I am curious to see how you guys got your playgroups together.  I'll tell my story....

I got a late start to DnD.  As a kid, my family was very religious, and deemed DnD as Satans tool to start one into witchcraft.  I didn't know any better, and never did my own research into what it was until I got older and really got into playing Magic the Gathering with friends and began to wonder about that other game that Wizards owns and runs.  Thankfully, I grew into an adult that can make my own choices and evaluate things logically, and I've always been thankful that as a youngster I focused on learning science and asking questions instead of listening blindly on others, which helped a lot.  Anyway, fast forward a decade later.....

We started out as a pretty big Magic the Gathering playgroup.  One of the new players was a big DnD fan, for 3.5, and wanted to start a group, and I joined up as a new player.  It was fun, although it took me a while to learn 3.5, and I still don't know the ins and outs.  I got most of my 3.5 books from Goodwill auctions (I think I paid 10 or 15 bucks for the 3 core rulebooks).  However, our playgroup had some niggling issues.  Our DM didn't plan much and wasn't good at making on the fly changes.  Another player took over as DM, and immediately began screwing over the old DM on all decisions.  Also everyone in the group was more into min-maxing their characters instead of actual role playing, and it was hard for me as a new player to keep up.  Eventually the group fell apart.  It wasn't all bad, we had some great moments, but I think it was just a clash of playstyles and personalities that killed it off. 

I still had the itch to play, and the recent Magic expansions have me kinda soured on the game (I still play, just don't spend nearly as much as I used to on Magic).  I did some research and found out that 5E was easier to learn and play than 3.5, and there were a lot fewer additional rulebooks.  I began purchasing 5E books one a check from Amazon and began to learn the game.  I got some of the guys at work interested by telling them it's like the Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest video games, except a much larger world and the level ups and inventory are done on paper or on an app on your phone rather than in your game, but also you are no where near as limited in DnD as you are in a Final Fantasy game.  This piqued their interest, and after a few months we began Lost Mines of Phandelver.  We are still on that quest after a few weeks of playing (although due to player decisions the game has expanded a bit from the one in the Starter Set) and having a blast with it.  I'm DM, and it's my first time as DM, but so far the players seem to like it.  2 players were brand new, but we added a third that had some DnD experience, and he made my night after the session he joined when he said I was the best DM he has ever had.  I guess he also came from a Min-max group with minimal roleplaying, and it was a new experience for him to actually have a regular character and go on an adventure without worrying about his character being tweaked perfectly just to be able to survive.  Also, both his and my former groups had DMs that wanted to see how fast they could TPK the party, whereas I am more interested in just telling a story with the players helping the story along and making changes to the story with their decisions.  I had a rocky start with DnD but it's quickly becoming a blast to play.  I own all the 5E books now, and after we wrap up Lost Mines of Phandelver I am letting the party choose between the Dragon campaign, Strahd, Abyss, or Giants.  We are going to use Yawning Portal for one off adventures if we need a break from the other campaign, maybe using it in a way how when we do a quest from it they players are all dreaming but still interacting and making it a part of the other story.

Well, that's my long winded start to how I started with DnD and how I went from player to DM.  I am interested in hearing your you guys started your groups if anyone wants to share.

After a series of groups falling apart before beginning I just decided to become a DM.  I originally had no desire to DM and instead just wanted to find a group to join as a player because I had never played DnD.  I had been watching Rollplay on Twitch for that past couple years at that point and so I knew the rules and how to play but just watching a game doesn't translate into being able to be successful at it.  While watching I had decided to buy up the MM and PHB so that I could reference them when I got confused and also because I wanted to make a character, so I just said **** it one day and bought the DMG as well.  My 2 brothers were in town and so I decided to try and lead a quick 1 shot with them and it seemed like they had fun with it so I decided to try and lead the same 1 shot with 2 of my buddies.  They loved the session and it just took off from there.  We ended up with 3 more people, including 1 of my brothers who lived close, giving me 5 players.  I still would love to be a player in a game but as all of us are amateurs I figured I can just sit in the DM roll for a bit until one of the other guys decides they want to try and take up the mantle on occasion.

