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Originally posted by dazzlerdal

An old adventure called Sword and Shield i believe, that my uncle ran for me when i was about 9.

Loved it so much, i believe i ended up being involved in some kind of a war which definitely wasnt in the adventure booklet when i read it back now.

The freedom of it all inspired me and i havent stopped since.

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Originally posted by SirUrza

Star Wars. For real. Well technically I was playing the old gold box PC games before I had any real understanding of Dungeons & Dragons.

Then I started playing the pencil & paper Star Wars RPG by West End Games. I'll admit, I miss rolling massive pools of d6s on skill checks. :)

We eventually switched over to AD&D to run a homebrew campaign. This is when the pieces started to come together. I think I spent some time playing Baldur's Gate before I started playing the Realms. I know my first real exposure to the Realms was before Baldur's Gate because I read the Icewind Dale trilogy and got hooked. After Baldur's Gate I started playing in the Realms, my group wanted to be there.

I was around 15 when I started playing Star Wars.

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Originally posted by Diffan

Oh geez, it was AD&D 2nd Edition and I was about 15 (1997). We were actually playing football in the field across the street from a friends house when it started to rain. So to wait it out we went to his house and his brother asked us if we wanted to play (I think he had a friend over or soemthing and needed more people). So we all said sure and got started making characters. At that point my only reference was that I had played Baldur's Gate on the computer so I had some tiny knowledge of what to expect. I rolled up a Human Paladin (rolled well, I guess). The DM was generous and gave out a few magical items to go with our character. I got a +1 falchion, which I wasn't familiar with at all and it honestly didn't go with the whole crusader themed character I was playing. I had asked if I could just change it to a longsword and instantly the DM didn't like me (lol, not that I was looking a gifted horse in the mouth, but I was more into the theme than any mechanics so I didn't think it was all that different).

The adventure started with us waking up to a fire run amok in our camp admist a goblin raid. I killed a few goblins but because I was somewhat armored with Chain mail, I think 7 or 8 goblins targeted me first. I then shortly died from about 5 arrows, lol. Honestly, it took about 45 mintues to create a chracter and go through the rules and then about 15 mintues for combat to start and me to die. Played AD&D a few more times with general distaste and frustration.

3E came along and another friend bought the core set. We played a few times and generally liked how smooth it played at the low-levels. The DM was still in the mindset of never giving us anything akin to magical items and it wasn't until about 7th level when we started to vocally complain about the best weapon the entire party had was a masterwork Greatsword that my Barbarian was wielding. Frustrated he instantly turned it into a monty haul game and set us against EL+5 and up encounters, to which we'd all die. We then all left for college and didn't play again until I started DM'ing in 2005.

We got a game together on Monday nights at my grandma's house (she was a nurse who worked grave shift) and it was the classic "playing til 4 AM with pop (aka Soda) and cheetos" group. We started to get more serious with character creation and extended campaigns, almost all of them homebrew. I found the Forgotten Realms again and started doing quick adventures I made up using the locations and NPCs found in the FRCS. We then ran a few other adventures such as the ones found in the FRCS and then adapting the FREE adventures found on the WotC site for the Forgotten Realms. We played 3.5 from about 04/05 until 08 when 4E came out.

4E came out and I got the box set for my birthday. Instantly I hated it and pretty much how the entire layout of the books was alien and foreign. Power cards? Really? Boxes of powers for classes? This is dumb. But I gave it a shot and after some reading and DM creating and homebrewing, I realized how much I loved the system. The changes to the Realms were actually some of the best things I incorpoated into my FR campaigns, including one that's lasted over 8 years. Suffice to say that I look at the Realms and think "How can I use, incorpoate, assimiliate the information presented and make my games better." Perhaps this approach is why I was never really bothered with the changes to begin with. That and that I haven't been around and involved with the Realms as much as some other people. *shruggs*.

