[D&D] Was it your "gateway" game?

[Kiero]

By which of course I mean did you start roleplaying with an edition of D&D. There's a poll attached, which is a public one so bear that in mind. It's a companion poll to my earlier question of who's playing.

As far as editions go, I hope they're fairly self-explanatory. "OD&D" means any of the boxed sets, Rules Cyclopedia and so on. "AD&D" means the 1st and 2nd edition Advanced Dungeons and Dragons games. "D&D 3.x" means 3.0 and 3.5.

Important one to distinguish is the "derived from" option. This doesn't mean "any D20 or OGL" product, but rather those inspired by and taking their cues from D&D fairly directly. D20 Modern doesn't count, that's "other". If it's not a fantasy game with classes and levels closely mirroring. Stuff like C&C, OSRIC, Basic Fantasy RPG, True20/Blue Rose, Conan, Iron Heroes and so on count as "derived".

Post comments if you feel like it.

[Matthew]

How about MB Heroquest? That was definitely my gateway, followed closely by War Hammer Fantasy Roleplay and, eventually, (O)D&D.

[Kiero]

How about MB Heroquest? That was definitely my gateway, followed closely by War Hammer Fantasy Roleplay and, eventually, (O)D&D.

Other.

Essentially the question is "was it D&D or not".

[Pauwel]

While I did read through the D&D rulebooks first, the first actual game I played in was Decipher's Lord of the Rings. It wasn't a very good campaign at all, though, and after playing Wolf (an embarassingly stereotypical loner/ranger character, whose only slightly original element was that he was quite smelly and unintelligent despite being a wood elf) I immediately started DM'ing a 3.5 game.
The first game was still fun, though. I think I'll base a character on Wolf later, with a cleaned-up backstory and a non-elvish race.

[broderickdruce]

My Gateway Game(s) was/were Baldur's Gate, BGII, Icewind Dale, etc...
Then one day someone I had just recently met said "I'm new to the area and I want to start a D&D group. You wanna join? I'll DM", I said "Sure" and the bunch of us have been playing ever since (not exactly like that but that is essentiall how it went).

[AtomicKitKat]

Started with gamebooks. Not sure which one. I know one of the first I ever played(which was about 2 years after I ever saw a gamebook) was Lone Wolf number 6. Hooked me enough to get almost all the books(1-18ish), then I went through a period where I bought several Fighting Fantasy Gamebooks(Ian Livingstone and Steve Jackson, I think), Steve Jackson's "Sorcery!"(only ever bought 1 book, since the rest were never in stock when I checked), and Dave Morris & Jamie Thomson's Fabled Lands(which are now available in PDF! Legally too!). Started on AD&D towards the end of the life of the product, buying a beginner's set, a proper set of the core 3, the Book of Artifacts, and Spells and Powers. I had been playing the Forgotten Realms/Dragonlance Goldbox CRPG sets for a while by then. Prior to that, I'd snuck into Leisure Suit Larry(mostly by guessing the answers until I had a list of correct ones), Hero's Quest(subsequently renamed Quest For Glory), King's Quest, and Archon(which familiarised me with many D&D creatures down the road). Also played Simon the Sorceror(Man, that game was a monster back then. Totally trashed my HDD because of all the fragmenting.)

Actually, thinking back on it, I might have played a "Choose your own path" book a few years before I even saw Lone Wolf.

[Baerdog7]

Hmm, let's see...

DnD 3.5 was my first foray into the RPG genre. I was originally hesitant about playing, but a bunch of my friends were going to play a game on a half-day after school and, seeing as how I didn't have anything better to do, tagged along to watch. Wouldn't you know it? The next session I decided to make a character, a very poorly optimized and rather stereotypical elf sorcerer/dragon disciple. Granted, he wasn't my most effective character, but he'll always have a place in my heart. Most probably because he was able to achieve a transformation into a gold dragon wyrmling due to a lucky pull from a Deck of Many Things. Good times.

From there, I toyed around with a little bit of BESM d20, some d20 Modern, a session or two of Exalted, WarCraft d20, Call of Cthulu, Star Wars d20, Serenity RPG, and World of Darkness. While DnD is still my main RPG, I've been playing a lot of d20 Modern on these boards with Dhavaer, PhoeKun, Toxic Avenger, and Rei Jin. I've also got a Serenity RPG campaign that I play in here. If I had to choose one system as my favorite, though, I'd probably choose World of Darkness. Unfortunately, I rarely get to play any of it. Oh well, maybe things'll change next semester when I start college.

