your first gaming experience

[hengest]

Not sure if I ever wrote about this on here.  There was a kid I hung out with at recess in elementary school.  I guess neither of us really wanted to run around.  Can't remember if he already had his materials or brought them in after talking with me about them.  But my first memory of D&D is listening to him tell me that I was now a cleric and then, not long after, notifying me that if I wanted to cast a spell, I had to "stand there and chant" (indicating a place on the map where my character was to stand, not that I, the player, had to chant).  I had next to no idea what was going on, but it seemed intriguing.  

I rarely access this memory.  It's faded but I don't think it's much warped by being dredged up often.  What amazes me now is how engaging it was even though I had no understanding of the mechanics of the game (did he even have dice with him?), not even a sense that there were mechanics.  I'm sure I didn't even understand the notion of an in-game adventure.  But I remember looking at the crude hand-drawn map with some little counters on it and feeling like SOMETHING was happening there.  Which is a pretty good achievement for a...9-year-old (?) DM with one player who has no idea what's going on.  

I know some of the people on this board were adults when they started playing, but either way, I'd be interested to hear about how it went.  Chaos, fun, confusion, boredom, whatever.

[mao]

My first D&D game was a huge party. 10 gamers w/ 3 char a peace. I rolled up my own party of a cleric,a fighter and a thief. The clerics name is Boewolf an he was Mormon and he was married to the other two females. The only bit I can remember was Bertha Battle Axe chasing a troll chasing a paladin. The women I was playing with all had male chars and all of them thought me running 2 female char was really weird.
edit It was 1977 and I was 17

[ripx187]

My first game wasn't very good. My cousin and me were small kids, but we loved that Dungeons & Dragons cartoon that aired on Saturday Mornings. My cousin bought the basic set or something and tried to run a module designed for an entire party but it was just me playing. The coolest thing that I thought was in the game was that Cloak of Invisiblity, so I insisted that I have one before I'd consent to play the game. It didn't go well, I hid from everything and he wanted to fight. We tried it once and never did it again.

Now, with another cousin, we enjoyed playing wargames. My uncle had left a decent collection of Avalon Hill games at my grandparents house, so he and I would spend hours playing those things. I consider them to be RPGs because you are playing the part of a general or a commander. We always had our piece on the board which reprisented us, and if the opponent found it the game was over. We didn't always have time for the rules as written, nor did we always understand them, but we always had fun!

At home I would play a homemade solo wargame with my Star Wars guys, I tried to get others to play it but never could. The only real opponent that I ever really found was my Cousin Matt, and we only got to see each other so many times per year.

I didn't start playing AD&D until I was an adult. There was a bunch of us young adults who always hung out with each other, if not outright lived communally. We didn't have much money and D&D is cheap entertainment. That time around, it was a blast!

[Deleted]

I got dice thrown at me. Click Here


Here is the first variant (I didn’t write) I encountered: Click Here

[simrion]

My "discovery" of the game was an ad in Asimov Magazine for the Moldvay Basic set. Got it for my birthday. Ran into some high schoolers that had the AD&D books got invited to play a Cleric...never looked back!

[Hexenritter Verlag]

My first gaming experience was a solo adventure ran by my then best friend Kurt playing 1e AD&D. I can't remember much of it but I remember our Palladium Fantasy session vividly.

[The Master]

I picked up the original game in mid 1974 and started a game with some friends. Me and three guys is where we started, I was 23 soon to turn 24. We were out of college and had pooled our money and moved into an apartment together the summer we were 21, I turned 22 in August that year. We roomed together for 3 years or so and then one by one we met the woman of our dreams and moved on.

[mao]

Bump

[Warrior Twin Two]

Mama started us on AD&D when we were six (and when she discovered OD&D she switched us over to it a few years later).  She had been reading the Wizard of OZ to us and when it got to the part where Dorothy was in the Castle of the Wicked Witch of the West, she asked us if we wanted to rescue Dorothy and we said we did so she put down the book and we created characters and with the Cowardly Lion, the Tin Man and The Scarecrow we stormed the Castle and rescued Dorothy. Once the witch was dead and Dorothy and the three went to Emerald city, we looted the Castle.

[Warrior Twin One]

Nov 16, 2018 16:33:03 GMT -5 Warrior Twin Two said:

Mama started us on AD&D when we were six (and when she discovered OD&D she switched us over to it a few years later).  She had been reading the Wizard of OZ to us and when it got to the part where Dorothy was in the Castle of the Wicked Witch of the West, she asked us if we wanted to rescue Dorothy and we said we did so she put down the book and we created characters and with the Cowardly Lion, the Tin Man and The Scarecrow we stormed the Castle and rescued Dorothy. Once the witch was dead and Dorothy and the three went to Emerald city, we looted the Castle.

By the end of the battle the Cowardly Lion figured out that swatting flying monkeys was fun. We stuck the Tin Man in a doorway so he could just fight what was in front of him. The Scarecrow fell in the moat and was soaking wet when he finally ran into the Wicked Witch. When she melted the flying monkeys were routed and flew off who knows where. And yeah, we looted the Castle.