TLDR:  Couldn't find a game to play in and so decided to DM my own group with hookers and blackjack.

I'd expect the progression through the decades was friends --> local game shop --> word of mouth --> internet --> offspring.  

My first groups in the early '80's were all friends and friends of friends.  Then came the game store bulletin board "looking for" ads.  That usually created some word of mouth brokering.  When the internet became a universally accessed medium, websites and Meet-ups have become very reliable.  Eventually, those with kids may get lucky to have kids that love to play and then you have the most stable gaming group possible:  family.  I still have one game running with people from my '80's group, but the rest are family with a word of mouth player and a child's friend.

Sadly mine isn't very interesting. I moved across country, went to a game shop that advertised they run D&D wednesdays, so I started going.

The DM ended up getting in a fight with the proprietor and stopped coming, but invited us to keep playing at their house. So I did, and the rest is history.

It's a little tough, because I am kind of an outsider in a group of friends that have known each other since elementary school. But they're good people and I have fun. :)

I've had a lot of distinctly different groups over the years... not sure I really want to go in-depth telling the tale of every one of them, since thousands of words from one poster is not usually a thing considered "cool" by a forum community.

So I'll just mention my current group:

I had just moved to town from across the country, and didn't know anyone local other than my sister and her husband. While I was still getting situated I was being driven around town by my sister, and she stopped to get cigarettes at a shop that happened to be right across from a little gaming shop. As soon as I had bought a car of my own, I drove down to that shop to take a look around.

When I walked in, a saw a group of folks sitting at tables in the back playing something. One of them got up, greeted me, and asked if there was anything in particular I was looking for. I mentioned I was new in town and looking for people to game with, and asked if he had a board I could put a notice up on or something. He told me one of the guys that DMed at the shop was actually starting a new campaign the next day and invited me to show up and join in - so I did.

Over the next few months, I made friends of the owners and regulars, and ended up taking over as primary DM because their usual DMs each had an undesirable trait that I was lacking (one never had any campaign plans but "try to kill all the PCs with near-impossible and unavoidable combats until no one wants to play anymore"; another would keep starting campaigns on crazy ideas he had, loose interest, and abandon them for the next crazy idea; and the last would always manage to run the best campaign ever played... for three sessions, and then give up because he didn't know where it was going from there, and he'd always manage to get too excited about a campaign to prepare more of it before starting to run it).

Eventually, the in-store group became a home group, and then I trimmed off the players that didn't really mesh with what most of the group wanted from their gaming (like the guy that was only playing because everyone else was playing but had no actual interest, the guy that only found his fun in intentionally irritating the other people at the table, and the guy that would always leave 20 minutes into a session because of some "random" phone call), and I have the group I've had for the last decade or so.

Quote from Rexx >>

I'd expect the progression through the decades was friends --> local game shop --> word of mouth --> internet --> offspring.  

This. Starting to appreciate Rexx's posts.

To the OP: Similar background here. Started way back when alongside MtG. With Critical Role making it a bit more popular these days, I found it a lot easier to bring up in conversation. I start with a core group of people of interest. Coworkers. Significant Others. Family. Then work one removed from them. Their friends/family. By this point I end up with 4-7 candidates. When you figure out the day/time/location it gets down to 3-4. 

Mind you, this is my experience. I am looking to make more out of it with TableTop day coming up and supporting local gaming stores. Every time I have been involved in one-shots, modules, or Adventure League the experience was... less than satisfying. Chemistry and culture, I assume. It doesn't have the same magic or I haven't had the right experiences to prop up over the bad ones. I prefer ongoing campaigns.

Thanks for all the replies, it's interesting to see how you guys all got your groups together.  Hoping to read more!

I'll try to keep this brief but no telling:  my most unique group genesis.

