How'd you get into D&D?

[allstarr]

I was at a small-town event for veterans, and hit it off well with a guy, with jokes about the army (him, Ain't Ready for the Marines Yet) and Navy (Never Again Volunteer Yourself).

He was a DM for 3.5 (I couldn't recall which version, so I got my character sheet for 5e, oops). I was an Assassin Rouge/Ranger. There was some fun, and couldn't say no to "free pizza!"

It was fun, rolling, and getting to learn the game. I was a little annoyed at having to roll for every single thing there, and the amount of time it took for just one person to act (I'd heard 5e moved a little faster, had things a little more streamlined, and was a little easier for noobs), but I took it in stride.

Then, came a side pathway. His GF really wanted to explore it. He warned us, saying that since you all are new, and low level, to ignore the "tempting side path." She didn't listen, and charged right on. We reluctantly followed, and met a HUGE monsters (we all had these dinky minis, and the monster model, by comparison, was giant). The thing was devastating us, in just the first few moves. We decided to retreat. Everyone took heavy damage...except for my squish rouge, who didn't make it.

I found it rather frustrating that on my very first game, I got killed, because someone didn't want to listen to the DM's warnings...although I guess we could have let her explore, and report back. Still, it pretty much soured me on the game. But my bud had me create a new character, and I was able to start anew...the irony was, a few months later, he retired, and moved to the Philippines.

I did some reading, and was debating between 4e, and 5e. I rather like the idea of combat, so leaned towards 4e. However, a lot of people seemed to not be as open to it, and I found more games for 5e, so I began to learn about it.

I found the local library started up a new, once a month, 5e session, for a few hours, so I joined that, as a Half-elf Peace Cleric (I was a little disappointed that they wouldn't allow a variant human, which is in both the basic and phb). I the joined a PbB as a Twilight Cleric. I've been enjoying these games, and decided I want to join (at least?) one more, this time, as an Oath of Vengeance Hexadin.

So, while I'm more interested in D&D, and can accept if a PC dies, I hope to have a party (and maybe a DM), that won't cause me (or TPK), due to a "I wana do it," and listen to warnings by the DM!

[DerangedDiligence]

I got into D&D much by accident. An older brother needed players. I was there. That was it. lol, The fact I was smarter than most the people at the table became clear very swiftly and before long, I was GMing. =] I use the term GM because I run various games, not just D&D. World of Darkness, GURPS, FATE; there are plenty of other systems out there that I experienced and enjoyed. I did enjoy Ravenloft, Darksun and GURPS Madlands but then I swapped to WoD.

Now I'm primarily a WoD ST of both old and new chronicles and mixtures, whatever the kids are calling the splats, these days. lol x] I love psych-horror, what can I say?

[Chekken]

I played video games for most of my life and well into college.

In my freshman year of college circa 2010, I was introduced through my buddy to the concept of an "imagination game": a game where your character could do anything you wanted, within reason, and so long as it fit in with the mechanics and the rules. That game was D&D (which was in 3.5E at the time).

I quickly jumped on my very first 3.5 one-shot at the game club at the college, where I played a paladin and kicked the ass of a bunch of goblins using smite. I believe my buddy was a half-elf cleric. When I got a chance to go to my LGS, I purchased the DM Manual for 3.5, and starting a campaign called "Knights of Aurora" with my best friend. We took on a campaign of 8-ish people right here on this site, and the rest was history!

I've now officially been playing or DMing D&D and other d20 systems for about 15 years across a dozen or so campaigns and one-shots, including one experimental system that was kind of like GURPS.

[PIG]

Hero Quest introduced me as a teen. I saw Hero Quest being sold at a grocery store and it got me into dice rolling and fantasy. D&D was just the most reasonable step.

[Gomer]

I made several friends online a few years ago playing Barotrauma on steam. Ended up getting a group of people together and starting a discord server for it. When one of my friends that hung out on the server more frequently mentioned that he hosted d&d for his IRL group I asked him if he would host for us sometime. He said "yeah I guess I could run you guys through curse of strahd." Little did we know that this would become our favorite thing happening on the server and one of the main reasons that we all became so close over the past couple years. Now all of us host our own independent games from LANCER to Hunter the vigil and Pf2e. It's really taken over our social group as one of the main things that we do together.

[Kepheren]

Sometime in the early summer of 1981 I was hanging out in a local mall checking out the newest books at a Walden's book store back when they were a thing. One day they got in a copy of the monster manual for the then current Advanced Dungeon's & Dragon's system. I was immediately hooked. Later in the summer I moved in to the dorms at Marshall University, fell in with a local gaming group and the rest was history. Have been playing a lot of role playing games in various systems every since then.