I got interested in D&D playing Neverwinter Nights (NWN), 2002 PC game by BioWare, after some time playing it. I knew early on that D&D was involved in the game and saw a thin window in the HUD containing scrolling text relating to that but I didn't pay much attention to it. However as I got more involved in my characters, I wanted to know more about what made them succeed, but in my case more about failures (rolling a 1 on something you were positive would work can do that). I found out the thin window could be stretched and that dice rolls, which the text is the log, were extensively used by the game; the rules tweak a bit D&D. I played hundreds of hours of NWN. I then moved on to NWN2, 2006 PC game by Obsidian Entertainment, but played a few dozen hours of that.
Fast forward to 2013, I played P&P D&D more than just a bit for the first time. I played 4e red box then Adventurers League (AL), including its last campaign for 4e. I tried some D&D Next. Soon after D&D 5e came out, I played a couple games of it then bought its PHB. I now have over a hundred 5e AL games under my belt, as I'm writing this on the beginning of 2016, all face-to-face.