In 1996, I had just gotten married, settled into a shared home with my wife and was sorting through lose ends.  One of them was realizing my Dungeon Magazine subscription had not been forwarded and I had 10 issues left on the subscription when it stopped.  That's nearly two years for the bi-monthly magazine.  Penning a letter (?!), I wrote the No SASE Ogre at TSR to ask about getting them resent.  Not only did I get my missing five issues but they didn't deduct from my subscription!  Woot.  So, several issues to catch up on, that's the premise here.  In one of the oldest missed ones going through the Letters column I find a brief letter saying "write more dungeon crawls, less roleplaying because we're all 14 and want to kill things like in HeroQuest".  Okay, maybe some small liberties taken on my part there.  I realize the letter is from a teenager that is from my small foothill hometown of Nevada City in California.  What a coincidence!  Apparently inspired by my previous letter's success, consulting with the wife, we penned another letter asking if they'd like to get a game of D&D going.  

The response letter had a quick turnaround and I knew this kid was funny and clever when he finished the letter with "thank you for not being in prison".  I guess that was a thing in the pre-internet era, prisoners writing people from the Letters columns of Dungeon & Dragon magazines.  So we agreed to meet all his friends and all the parents at the LFNGS just before I was driving a couple hours to meet up with my old game group from the '80's.  Being married, well spoken, friendly and driving a relatively new car seemed to win over the parents, it was the trunk filled with D&D books and miniatures that won over the lads.

21 years later, and I am still friends with all of them.  They're my younger brothers for all intents and purposes (13 year age gap).  I still game with them online and face-to-face when all our scattered lives meet back in CA.  That game, the Dagger Rock Game (Terrible Trouble at Grog's from Dungeon #4 was their first adventure), was my best 2E campaign and lasted until they were all off to college.  Only in recent years did I learn that all their parents loved me and my wife because we were FREE BABYSITTING.  We fed them, entertained them, and kept them off the streets and out of trouble.  And I hope made them better people.  I know they made me a better person.  Thank you Miles, Danny, Chris, Brandon, and Adam.  

Damn...I don't know how I'm going to top THAT!

First, shout out to OP Megaman is the greatest of all time!  

1st group was a circle of friends.  Well...they became friends.  My brother decided to move in with Dad and Dad decided to move so this was a whole new group of people who I did not know.  Our first time as a group was my first time as a DM.  The group sort of coalesced after that first session and we were all friends through High School.  Unfortunately we didn't really keep touch.

My current group are my two daughters.  It's not really a surprise that they were interested.  I've been schooling them in the One Ring, what the TARDIS was, and the only way to kill a Black Lantern.  I ran I a basic three part fetch quest for them and to my surprise they liked it!  So we kept going and now we're going through our homebrew campaign after I threw down some money on a Monster's Manual, PHB, and DM guide.  We're actually due to play tomorrow.  

Having five kids total, I'm wondering if I could make this a total family thing. :D

Sounds awesome. Let us know how your session goes! 

The guitarist/singer in my band pitched the idea while we were at the Renaissance Fair that we should play D&D. He also got his wife, a friend, and the drummer's gf to play.

The group I DM took two of those players who were tired of the first group barely meeting, my gf, my manager, and a friend of mine from college. 

I've had 1d4-2 random people showing up every weekend to the point where I started running out of chairs at my dining room table, in which time, I started locking my front door. That helped to keep my wife from freaking out and the cost of restocking our pantry (and beer fridge) leveled off.

It then took about 6 months to learn the names of these random strangers, but now I call them friends.

I think they live locally, but their backstories keep changing since (as a new DM), it's hard not to repeatedly TPK the group forcing them to re-roll characters.

Our group is made of up of friends.  Most of us have known one another for several years.  It was only just recently that we started playing on a regular basis.  

My wife and I have been playing together for about 9 years and for a long while our group was just her and my brother in law.  We met some other folks that play through work but we lived so far apart that getting together to play was a challenge.  We (my wife and I) moved closer after a job change and our schedules have miraculously lined up.  

