At what age did start playing d&d more "seriously"?

[Ozreth]

So I've been a gamer of all sorts my entire life. Console RPGs, CCGs, MMO's, etc, but didn't get into Dungeons and Dragons until I was around 16 or 17. During this time I was able to play a couple of games with friends and had a blast, even though we butchered the rules ha.

But After a few games and nearing the end of high school most of my friends had moved on from gaming and I was left groupless.

Now, at 23 going on 24 I have finally been able to get back into the game with some friends who are really into it, but I feel like I have missed out on a lot.

I've never played through the classic modules (ravenloft, greyhawk, red hand, tomb of horrors etc), I've never encountered a beholder or illithid, never played in a published setting, I wasn't able to be excited about new books coming out, and now everything I play is outdated because of 4e (which dosent really bother me, perfectly content with 3.5) etc etc.

I know I can still do all of these things, and I am very excited to (just started red hand, and will be running greyhawk soon), I just feel like they would have been much more intriguing in my virgin gaming days, when everything was much more enthralling and consuming.

But like I said, I am back in the game and looking forward to tackling all of the things I feel like I missed out on, just wondering if anybody else has a similar story?

[shadow_archmagi]

have you been so far as to really do what more like?

That aside, I know what you mean. It isn't really more "seriously" as just wanting to experience the classics.

[Dr.Epic]

Well, I've been playing for 8-9 years. So, I'll tell you when that happens.

[Jalor]

I haven't played many of the classic modules you mentioned, but most of my campaigns have at least a few throwbacks to the days of AD&D. I especially love Planescape and have adapted several Planescape modules for 3.5, one of which I ran last year with an overwhelmingly positive response. I don't try to run 'old school' games, but I learned AD&D while still in elementary school and can't imagine doing it any other way.

[Kylarra]

I still don't play D&D seriously, so eh. The day it becomes more than a fun pastime is the day I should probably stop gaming for a while.

[Ozreth]

I still don't play D&D seriously, so eh. The day it becomes more than a fun pastime is the day I should probably stop gaming for a while.

I definitely don't mean serious in that sense. I whole heartedly agree with you. I guess by serious I mean playing games on a regular basis, with a solid group, experiencing a lot of the content that is out there.

So many people have their stories about playing when they were kids and how much of a blast it was to encounter this or that for the first time. Those things are just so much more fun at a young age. Im just bummed that I missed out on table top role playing when I was younger.

[Zaydos]

I definitely don't mean serious in that sense. I whole heartedly agree with you. I guess by serious I mean playing games on a regular basis, with a solid group, experiencing a lot of the content that is out there.

So many people have their stories about playing when they were kids and how much of a blast it was to encounter this or that for the first time. Those things are just so much more fun at a young age. Im just bummed that I missed out on table top role playing when I was younger.

In that case I started playing more seriously when my group stopped switching campaigns every month and I became the regular DM (instead of just the DM 80% of the time). As a PC I've never faced a beholder, or an illithid, got killed once by a dragon far beyond what my (Lv 1) character should have been facing, never played a classic module, only pre-made setting I've ever played is Eberron (and that was a one-shot; and currently some PbP).

When DMing I got the chance to get excited about new books (Tome of Magic, Draconomicon) some of which then disappointed me (Truenamers). Even now I prefer 3.5 but my IRL group started with 4e so I'm going to be DMing 4e (spelljammer for some reason).

And I've grown up a lot since I started the hobby. And actually I played in a fairly regular long running game when I first started but while it was serious and long running, it was also a game where only the DM couldn't count his age on his fingers (okay at the start, by the end I think I might have been the only one that couldn't). No optimization at all (it was Red Box and later Blue Box, not much to optimize) beyond maybe assigning your high stat to your prime requisite.

I wish I had gotten to fight a beholder in those days, or play Spelljammer; because those are both pretty light-hearted and fit a child's suspension of disbelief better. That's not to say I don't still love both (and I'll finally DM spelljammer soon ).

Really though I haven't started playing it more "seriously", I've started being more mature in how I play it, but that's because as a person I've matured a lot in the over a decade that it's been my favorite hobby.

[devinkowalczyk]

Been playing for about 6 years. I would say there was one game where it really turned from
yea, adventure, woo
into
wow, gotta think, and i feel like i am in the story, and wow, this is crazy!

[Dusk Eclipse]

Started playing about 4 or 5 years ago, and I ahve to say that I haven't do all thaqt kind of stuff, my group is the most inconsisten group ever though we are trying to fix it.

[Tyndmyr]

In that case I started playing more seriously when my group stopped switching campaigns every month and I became the regular DM (instead of just the DM 80% of the time). As a PC I've never faced a beholder, or an illithid, got killed once by a dragon far beyond what my (Lv 1) character should have been facing, never played a classic module, only pre-made setting I've ever played is Eberron (and that was a one-shot; and currently some PbP).

