how old were you when you started ?

Heavy Josh · December 03, 2020, 08:04:50 PM

I was 9 years old, with my dad's barely-used Red Box D&D in 1986. It said "Ages 10 and Up" on the cover, and I felt like a serious rebel.

Bedrockbrendan · December 03, 2020, 09:45:09 PM

I believe I was 10 or so (in about 86)

Son-of-Gaia · December 03, 2020, 11:30:37 PM

I was raised along side it. My parents picked up D&D before I was born. Some of my fondest childhood memories is sitting behind the couch listening to them game.

Genly Ai · December 04, 2020, 03:22:55 AM

When I was about ten, in 97, my mother signed me up for D&D camp. I knew nothing about it but was immediately hooked and went every summer until I worked there as a teen. It was 2nd ed, right around the beginning of the end I guess.

I remember my first character was a Cleric and I got fireballed, but that's about it. Didn't have a regular group until my early twenties but after I got one going I never stopped.

5e is eh, but it's sparked a new renaissance of players in my social circles and its quite refreshing to have players be actively invested in learning rules and running their own games regardless of the cause.

Bogmagog · December 04, 2020, 07:09:27 AM

I started when I was 8 years old in 1978.

Crusader X · December 04, 2020, 11:44:47 AM

I started when I was 11 years old in 1981, with Moldvay Basic D&D. My next door neighbor Mark was the DM, running The Keep on the Borderlands in his basement for myself and two other neighborhood kids. We quickly acquired the AD&D books as well (DMG, PHB, MM), and mixed them in with the Basic rules. We thought everything with the D&D name on it was supposed to work together. And it pretty much did, more or less.

Rob Necronomicon · December 04, 2020, 01:31:14 PM

13 on D&D red box (early 80s).

KingCheops · December 04, 2020, 02:05:31 PM

10 with the winged helm 2e AD&D PHB. I'd been playing Battletech for about a year before the FLGS guy convinced my mom to buy it for me.

Lynn · December 04, 2020, 08:22:50 PM

I was 13 when I got the Holmes Basic Box in 1977. I played with a few different groups of primarily adults. When the Player's Handbook for AD&D 1e came out the following year, I started running games.

Slipshot762 · December 05, 2020, 05:42:59 AM

8.
started with becmi red box.
then did ad&d 1e and later 2e, marvel super heroes, some 1-shots of top secret gamma world etc. before weg star wars D6.
3e was the last edition of d&d i played, which i liked just fine, seemed to me like a return of 1e but with unified roll-high mechanic and unified system concerning supernatural/spell-like/extraordinary abilities/ petrification etc.
never had a fraction of the problems with it that many claimed to have. never tried 4e and have read some of 5e but never played it.
currently i do D6 system exclusively and probably always will.

Eric Diaz · December 05, 2020, 12:04:21 PM

9 or 10.

Went from Fighting Fantasy books to GURPS.

I barely played D&D (in comparison to other games), except some black box, and the "Dragon Quest" game.

Fell in love with D&D many years later (I thought 3.x was complicated, didn't like 4e, only OSR and 5e brought me back to the fold).

JeffB · December 05, 2020, 12:35:43 PM

First couple games I was 7, started playing in earnest at age 8 (1977).

Took off some time for my primary hobbies (archery competition/bowhunting/guitars/girls/guns/powerlifting-- not necc in order) from age 16 to age 23 or so ( SSI and other CRPGs scratched the itch at the time).

Mistwell · December 05, 2020, 12:50:30 PM

1979, I had just turned 10 years old. Jewish sleep-over camp. AD&D 1e.

Got home and pleaded with my mom to buy the books. Eventually got the core three, read them, but my younger brother was just not up for it given the size of the books. So got the Basic edition (Holmes) and that did it. We played the crap out of that. And finally moved on to AD&D in middle school.

Hakdov · December 05, 2020, 04:35:40 PM

I count my first real game as Panzerblitz and I got it when I was ten. Avalon Hill was so influential to me that I bought Magic Realm before D&D because I never heard of this TSR company.

Omega · December 05, 2020, 09:52:57 PM

Somewhere between 8 and 12 depending on viewpoint. My first exposure to role playing was the old Classroom Sims that were being used in schools before D&D came out. Essentially proto-LARPs.

First exposure to RPGs was probably around the mid 70s. Either Holms Basic or AD&D.

First RPG owned was BX D&D and Universe, soon followed by Star Frontiers and 2e Gamma World, then AD&D.