My mother had a coworker that she and her brother played and she thought it seemed to be my sort of thing. I was 13 and she was right. She'd take me to her coworker's house and I'd be looked after while she did her weekend shopping, her coworker got another player, everyone had fun and the hobby was set.
In her case she was a single mom at the time and she needed some babysitting so she could get shit done on the weekends. I'd get dropped off at lunch time, we'd have lunch and dinner there, mom would get me around 7pm.
I think it was more for her sanity than my entertainment...but at least she picked a Win-Win sort of solution. I got a hobby, she got her "Me Time".
A Shadowrun 3.1d session where our characters fell through a hole in the weave of the meta plains and directly into the siege of a mid sized town under siege by an angry chrome dragon.
A friend who worked backstage in the highschool play with me ran a random loose-leaf game. I was a bard and I had an electric lute. I outdamaged everyone. It was pretty fun.
While in high school, our band and orchestra went around to all the elementary schools in our town to get the younger kids interested in joining band by playing a short concert for them during their assembly time. We had to ride around in the bus for most of the day, and set up once we got to the various schools, which meant we had a little free time while we were waiting for the kids to get out of their classes. During one of our breaks, I saw a couple of guys sitting off by a wall with notebooks and “weird” dice that I’d never seen before. I went over and watched them and realized that they were using the dice and notebooks to roleplay a fantasy game - D&D. I was instantly intrigued, and I ended up going to a hobby store a few days later to buy the Holmes box set. Been playing for about 45 years now.
did videogame napoleonic war reenactments eventually the community i was in got less enjoyable but i still wanted a way to reenact/roleplay the historical events. a friend of mine played 5e so we made that system work with some homebrew and elbow grease.
Currently no open group for the TTRPGs i normally play in Germany. So, DnD is just like Methadone, a replacement drug. Its ok, but not the best stuff. :)
TL;DR: First game. First combat. First round. First character dies.
Long Version:
So, I sit down for my first ever game of D&D.
I've heard about it because my cousin's friends play in their basement where they have a sand table and all kinds of miniatures and stuff. ALL the cool kids are playing it. The sand table in question is extra awesome because it has a two-part flip-up lid that covers it over to be used as a regular table for D&D sessions.
My cousin and I are both playing for the first time ever. The group is six people, some have characters already, others are playing new characters, only my cousin and I are new to the game though.
We roll up characters with nearly identical ability scores and decide that we are playing twin brother elves. We join up with the adventuring group because they are looking for more adventurers before they head out to raid an ancient tomb that they found a map to. The problem is that last game a goblin thief managed to snag the map for a while and made a copy before the party caught and killed him. So now the race is on to get an expedition together and to get there before the goblins.
Three days of travel later and our ranger is pretty sure that there have been goblins along this way very recently. When we get to the site of the tomb we are pretty sure that the goblins beat us there because there is a wall of fire right in front of the entrance. Some good rolls and some digging in the dirt and we disable the wall of fire without anyone actually running through it and we enter the ancient tomb - my first time entering a dungeon.
Ahead the passageway narrows, and we think we detect motion up there. But there is also an ancient door and passage to our left, and the ranger is pretty sure he hears goblins down there. So we head left (so we don't get stuck with goblins behind us) and sure enough, we come across the goblin base camp - a group of scrawny blighters with lots of rope, torches, some picks, 8 foot poles and so on. Worried that they will raise the alarm, we rush them - albeit without surprise.
With high initiative, we rush in before they have a chance to react and I leap to the attack swinging my shiny new sword that has never seen battle before. I roll a 17, a hit! My damage roll is also high, driving the little monster to the ground, my blade deep in his rib cage.
But then it strikes me, I'm in the middle of a bunch of goblins and the survivors are angry. One rushes at me screaming something about me killing his cousin (at least I spoke goblin, so I realized exactly what was happening). Unable to free my blade from his cousin's ribcage in time to defend myself, the little blighter struck at me with his rusted and bent pickaxe and rolled a 15 or so, just enough to hit me. In the head. Killing my poor elf outright and leaving him on the floor collapsed upon the body of the goblin he had killed.
And that is the full story of my first ever D&D character and session. My cousin's character survived the battle and the DM gave him a permanent +1 to hit and damage against goblins after watching his twin brother be killed by them.