[mao]

Nov 16, 2018 16:33:03 GMT -5 Warrior Twin Two said:

Mama started us on AD&D when we were six (and when she discovered OD&D she switched us over to it a few years later).  She had been reading the Wizard of OZ to us and when it got to the part where Dorothy was in the Castle of the Wicked Witch of the West, she asked us if we wanted to rescue Dorothy and we said we did so she put down the book and we created characters and with the Cowardly Lion, the Tin Man and The Scarecrow we stormed the Castle and rescued Dorothy. Once the witch was dead and Dorothy and the three went to Emerald city, we looted the Castle.

Warrior Twins for the win!!!

Warrior Twin Two ,  Warrior Twin One

[wangalade]

My Dad used to run for me and my siblings. My earliest memory is waiting for my dad to come home from work on a friday night because he had said he might let me play D&D with my 3 older sisters. I know I did play that night, but don't remember the actual game. I'm pretty sure this was before I turned 7 because I remember my 7 yr old birthday party pretty clearly and we moved shortly after I turned 7. For years my dad and my sisters claimed that one of my PCs, a cleric named Paul, was my fist character, but I remembered playing a PC before him because I knew that Paul wasn't created until after we moved to the new house. After I graduated from High School I found my original character that I must have only played one session with at the old house. He was a 1st level elf named Z'neth. I was finally able to prove my family wrong.

[mormonyoyoman]

Feb 3, 2019 20:04:18 GMT -5 wangalade said:

My Dad used to run for me and my siblings. My earliest memory is waiting for my dad to come home from work on a friday night because he had said he might let me play D&D with my 3 older sisters. I know I did play that night, but don't remember the actual game. I'm pretty sure this was before I turned 7 because I remember my 7 yr old birthday party pretty clearly and we moved shortly after I turned 7. For years my dad and my sisters claimed that one of my PCs, a cleric named Paul, was my fist character, but I remembered playing a PC before him because I knew that Paul wasn't created until after we moved to the new house. After I graduated from High School I found my original character that I must have only played one session with at the old house. He was a 1st level elf named Z'neth. I was finally able to prove my family wrong.

Proving one's sister wrong is worth at least a bonus of 12,000 XP and a pecan cookie.

[True Black Raven]

I got my copy during the summer of my 18th year and with my buddies started playing. We didn't have anything but d6's so to use the ACS (Alternate Combat System) we rolled 4d6-3 which gave us a range of 1-21 and called that close enough. So we started out, one ref and three players. They started out and were traveling through a forest on the way to some massive ruins that everyone in our town steered clear of and they wanted to find out what was really there. So for the first encounter I rolled up some bandits with an EHP (Evil High Priest) and a few minutes later we had our first TPK. So we started again. To make a long story short we had 6 TPKs and 5 almost TPKs before all three players reached the ruins together. By the second game I had a better idea of what they could and could not do, as did they, so two things happened I gradually adjusted encounters a little and they learned to run a lot and over time we found a happy medium. We still had TPKs now and then, but not too often. We also recruited more players so that helped too. I never did get any of them to ref, so it was a long time before I ever got to play.

[ripx187]

May 18, 2019 20:54:16 GMT -5 True Black Raven said:

I got my copy during the summer of my 18th year and with my buddies started playing. We didn't have anything but d6's so to use the ACS (Alternate Combat System) we rolled 4d6-3 which gave us a range of 1-21 and called that close enough. So we started out, one ref and three players. They started out and were traveling through a forest on the way to some massive ruins that everyone in our town steered clear of and they wanted to find out what was really there. So for the first encounter I rolled up some bandits with an EHP (Evil High Priest) and a few minutes later we had our first TPK. So we started again. To make a long story short we had 6 TPKs and 5 almost TPKs before all three players reached the ruins together. By the second game I had a better idea of what they could and could not do, as did they, so two things happened I gradually adjusted encounters a little and they learned to run a lot and over time we found a happy medium. We still had TPKs now and then, but not too often. We also recruited more players so that helped too. I never did get any of them to ref, so it was a long time before I ever got to play.

Your first experience with the game was DMing it? Man, that had to had of been tough! I had a hard time learning to DM after playing for a few years and getting an idea of how the game works. I can't imagine just being thrown into the role. Do you think that that made you a better DM or do you wish that you could had played before running games?

[mao]

May 18, 2019 20:54:16 GMT -5 True Black Raven said:

I got my copy during the summer of my 18th year and with my buddies started playing. We didn't have anything but d6's so to use the ACS (Alternate Combat System) we rolled 4d6-3 which gave us a range of 1-21 and called that close enough. So we started out, one ref and three players. They started out and were traveling through a forest on the way to some massive ruins that everyone in our town steered clear of and they wanted to find out what was really there. So for the first encounter I rolled up some bandits with an EHP (Evil High Priest) and a few minutes later we had our first TPK. So we started again. To make a long story short we had 6 TPKs and 5 almost TPKs before all three players reached the ruins together. By the second game I had a better idea of what they could and could not do, as did they, so two things happened I gradually adjusted encounters a little and they learned to run a lot and over time we found a happy medium. We still had TPKs now and then, but not too often. We also recruited more players so that helped too. I never did get any of them to ref, so it was a long time before I ever got to play.