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Originally posted by sleyvas

The old dungeons & dragons box set (which I hate myself for giving away), before they had AD&D or the basic set. I was about 9 or 10 years old and my brother bought it for me at a garage sale (so maybe 1980, maybe 1981). It didn't have dice. It had these paper chits with the numbers 1 through 20 on them for the 20 sided dice pool, 1 through 4 for the 4 sided dice, etc... The front of it talked about a "predecessor version" of the game called Castles and Crusaders. I remember trying to figure out the game and getting confused about the difference between constitution and hit points. I had no one to play with except for a cousin of mine, so I read the stuff and tried to figure it out myself. I think the module that came with it was Caves of Chaos (or maybe that was the basic set I got later). I didn't get my first AD&D books until about 3 or 4 years later, when I got the PH, DMG, MM, and Deities & Demigods... which just opened up a whole new world, because elves weren't all fighter mages and dwarves were more than fighters and halflings could be thieves. From there, it began to rollout heavily.. read DL, FR was released (fell in love with FR),etc...

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Originally posted by hashimashadoo

It was 2001. People had tried and failed to get me into D&D a couple of years beforehand. A chance buy of the 3.0 Player's Handbook and a kid who had some experience DMing changed things dramatically. My only experience with the d20 system was Baldur's Gate but after that first adventure, my friends and I spent a large part of the next two-and-a-half years either playing in or running adventures.

Once I left school and moved to the sticks it was about a year before I found anyone who wanted to play. I set up a group at college and was lucky to find a very experienced DM to run things for me. Taking some lessons from him, I got my college friends interested and got myself a very interested party to DM for over the next two years. Things have gone from strength to strength since.

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Originally posted by Alruane
Oh a different origin very nice! I never got to play anything like that before, so that's quite interesting.

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Originally posted by Alruane
That's a good age to start as well, you're understanding of the game is improved as you get older. Thanks for sharing, SirUrza!

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Originally posted by Renin

I had become good friends with a new kid who had moved to my school in 5th grade (circa 1989-90). I had started reading fantasy before that (my mom was a Sword of Shannara fan), so we had that to talk about, he loaned me some books too, and he eventually asked if I wanted to play.

We made my first character, an elf named Renin Silverblade, over the lunch hour period we were supposed to be playing open gym.
Ah..AD&D....how I miss thee, oh ThAC0...

My parents were VERY nervous about me going over to play (and duh, being the weekend, it was all overnight, pizza and Orc piss (Mountain Dew!). "If anyone starts taking their shirts off, or lighting candles, you CALL us and leave RIGHT AWAY." Thanks a lot, Tom Hanks & 'Mazes & Monsters'

BUT; it was all good, all fun, and I've been with the Realms ever since. I moved away from that school about 2 years later, but with the close friendship, my friend's older brother always drove the extra 30 minutes to come pick me up for a weekend of roleplaying, and it's still the same group of friends, even with all of us separating to different colleges (and states!). Dnd has really helped keep us all together as friends.

Renin is still around, been through AD&D, 3rd, 3.5, and even into a PF build (but just to see how it goes). I mostly DM these days...and look forward to the day I can teach my eventual kids how to play.

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Originally posted by SirUrza

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Originally posted by Alruane
Oh a different origin very nice! I never got to play anything like that before, so that's quite interesting.

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It's an interesting system. They basically had I think 8 skill "attributes" and under those "attributes" would be specific skills. You'd be awarded character points which you'd spend to increase your skills or "attributes." The attribute was the base value of your basically your untrained skills, while your "trained" skills had their own score.

So to use D&D as an example, Dexterity would be the attribute. Maybe during creation you put 3d6+1 worth of points into it. So Sneak would be 3d6+1.. but you could spend additional points into it to increase it to say 5d6+2.

You'd spend as many points as the dice roll. Every +3 was a new dice. So 2d+1, 2d+2, 3d, 3d+1, etc.

