Your First Roleplaying Game?

[Blueiji]

My first time playing a role-playing game was second edition D&D in fourth grade. It was an after school program lead by this ancient, wise, D&D grognard with the longest, whitest, most food-stained beard I have seen in my entire life.

There were 22 kids in the class (most of us 8-10 years old), and the DM (the previously mentioned bearded guy) had every one of us play a Lawful Good Fighter/Wizard/Thief Elf.

Inspired to play our own campaigns, my friends and I bought the 3.5 handbooks, we played a rule-less zany campaign were we were all Ancient Wyrm Dragons.

- - -

What was your first role-playing game experience? Was it D&D, or maybe a video game of some sort? Who was the DM? Who was your first character?

Looking foward to your answers.

[Shadowknight12]

I can't remember.

So I'll go with 3.5e, playing a half-celestial abjurer/rogue heading for daggerspell master. He was SO useless.

[Morithias]

It was 10th or 11th grade, first campaign. Dread Necromancer with 18 charisma (i got very lucky).

He was a character based off another character from a popular series, he sparkled and was every girl's dream guy.

Click the spoiler for the picture of the guy I based him off of.

Spoiler

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Yeah I played a dread necromancer based off of Tamaki Suoh from Ouran High School host club, he spent 90% of the campaign either killing with his "magic touch" or flirting with the party druid.

[Othesemo]

D&D 3.0 with my older brothers. A long time ago.

[Rallicus]

Found a bunch of old AD&D 2e books in my friend's garage as a kid, about 14 years ago probably. I was 9 or 10.

Up until that time we thought it was a board game. When we read the manuals we couldn't really understand it.

The books were my friend's older brother's, but he'd since moved out, gotten married and had kids if I remember correctly. When he'd come to visit my friend would ask him a bunch of questions about DnD. I was fortunate enough to sit in and listen to him talk one time, and it was amazing. The way he ran his campaigns seemed like a ton of fun.

Well, eventually I gathered up enough knowledge to figure out how to make a character and my friend learned how to DM. But we were still pretty oblivious to it all, because my friend decided to run a 4-man module his brother had left behind.

... But I was the only player.

After spending hours making my character properly, I started the dungeon. It was described to me, and of course, the first thing I did was tear open a strange looking sack of flour in the corner. Turns out it wasn't flour, but poison, and my character died.

That was my first experience with DnD. 3e came a bit later but I only dabbled in it slightly. Didn't come back until finding a bunch of 3.5e books in my friend's closet last year. Learned the adjusted system, and now here I am, currently DMing a campaign and being a player in another.

[DrBurr]

My first real RPG game was with a friend of my older brother who played 3rd edition, at that point I had already been free form roleplaying for a year and wanted to learn D&D seeing as I bought the Players handbook on a whim. This was before I knew about editions so everything from that session didn't apply when I started my group.

[navar100]

High school club. I don't know if it was Basic D&D or 1st Edition. I was given a 7th level Lawful Good Healer. I had no idea what I was doing. I played along but didn't really feel involved. Suddenly the DM took an interest that my character actually existed. When he referenced some magic item I didn't have, he realized he was speaking to the wrong person and I was ignored again.

When the opportunity arrived to play a different game at the club I took it. It was a different game, but I thought it played relatively the same. Thus I was badly introduced to Paranoia. I don't remember if the club stopped meeting or I just stopped going, but eventually I did just stop going.

It would be my junior year in college that I would be reintroduced to RPG. It was 2E D&D. I was reluctant because of my bad experience in high school, but my friends really wanted to play it, so I gave it a try. I still didn't know what I was doing, but I was having a better time and learned the game.

[Ozreth]

High school club. I don't know if it was Basic D&D or 1st Edition. I was given a 7th level Lawful Good Healer. I had no idea what I was doing. I played along but didn't really feel involved. Suddenly the DM took an interest that my character actually existed. When he referenced some magic item I didn't have, he realized he was speaking to the wrong person and I was ignored again.

When the opportunity arrived to play a different game at the club I took it. It was a different game, but I thought it played relatively the same. Thus I was badly introduced to Paranoia. I don't remember if the club stopped meeting or I just stopped going, but eventually I did just stop going.

