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For me, it was friends in middle and high school who played 2nd edition AD&D. I never owned my own Player's Handbook so I got confused whenever I made a character. It got more confusing when a friend tried to make one for me, and gave me the wrong stats and spells on accident. You see, I wanted to make an elf ranger and my friend thought I wanted to make a wizard. And this first experience happened on my 13th birthday party. But sometime after that, we went through another game where I was a red wizard of Thay and that didn't go too well either.

Later on when 3rd edition came out, I played in a another friend's game and I enjoyed it. I still enjoy 3rd/3.5 but I have moved on to 4th edition.

So how about you guys? What got you into D&D? What version did you start with?

I had always had been the kinda guy who was into the sci-fi stuff and whatnot but since I grew up in a small country town of jocks and whatnot I had very little means to express myself. My freshmen day at college they did this orientation thing where they have everyone in the dorm floor talk about themselves at whatnot. This guy happened to say he was a member of the gamers guild so if anyone was into D&D and stuff come talk to him. I had no idea of what games but I asked him later, "Hey what kinda games?" He said, "D&D and stuff." Now I had no idea of what D&D was besides parodies on TV but I was tired of trying to act like someone else to fit in and I said to myself, "Why not?" I've been stabbing goblins ever since.

When I was at a friends, long ago, he invited me to some other friends. They had a special set, with premade characters and adventures. I joined as the party rogue to save their fighter. Ever since, I have loved the game. I was raised on 3.5. I tried 4.0, but couldn't get into it. But now, I moved for college, and I don't have a group to play with. That is why I joined.

I have always loved video games, especially rpg's... I never even thought about dnd, I knew what it was, I just never thought that I would be that into it. When I moved to college and had to take a class in the "history" of video games (I'm majoring in game programming) I had to learn who started dnd and who created the first MUD, had to learn a MUD was a multi-user-dungeon... and my roommate has played dnd all his life and me and my friends started playing 3.5, he has a ton of pdf files of all the books, and its DeVry, so we were able to get actual books, which are much better. and I haven't played anything else but 3.5, and 4th edition looks a bit too noobish for me anyway :p

When I got to college, I started staying up really late on my computer. One such night, it was around midnight and I heard people talking in my common room. The walls are pretty thin, so I could hear most of what they were saying, but I had no idea what they were talking about or doing. So I went out into the common room and found out that they were playing D&D.

I had nothing better to do and I was curious, so I sat down and watched the game. Almost died laughing. Some of the characters were hysterical. After they finished the game (around 1am), they started playing Super Smash Brothers Melee, and so I stuck around for a bit and talked with them. I knew two of the guys in the group--one lived in my suite and the other was my Peer Mentor--but I didn't know the others. I wound up chatting with one of them until 3am, and he was telling me about D&D and other roleplaying games like Vampire the Masquerade and Paranoia. I was intrigued, so I told him that I'd be interested in playing D&D.

He informed me that he was going to be running a game soon, and he invited me to join. It was a 3.5 game, and for most of that school year, I played as a Paladin of Freedom named Tirana. Her deity was Sif, which was funny since we had a Cleric of Thor in our group.

After that school year ended, we stopped playing that campaign. 4e came out over the summer, so when school started again, the same DM ran a 4e game for us. Mostly the same players (one left and a new one joined), and different characters. An Elf Wizard (Tarin), a Dragonborn Cleric (Akra), a Dragonborn Warlord (Tash), a Dwarf Paladin (Ekhart), and me, the Half-Elf Warlock (Naivara). Which was really funny, since the alignments went as follows...

Akra - Lawful Good
Tash - Lawful Good
Ekhart - Lawful Good
Tarin - Unaligned
Naivara - Evil (and worships Vecna)

Quite the group dynamic, hm?

Anyway, I've been playing 4e ever since, though I've been in two one-shot 3.5 games, once as an Elf Ranger and once as a Human Rogue.

I prefer 4e over 3.5 because it's what I've had the most experience with. I can write up a 4e character in a matter of minutes. It takes me far longer to make a 3.5 character because I don't know what the heck I'm doing... *sweatdrop*

I've been into D&D my entire life.
I mean, LITERALLY my entire life.
One of my baby pictures is one my dad took, of week-old me grabbing on a first-edition PHB.
I've been actually playing since I was four years old, and I've played so many characters I can't even begin to remember a third or them.

I'll be totally honest with you; it was this episode of Dexter's Lab.

I started with 4th mostly because it was easier to figure out and I was in from the get-go. I tried 3.5 but their was too much introduced to me at one time and I wanted to play Halo instead.

I also go into 4e because it seemed so much friendlier. The books are easier to read and more accessible to me.

The biggest, #1 reason though? Dragonborns.

Followed closely by DMing. (I love to DM.)