Experience with D&D before playing BG2

I played PnP. But our group also played High School sports, partied and lost our virginities before entering high school. I knew a few others that played and were socially inept. You just chose to not hang with that crowd. Depends on the group. Even played some Rolemaster, Cyberpunk and Shadowrun. Also played CRPGs at the same time, going way back to Ultima, Wizardry, The Bard's Tale and Might & Magic.

IF I had some free time these days, I would join a group, as long as they weren't Beren's group described above.

 

I played both table top D&D (mostly) and I had some experience with the computer game Curse of the Azure Bonds if I remember the name correctly.

As for the table top versions I started out with a 1e AD&D book. That is the one with the monk class, dual classing required to become bards (but half elves could somehow do it too but only in this one case), and rangers casted druid and mage spells.

At the same time I was using adventurers that were actually for D&D basic/intermediate/master/immortal rules. I did not notice the difference because the overall rules and terms in the adventures are so similar that you can use them mostly interchangeably. At the time I was confused by them calling it a "sword+1" without designating it as a "long sword" since it dealt d8 damage. I was also confused at the time when the game kept saying things like "elf 2" which appeared to be fighter/mages so I just assumed at the time it was shorthand. Of course in reality that is one of the key differences between D&D and AD&D.

Soon after I bought the 2e AD&D books and that was that. A little bit later while with my Grandmother in Florida I noticed BG in a computer game store. She just bought a new computer at the time and I recognized the FR logo so I thought it would be related to the Curse of the Azure Bonds game my friend had so I picked it up. Best choice ever.