What Got You Into Gaming?

[Vardlokkur]

I made a thought provoking video to ask everyone what got them into the gaming they now play. It could be RPG, consoles, tabletop minis, cards or anything.

I cast my mind back and realised that while Bloodbowl was my first game that got me into warhammer, my love of gaming came from much earlier sources. This video explains.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxhVHnsauT4

I now invite you to tell me on there or here if you don't have a YouTube account (or both) what got YOU into gaming? Let's see how many common sources we share, regardless of country we live in.

 

[Disciple of Nagash]

Friends got me into Warhammer, they had started and wanted more people to play with. Though at the time the said I should play Dwarfs, which I did not last to long with (though I do still hold a soft spot for the stunties, and a dislike for poncy elves ), so shortly afterwards I started collecting Undead after learning the awesomeness of Nagash, and have never looked back since

 

[Sanai]

I grew up with it. As a little kid I would often play with the models that got put onto the casualty table when my dad would play.

 

[Grish]

Friends as well for me. They had played for years, but I never wanted to devote the time and money to it. It's a very expensive hobby; you can get many other great games for the cost of this one game. Plus the hours you need to invest never appealed to me.

They solved both issues, by painting all my stuff. Money issue was solved just by being older with a decent job and disposable income.

 

[count kill alot]

Well back in the day I must have been 13 or 14 when I first encountered the fantasy world I instantly fell in love with it and started to collect the Warhammer armie books, honestly I didn’t know that it was a game I just loved the drawings and wanted nothing more then copy them, it was years later that I played my first RPG and man did I love it as time went by I started meeting other people with similar interests and started gaming on the table tops, first Necromunda then Blood Ball, and loved the painting aspect of it, so started to collect different miniatures, I never really played Warhammer fantasy but I was planning on beasts of chaos painted “they are not painted and are currently in storage” life had other plans for me, I got married and moved from danmark to south Africa, I all but forgot about it until my brother told me of his collection of DoC and the fire was lit once more.
I think that about narrows it down, hope I didn’t bore you to much.:boring:

 

[Bravo_10]

In high school, my friends were ALWAYS talking about Warhammer whenever they had the chance. Understandably, I got very curious about the hobby and decided to look into it. The first step for me was taking a trip to Legions, a local game store. While I was there, I leafed through some of the armybooks and checked out the models (admittedly, I was appalled at the prices). I've always had a thing for the undead, and Vampire Counts just sort of called to me. As soon as I looked through the book, I knew that was the army I wanted.

Even before I got legitimate models, my friend (who was also new to the hobby) and I played some practice games with cardboard cutouts. It seemed like a good way to learn the rules and make sure that we had chosen the right armies. And the rest, as they say, is history.

 

[Generaltso]

@ Bravo_10 - You mention Legions up above. Is this the one outside Pittsburgh? If so, our paths may have crossed at some point.

What got me into gaming? Well initially it was 2nd Edition AD&D. I played with a group of friends in the early 90's - this was my introduction to the realm of fantasy so to say. Around this same time, my best friend purchased Heroes Quest which came with a bunch of plastic figures - we decided to paint these for use as characters and encounter pieces for the D&D campaign. Throughout college I lost interest in RPG play altogether. It wasn't until my last year of undergrad did I visit a local gamer store - Phantom of the Attic on Craig St. off the University of Pittsburgh campus. I was awestruck by the walls of blister packs and the illustrations of painted models in the white dwarf I found myself eagerly thumbing through. I bought a copy of the april ed. of White Dwarf 1998, some blister packs of ungors and other random figures to start practicing painting. I actually spent my last semester there painting more of the time than actually studying. After that, it took another year or so but I eventually got into the game of Warhammer itself. Bought my first VC army upon their initial release in '99. Since then I've had approx. 4 VC armies that I've built, painted and then eventually sold along with a host of other factions as well(empire, chaos, daemons, beastmen, lizzies, etc). I rarely have time to paint or play much anymore - but the hobby will always stay with me I have a feeling.

 

[untitled_musketeer]

I had heard about Warhammer from a friend I was at school with. I didn't really know much about it, nor did I know where i could buy models. I was given a few IG to paint up but at the time it didn't do a great deal for me.

