I had many phases of D&D and Dragon/Dungeon magazine.
Grade school/Middle School Watched the D&D cartoon on Saturdays. Read Dragon Magazine in the school library because the covers were freaking awesome, they literally blew me away. The
chess-set ones OMG - I would try and draw them over and over again. Signed out the AD&D 1st edition
Fiend Folio hard-cover over and over again, as well, because that was the
only D&D book in the entire library, why just that one I'll never know. I had absolutely no idea what the game was or how you played at this point.
Found out older cousin played D&D so then it became exponentially cool. But he lived too far away for me to play with him and plus I was the little kid. But I did get to scope out his collection when I visited. So I asked for a "
Dungeons and Dragons Magazine" subscription for Christmas. They got me Dungeon Magazine. Still had no idea what the game was or how it was played.
Finally the next Christmas the parents got me the
red box basic D&D set. I spent years making adventures and drawing maps and making up my own magic items on index cards for no one. Never actually played the game with anyone other than myself till years later, lol.
Jr/High School AD&D 2nd edition hits the bookstores. I bring a copy of the players guide to lunch to show the boys. They love it and want in. So they all show up at my house on Saturday for a game. Now, over the years my mom has been gifting me D&D rulebooks from 1st, Basic, and now 2nd, some gotten second hand from relatives and at yardsales – an eclectic collection to say the least, some not even official D&D. I have no idea that editions or rule sets should be kept separate. So we play a mishmash of all three editions with me DM-ing, anything anyone can bring to the table is legal. We have no idea what we are doing. Mispronouncing words, misapplying rules, neglecting rules, but somehow it works. Fun as hell.
Eventually we started actually reading the rulebooks and Dungeon/Dragon magazine and started to get a legitimate understanding what we are doing. Keep in mind this is effectively pre-Internet, and we knew no one else who played except our small group. We were completely isolated. We used to cut up our Dungeon magazines and staple them together so we could write notes in the margins and highlight the important parts. The other guy who I shared DM-ing duties with, we would split up these stapled adventure bits between us two, just so “no one would cheat.”
College/Grad School Late into my college career I joined a group at college and started playing 3rd edition. It has been several years since I played any D&D. It was fantastic. All the rules. So many options. Dwarf wizards - who knew it was possible? A new book or source came out seemingly every other day.
My first group I played a rogue. Mostly everyone else played druids, clerics, wizards, and psionic classes. I got smoked. The one guy had this 3.0 Psychic Warrior with Iaijutsu focus and did ridiculous amounts of damage. Started reading Dragon & Dungeon magazines again to see what I was missing. Then I discovered online forums and optimization and my gaming life has never been the same since...