Sounds about right. I did face an illithid as a PC, though. Very nearly got my brains eaten by him, too.

I had a *lot* of experience with people insistent on playing in various homebrewed settings that may as well have been greyhawk. Often with "low magic" as a primary feature, as if this was wildly inventive.

[ninja_penguin]

So many people have their stories about playing when they were kids and how much of a blast it was to encounter this or that for the first time. Those things are just so much more fun at a young age. Im just bummed that I missed out on table top role playing when I was younger.

I don't think this is particularly tied to D&D only, but to fun things you did at that particular age range. I have incredibly fond memories at those ages of Arcades and Mageknight that have never been recaptured by anything else. Including visiting huge arcades when on vacation, and pulling out Mageknight with my brother and playing our favorite factions again.

[valadil]

I never played the classic or iconic modules, but I started taking my roleplaying seriously in college.

Starting out in middle school we didn't really know what roleplaying was. Some GMs insisted on speaking in first person and dropping OOC chat, but we never got into it. Many games devolved into contests to see who could come up with the most vile and depraved things we could think of to do to villagers. We matured out of that by high school, but didn't take the game any more seriously because we'd all been through that kind of play together.

I made new friends in college. When I RPed with them I didn't want to alienate them by being disgusting. So I took the game seriously. Simple as that. I'd wager a bet that they were all ignoring their gross out game pasts as well.

[Morph Bark]

I started DnD three years ago at the age of 17 with my two best friends. We still play weekly, had a two-month break once because I was void of DM inspiration, and currently we're looking forward to getting three or four more players in our group, really expanding the possibilities. I suppose in the way you mean you've begun playing more seriously it will begin for me coming Friday, though my two friends already know my style and know that the game won't be looking to be entirely serious in the common sense of the word.

[Aotrs Commander]

I started roleplaying twenty years ago, with HeroQuest and then joined the Rolls-Royce wargames club and graduated to Rolemaster (D&D was actually about the forth RPG I played, after those two and Warhammer FRPG). I have been playing continuously there ever since (in fact, I'm about two minutes away from heading off there right now). Two of our current group have been playing even longer.

About, what, ten years ago, my other group, who is recruited from my other friends, starting playing weekly in addition to on the holidays. Again, the membership has not changed much since then.

[hotel_papa]

I'd say as soon as I started regularly DMing, so about 6 years ago. I hesitate to call it "seriously", but it was at that point that I started really craving a full game experience, with PCs that were role-played, story lines that were completed and a campaign that wasn't derailed by bad DMing and/or players who demanded Chaotic Stupid at all times.

[Gnaeus]

I've been playing for about 27 years, and I would have to say it has been a curve, not a set time when I improved. By the time I graduated high school, I had realized that killing all the gods in Deities and Demigods was not an indication of a good character or campaign. At some point before I graduated college I realized that the DM's job was not to kill all the characters in brutal manners. Exactly what that meant in play has been slowly evolving ever since, and I certainly learned a lot when I started reading forums.

[Sindri]

I've been gaming since I was seven, due to awesome parents. I've certainly gotten better at it over time, but I don't think there was really a point where I "got serious."

[Satyr]

I think I actually play RPGs very seriously. And I have developed a strong dislike against a " it is only a game" faction. The way I see it, that's just wasting potential and then glorifying it.
For me that's like buying a good Chateau Lafitte and drink it out of a plastic cup with a shot of gin to get wasted as fast as possible.

Anyway, I play since 1993. When I started to run games and more importantly write own adventures, so around 1996, I started to take it seriously.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

I jumped right into the thick of D&D when I was 8 and just learning to play with my classmates. One of their dads DMed, and within my first two years of playing I'd gotten a taste of all the major AD&D settings and played a few classic modules. I started DMing a few years after that, and the rest is history.

[AslanCross]

I only started playing at all about 4 years ago. I'm turning 27 next month.

[LibraryOgre]

I started playing in 5th or 6th grade around my senior patrol leader's table. I've wanted to play as long as I can remember, but back in the late 80s, there was still the reputation of Satanism to deal with. We played two sessions before my mother found my character sheets and made me quit.

When we moved to Louisiana (7th-10th grades), I played irregularly with a regular group of my younger brother's friends... primarily Villains and Vigilantes or a necessary hybrid of 1st and 2nd editions (we had the 1e PH and the 2e DMG), as well as some TMNT and Palladium games. This was kind of my early-enthusiasm phase... we jumped from game to game, had a blast making characters we'd never play, and the like.

Once we moved to Texas, I found a regular group with some guys from High School, playing 2e. We had a single DM for most of that, and I really view that as my formative gaming period. A lot of habits were formed in that time, including a tendency towards min/maxing and system stressing.

For the classics, I've mostly gone back for them.

