Not your age now. Not the age at which you dragged together the cash for your first book, although feel free to post that to the thread also. This is your age at the time you first sat down to play a game.


P.S. I'm allowed to classify the oldest bracket that way because i'm now of that age range.

I didn't start playing Shadowrun until my early twenties, but I started playing roleplaying games in general (specifically D&D) when I was only 5 or 6!

I started playing shadowrun about a month after my first AD&D2nd ed game, in HS.

18 and out the door!
Freshman year of college, SR1.

Had a regular game of SR2 by junior year.

14 years old, baby. Freshman year of high school, bought it for something to take with me on a Spring Break vacation.

Somewhere between 16 and 18 IIRC. It was SR2 and I only played once, because while I understood the rules mechanics, physically locating the rules in the SR2 BBB was an unholy pain in the ass and pretty much turned me off the game. Never played again until SR3 hit the shelves, I looked though a friends copy after playing a session and found it vastly more organized and understandable than SR2 on it's best day. Fell in love with the setting all over again, and the new rules have become a close personal favorite of mine (spits on SR4). Been playing ever since.

Started with SR3, bought my first book when I was 14, actually played 2 years later when I was/am 16.

Played sporadic D&D between the ages off 11 and 13. At the age, I was also reading some Shadowrun novels, before eventually finding the Genesis SR game at my local blockbuster. I rented it, eventually bought it. Played the SNES one, also. At the age of 14 or thereabouts, I bought used copies of 2nd Edition, DNA/DOA & Sprawl Sites for the kingly sum of 25$. I went downhill from there.

17 here. I still recall me and the group taking about two weeks to actually make our characters, too. We started in 2e, but 2e was actually only a couple years old at the time I think...we still had a bunch of 1e books we used too i rememeber. First char was a horribly twinked sammie :upsd Well, we were all amazed at the number of options after D&D the GM let us go a little ape with the creation. Still used the books and rules but we managed to load our chars in ungodly ways. Then we grew up

22 for SR here, although i did play dnd as a kid, back with ravenloft, THAC0 and all that other jazz, also played one of the console SR games, graduated college, at 21, bought the book, and have recently picked up a few games online. Sadly, i think my forum game is dead

I'd won the SR2 BBB back when i was 15 - and became an addict.

Started with D&D in 5th grade. Got pulled into the Worst Shadowrun Game EVER in 9th grade, started GMing in 10th, and it's been...well...a whole lot of years, now.

Although I have been playing RPGs forever (30 years), I first played Shadowrun when I was 27. It would have started earlier, but Shadowrun didn't exist before that.

I think I was eleven or twelve at the time, and the kids I usually played D&D with were playing this new game called Shadowrun. Played it a bit, got addicted, picked it back up in 3rd ed and here I am.

~J

I played my first game (my ONLY game, so far) with Sahandrian's online gaming group in July and August of 2003.

I turned 39 in May of that year.

EDIT: I should mention that I do have some prior RP experience--mostly with GDW's Traveller and TSR's Top Secret--but, until I became interested in SR, I hadn't played an RPG in over seventeen years--since approximately June, 1996.

EDIT #2: blakkie--Just out of curiosity, where are the rules for playing I.E.'s?

--Foreigner

I think I was also 11 or 12 at the time. Can't say exactly WHEN we started, but I do remember HOW we started.

It was right after Shadowrun for SNES came out, and my friends and I were addicted to it. One of my friends went looking for a strategy guide, and ended up with a 1st Edition rulebook.

I still remember our first GM trying to teach me how to play. I don't think he ever bothered trying to read the rulebook, he was just using things he saw in the SNES game.

For instance, all of our characters started with ALL attributes at rating 1, and you could mix and match magic and cyberwear as much as you wanted...

After I borrowed the book for a little while, and actually read it, I got "volunteered" as the new GM, and have been practically stuck there ever since.

Moved up to 2nd Edition after a while, but haven't quite made it to 3rd Edition just yet. (I know I need to switch to 3rd Edition one of these days, but I'm really going to miss grounding spells into foci... )

May as well just wait for 4th edition.

It was around 13-14 for me, playing SR, then upgrading to SR2 shortly thereafter.

I was 18, the summer after I graduated. My friends and I were trying to find something to do when it rained, nice days we skated and played Hackey Sack. Some one suggested we play D&D. I had read the Secrets of Power trilogy and flipped through the 1st edition book, so I said "What about Shadowrun?"

Six of us chipped in $5 each and bought the 2nd edition BBB ( it had been out for a few months) at the FLCS. We all loved it and played for several years. Now, only me and one other guy (who has a second job at the FLCS) from that original group play. We've added quite a few others though, including my wife.

I was about 11

My gaming style has changed considerably

I played the sega game on the sega channel, and saw a copy of shadowtech on the shelf. some older kids saw me reading it, thinking i knew how to play and invited me.

What I meant was, my entire playing style.

in the early days it was just stupid funny stuff, I can't even remember my first character.

in early highschool i was into the whole elf magician thing.

now, i play alot of stuff. and i tend to go for realism in my sessions, atleast when i'm gm

I was first introduced to Shadowrun in a freeform forum while I was in college in 2000. It as role playing rather than roll playing, and was good for learning about the SR world. Just started to learn the actual rules two years back when I started playing SRM at Dragon*Con, then later joined here.

I had my first look at SR when I was 14 - a friend of mine knew a guy whose big brother had bought the main rulebook...

I started playing Shadowrun when it was first released; 1st edition, 1st printing. Before that, I was playing AD&D, Gurps, BattleTech/MechWarrior, and a bunch of other games.

Thus, this poll doesn't seem relevant to my situation.

This poll only really works for, perhaps, the past 10 years worth of sales data.

I was 12 or 13, can't remember, anyways, i had read thw novels such Ragnarok and Burning Time and also had an already active and evil imagination. So when some of my older friends pulled out characters and the rule book I joined in.

The GM was probably going to show me what was what the hardway as previous people had been rather, shall we say dense. They were very suprised when i started out on the extraction we had been hired for and saved everyone's butts because i happened to be paranoid and rolled my perception enough to discover that the real target was not in the corp building we were gonna bust but actually watching us from across the road in streeter clothing. Would been a nasty trap.

I wonder if some of the streamlining, simplifying, (so called dumbing down) of SR4 is a response to some previous polls where the conclusion was drawn that SR players are more educated than the average person? The conclusion being, if only those of above average intelligence can play SR, maybe Fanpro is missing out on a huge demographic of stupid people with money.

I started with SR at the age of 23. I would've started earlier, I think, except for the game not existing until then.

I think i was 13. I read 2XS, loved it, then found out there was actually a game from which this wonderful thing came.

80% of those who voted were 21 or less. Very interesting. Very illuminating.

I started playing RPGs at the age of 13 or 14 I think but SR I started a few years later, maybe at the age of 16

I remember an awful lot of college students, college grads, and advanced degrees; that is why I characterized them as above average. It is a blind poll, why not tell the truth? I remember at least one guy admitting he was a high school drop-out.

But...whatever.

I played the Sega game when it first came out in 94, still play it to this day (not all the time just sometimes).

Started playing actual PnP Shadowrun when I was 15, back in 96.

Started dabbling at about 13. Now when I play, I even know the rules.

I started playing when my freinds found out I liked the idea of blowing shit up

While it's possible that I missed something, I don't think Blakkie was saying what you're thinking he was saying.

~J

That reaction would almost make sense if the word used was "subjective" instead of "objective" but it would still be a stretch unless you take into account an unknown amount of preexisting anger at elementary school drop-outs who think they are the smartest people on earth.