How'd you get into D&D?

[Deadly Treadly]

Buying fantasy figures to paint back in 1980 the salesman said to me "you should buy this game that these go with". I thought it was some sort of war game and wasn't interested. Eventually he pestered me into buying the red box. This is in Australia so there wasn't much information on the game, and luckily we missed the worst of the Satanic Panic.

Well, wandering back home I cajoled my brothers into rolling characters and off we went. The went up to Hommlet and within about an hour we were all hooked. It's been an obsession ever since then, forty-odd years now. It's led me to some odd places, I ended up doing re-enactment, medieval martial arts and studying medieval history at university all because of AD&D's Dungeon Master Guide. Mssrs Arneson and Gygax certainly have a lot to answer for.

[Dakkon]

Well, it was an accumilation of little things. I was always curious as a teen, but no one in my social circle played. But there was definite interest. When i got my first job, one of my managers, a very wonderful woman i have a ton of respect for, introduced me to her boyfriend. Great guy, amazing taste in fiction! He loaned me some Forgotten Realms books, and i devoured them with passion!

My manager hired this one guy, bit of an odd ball, but he brought me in his social circle. They were starting Modern D20, so i tried it out, liked it. They brought me into a 3.5 campaign, and i loved it! Sadly, my character died off too soon, and i had to move away soon after.

But all of that inspired a love for the genre.

[crowmadillo]

My older brother & I found our oldest brother’s gaming books (Basic, Expert, and Advanced D&D) when we were 10 & 8 (respectively.) We ran each other through B2 The Keep on the Borderlands but it didn’t really “click.” That summer at our local public library we randomly stumbled upon an older fellow* sitting with a stack of rpg rulebooks including AD&D and asked him for help; an hour later we were enthusiastically playing the Marvel Superheroes rpg. In 30+ years neither of us has ever looked back.

*Basically this :

Originally Posted by Dakkon

…this one guy, bit of an odd ball, but he brought me in his social circle.

[Kayal]

My parents bought me two AD&D adventure modules; no rulebooks or dice. We played them anyway. We did our best to fill-in the gaps and made up the rest. Some time later, my neighbor got the Basic D&D Boxed Set, which came with dice. As a result, we were playing a weird hybrid of D&D and AD&D. It wasn't until much later that I went out and bought a PHB with my own money and switched fully to a single set of rules.

[prometheous100]

One of my mothers friends from the Netherlands came to visit for a week when I was probably 12 years old and one night opened up the D&D book and rolled a short one shot campaign. I wasn't very interested.

About a year later I was house sitting with one of my friends and we all ordered a pizza and they started up their existing campaign. 16 hours later we were all stumbling tired and went to sleep. Due to not being part of the regular group, I didn't get to play with them again (we were friends, but we played M:tG at school, and I didn't get to see them often outside of school)

College, I joined the 'wargamers' club as a thing to do when ballroom dance got weird. Got into a weekly session, and I think the second week the DM introduced me to dndonlinegames. That was RoadDog. Been playing off and on ever since.

[Tolamaker]

My brother and I knew the D&D existed, but didn't know that there were any rules beyond rolling a d20 and assigning other dice to certain weapons. We basically made everything up as we went, and then years later I bought the 5e handbook and started playing "properly," while he still just makes it all up on the fly.

[Dark Asterisk]

I collected "monster books" when I was young for the art and I loved mythology. Later, a friend asked if I wanted to try dnd and I replied, "sure." I had many monster manuals in my collection, so I just added the player's handbook and rolled with it.

[Law Dog]

I read an article about it in a magazine in 1978. I found the Holmes Basic set at my local grocery store.

[Luezon]

I had some very brief brushes with D&D over the years - my cousins played it and I half-sat-in on some character creation, and I'm pretty sure I listened to a few episodes of Acquisitions Inc at one point - but my proper introduction to D&D was through Critical Role at the start of their 2nd campaign.

I've always loved storytelling and games, and was shocked I hadn't really realised the potential of their combination through TTRPGs, and so I threw myself right into the world of D&D. I started my own campaign within a few months and have been playing consistently since, never looking back!

[RiverGaming]

I inherited it. My parents were both D&D players well before I came along. I'm sure I'd shown an interest in it before, but My First Game was a 3E game pretty shortly after the system released. My first character was an elven monk. I... wouldn't be surprised if my mother still has that character sheet stored away somewhere, to be honest.

[Foxythepir4te]

I've been wanting to play D&D for a good while now but the last game I played I chickened out because I was scared. I've just been interested in D&D because I was into fantasy stuff.

[Beardly]

The first I remember was a D&D basic boxed set that I think my mom got me and my brother, we dabbled, latter ran into a kid who's older brother had some books and we played 1st E for a while before running into a group that was doing 2nd E.

[novatore]

A friend gave me The Crystal Shard by Salvatore and everything went from there. I stopped playing D&D when I got introduced to VTM, but I wouldn't mind returning for a game. 5e looks fun.

[Drifter One]

One thing I do miss is an old shop my old fella used to drive me to in a place called Gravesend (there is a story behind the name!). I remember eagerly thumbing through the stacks of AD&D content and often came away with multiple modules. I miss those old black and white pages stuffed into the colourful "folders" with lovely Jeff Easley and CLyde Caldwell cover illustrations...

[SparklingZombie]

A friend invited me to a Roll20 game of Dungeons of the Mad Mage that his partner was running at the beginning of the pandemic. Wasn't as complicated as I feared it would be!