Nope. Never even seen a Woodgrain - or a White-Box, for that matter.

But I did start with the Basic and Expert sets (you know, when Elf was a class!!), and quickly moved on from there.

jkason wrote:you know, when Elf was a class!!

LOL, I had forgotten about that.

We used both the OD&D and the Basic set as well as dragon magazines and whatever else we could find.  When the DMG was released then we switched over to AD&D and never looked back.  I still have all the original OD&D stuff we used, it was very cheap compared to te hardcovers, that's why we took so long to swith over.

I started playing with the original rulebooks (4th print), GH (2nd, GK logo),  BM (2nd), and EW (1st).  This would've been in the Spring of 1977 (end of 7th grade).

We never used Chainmail, or that Avalon Hill game that TSR recommended, however.

What I remember most about that first campaign is that the DM seemed to have this pile of material (magazine articles, rules, handwritten notes)  and how mysterious everything seemed.

That sense of mystery was one of the most appealing aspects of D&D.  Not only was the campaign itself enthralling, but there was the added dimension of simply figuring out the rule books.

Of course, none of the original material actually tells you how to play the game.  That was done word of mouth.

What a weird departure from the likes of "Panzer Blitz" and "Third Reich"!

Over the summer between 7th and 8th grade I ran my first campaign: "Metamorphosis Alpha".  My neighborhood friends (as opposed to those from school where I'd played D&D) were SF fans and the idea of a SF RPG was more appealing to us at the time.  It was my first experience as a DM (or referee in the case of MA) and I never ran a player character again.  

By the start of 8th grade my neighborghood friends and I came to our collective senses and started playing D&D.

I remember buying a MM in 8th grade.  I still have it; it is indeed a first edition.

Along the way, I lost my original box, and obtained an OCE box.  Like someone else mentioned, the box was great for rolling dice.

I've always regreted the loss of my box.  I'd love to find a 4th print BOX alone to complement my rule books.

We migrated to AD&D through high school, and I continued to DM all manner of campaigns: commercial, my own, and -- one of the favorites at my college fraternity house -- a campaign based on "The Sword of Shannarra".

I DMed my last game around 1989.

Keith

ddt58 wrote:I have to admit I started with the woodgrain box. They were very handy for carrying dice, character sheets, a few figures and pencils, plus you could stuff the supplements in there too. One of the reasons a nice woodgrain box is hard to find.

I wish I could say I started with a woodgrain box.  If I had been born just a few years earlier I might have.  I hadn't even seen one until a couple of years ago.  But like most people I started with the same basic set that Doug did.  I played once using basic rules and thought it was okay.  Wasn't much later when a friend introduced me to AD&D and that was it...I was hooked.  I still remember buying my first hardback book which was the Fiend Folio.  How many hours I spent reading it I can't begin to fathom.  And maybe if I had spent more time reading school books instead of D&D books, I might be able to afford a woodgrain.  :roll:

I was introduced into the game by friends who played advanced D&D, back in 1978 or so... my first ruleset was a blue basic D&D (the one with the mage and fighter against a red dragon).
After that, I switched immediately to advanced, as there wasn't an expert set in production... this came much later.
I've never seen a white box until recently, as I won a pair on eBay.

My best friend growing up introduced me to Moldvay/Cook D&D when I was nine or ten. When he upgraded to AD&D, I followed suit.

I didn't get my OCE until last year, but did have Holmes for some six months prior to that.

johnhuck wrote:But it didn't take long to work out that a bastard sword seemed like the best compromise for a fighter in terms of damage/speed/weight.

Ahh, the weapon of choice for all of my fighters in the good old days...

I played the OCE incarnation. I actually started with AD&D when it was all shiny and new. It wasn't until '84 that I got my grubby paws on an OCE and talked the group into giving it a shot. We only played a couple of sessions though and I couldn't resist filling in the blanks with material from the PHB and DMG. The novelty quickly wore off and we went back to AD&D.

Never played Basic D&D but, earlier this year, I got my hands on a NM Holmes set from '79 (with B1 in it). Wouldn't mind taking it for a spin.