help me learn new words.

Eventually I made it into school and didn't get to see my dad that much, my folks are divorced and I lived with my mom. During junior high I went to live with my dad, and even got to go to a brand-spankin-new school that had just been finished that year, so new that they didn't even have a chess club. I had a talk with my English teacher to see if we could set up an after school gaming group, he had me round up a bunch of guys who wanted to be able to just hang out and not go home right away after school, we signed a piece of paper and The Papillion La-Vista South High School Gaming Club was born. I made sure that ANY game could be played there, not just chess and this somehow slipped by the superintendant i guess. It was there that my friend got me to first try D&D.

I guess that things have finally come full circle... I found a copy of Transportation Tycoon Deluxe in an old dollar bin three years ago, I still have the original DragonLance trilogy, And I have spent WAY too much money on Magic cards over the years... And now I have two daughters who are just now coming up on being two years old.

[Athos]

OMG, I feel old... I read the Lord of the Rings back in 1976 and LOVED it, and knew I wanted to play in that world. I looked at Basic D&D, but that didn't do much for me, but when 1st edition came out in '77 I was hooked, I bought everything I could get my hands on with the money from my paper route. I played AD&D for a few years and had a great time, but in 1984 I joined the Army and became too mature for gaming .

Well, in 1992 I got out of the Army after Desert Storm, I did my 8 years, and I picked up Shadowrun and Rifts and played both of them along with Dark Sun, 2nd edition AD&D. I liked all of them, but my career as a software engineer was taking off, so I mostly gamed with friends from work when I wasn't travelling. Work got to be too much and I stopped gaming for about 10 years from 1996 to 2004, when I got involved in Living Greyhawk, which was 3.5 D&D where they had conventions. My daughter and I would travel all over the central US going to conventions from Texas to Wisconsin, Colorado to Indiana... we had a great time travelling and playing and meeting people. Until 4th edition came out that is, they dumbed the game down to the point that even my preteen daughter didn't think it was worth playing, so we quit D&D.

Now I mostly play Rifts on the Internet with friends in real time on OpenRPG. I play in a regular game on Friday nights, and run one on Sundays. Occassionally I get pulled into some 3.5, but most people have moved on to 4th ed. or pathfinder, and I don't care for either.

Good thread, always enjoy seeing who else is playing the games I like...

[Illendaver]

Until 4th edition came out that is, they dumbed the game down to the point that even my preteen daughter didn't think it was worth playing, so we quit D&D.

Now I mostly play Rifts on the Internet with friends in real time on OpenRPG.

I think thats the story for just about every D&D player anymore...

[Ice Dragon]

I started in 1986 with friends. We got hold on a Germand RPG called Midgard. Before I joined the army in 1989, I found Battletech (I was in love with Robotech at the time and the only things like the mecha from Robotech was Battletech). Then I found my Robotech group in 1991 and the rest is history. Rifts, Shadow Run, Heros, Star Wars (D6) CoC, Traveller, Alternity and Vampires followed. Today I stick to Rifts, Robotech and still Classic Battletech.

[Specter]

I started when I was 11 in 1995... I was staying over at a friend's house from church. His older brother had a Battletech RPG and I made a character and played my first game. It blew me away. I looked for the same game but couldn't find it and didn't get the chance to play again until high school with AD&D. When this game ended I had to play again... so I got on ebay and found a Palladium Fantasy set for cheap.