Got the Moldvay Basic set for Christmas, aged 9. I still remember opening the wrapping paper and seeing the box cover and being immediately mesmerised.

Quote from: languagegeek;748186Got the Moldvay Basic set for Christmas, aged 9. I still remember opening the wrapping paper and seeing the box cover and being immediately mesmerised.

That was the LSD Otus used in his paints...

11 years old, 1983.  B/X D&D (though I think the Mentzer set was released almost right after I started) was the first game I played, Star Frontiers was the first game I bought.

10. 1980. My dad bought me the Holmes basic boxed set after reading an article about Gygax and D&D in People magazine (oh how he came to rue that impulse buy). I was struck with wonder and awe, but couldn't make heads or tails of the game system. A few weeks later I got my friend's older brother to teach me how to actually play.

I bought a copy of OD&D in early 1975 when I was 17. I did not get to actually play until that fall when I was in college (and 18), however.

I was 12. Christmas of '79 my parents gave me a copy of Avalon Hill's Afrika Korps which was my first "adult" board game. I was entranced by it and soon bought other AH games such as Midway, Wooden Ships & Iron Men, Tactics II, etc. My friend RL had Panzer Blitz.
Then one day we were at a hobby store and he suggested we try this D&D stuff. I agreed and he bought the Basic red box. That was Summer of '80 sometime. We loved it and soon I bought my own copy along with Expert Rules, Greyhawk, a bunch of modules, Dragon Magazine and so on. Gamma World got a lotta play in the early days too.

It's amazing I didn't start earlier. I was always the kid in the neighborhood who had the most board games and could master any rule book.

15; same year I lost my virginity.

Coincidence?-;)

I was 16 or 17. The game was Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay (1st edition).

I remember my mother being horrified (she really fell for the whole D&D = Satan thing). But I assured her that it wasn't D&D and she was okay despite a bit of wariness. Luckily she never read the components necessary for the Daemonology and Necromancy spell lists.

We listened to a lot of heavy metal and goth music in those days. My first character was a Grim as Fuck Cleric of Morr. It was awesome.

12. I played in my brother's AD&D game. First time GMing I ran Gamma World.

11 or 12 played with my friend Zach in middle school. Made an elven ranger named Anson and played through dungeons ripped off from the Ultima video games.

12, my neighbour introduced me to a boardgame called Heroquest during the summer holidays(it had literally just been released about 3 weeks earlier)and the rest is history.  i joined the schools roleplaying group the next school term(playing 2nd edition i believe), i cant remember my first character though as the group was abit shit(they spent 3 sessions making characters because people kept not showing up) but i remember the dm broke his prized d100 the first session i played, it rolled off the table and shattered on the floor...the guys face was a mix of shock that the thing shattered so easily(from what i later learned most D100's tend to have a weird fault that make them shatter if dropped onto the weak part) and dismay at the fact he probably wouldnt find another anytime soon(turned out he had picked it up in the US that summer).

I was 16. It was an AD&D 2nd game, 11 years ago.

Well, I *picked* "college age," because I was in college in the fall of 1977, but I was a 17-year-old college freshman.  GMing OD&D with my younger brother as player.

The first time I got to play was a year later, in an EPT campaign.

Quote from: J.L. Duncan;748203Coincidence?-;)

Unquestionably.

I was 12, and the game was Basic D&D.  Good times.