I started playing in '76.
I spent many, many (too many) pleasant hours playing this game. Some adventures were hilarious beyond description (although they might not have been that funny if I hadn’t been up for 24 hours straight).
I haven’t played in years. I wonder how the game has changed - it was 10 years ahead of it’s time. If there was ever a game that need computerization, this was it.
It’s available on GOG by the way.
1977, in Wisconsin.
Later, at a Star Trek convention in Milwaukee, Gygax GMed for me & a bunch of other kids.
*
In Search Of The Unknown*–that was it!
I also loved the Against The Giants series.
Found it in the summer of '78, right before I got married. My wife enjoyed it at first, hated it later, endures it now.
This is crazy because it was the same with me exactly. When I started playing D&D a neighbor gave me a bunch of his stuff and that was the one module he gave me. I read it over and over but never played it.
I haven’t played in many many years. In High School, I was much more into it than most of my friends (I was more nerdy then most of my High School friends) but we played often and everyone had a great time (I was the DM and doing that helped develop my love of writing which I am always thankful for).
In college ironically I had nerdier friends but we played less often but when we did it was marathon sessions that would take a full day. I didn’t DM then and we played games other than D&D as much as we played D&D but it was a blast.
I first played D&D with a guy whose brother had all the books. He ran it in a sort of room-by-room fashion which made it seem like every room was another random world. Later, my father bought a set (the blue box) as something that we as a family might play, but threw it out because some co-worker told him it got people into witchcraft or something. To this day its weird that he would have been the sort of person to believe such a thing. Anyway, I rescued the set from the garbage, and later found the red box set available for sale at my local grocery store for $5. I was all ready to go by the age of 12, but I never actually managed to get a chance to play until I got to college, because I didn’t know anybody else interested.
By the time I got to college, 2nd Edition was already out. And we played the crap out of it. The most regular game was on Tuesday, if I recall, but later as GM I played a group all the way to 14th level, which back in those days was when shit started getting epic.
Gaming itself is stronger than ever now, but its not quite the same. Those days are irreproducable.
I first heard of it on the local TV news in the mid to late 1970s, but nothing more came of it until I went to university in 1979, and also had an out-of-university friend who arranged a game over the Christmas break. The group at uni I played with had no real idea how the experience system or anything else went, and went through an annoying period of thinking it would be funny to kill off each others’ PCs, but we managed some fun times in between. Then in 1981 I found another group at another local university who didn’t mind a civilian joining in, and it went on from there for a while.
It’s been a good few years since I’ve played now, sadly - there just don’t seem to be the players where I live, and I really don’t have to time to prepare anything for my sons, unfortunately. But I enjoyed What Exit’s SDMB (later Mellophant)-based campaign, although it lacked some of the fun of being gathered round a table rolling dice and munching too many snacks.
Our group first played it May 18, 1976 and last played 2001-05-20. A couple of members still play in other groups, though.
Well it took me to 1983 to start playing, in my defence I wasn’t born till 1971.
Most of the AD&D I ever played we didn’t really bother with material components, i’ve encountered DM’s who required obsessive tracking of them once or twice, but i’ve never played any game where anyone actually tried to use the AD&D weapons vs armor types modifier tables.
Started circa 1980 friend had the basic (blue) book. We used d6s (tried using chits but that didn’t work). Eventually we moved to AD&D and the cheap dice that you had to color in with a crayon.
Didn’t play much in college (did play Shadowrun for while), but we managed to get Gary Gygax to be guest of honor at PlatteCon Alpha (and Beta). Never got to play with him, but did watch. (a friend of mine did play with Dave Arneson back in the day)
I mostly play Euro style board games now, but I often play an RPG at PlatteCon
Brian
That’s what I call an appropriate screen name.
I also never played “The Village of Homlet.” But I did enjoy the sequel, “The Hamlet of Vollage.”
So that’s what Card Hunter’s “Raid on Ommlet” module is a homage to. Cool. 
The Deities and Demigods handbook was very important to me, at the time. AD&D was fun, too.
There are some good links here:
Brian
Played original D&D for a while in 87 (posssibly in one of the, then, fewer than 5 D&D groups in Peru). Quickly went to AD&D and then to 2nd Ed. where I have stayed ever since (with some ideas and home rules from 3/3.5) even if i haven’t done almost any playing in the last 10 years.
Good times, good game.
We got together and reflected that we’re happy there was no SMS/BBM/WA back then. The little notes on scraps of paper were so good.
I just played a quick game with my grandson. Homemade dungeon, he got to kill some Goblins and Gt. Rats, got trapped by a fake door, nearly killed by a couple of Owlbears and became thoroughly annoyed at a Kobold with a crossbow that takes a shot and runs off. Grand fun had by all.
I bought the white box back in '76, but I didn’t find a group to play with until '77. I’ve still got the white box in my desk at work. Without D&D I probably wouldn’t be a professional game designer.
I would have liked to have run a game today in honor of the anniversary, but my kids have too much homework. So instead I spent a few hours redesigning the magic system for my homebrew rules.
Since 4th edition came out I’ve been running a group for my kids and their friends. But I quickly decided I couldn’t stand the 4th edition rules, so I created my own system and we’ve been playing that instead.
Yeah, I do think there’s some excellence to the 4th edition rules, but I stand among those who say that it feels more like a D&D-themed board game than a game of D&D.
As I recall, I read that one for the articles.