First thing I ever bought was the Mines Gimli starter (brother got TTT Theoden) and we played many a game with decks based off of those (I was always on the losing side of things). Between funding Star Trek 1st edition, 2nd edition, and LOTR as a kid, I never had a terrible amount invested in any. Once high school hit and Decipher started to die off, I picked up a bunch of LOTR cheap and introduced a few friends to the game.
No one in my area sells any of those games anymore, so I'm currently an MTG player and recently stumbled upon a store that sells Decipher's Star Wars, so I've started playing that. Hopefully, I can find decent card shops when I move to a new city next month that support SW, LOTR, and MTG.