It would be my junior year in college that I would be reintroduced to RPG. It was 2E D&D. I was reluctant because of my bad experience in high school, but my friends really wanted to play it, so I gave it a try. I still didn't know what I was doing, but I was having a better time and learned the game.

And are you still playing 2e?

For me it was 3.5 in 2003 but I've since come to prefer 2e. I still run a lot of 3rd edition though.

[Kol Korran]

my first game was in 1st editio (the red box) where i joined as a rogue (all rogue were human then) survivor of a party to join the existing party in mid dungeon. i think i was at 4th grade then. the Dm was 2-3 years above us, and at that time seemed like the most cool and knowledgeable guy out there.that dungeon was brutal as hell. my rogue died soon after to be replaced by a halfling who got one leg paralyzed and one eye blind (but damn did i love him!).

the adventure ended in protecting the city from possible marauding dragons from a great flying horde of them above. one of the best sessions i ever had. only 2 characters survived, and just barely.

[Ninjadeadbeard]

Just after 3.0 came out, my dad brought home one of those kits that had a couple adventures built in so a 1-3rd level party could learn how to play. Looking back I realize I sucked at it, but we had a blast. I remember liking Jordzan (the stock Human Cleric if I recall) and Regdar (ditto human fighter). It was just me playing as a small party, but I didn't know anyone else at the time who played.

I remember going into a dungeon and teaming up with a rouge I found trying to loot the place before I came through. I got to like the character, and we teamed up to beat down the local displacer beast holding onto some jewel. On the way up, I failed my sneak and woke up an ogre who started beating the party into pulp. The rogue (coulda sworn the rulebook called him a Thief) ended up taking the hit for the team and dying on us.

I asked my dad if my characters (specifically Jordzan) could give him a proper burial (instead of the usual loot & ditch). That was probably the first time I ever acted in character, and I don't think I noticed until later. Good game.

[NikitaDarkstar]

Actual, proper role playing with official, published rules? Swedish Drakar och Demoner (Dragons and Demons) rule version 1, which was a lot like AD&D but with more micro-management in the combat. Me and a bunch of other people had gotten together for the Easter week and one of the guys had brought his rule books with him and offered to run a game for anyone who wanted to try it. So I ended up with a half-elven ranger, we had a duck fighter (yes, an anthro duck was an actual race), full elf other ranger, human mage and human thief and a few others. We played for about 20 hours straight and had a very good time. Good but random.

That was 9 years ago, and I'm still hooked. But I honestly tried looser forms such as forum roleplay back in 96-97. My current screen name was actually the name of my very first RP character, but that type of RP'ing is somewhat different.

[Crow]

Well, when I was in high school, I was dating this chick that was 10 years older than me, and she like to wear costumes when we-

Oh. I mean a heavily homebrewed (I think?) version of Rifts. Man, that was fun as hell!

[Shadowknight12]

Well, when I was in high school, I was dating this chick that was 10 years older than me, and she like to wear costumes when we-

Well, I'm sure there's plenty of THAT kind of roleplaying combined with this other kind of roleplaying when gamers get together.

It's less "nurse and school teacher" and more "elf knight and cleric of Sune".

[Scowling Dragon]

DnD 4e. Yup. That was my first RPG.

[dsmiles]

So...AD&D. Yeah, I'm THAT old. I started in 1983, at the ripe old age of 7.

[J.Gellert]

Does Hero Quest count?

If not, then Baldur's Gate, and 2nd Ed AD&D (revised).

[JennTora]

Super mario rpg.


But the first that I consider a real role playing game is morrowind. Better than oblivion was morrowind, and with skyrim it's kind of a toss-up as one hand I think the free form character development works better than a class system in elder scrolls. But I don't think they should have eliminated attributes. Also morrowind had more factions.

My first experience with d20 involved a big ridiculous pile of conflicting sourcebooks all being used together, including that slayers d20 book. It sucked cause I was playing a sorcerer and the fact that we were using the slayers casting system made that decision stupid, and I purely picked the sorcerer class for flavor. Also it gets confusing using all the different books. Still it was fun. Also there was this one guy that just sat at the tavern drinking the whole time. And we were on a ship that had a powder in the cargo hold that explodes when water hits it. At the end he came onto the the ship and I was the only one staying on to watch him, so he tried to run down and I blinded him and he ran down anyway, so he crashed into a thing and knocked chemicals into the powder and the whole freakin dock got blown to all hell.