-Baerdog7

[Gryndle]

I started with the old, ancient paper back books that predated the 1st Edition PHB.

[clarkvalentine]

My first RPG was Star Frontiers. I still love it.

[Zeal]

I can't quite remember which RPG I played first, either Rifts or the d6 Starwars.

[Galathir]

I started a few years ago with 3.0 after my roommate in college got me interested. I've been hooked ever since.

[The White Knight]

My first was the old World of Darkness White Wolf series. Our campaign was a terribly imbalanced combination of Vampire, Werewolf, and Demon, and we had nearly a dozen players (some more frequent than others). Quite the interesting and hectic experience, at times. D&D 3.5 was my second, however, and I've been quite soundly hooked ever since (only played a brief bit of some White Wolf or Star Wars d20 here or there since I picked up D&D).

The end.

[njero]

I started with CRPG's, mainly Neverwinter Nights. I noticed some students playing D20 Modern in the student centre at my college, and started joining them as an observer until I was comfortable enough with the process to roll up my own character.

I'm still playing with the same core group five years later, even though we've all graduated and I live an hour's drive away from the GM's place. We've mostly played 3.5, but there's talk of going back to Modern and they played some SWRPG before I joined.

I'll never forget my second character, Jumpy. He was an undercover TacOps officer who was so scared by a skeleton driven motorcycle breaking down the subway door that he pissed his pants. That was his introduction to the party.

[Zincorium]

I started playing back when I was about 9 or 10 and the books had comics in the very beginning. I was pretty much hooked as soon as I grasped the idea that I was playing 'adult pretending'. With dice and sheets full of wierd numbers that I alone knew the secret too (explaining Thac0 to your fellow ten year olds is an interesting challenge).

[XenoGeno]

My dad played 1st ed AD&D, and his DM gave him the books. I 'v been reading those since I was two. I'm fifteen now, BTW.

[The Vorpal Tribble]

I started RPing back when I was 15-16 on a RP-intensive MUD called Accursed Lands. Played it for years before I saw my first D&D book.

[Khantalas]

I had the basic boxed set, where you rolled a d10 for Thief's special abilities.

But I voted AD&D, because I actually started with a 2nd Edition PHB and Monstrous Manual. I miss the Monstrous Manual.

[Thiel]

My first game was one of the boxed DnD sets. It was 8 years ago and my uncle was the DM. Played for a couple of months before I stopped. Then three years ago I picked up the 3.5 PHB and I've been playing it ever since. Lately I've been using other systems more and more, especially D20 Modern/Future and Iron Heroes.

[Dhavaer]

Inquisitor.

[Kiero]

Wow, how very different these results are from the same poll on RPGnet. Maybe age is a major factor, over there most people are in their 30s and 40s, I get the feeling here it's teens and 20s.

[Ethdred]

My dad played 1st ed AD&D, and his DM gave him the books. I 'v been reading those since I was two. I'm fifteen now, BTW.

Goddammit, all I ever got was Janet and John!!

I voted OD&D but actually started with the Red Box. Anyone who doesn't know what that means can queue up over there, I shall be taking my white crayon over to the fun house....

[Kantolin]

First started roleplaying in freeform. Mostly message board style chatrooms.

Got me to get nice and descriptive and keep an eye for balance. I'm extremely pleased that D&D does the balance step for me.

[Zincorium]

Wow, how very different these results are from the same poll on RPGnet. Maybe age is a major factor, over there most people are in their 30s and 40s, I get the feeling here it's teens and 20s.

20 years old here, and I went for AD&D, first edition. A lot of us simply start early, somebody wrote they've been reading the books since 2, which I took to mean looking at the pretty pictures. But you're right that if it were the case (I have no idea if it is) then it would explain the definite shift in results.

[Sturmjaeger]

I started with the old D&D red box basic set. Back when Elf was a class. Good times.