Then about 6 months later, I happened to walk past a Games Workshop with my Dad and told him about Warhammer. We decided to go in. But this wasn't just any day we went in, Oh no! It was October 1998, the launch of Mordheim. Games Workshop was heaving, the staff were laying on the excitement with shovels, not just trowels. It was amazing! I was 11 and I fell in love. Dadand I spent two hours playing Mordheim with each other and I loved it. We bought the WD with the Aenur model (still one of the greatest miniatures produced IMO) and that was my first bought model. I got the game for Christmas and that was that as they say!

 

[Bravo_10]

@ Generaltso

Hellz to the yeah! I'm from Hampton Township, it's like 15 minutes away from Legions. Still, we may not have actually met each other, as I don't get many chances to go in there. However, this past winter, I did play a good few games on their tables (I usually just play at somebody's house), so you never know...

 

[Sir_Jackonan_De_Orage]

about 6 years ago I went round my best friends house and saw him painting some plastic minatures, intrigued i asked what he was doing and told me it was a game called warhammer 40k and i liked the look of the models i asked him if i could borrow some so he gave me some dark eldar as well as a couple of white dwarfs. since then i have fallen head over heels for this great hobby.

 

[merenwen]

I grew up with all the consoles from sega mega drive and atari I had a very geeky older brother who got me into console gaming, then my fiance knew my love of fantasy and introduced me to D&D, I especiay enjoed making and painting the characters and enimies, so my fiance then bought battle for skull pass after saying I would get to paint many models if I played warhamemr and we played our first game of warhammer and I was hooked from then on!

 

[TMS]

I suspect I have my older brother to thank for pretty much all of my gaming habits to this day, and it's definitely true when it comes to Warhammer. He and a couple of his friends used to collect and play back during the 4th or 5th edition and, while I was still too young to really comprehend anything about it, I certainly became enthralled by the hobby. We never played together though, since he had stopped by the time I came into my own right in the game. I introduced Warhammer to my group of chums in pre-school and a kind of club was formed, with a couple of the original members still hanging on to it into teenage years and slightly beyond, too.

 

[Bishop]

I can thank that fact that I lived out in the middle of nowhere and there was nothing else to do. My nearby friends were all into comics, video games, D&D, etc.

I started playing Warhammer using army lists from the main rulebook. I first army was Dark Elves (before they had a proper army book or miniature range). I estimate that it was some 23-24-ish years ago.

We also did fun things like run around the forest wearing hockey equipment and hitting each other with padded sticks

 

[darknesseternal]

Friends got me into it. A mate I worked with was playing it and I went along to a local GW with him a few times to watch them play. Was always interested in it but didn't want to start because of what I thought how much it would end up costing.

My friend chose to make that decision for me by buying and painting up 500pts worth of a VC Lahmian army for my 30th birthday, and that was that.

Almost 8 years on, and I'm finding myself really struggling to find my passion for the hobby again. Real life always finds a way of interrupting and in this case it's taken the form of having to share my apartment with a woman that I'm no longer with but we are having to continue living together for the time being. I don't recommend it.

 

[Christophe von Carstein]

I actually got into the hobby via the lord of the rings films and then in turn the magazines that were produced with the lotr GW miniatures as it had painting guides, scenarios etc etc (I dont know if it was available outside the UK or not) and so played that for a while.

But although I still love lotr it was never the most popular at my local GW so I tried warhammer fantasy, when the starter set was orcs vs empire so a couple of editions back now. Where i started out with TK, because I liked the whole ancient egypt link I quickly got about a 2000pt army together but just couldnt get to grips with them in the game so I moved on to bretonnia again got a small force together and i dont know what reason I had to change armies again but i moved onto DE.

But I guess none of those where quite the right army for me for whatever reason so I moved on to VC which ive stuck with the most as my brets got converted into undead, my dark elves ended up in a carry case of which got reopened when their last book was released and i started repainting them and my TK well i ended up trying spraying and repainting them so many times that they ended up more paint then plastic :/ although i still hae the few that managed to survive however with their new book and cool units i will collect an army of them eventually. But the VC's will always be my favourite army

 

[Undead Teapot]

I had always loved video games, would play whenever I got the chance too. Still annoyed that my mom gave away my SNES when I got the N64 because "I didn't need two consoles." :swear:

The video games held me over until my senior year in high school. My friend brought his monolith into school for some project. I was curious and asked about what it was. Another year passed before I was officially sucked into gw and all their metal/plastic goodness.