[Vaynor]

I started playing when I was 11 but at that point it was just me and the kids from my neighborhood, and we didn't really know how to play the game. It wasn't until about two years later when I started playing with my friends from school that I actually learned the rules. I wouldn't say I wasn't playing seriously at that point, more playing wrong. We had a ton of fun playing without knowing the rules, though, so how wrong could it be?

[Knaight]

I think I actually play RPGs very seriously. And I have developed a strong dislike against a " it is only a game" faction. The way I see it, that's just wasting potential and then glorifying it.
For me that's like buying a good Chateau Lafitte and drink it out of a plastic cup with a shot of gin to get wasted as fast as possible.

Anyway, I play since 1993. When I started to run games and more importantly write own adventures, so around 1996, I started to take it seriously.

I agree with all of this, though "it is only a game" is worth remembering when you have people prone to anger and frustration. Well, almost all of it, I've only been playing since 2003 or so. Heck, I was born in '93, playing would be out of the question. I've been GMing my own stuff the entire time, and probably got to a reasonably competent level in 2006, though I'm certainly better at GMing now than I was then.

[Ormur]

I started playing D&D two years ago at my friend's insistence and he was the DM. I didn't take it very seriously at first but the plot became very epic as it progressed and now I certainly take it seriously. I've agonized over critical decisions taken by my character. It kind of set the standard for what I expect D&D to be, that is to say, epic involved campaigns.

But I still have a lot to learn, not just mechanically, but also how to create interesting characters and play them properly.

[Dirty n Evil]

I think my story is going to get the most reactions, heh. I'm probably one of the older gamers on this board at 37, and I was introduced to D&D at the ripe old age of 5 and a half. I had a neighborhood friend who introduced me into the game with the basic set, and from there I really never stopped playing.

However, the moment I started playing D&D more "seriously" was probably around high school, when I was 16. I found a good core of friends who also played - and two of them are still really good friends some 20+ years later. The game it all really went from "kick the door down" playing to "hmmm, this is something bigger than we've ever done before" was a Dragonlance campaign I had created. It took place just a couple of years after the book "Dragons of Spring Awakening", with the characters charged to pursue this mysterious renegade wizard who was traveling all over the globe and visiting old sites of strong magic for some unknown purpose. It was a big hit, and that was the point we stopped just "rolling up characters" - and actually started to put real thought behind them as individuals.

[dsmiles]

I think my story is going to get the most reactions, heh. I'm probably one of the older gamers on this board at 37, and I was introduced to D&D at the ripe old age of 5 and a half. I had a neighborhood friend who introduced me into the game with the basic set, and from there I really never stopped playing.

With ya on that one. Started playing at 7, now 33, almost 34. RPGs are, and have always been my passion. I just don't have the necessary skills to write my own.

As for when I started taking it seriously, I'm going to have to say at the ripe old age of 7. My sister, who currently works for a RPG publisher (which shall not be named), got me into it just by buying the AD&D books. I read the PHB, MM, and DMG cover-to-cover, and started designing my own dungeons with the random dungeon generator before I ever even started playing.

EDIT: @Knaight: I feel your pain. Yes, it is 'only a game' and I read a lot of complaints, on this board and elsewhere, about people taking it too seriously and ragequitting over something that they probably wouldn't bat an eye at in an MMO. As serious as I am about TTRPGs, they are still, in essence, just a game.

@Vaynor: Playing wrong? You weren't having fun? As far as I know, that's the only real way to play wrong.

[ghost_warlock]

I've never encountered a beholder or illithid

In the most "serious" campaign I've ever played in, we fought an illithid riding a beholder. Good times, good times...

I've only been playing since 1992/93, so 17-18 years. Started with the (Basic) D&D Game in the black box. Escape from Zanzer's Dungeon. Still have the battle map for the dungeon and plan on using it in my upcoming 4e Dark Sun campaign.

As for the classics, I've really on played through a couple. DM'd part of the 4e Tomb of Horrors and, as a player, crawled through Château d'Amberville (bunch of weirdos in there - my Chaotic human thief fit right it! ).

[Zaydos]

In the most "serious" campaign I've ever played in, we fought an illithid riding a beholder. Good times, good times...

I've only been playing since 1992/93, so 17-18 years. Started with the (Basic) D&D Game in the black box. Escape from Zanzer's Dungeon. Still have the battle map for the dungeon and plan on using it in my upcoming 4e Dark Sun campaign.

As for the classics, I've really on played through a couple. DM'd part of the 4e Tomb of Horrors and, as a player, crawled through Château d'Amberville (bunch of weirdos in there - my Chaotic human thief fit right it! ).

My most serious campaign had them fight illithids as the big bads. These illithids just happened to work with beholders, and have Daleks. And yes it was a serious game, the daleks did put an excellent face on my players when they realized (I fluffed them as constructs powered by the psychic energies of a dead/artificially preserved right before death illithid brain).