[Tobrian]

1. Warhammer Fantasy. The Death on the Reik campaign. (we never finished it though, alas)
2. Harnmaster (World of Harn) (one short campaign)
3. Shadowrun 1st edition (very briefly)
4. starting in college (1994): GURPS, World of Darkness 1.0 (both under Storyteller system and GURPS conversion rules), AD&D 2nd edition

- interspersed over the years with lots of Shadowrun (2nd edition), Call of Cthulhu, KULT, GURPS Swashbuckler, various other GURPS stuff, Conspiracy X, Midgard, Earthdawn; some Star Wars, some Paranoia, PP&P (Plüsch, Power and Plunder); one campaign of Angels; Delta Green, Cyberspace, Traveller -the old system where the character could bite the dust during character creation, and my first one did indeed die-; Toon, Shatterzone (once), and some other one-shot fringe systems

- always wanted to play Ars Magica, In Nomine, and Fading Suns, never found a group

- during the 1990s we played lots of World of Darkness 1.0, modern and historical. My AD&D group stopped when the DM moved to another city. The Shadowrun campaigns stopped when all three groups I was in over the years lost their gamemasters. Then our interest in the WoD dwindled towards the end of the 1990s/start of 21st century; one of our regular gamemaster's moved away, and when there were some nasty falling-outs between people, several WoD groups I were in (and one or two I wasn't) fell apart, a couple years ago I was booted out of a Vampire and a Changeling group for getting into arguments with the gamemistress over railroading (her) and stress-induced anger (me). At about the same time the Conspiracy X campaign finished, and the GM didn't have the time to start another one.

- not much tabletop RPG between 1996-7 and so I started to branch out into D&D freestyle chatroom play at TSR/WotC and freestyle chatroom Vampire: Masquerade. Played in a weekly chatroom non-freestyle AD&D/d20 D&D 3.0 campaign for 5 years (we actually finished the Night Below module, whoohoo!)

- around 2000, we were still playing Vampire and Call of Cthulhu, the DM from our old campaign moved back into town, and when D&D 3rd Edition came out, I convinced him and another DM to switch from AD&D to D&D d20.

- between 2000 and now I played in two play-by-eMail games (Changeling modern setting with Changeling Dark Ages house rules, and Mage: Sorcerer's Crusade, very cool.) But both games sadly broke down when the gamemasters became too swamped with work and couldn't continue.

At the moment the only regular groups I have are three D&D d20 campaigns, one of which is run by me. At first d20 was nice, but right now, I'd like to play something else, preferably non-fantasy setting, for a while, thanks. Oh well, beggars can't be chosers.

Sometimes I manage to catch a game of Call of Cthulhu or Shadowrun at a convention, but there aren't that many roleplaying conventions here in Germany, and the local gaming community has nearly dried up as many old gamers have moved away or need the time for job and family, and young gamers seem to play Magic the Gathering or these days WoW instead of tabletop. A lot of previous friends I hung out with during the 1990s until the quarrel no longer are... friends, I mean; and with others I simply lost contact, so my circle of available roleplayers is not as big as I wish.

And yes, I'm 33, so I'm no longer a young gamer, but I only started when I was 18 years old (unless you count the sort of freestyle LARPing i used to do with my friend during elementary school). AD&D simply wasn't a formative experience for me in my early gamer years. Storytelling games were. I've moved from Extreme Roleplayer type of gamer to a -I'm ashamed to say- tactical gamer with minmaxing and a touch of powergaming/ruleslawyering from time to time. Have to get rid of that.

Years ago my many of my characters used to be likable and eccentric (ok a few were nasty, or tragic and weird, but you catch my drift), with lots of flaws and backstory. Then certain events turned me into a powergamer and Ruleslawyer out of self-defense. A railroading gamemaster who dictates PCs actions and other players who had fun pushing my characters around can do that to you. Add to that a bunch of idiots and player killers one encounters so often in freestyle chatroom gaming means I started to get a bit paranoid in regard to safety and health of my characters, and had to work had to create likable, sympathetic and funny characters again. Finally, the d20 system unfortunately encourages minmaxing and character optimizing. I try to get rid of that mindset, but it aint easy.


I want to play my Technocrat neurosurgeon again, dammit. And my Renaissance Daedalean. I hunger for more freestyle magic system, or SF, because frankly the D&D system is driving me a bit nuts at times. All that boring number crunching gets in the way of the story and atmosphere.

[Roderick_BR]

Other. A game made by a publisher here, inspired on animé and video games. After that I started playing AD&D 2nd edition.

I miss my human thief running away from a group of death knights that could detect him due to a cursed magic item... XD

[Geneticist]

I have to admit. My first game was D&D, but the first one that I actually played a game of was The Marvel Universe RPG.

[Krimm_Blackleaf]

3.5
I'll play nothing else. Well, of course with certain adaptations from 3.0 books.

[reorith]

i started with 3.5, but the other members of my gaming group have history with older editions. so i found some ad&d books at a thrift store and will being running a 2nd edition game and eventually a first. yay regression

[Dausuul]

Original D&D, nineteen years ago.

I try to tell myself this makes me "old-school" rather than just old. :)