How'd you get into D&D?

[StoneSung]

It's mainly my dad that got me into D&D, found a box full of old AD&D handbooks and miniatures. Started playing this year with my friends and it's been pretty fun. We don't meet that often so I'm hoping to fill that time up with this site.

[danline]

13 years old bunch of friends and my older brother

[Rothene]

A classmate of mine told me about his amazing experience of playing D&D with some of his friends. It then made me understand what those wierd tables and terms were in the D&D rulebooks I saw sold in the local bookstore.

[thargent]

In a fit of boredom, I joined the D&D club in my junior year of high school. (they played 3.5). Nothing ever really happened of interest, so I attended all of two meetings senior year (doing dark room photography instead). I did, however, meet one of my best friends there, so it wasn't a complete loss.

Some time that summer, the head of the D&D club - who had also graduated - put up a notice on Facebook wondering if anyone wanted to start up a Pathfinder game. And I was like, "Sure, why not", and here I am half a decade later with a playgroup containing only one person from the original high school group (not the bestie from the last paragraph, turns out he isn't in to RPGs).

[summerdruid]

3 years ago a friend's brother gave him the 4e Starter Set for his birthday as a joke. We thought, "why not?" and have been playing ever since.

[TheTwiztedJester]

Was always into rpgs. Friends years ago were playing and I tried playing but they didn't want to take the time to teach me d&d, So my first time playing has been here playing 5e in a npsg and though I can say it wasn't worth the wait... only for the fact I wish I could have been playing sooner, I can say its better than what I expected and well worth wanting to play.

[UrsusSolaris]

A friend from work invited me to a group he was DMing, a 3.5e based homebrew. I'd been a bit of a fantasy geek since middle school and the ability to create a character and tell a story and help build a world with them got me hooked.

[Ecco]

I suppose it isn't a grand tale. I simply happened by a shelf of role-playing game books in a local book store whilst looking for fantasy novels and manga, picked one up, bought it, and never looked back. I believe what I purchased was the D&D 3rd Edition Player's Handbook. I picked up the DMG some time later, but didn't really get heavily involved in playing until sophmore year of high school wherein the mere knowledge of my owning a set of the books intrigued a group of people I'd befriended. The first game I officiated included a dwarf paladin, a human cleric, and an elven rogue. Eventually the dwarf turned into an anti-paladin, the elf became an arcane archer, and the cleric became a necromancer, died, and was resurrected as a lich. Quite the trio. Would have been a quartet had they not kept killing/ticking off our would-be fourth.

[Karver]

It's pretty cool to see so many different perspectives and stories on how people started gaming. Everything from 'it started at birth' to Ecco's 'wandered by a book shelf.' What a great hobby to be part of.

I started when I was 10; 28 years ago. My good friend's father bought him a 'cool book about being an elf' for Christmas. We sat around and played DnD for days that Christmas break. Too bad we were just going off the rules he could remember. Still have a pleasant spot in my vault for that crystal sword I talked him into so long ago. It was a few years later in Alaska that I really started playing ADnD. I overheard some boys talking about a campaign in hushed tones in the back row of a math class. After a few days of trying to figure out what they were talking about (by eves dropping; I was a new kid in the school) I finally announced to them how much I loved DnD. They introduced me to the actual rules and it all just went from there.

My favorite game ever will always be Darksun, 1st edition for ADnD.

[LdyZamara]

Once upon a time ....isn't that how all the classics begin? Wow, let's see I was 11, and we had just moved 'again'. I went to about 20+ different schools growing up. My favorite however was about that time, North Carolina.. ahh the beach! I was hanging out with my older sister (11 years older) and her marine boyfriend and all his buddies (Camp Lejeune, Jacksonville NC). They were my introduction to D&D 1e. Yeah that long ago. So my older sister and a bunch of marines taught me to play D&D. Those were the days! Games lasting for days on end two or three at a time ... EL Fudge cookies, Doritos, canned cheese dip, and Mountain Dew!! (some beer, cigs, and wine, cheap crap out of the box Classy!) Yeah I grew up pretty fast. It's no wonder the game appealed to me.. best escape in the world! The wine left you with a nasty hangover...d&d far more pleasant!

Ah but the fairytale doesn't end there. Oddly enough, I lived near a Sanitary Landfill at the time (a huge dump). Needless to say that well one man's trash is another man's treasure! In a dumpster that same exact year I found a brand new copy of the phb. The one with the Efreeti on the front! Fate! It was just meant to be! Been playin' ever since. Though have had to resort to pbp for many years now due to lack of players and time. But hey I'll take it!

[timille]

Once i watched the shwo Critical Role i was in love.

[Nemico]

I was playing MTG at the local comic shop one morning and after our games finished the shopkeep asked if I wanted to play D&D cause it was Game Day for 4th edition. There were pre-rolled characters and they needed a fourth player for his game to start. I picked the Tiefling Invoker and gave it a shot. It was pretty fun! The final battle was in a large space with hidden landmines and some hostages in a closed room to the side. I was first in turn order and saw a bunch of bad guys around so I thought for a second and said "ok, I guess I'm going to start by trying this and we'll see what hap- FOURFOLD INVOCATION OF DOOM" I got a couple of 'oh s**t!'s from our table and the one next to us which was pretty fun

I ended up killing the bad guy by arbitrarily pushing him to a random square and it triggered a landmine. The next turn was his; he had 1hp and was bleeding. Shopkeep passed his saving throw but I had a power that made him reroll it as a special action. He said that it was the most pathetic boss death he'd ever seen

That was the only time I had played D&D but I have run several games of Everyone is John and a couple of Paranoia XP in the meantime. And now, I asked a coworker who mentioned playing Pathfinder if he had a game I could join and now we've started a campaign that's about to have its third session!

[Thebaronofbats]

Weird story actually. My two older brothers had been playing D&D with a couple of high school buddies. one of them had gotten grounded for the whole summer and the group needed an replacement for him.

[UndeadRobot]

Back around 1997/1998 I had participated in AD&D with friends. I didn't know anything about it, nor did I show much interest in it. I played a Bard but I didn't enjoy it. Not sure why exactly. Could have been because none of my friends sold me the idea or explained it properly. A few months later I had purchased Baldur's Gate video game for PC. I played all 5 discs and really enjoyed it. I actually learned a lot from the video game itself. Luckily, another friend of mine started up AD&D and I was very excited to play. I played a Dwarven Fighter Cleric (yep I dual classed in AD&D) and got hooked on to D&D since then.

[IronHalo]

I got into D&D when I was 13 because I had a great group of friends I had made at the FLGS. After a serious tragedy in my family, I had found the store and it literally became my haven where I could live out fantastic battles, heroic accomplishments, and be challenged intellectually. D&D was a natural addition to the dynamic of our group as we creatively invented characters and quested to save the day. I am still very close with that group of friends, now all grown up with families and responsibilities 20 years later, and we're excited to use RPG Crossing to help us play and stay in touch even in separate locations! I know D&D and gaming kept me out of a lot of trouble and I'm forever grateful for all of the experiences and growing that came from it.