RPGaDay #3 When were you first introduced to RPGs?

 I was first introduced to RPGs in 1999 at the age of 20. I had met the woman who was going to become my wife the previous year (though the wedding wound up being much farther off) and she had shown me her copy of GURPS Wild Cards. I had caught the bug, but it wasn't until 1999 that I actually played a game.

She was going to college, living in the dorms and I spent a lot of time hanging out around the campus in between her classes. A good portion of this time was spent on this crazy new-fangled thing called the internet. I found someone's personal website that had played GURPS, was within what I thought was a reasonable distance from me, and listed an email address. I took a leap and emailed him. His current campaign wasn't GURPS, but another game called Rolemaster. He was kind enough to create a character for me (though it would be a few more years before I realized how much of a favor he had done me) and we played a few sessions before the challenges of traveling to a neighboring city by bus became overwhelming.

Over the summer of 1999, I became a regular at a game store conveniently close to my grandmother's house, where I stayed when I wasn't spending excessive amounts of time with my girlfriend. That's where I got invited to a game of Legend of the 5 Rings, a samurai-inspired game. It might have gone on for a few more sessions, but the money ran out and we had to run back to northern California at about that time.

I didn't get introduced to an actual campaign until 2000, when D&D 3rd edition was released.

A lot of small introductions, but that's the point where I considered myself a gamer.