Started with 40k, and enjoyed it immensely. Then I was asked to look into fantasy so that I could play that with my friend also. Was not going to play because of a lack of funds...but he convinced me by selling me his old bretonnians.

To this day I blame him for getting me into this hobby and spending thousands...all of which could have been saved towards a new car. I wouldn't change any of this for the world though.

 

[Vardlokkur]

That's some great replies so far guys! I'm going to take all of the video replies I get on YouTube as well as the links to all the forums I've put this on and put them together in one place at my blog soon. It will be called 'Project Collective Gateway'.
Then I will post a link to this at every place I asked the question, therefore letting all of you access everyone else's replies too.
I figured it would be a cool way of taking things even further. People love to talk about their love for their hobbies and that all started somewhere. The very somewhere we'll compile into a global mass tale.

 

[Swissdictator]

My dad got me into historical games when I was only nine years old. We started with American Civil War games (Fire & Fury and Ironclads). Both very fun games. I did mostly historicals for a long time. Eventually picked up these non-historical games: Full Thrust (space combat game you pervs!), Babylon 5 Wars 2nd Ed, Crimson Skies (FASA version), GROPOS (Babylon 5 ground combat)... and eventually Fantasy and later 40k.

 

[Zephyr]

I grew up being stimulated by my parents to be creative and tabletop miniature games was something I actually started as a challenge. Instead of regular paintings I thought miniatures would be a nice change, the actual gaming came later. My mom actually pointed out a GW store and dragged me inside. She wanted me to be more social and thought this was good idea...little did she know what she started.
I was already drawn to the "darker" things so it's easy to see why I stuck with the "nasty armies".:tongue:

Computer gaming is also that I grew up with. My dad and I always messed around with Atari computers as a hobby so when the first real consoles came out it was a natural evolution for me. I still prefer the PC but nothing beats hanging on the couch with a controller in your hands and not having to frustrate yourself with constant upgrades to keep your PC up to date with the latest graphics card and all that.

RPG's I came into contact with through some...well let's call it a weird group that played Vampire the Requiem and took it way too serious. I was about thirteen years old and some in the Goth scene despised it and others practically worshiped it so I wanted to know what the fuss was about.
Through them I found at least some serious gamers who I still play with today. Our small group is slowly expanding with other GW fans who have never played RPG's (we lured them in with Dark Heresy and are slowly corrupting them).

I've also always been a major fantasy and sci-fi fan so somehow you just cannot help but get into contact with these things sooner or later.

 

[Vardlokkur]

Project Collective Gateway has come about!

I collected together the URL's of all places I asked this question, bringing them together in an article on my blog alongside actual video responses on the topic from YouTube.

I am now letting each website and video page know the link to the blog post where all of you can get access to everyone else's back story of how you got into gaming, thus bringing together more people than I would have been able to otherwise.

Enjoy!

Here's the link to my blog compilation for this subject -

http://robert-james-freemantle.blogspot.com/2011/09/project-collective-gateway-how-you-got.html

 

[Layla]