So your first experience was dming, man that was rough, can't imagine that. I did DM shortly after that to great success.

[Paper Labyrinth]

One day in the late 70s my dad brought home a new game for our family to play. It was called Dungeons and Dragons. I was 7 or 8 years old.

That night we sat down at the kitchen table and set off in search of the unknown. My brother got bored 15 minutes later, and I like to think that his thief is still fast asleep in the alcove where we left him. My mom and I carried on, exploring a wizard's study and a big chamber full of magical pools. The outlines of a new world came into view as we mapped the dungeon on a sheet of graph paper, and even now I associate the smell of pencil shavings with that evening. 

I became increasingly excited as we played, and all the while my mom kept darting glances at my dad, as though to say "this is getting out of hand."

So it went, until someone rolled a yellow die, and my mom's wizard fell over dead.

I looked up at her, and realizing that she wasn't going to live forever, burst into tears. She looked across the table at my dad and said "I think we made a mistake."

My dad rolled some dice and assured me that the wizard wasn't gone forever. She had simply been reincarnated as a cat, which I chased all the way out of the dungeon and into the sunlight. But I knew he was making up this last part, and that the real adventure had ended the moment I started crying. I wouldn't let them leave the table until they promised we could play again, and I made them swear they wouldn't cheat just because I got so excited the first time.

My parents are in their 70s now. We still play role-playing games occasionally, but it makes me sad sometimes, because I know we'll never find our way back to that first dungeon.

[The Perilous Dreamer]

Paper Labyrinth that is an incredible story of your first game. I always wondered what it would be like to have been that age instead of in college. That was magic.

[mao]

One hing also tat I remember from that firs game was my attitude toward it. The group I played w were first and foremost a miniature wargaming group. I thought " This is ok but Id rather play WW 2 games". Never thought about it until I decided to make my first dungeon, that was the thing that hooked me.

[simrion]

Apr 18, 2020 21:12:02 GMT -5 Paper Labyrinth said:

 but it makes me sad sometimes, because I know we'll never find our way back to that first dungeon.

The bitter sweet aspect of the hobby we so enjoy!

[The Perilous Dreamer]

Apr 19, 2020 12:03:53 GMT -5 simrion said:

Apr 18, 2020 21:12:02 GMT -5 Paper Labyrinth said:

 but it makes me sad sometimes, because I know we'll never find our way back to that first dungeon.

The bitter sweet aspect of the hobby we so enjoy!

That is all very true, but on the other hand as referees we get to give other people that first dungeon experience!

[ampleframework]

I'm a lot younger than some of the others around here. I was actually exposed to video game RPGs before I knew tabletop was a thing. The road that led me to playing actual D&D with others began with my brothers and I being bored and coming up with rules to play with miniatures on the kitchen floor to emulate games like Legend of Zelda and Final Fantasy, using cards, dice and other devices to resolve combat. We worked on this and refined this over a period of a few months until some other kid at school happened to overhear me talking about it and said "Oh, so like home made D&D". I had no idea what D&D was. This was 1994, but we lived (and still live) in a very small, rural area in Middle Tennessee. So, the idea of D&D was new to me.

It wasn't too long after that, maybe after or right before Christmas break, that a substitute teacher actually offered to run us through a game. I can't be 100% certain but I think she was using the red Mentzer box. It's been a number of years. I do know that my friends Ben and Eloy had a Rules Cyclopedia a year or two later after we had been into it a while. For my part I never used a book, either as a player or referee. I very quickly incorporated freeform stuff that I would later learn is "Blackmoor-esque" into my games, and let people be anything from cyborgs to samurai. Kind of OSR before OSR, I guess. We only were big into D&D until we got into junior high and the group of friends kind of ended up going our separate was, and my brothers and I got into other stuff, including girls, so we didn't think back on D&D for another few years. We got ahold of a 3e box set and didn't enjoy the changes, so we didn't stay back in it long. It wasn't until I found something called Swords & Wizardry online years later that I began to research the roots of the hobby and find out there's still a community of old school enthusiasts, and that led me in a round and about way to here.

[mao]

ampleframework, How very cool! Have an exault!

[ampleframework]

Thank you. I always enjoy sharing that story because it's an unusual one and kind of funny in hindsight. We really thought we were coming up with something new and unique. I sometimes wonder how we'd have carried on if nobody corrected us. We may have invented something elaborate and new. Ah well. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. You can still take the D&D concept and make it your own, after all. It's better to have a bit of a framework to build around. An ample enough one.

[mao]

Apr 26, 2020 6:54:11 GMT -5 ampleframework said:

Thank you. I always enjoy sharing that story because it's an unusual one and kind of funny in hindsight. We really thought we were coming up with something new and unique. I sometimes wonder how we'd have carried on if nobody corrected us. We may have invented something elaborate and new. Ah well. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. You can still take the D&D concept and make it your own, after all. It's better to have a bit of a framework to build around. An ample enough one.

I actually did a similar thing w The Melee rules before I w exposed to D&D