Your Introduction to Gaming

[-wyvern-]

What is your introduction to gaming?

I remember seeing the HeroQuest commercials on TV and being completely overwhelmed by how awesome the game looked. I saved up my lawn mowing money and soon begged by mother to take me to the local bookstore. I purchased the HeroQuest game system. I was so excited but then quickly realized that the game would be better with a friend.

One of my friends joined me on the quest of a lifetime. We played through quest after quest, weekend after weekend. It was a wonderful summer adventure. He joined me on a family vacation to the woods and my mother told us to go have fun outside. So what did we do? Played the game on a table in the park. It was a memorable adventure.

The next school year, I was introduced to D&D (basic) and then moved on to AD&D (2nd edition). However, HeroQuest continued with me in the form of figures and dungeon dressing. My friends, even years later, have been impressed with my HeroQuest collection and figures. They come in handy a lot of the time.

[Daedalus]

My grandma got me into gaming with go fish and checkers...

In my case one short day of AD&D was first, then D&D Basic followed by a bit of Expert, then AD&D again. This lead to D&D 2nd edition before my old group finally found Hero Quest as a diversion. The nice thing about Hero Quest was we could share it with more friends who weren't D&D players.

[cynthialee]

My first boyfriends brother was into D&D and talked me and my brother into playing the game one evening. I was immediately hooked and have been an avid RPG player since I was 14 years old. This love of RPG led me to discover HQ and I love it as a RPG lite.

I might not have kept Richard, but I kept the game he and his brother introduced to me so many years ago as a constant friend and companion.
Some of the characters over the years that various friends and I have played have become like favored fictional characters from novels and movies. I only wish you guys could have been there for some of the greats. Father Caraway Hands Bane, Blentor the Questor, Lefty the 8 toed Thief, Romthar of Ket....it is a shame that so few people will ever know their epic sagas.

[StratosVX]

I don't remember what got me started in gaming to begin with. I do remember I always liked card games and had quite a few. My dad started teaching me chess when I was around eight or so. His copy of Dungeon is what got me started in the fantasy genre though.

[knightkrawler]

My introduction to gaming was HeroQuest. And it stopped there. I'm still not a gamer in any sense of the word.
HQ is still the only game I play falling under any definition of "gamer's game".

[Anderas]

Well, I was talked into playing it by a friend. It was really cool, but I just did one quest here and there. Final quest was against the ogre hordes, when my friend wanted me to play it with a single Barbarian (because we were only us two that day) with beginners equipment (because it had been a while since the last game and I lost the character sheet.)
Well, it made me so angry I didn't play that game with that friend anymore, instead I bought my own copy.
I immediately took all the markers and tiles and put them on the copier to have more, and began thinking of my own quests. I played them with my brother and a couple of friends. These friends took it then as introduction to RPG and talked me into playing that instead, so again I stopped heroquest.

I never really stopped thinking about it, so when Gamezones offered something that promised to be useful I preordered it. Well it is not delivered yet, but it sucked me back to HQ. The real one.
Already I have all the Goblins I need and almost all the skeletons, I developed a new base game quest book and I am on the way to have the cards redone.
In the end, Gamezone will have provided some game material, but the HQ I play will really be MINE. I trust them to deliver resin eventually, but I don't trust them with the rules.

[QorDaq]

So... If I have not already then I am certainly about to out my age here, but it's a fine topic so here goes...

Going back to the summer of 1977, my father, a musician, was hired on as a minstrel for the local Medieval Faire. Initially, this was as part of several promotional stunts staged publicly around town to hype the newly expanded event. I went with my dad to sign the contract and the promoter did an impromptu casting call and hired myself on as page (I was a young Teen) for the Royal Court... These contracts were then extended to include the Faire proper.

During this time, I came into contact with a group of good folken from the SCA who were also involved with the Faire, and who were eventually themselves incorporated into the Court when several of the actors failed to show. So, long story short, I ended up spending a lot of my down time hanging out with the the SCA folks (Yeah, there was a girl involved...*Grin*...).

After Faire concluded that year, I stayed in touch with the Skadians I met and was invited to a party where, amomgst other things, someone was running an AD&D adventure... Having just read the Lord of the Rings for the first time that summer, I of course played a Halfling thief... And thus was born the legend of Fors Unduin... A name and character type that would be reused a couple of times over the decades.

As is not terribly uncommon then, I too got my start in gaming via Dungeons and Dragons, if circuitously, though over the years my interests and RPG activities have expanded well beyond.

It was a great summer!

maj!

[knightkrawler]

Aaaaaaah yesssss! 1977...

Wait, no.
I'm not that old.

[Goblin-King]

Get ready for a complicated story...

As a kid, my brother read a children's horror book with short stories.
One of the stories were about a kid who painted miniatures which were somehow intertwined with his imminent death. I don't exactly remember the plot... Maybe they became real or something.
Inspired by this story my brother bought a blister pack of three goblins.
And seemingly that was it. He never painted them or expanded his collection. For him that's where the adventure ended...

Some years later I got a bootleg CD-ROM which among other games contained Warcraft: Orcs and Humans.
It was an amazing game for it's time and I was instantly taken by the whole concept of two fantasy armies fighting for dominance in the Black Morass (Bonus point if you read the last part with the narrators voice).
That's when I remembered my brother's goblins and asked him to find them and if I could have them. He probably sold them to me...
For me three goblins wasn't enough though. For christmas I wished for miniatures and got the plastic orc swordsmen and archers.
I needed more miniatures and soon after bought a blister of snotlings (because it had great quantity) and some paint.

I remember crying after painting my first orc because of how terrible I had ruined it!

From there things started to pick up. I got the box set with goblins and elves and rulebooks. Soon I had a small orcs & goblins army and a friend of mine were convinced to join in.
We talked in school and it turned out a few kids from the other class also played Warhammer. It was a glorious time...

I don't play WHFB anymore, but that's how I got started on the whole gaming thing... I could never leave it behind...

[mitchiemasha]

The advert... for sure!!! it captured the imagination of a generation.

The only books I'd read were FF.

I also remember way before the HQ advert seeing a Monopoly box in the bottom of the cupboard and asking what it was. The reply of it's too complicated and nothing else left me wondering about what treats laid in these long flat boxes.

Only problem is I never got to play no where near as many games as I'd of liked. Always way jealous when hearing of the many adventures others had embarked.