The first role-playing game I have ever encountered is D&D. In fact, most of my friends started out with D&D as well. It seems this game has had the honour of starting out most players on their role-playing careers. My first character was the default fighter in the solo adventure from the red-boxed D&D Basic Set. Of course it was a fighter.

For those who are unfamiliar, D&D is a fantasy RPG (or Role-Playing Game). Players choose one of seven classes for their player-character (or PC): fighter, magic-user, cleric, thief, elf, dwarf or halfling. Each class has its own abilities, for example: thieves have lock picking, pocket picking, trap finding and removing, moving silently and hiding in shadows. Each has its own strength and weakness. Each character is also rated for certain common abilities called characteristics: Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom and Charisma. Each has a number rating from 3 to 18, the higher the number is, the better the characteristics are. Each class has certain characteristics they need to have higher than others, these are called prime requisites: fighters need Strength, magic-user need Intelligence, clerics need Wisdom, thieves need Dexterity, elves needs strength and Intelligence, dwarves need Strength and Constitution and halflings need Strength, Dexterity and Constitution. Characters then progress in ability when they gain levels; characters all start out level 1 and gain levels as they gain experience expressed as experience points (or called XP). For example, a fighter needs to gain 2000 XP to reach level 2. XP's are tallied and added together at then end of each adventure.

I find D&D a good introduction to role-playing. The system is simple and straightforward. There are few embellishments, it is an adventuring and dungeon-delving system. There are a few things going against it though. It is an idiomatic system, by that I mean it has concepts and systems that are only found in this game and its bigger brother, Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. These concepts cannot be related to anything in real life, they are expressly there to make the game more playable. But they also make the game harder to grasp for certain people. Character Classes, Levels, Experience Points and Hit Points are game concepts used to describe characters but never will these be encountered in real-life.

That said, D&D is a lot of fun as a pick-me-up-and-play-right-away game for a rainy day. There are certain things you could do with D&D that could not be done with more advanced RPG systems like Rolemaster or GURPS but D&D lacks their finesse and flexibility. There three criteria I look for in a role-playing game: Complexity, Simplicity and Flexibility. D&D only gets marks in one: Simplicity.