Most of the players have very limited experience and though I have been playing for 35 years, I have never had a group so large to work with.  That coupled with coming back to D&D from other rpg's only 6 months or so ago has made the whole thing feel new again.  We are having a blast.

My group is pretty darn new. I started watching Critical Role, which rekindled my interest in DnD, so I finally decided to start to write a Harry Potter campaign. I then asked my friend group, who all seemed like the people who would enjoy playing DnD. I did Harry Potter because I knew that would be something they could relate to. I meant to just have them play a session of the HP, but then I had an idea that made me reconsider. We're only 3 sessions in, but I imagine this group will stay together a while longer.

Answered a looking for players posting on Roll20!  That was about 7 months ago and we are still going strong.  We crack each other up which I think helps.

We all have known each other since High School, except for my son, who has been playing with us since he was six ... at 13, he's quite the veteran ...

I met a girl in a bar and got her pregnant.  We play in a little campaign with that baby girl, who is 9 years old now.  Just the 3 of us.

I don't know if any one is going to top Rexx. That was a heartwarming story.

My gaming group in high school was the remnants of my best friend's older sister's group from when she was in HS several years earlier. My best friend had been the kid brother along for all of their epic adventures. So as most of the group was older and off at college by the time I even joined, the group chronically suffered from a lack of consistency.  It was often just The DM, my best friend, and me, plus 1d4 other friends/acquaintances who may or may not have played before. This meant we started a lot of different games in a lot of different systems and settings, and even 2 or 3 longer campaigns that never seemed to go on as long as I would have liked.

After I went off to college there were a few poor attempts at DMing Deadlands, and I played in probably 1/2 a dozen different D&D games over the course of several years. Until after college, when 4e came out, some of my friends from art school were giving it a go and I decided to join in with them. that lasted for over 2 years where we played almost every thursday night. ...And then I moved away.

5+ years later I was in another country, there was a new edition of D&D that had come out, and I met a friend who ha grown up playing D&D; I knew I wanted to play again, and this time I was going to really give DMing a dedicated effort.  We started a campaign. I learned a lot as a DM. Meeting regularly was a challenge. Then one of the youngest and most enthusiastic players in that campaign moved away and we decided to draw that story to it's close.  I had learned a lot about DMing but also about how much work and effort is required to build your own world.  I was ready to start again, but this time using someone else's prep work as a starting place. (thank you 5e for your solid adventure modules, that are so easy to hack and customize.) So we (the remaining players and I) found a few fresh faces, and despite even greater difficulties with regular meetings everyone is having a blast in the FR (when we do get to play.)

TLDR: if you're still young enjoy your gaming time because getting together for gaming as adults in a very busy global city is hard.

Church. The oddest of places I'd think to look for D&D groups. I am the music director at a little church in California and the rest of the band started talking one day and we decided to play the evil games our parents all banned form their houses when we were younger. So, now our church has most of the college-age and younger adults playing Dungeons and Dragons. Singing together on Sunday mornings, and throwing magic missiles at goblins by night, quite the turnaround from the early 90's. It's awesome. 

Fast forward a few weeks and I'm playing a half-elf ranger in one of 2 church D&D groups with 8 players. My housemates heard and wanted a house game (to ensure consistency), and then my wife told them I liked to write short fantasy books as a kid, think terry brooks style. My roomie bought me the monster manual and a DM screen for my upcoming birthday.

The message was clear.

At first, I was not happy I was going to be DM, since I had no exposure to D&D until that point, but I was an avid fantasy reader so I had the creative spark. Totally custom world, maps, often homebrew monsters or re-skinned, custom magic items, etc. It's been a blast, especially figuring out how to handle the story with players who could time-travel. That was a great mental exercise! I roped in a fantasy-loving coworker to round out the group to 4, and we played for 6 months straight, 3 times a month on average, 4 hours at a time. That game ended recently due to new jobs and such, but it was cool while it lasted, including time travel, assassinations, and a city siege.

Next phase of the journey is starting a twitch stream with a few band mates soon. Exciting times!