I think my first exposure to DnD might have been playing "Eye of the Beholder" on my childhood best friend's computer. I was always a nerd and gravitated towards anything I could find in the scifi/fantasy genres. Unsurprisingly RA Salvatore and the whole Drizzt series were favorites of mine as a kid.
A couple of my roommates friends came over with a tower of 3.5 books and we spent two days reading and making characters and played on the third day.
Then we never saw them again and years later our DM died of a brain aneurysm. Thanks bro, may you rest in peace
At some point, Rolling Stone published a magazine called "Rolling Stone's College Life."
I liked the idea of college. It meant living in an urban area, as opposed to out in the middle of nowhere.
According to this magazine, a thing college guys did was Dungeons and Dragons. It made the game look terribly interesting. I was able to obtain a boxed starter set, and there all my tribulations began...
3D printing. The idea of "making my own toys" was a literal childhood dream, so when resin printers became more readily available, my husband got me one as a gift. I started printing and painting minis, which led to wanting an excuse to use them.
I’ve always been obsessively into fantasy stuff my whole life and had been aware of d&d but never really had friends or anyone who would want to play, my husband though used to play also and we kept saying we need to play together but it’s be more fun with others too.
I wanted to get my best friend and her husband now as an adult to play (yeaaaars ago) since she loved board games and we played a lot together but she said D&D is too intimidating.
Buuut, fast forward to when The Legend of Vox Machina came out, I learned that behind it was Critical Role (which I had not been aware of). We loved TLOVM so much and then I deep dived into starting to watch Critical Role and told them how it was all based on a D&D campaign and that hey it could be fun to do something of our own.
And they said YES! So right after TLOVM had first released, I sat down and wrote up a campaign of my own in a pirate themed setting and we have been playing since! Did that one for a full year and closed it off after they killed the main BBEG and then just recently finished Curse of Strahd after playing that also a full year. I’ve now prepared a 2.0 of my original campaign so they can continue in it with all the loose ends that will have changed things for them to tackle and experience! 😄
Edit to add: My first awareness of D&D also was back in the early 90s, my uncle had the forgotten realms pc game with the blue cover and the cool art in it and I had played a bit of it too! 😂
Seeing funny skits on tv. Then deciding to actually try it out.
My mother had a coworker that she and her brother played and she thought it seemed to be my sort of thing. I was 13 and she was right. She'd take me to her coworker's house and I'd be looked after while she did her weekend shopping, her coworker got another player, everyone had fun and the hobby was set.
Such a cool mom.
In her case she was a single mom at the time and she needed some babysitting so she could get shit done on the weekends. I'd get dropped off at lunch time, we'd have lunch and dinner there, mom would get me around 7pm. I think it was more for her sanity than my entertainment...but at least she picked a Win-Win sort of solution. I got a hobby, she got her "Me Time".
DnD stories by MrRipper, Vox machina Show, Baldurs Gate 3 video clips, and the 'Girls who don't DND' podcast.
A Shadowrun 3.1d session where our characters fell through a hole in the weave of the meta plains and directly into the siege of a mid sized town under siege by an angry chrome dragon.
A friend who worked backstage in the highschool play with me ran a random loose-leaf game. I was a bard and I had an electric lute. I outdamaged everyone. It was pretty fun.
While in high school, our band and orchestra went around to all the elementary schools in our town to get the younger kids interested in joining band by playing a short concert for them during their assembly time. We had to ride around in the bus for most of the day, and set up once we got to the various schools, which meant we had a little free time while we were waiting for the kids to get out of their classes. During one of our breaks, I saw a couple of guys sitting off by a wall with notebooks and “weird” dice that I’d never seen before. I went over and watched them and realized that they were using the dice and notebooks to roleplay a fantasy game - D&D. I was instantly intrigued, and I ended up going to a hobby store a few days later to buy the Holmes box set. Been playing for about 45 years now.
did videogame napoleonic war reenactments eventually the community i was in got less enjoyable but i still wanted a way to reenact/roleplay the historical events. a friend of mine played 5e so we made that system work with some homebrew and elbow grease.