When I was a kid, we moved...A LOT. So by 11(late..lol but we had NES,Sega, and Atari in those days...ew I'm old!)I had my first NES and a copy of Final fantasy. I was instantly hooked on RPGs. At 18, we moved to Carson city, Nevada. I had some beanie babies to sell(don't laugh at me...they were mom's collection), so I walked into a store hoping to sell them. The shop happened to sell all manner of gaming items. I was intrigued by a card game...Magic the Gathering. I decided to come back later and buy a starter deck so I could learn to play. I've been a dedicated player since. Soon, I would get sucked into the Forgotten Realms. In the gaming club, there were always guys that were playing Everquest 6-8 hours a day. I swore I never would. Wrong...my longest incarnation was a high elf cleric: Exarch Starlit Twilight of Tunare. I played EQ to death, well...until WoW and Eq2 killed it that is. Eventually, I started playing WoW, but to this day(after nearly 5 years)I still find the graphics overly childish. Now, to Warhammer. I freely admit that I was one of those that used to mock the guys spending hours playing with toy soldiers. Again, I swore...NEVER. I was adamant. I was soooooo wrong. It all started when the hubby mentioned he would like to get back into it. He had me scour Ebay for a decent starter deal. As it turns out, he is a very lazy painter. So when his O&G arrived, yours truly was drafted. I had never before held a brush. As it is, i turned our to have a knack for it. well, somehow I ended up in a gaming shop nearly 200 miles from home(iirc we were visiting friends), and I got talked into buying a HE battalion. And so, it began. Before I knew it, I had about 4k purchased and painted. One of those friends had started WE, so when she decided she hated painting/playing, she game them to me. another friend had an entire box of WE he hadn't played in years, so I got those fairly cheaply as well.I also inherited and Eldar army when hubby changed his mind about them...chaos Marines FTW! At least, he thinks so. I call myself and accidental elf player. VC is the first army that I've truly chosen for myself. Dark elves are the 2nd. My first chosen 40k army...Dark Eldar. The models are beautiful. So...somewhere along the way, I seem to have developed an unhealthy infatuation with pale skin and pointy ears.

 

[Jacques Dauger De Cavoye]

I was born with a paintbrush in one hand, and a D20 in the other.

 

[SotF]

With video games, my family had been playing them and I think had one of the first consoles before I was born.

With RPG's, my uncle was watching me and he's had a DnD game running for decades now (His group actually started with the minis game that predated it).

Card games started with the Star Wars Decipher CCG when I bought the first boxed 2 player starter set (2 full decks and 2 packs of cards) at Meijer when it was in their toy isle.

With minis games, I'd been interested in them for a while. The local barber shop was next to a game store and my mother would drop me off to get a hair cut every 3-4 weeks while she picked up groceries. When the barber finished, I'd walk into the hobby shop and watch them play (Started going there because they had a good selection of singles for the SW game, but they had most of the shop for 40K, fantasy, and B-Tech with a tiny bit for the WEG SW ones). Then my unclue bought my brother and I the GorkaMorka boxed set and went from there. In Jr High and HS we played a lot of it and added in Necromunda and Mordheim because of the time we got for lunch.

I started 40K late in HS when a few others actually put together a group for smaller scale battles and then I got into fantasy after some friends at work wanted to try different games for lunch campaigns.

 

[bahamutzer0]

I got started with video games when I was a kid playing my Dad's Atari, then I got my own Nintendo for Christmas, since then I've gotten a new console every generation. So family here.

RPGs started with a few game sessions of Vampire: The Masquerade right at the end of high school, I bought a few of the books, but after that never played again. That is until '03 when I started a new job with some friends and one of them started up a World of Darkness game which we played after work all the time. Then came other games such as AD&D, D&D 3.5, Palladium, made games, etc., I'm starting up a WHFRP right now as a matter of fact. Friends.

Card games wise its only Magic: The Gathering for me, not including Grass, Uno, etc., that started around '00-'01, somewhere around there, we rarely play anymore, we're the old people that don't like the new sets I guess. Friends.

Started with my Necrons army for 40k around '04 after playing Dawn of War for a while and my friend brought up the table top game as well as the RPG and a lot of us played Horned Rat and Dark Omen so we all just got drawn into war game aspect immediately. We were never really the ones to hang out at the GW store and we didn't play many games so maybe a year later we just stopped playing. I started playing Fantasy with VC around '07 I think, I'd seen the army book for them in the GW store back when I was playing Necrons and always wanted to do up the army. I asked my friend if he was still playing fantasy and he said most definitely, so I went to the GW store the next day and picked myself up a battalion and a army book. Right around that time my friend moved back to NY and noticed the models one day, he thought hard and remembered that he had an old box of warhammer that turned out to be the 5th ed. Brets vs. Lizards. So he started up a Bretonnian army, played for a few months before another one of our friends got interested than another and another. I guess I got myself and a few friends into the game.