[Tengu_temp]

I don't think video games count.

And for me, it was Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, first edition - the most popular RPG system in Poland in the nineties and early oughties. The year was, I believe, 1998. I was the GM, and did as well as you'd expect from someone with such awesome roleplaying experience. Got much better over time, though.

[JennTora]

I don't think video games count.

Then go reread the original post. Particularly the part at the end that asks if it was a video game of some sort.

[Partysan]

First pen&paper for me was The Dark Eye (DSA), second or third edition (I believe third) in around 2000 (It's somewhat more well known here in Germany). First I played regularly was Shadowrun 3.01 about 2-3 years later. Many followed.

[Tengu_temp]

Then go reread the original post. Particularly the part at the end that asks if it was a video game of some sort.

Oh, derp. In that case it'd start even earlier for me, because I've been playing computer RPGs for years before trying tabletop ones. Need to remember which one exactly was my first one, though.

[olejars]

I had my first tabletop experience back in 2003. I was told nothing about the game and was handed some dice with a character sheet that might as well have been written in draconic.

They gave me some some celestial template with wings and the guy that DM'd was a douche. I never touched another tabletop rpg for 5 years and now I play every week. Funny how a group/dm make all the difference.

Any other role playing experiences with VG's I don't count because I can't immerse my self in that way.

[navar100]

And are you still playing 2e?

For me it was 3.5 in 2003 but I've since come to prefer 2e. I still run a lot of 3rd edition though.

That was way back in Stone Age times of the late 1980's. I play 3E/Pathfinder now.

[Totally Guy]

My first game was in the summer of 2007. It was D&D 3.5 and I played a rogue on a dungeon crawl. My character was called Decanter and the DM's younger brother played a fighter called Hermocrates. It was at the first of the up GitP meetups.

[Craft (Cheese)]

Well, I'm sure there's plenty of THAT kind of roleplaying combined with this other kind of roleplaying when gamers get together.

It's less "nurse and school teacher" and more "elf knight and cleric of Sune".

I can personally attest to the existence of this. At my house, when the dice come out, the panties come off.



Anyway, if video games count, my first RPG was Chrono Trigger. I loved it, but it was the only SNES-era RPG that I played when it was new.

My first tabletop RPG though was D&D 3.5, a solo game with myself and my significant other, with him playing a 10th-level Fighter and me the DM. I set him up with something simple and (seemingly) standard: He was on a quest to slay a Red Dragon who was threatening a local city.

...It literally ended with him having sex with the dragon instead of trying to attack it. Our sessions end up that way a lot.

[Rallicus]

...It literally ended with him having sex with the dragon instead of trying to attack it. Our sessions end up that way a lot.

I'm inclined to ask if the dragon was in natural or human form, but maybe I don't really want to know the answer.

[Craft (Cheese)]

I'm inclined to ask if the dragon was in natural or human form, but maybe I don't really want to know the answer.

Actually, at the time, I didn't know that dragons regularly taking humanoid form was a thing. So... yeah. It's not the worst thing he's done though, but that's a story for another thread.

[NX_Phoenix]

The first RPG I owned was the Last Unicorn Games' Star Trek: The Next Generation Roleplaying Game when I was a kid. I tried to run a couple games but they never panned out. I still love that system and I hold all supplements/sourcebooks to the standards of that game's sourcebooks.

Counting video games, the first RPG I played was the PC version of Knights of the Old Republic with a light side Scout 5/Jedi Sentinel 20. That was a week I never left the house except for school.

The first live pen and paper game I played in was during the second half of freshman year in college. I played a ranged Ranger in a 3.5 campaign run in my co-ed fraternity. I had the reputation for trying not to be a bother by mentioning my low HP and therefore becoming a major one. I improved quickly afterwards.

[Shadowknight12]

I can personally attest to the existence of this. At my house, when the dice come out, the panties come off.

...It literally ended with him having sex with the dragon instead of trying to attack it. Our sessions end up that way a lot.

Ditto on both accounts. I can vouch for that as well.

[Saintheart]

Counting book/tabletop, probably a horribly hilarious one called Fighting Fantasy - not the "Choose your own adventure" style series of books, rather the tabletop RPG system that came out of it.

If you're counting video games, Pool of Radiance on the Commodore 64. Those damn trolls in the slums...