I think the attributes cost double to increase. They also had a free specialization system. So you could specialize in a specific anyway you want.

So again in D&D terms.

Strength 3d6+0
Swords 3d6+2
Swords: Longsword 6d6
Swords: Scimitar 5d6+2.

Could lead to massive dice rolls. Specialization cost half so you could really customize a character to be good at specific things.

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Originally posted by Alruane
That's a good age to start as well, you're understanding of the game is improved as you get older. Thanks for sharing, SirUrza!

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It sure helped. Glad you enjoyed!

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Originally posted by dazzlerdal

I love the WEG star wars rpg, its an entirely different style of roleplay though. DnD is all about the rules, whereas Star Wars (WEG) is all about the roleplay.

In DnD you would say, I am going to use a move action to do such and such, and a standard action to attack etc.

In WEG you would say i'm diving behind the table, trying to blast the door controls etc. There is no mention of rules, just what your character is doing.

Both excellent games though, its just a shame WEG discontinued and they went down the d20 route. Although I hear a bunch of people did unofficial sourcebooks for it; I never managed to find any though.

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Originally posted by Delwa

A friend of mine loaned me Baldur's Gate. I fell in love with the characters, the world, and the story. However, I kept dying. Having only been given the disks, not the manual, I went to my local hobby store and bought the D&D 3.5 boxed set. (Softcover phb, dice.) I managed to figure everything but AC from that, then my friend visited from college and explained the differences between 3.5 and the computer game. Then things progressed nicely. A few years later, I landed a job at the hobby store, and one of my co-workers invited me to play D&D with his group. I jumped at the chance, especially when he told me it was in Faerūn, and I've been playing ever since.

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Originally posted by froglegg

It was 1979 and I was 11 years old and a friend wanted to get me to try this strange game.
My 1st PC was a thief and our first dungeon was filled with goblins and I was having lots and lots of fun and I didn't really understand the rules but I was hooked bad.
Back then we didn't have all of the dice so we used cups with little peaces of paper with numbers on them in the cups.
One cup was for the D20 another was for the D8 and so on.
Dungeons & Dragons has been a part of me ever since.
As for my thief, well one time when I could not make it they used him as an NPC and got him killed. The dirty rats!
I LOVE THIS GAME!




John

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Originally posted by Alruane

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Originally posted by dazzlerdal

I love the WEG star wars rpg, its an entirely different style of roleplay though. DnD is all about the rules, whereas Star Wars (WEG) is all about the roleplay.

In DnD you would say, I am going to use a move action to do such and such, and a standard action to attack etc.

In WEG you would say i'm diving behind the table, trying to blast the door controls etc. There is no mention of rules, just what your character is doing.

Both excellent games though, its just a shame WEG discontinued and they went down the d20 route. Although I hear a bunch of people did unofficial sourcebooks for it; I never managed to find any though.

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Holy crap! I really need to look into this more thoroughly! It actually sounds like a lot of fun. O_O

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Originally posted by crazedventurers

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Originally posted by Alruane

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Originally posted by dazzlerdal

I love the WEG star wars rpg, its an entirely different style of roleplay though. DnD is all about the rules, whereas Star Wars (WEG) is all about the roleplay.

In DnD you would say, I am going to use a move action to do such and such, and a standard action to attack etc.

In WEG you would say i'm diving behind the table, trying to blast the door controls etc. There is no mention of rules, just what your character is doing.

Both excellent games though, its just a shame WEG discontinued and they went down the d20 route. Although I hear a bunch of people did unofficial sourcebooks for it; I never managed to find any though.

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Holy crap! I really need to look into this more thoroughly! It actually sounds like a lot of fun. O_O

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D6 star wars I hear?

go here, its free

http://www.rpgnow.com/product/20447/D6-Space?

Cheers

Damian
who started playing B/X D&D about 1981 and still games with the guy who ran for me all those years ago :)

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