Gygax developed the game at Cornell among his immediate circle of friends who were all big time devotees of the Society for Creative Anachronism. One couple, Jim & Claire, then went to grad school at Wash U. in St. Louis, where my cousin Nathan met them in the fall of 1977, and he immediately joined their gaming group. He invited me to join in (the dorms they played in were walking distance from my house), and at 14 I became the youngest member of the group. So I was probably within the first couple of hundred people to play D&D, and I played religiously all through high school.
I'm sure this comes as no surprise to the rest of you.
