I've been following this thread with great enthusiasm and wonder (for a moment I did imagine Hexenwerk as a spider crawling through a sewer).

Time to make a contribution.

I play bass (guitar), upside down. The bass is upside down, not me.

I once introduced an entire high school class of students to D&D, and DMed the entire class through a short, simplified adventure.

Did any of them stick with it? I have never played D&D before. I had the opportunity back when it was new, but I kinda hated the guy who was the DM  and didn’t want to hang out with him.

Did any of them stick with it?

Two of the girls in class actually came up to me when we were done and said they wanted to start DMing. According to my teacher friend (whom had invited me there), even students that hadn't been part of it were talking about it, and quoting stuff. And when we left the school, I even got to hear it for myself, from students talking amongst themselves. I specifically remember one of the guys emphatically announcing "roll for initiative!" to his friends. It was honestly kind of surreal. xD

So I assume there were at least some students that started playing after that.

I have never played D&D before. I had the opportunity back when it was new, but I kinda hated the guy who was the DM  and didn’t want to hang out with him.

Yeah, don't play with people you like, and certainly not DMs you don't like. That's just a recipe for disaster. But definitely get some friends together and try it sometime!

Though I would suggest playing the newly released Draw Steel! instead, as it's essentially the same type of TTRPG as modern D&D(and many other d20/D&D based games), but without a lot of the problems in the design that people always try to fix through endless homebrew or third party product rules. And I say that as someone with more than 20 years of experience DMing and playing various versions of D&D.

This sounds really amazing. I wish someone would have done that in my school when I was a kid.

I had a somewhat similar experience that introduced me to roleplaying though (if "solo adventures" can be counted as that - I did proper p&p later), but don't really remember which class it was. All students had to present a book to the class. And one classmate of mine showed "Sugarcane Island", a choose your own adventure book. I was soooo fascinated that I instantly had to get that as well.

I remember dearly how different it was back then to order and buy books in a real bookstore instead of simply ordering all the stuff online ...

And one classmate of mine showed "Sugarcane Island", a choose your own adventure book. I was soooo fascinated that I instantly had to get that as well.

That's pretty cool! I never really knew about CYOA books until I was well into adulthood, but I really like the concept of it. The closest I've come to that, is that I've seen some playthroughs of digital versions of a couple Fighting Fantasy books.

 and DMed the entire class through a short, simplified adventure.

Was it the classic, Orc with Pie in 10'x10' Room?