I suppose I could add my own little story about getting started in gaming. My very first D&D game was about 1981 when I was about 12 years old. I had no idea what an rpg was, but when my cousin ran me through a dungeon crawl that included miniatures and a 3D diorama, I couldn't get enough of it. I finally got my D&D Basic Set a year or so later. The year I was in 8th Grade, my friends and I spent most of our recesses inside playing D&D and other games that I started to get into also. Of course since I was the one with the rules, I was the DM/GM for most of our games. And it's been that way most of the time since then, but I didn't mind.

Yeah, I know--it's hard to believe our teachers let us stay indoors and play a geeky game. Even more amazing is that this was at a Christian school back in the days when rpg's were suspected of teaching kids to worship the devil, blah, blah, blah... Oh, if they only knew!

Ironically, today I'm a Lutheran minister. :-)