This needed to be updated. I just turned 50 and have been role-playing for more years off and on then I might admit in mixed company. I got my feet wet with dungeons & dragons when I got the basic red set on Christmas of 1981. And did my grandparents go crazy when I brought it to their house. Being very religious, they of course thought it was the work of the devil.
But enough of that, after basic of course I moved into AD&D when my neighbors older brother started running a game. Which of course led to Gamma World when our characters were transported there via those neat conversion rules in the 1st edition dungeon masters guide.
From there the sky was the limit, Top Secret, Boot Hill, Star Frontiers, James Bond 007, Marvel Super Heroes, Car Wars, Call of Cthulhu, MERP, and the list goes on. For a while after white wolf came out with the storyteller system I kind of gravitated towards that because I liked the horror aspect.
About a year ago I got back into role-playing after a rather long absence, whetting my appetite with fantasy once more, with a short stop off with straight sword & sorcery with a small press game called Barbarians of Lemuria. I got back into dungeons & dragons through a retro clone called Labyrinth Lord and eventually AD&D won me back.