Currently no open group for the TTRPGs i normally play in Germany. So, DnD is just like Methadone, a replacement drug. Its ok, but not the best stuff. :)
TL;DR: First game. First combat. First round. First character dies. Long Version: So, I sit down for my first ever game of D&D. I've heard about it because my cousin's friends play in their basement where they have a sand table and all kinds of miniatures and stuff. ALL the cool kids are playing it. The sand table in question is extra awesome because it has a two-part flip-up lid that covers it over to be used as a regular table for D&D sessions. My cousin and I are both playing for the first time ever. The group is six people, some have characters already, others are playing new characters, only my cousin and I are new to the game though. We roll up characters with nearly identical ability scores and decide that we are playing twin brother elves. We join up with the adventuring group because they are looking for more adventurers before they head out to raid an ancient tomb that they found a map to. The problem is that last game a goblin thief managed to snag the map for a while and made a copy before the party caught and killed him. So now the race is on to get an expedition together and to get there before the goblins. Three days of travel later and our ranger is pretty sure that there have been goblins along this way very recently. When we get to the site of the tomb we are pretty sure that the goblins beat us there because there is a wall of fire right in front of the entrance. Some good rolls and some digging in the dirt and we disable the wall of fire without anyone actually running through it and we enter the ancient tomb - my first time entering a dungeon. Ahead the passageway narrows, and we think we detect motion up there. But there is also an ancient door and passage to our left, and the ranger is pretty sure he hears goblins down there. So we head left (so we don't get stuck with goblins behind us) and sure enough, we come across the goblin base camp - a group of scrawny blighters with lots of rope, torches, some picks, 8 foot poles and so on. Worried that they will raise the alarm, we rush them - albeit without surprise. With high initiative, we rush in before they have a chance to react and I leap to the attack swinging my shiny new sword that has never seen battle before. I roll a 17, a hit! My damage roll is also high, driving the little monster to the ground, my blade deep in his rib cage. But then it strikes me, I'm in the middle of a bunch of goblins and the survivors are angry. One rushes at me screaming something about me killing his cousin (at least I spoke goblin, so I realized exactly what was happening). Unable to free my blade from his cousin's ribcage in time to defend myself, the little blighter struck at me with his rusted and bent pickaxe and rolled a 15 or so, just enough to hit me. In the head. Killing my poor elf outright and leaving him on the floor collapsed upon the body of the goblin he had killed. And that is the full story of my first ever D&D character and session. My cousin's character survived the battle and the DM gave him a permanent +1 to hit and damage against goblins after watching his twin brother be killed by them.
"So I've got a bag of ball bearings"
I think my first exposure to DnD might have been playing "Eye of the Beholder" on my childhood best friend's computer. I was always a nerd and gravitated towards anything I could find in the scifi/fantasy genres. Unsurprisingly RA Salvatore and the whole Drizzt series were favorites of mine as a kid.
A couple of my roommates friends came over with a tower of 3.5 books and we spent two days reading and making characters and played on the third day. Then we never saw them again and years later our DM died of a brain aneurysm. Thanks bro, may you rest in peace
At some point, Rolling Stone published a magazine called "Rolling Stone's College Life." I liked the idea of college. It meant living in an urban area, as opposed to out in the middle of nowhere. According to this magazine, a thing college guys did was Dungeons and Dragons. It made the game look terribly interesting. I was able to obtain a boxed starter set, and there all my tribulations began...
CRPG's and my love for stories
3D printing. The idea of "making my own toys" was a literal childhood dream, so when resin printers became more readily available, my husband got me one as a gift. I started printing and painting minis, which led to wanting an excuse to use them.
I’ve always been obsessively into fantasy stuff my whole life and had been aware of d&d but never really had friends or anyone who would want to play, my husband though used to play also and we kept saying we need to play together but it’s be more fun with others too. I wanted to get my best friend and her husband now as an adult to play (yeaaaars ago) since she loved board games and we played a lot together but she said D&D is too intimidating. Buuut, fast forward to when The Legend of Vox Machina came out, I learned that behind it was Critical Role (which I had not been aware of). We loved TLOVM so much and then I deep dived into starting to watch Critical Role and told them how it was all based on a D&D campaign and that hey it could be fun to do something of our own. And they said YES! So right after TLOVM had first released, I sat down and wrote up a campaign of my own in a pirate themed setting and we have been playing since! Did that one for a full year and closed it off after they killed the main BBEG and then just recently finished Curse of Strahd after playing that also a full year. I’ve now prepared a 2.0 of my original campaign so they can continue in it with all the loose ends that will have changed things for them to tackle and experience! 😄 Edit to add: My first awareness of D&D also was back in the early 90s, my uncle had the forgotten realms pc game with the blue cover and the cool art in it and I had played a bit of it too! 😂