Which version do you find most satisfying, and why?  

Are there any versions you dislike or avoid playing?

I never liked AD&D. I always found it disjointed, confusing, bloated and intimidating. Every group I joined seemed to play it differently so in end I never had a clear idea what the game was really like.

I prefer basic D&D. It's simple, innocent and iconic. I think simple, innocent and iconic is what whole point of fantasy.

I've come to realise lately how fond I am of AD&D 2nd edition.

It was the first tabletop RPG I actually played. And it's got all the definitive elements of AD&D as opposed to basic (class and race separated out, nine alignments, etc.) without actually being as complex as 1st edition; if you strip out all the optional rules the core you're left with is more or less 1E as commonly houseruled, rather than 1E as it was actually written.

I have to call rose-coloured glasses on this one.

Playing BECMI was an amazing and inspiring experience of my childhood, so nothing can really compare to that, but I got a lot of mileage from 1e in my teens/twenties.  Then I wargamed exclusively until 3e arrived, so my perception isn't clear.  That's why I'm keen to run a retro campaign this year.

The Rules Cyclopedia is all you need in one book. It's great.

I agree with the "innocent and iconic" sentiment too.

Quote from: noisms;366536The Rules Cyclopedia is all you need in one book. It's great.

I agree with the "innocent and iconic" sentiment too.

Seconded.  Mind you, I "grew up" with both 1e / 2e AD&D in the house and played both a lot.  But there was nothing quite as grand as the Rules Cyclopedia for usability and accessibility.  I went through my teens keeping a small box in my car at all times that contained dice, the RC, graph paper and campaign folders.  We played pickup games whenever there was a small group and a bit of time.  Good fun.

If I tried that with later editions, I'd need a pickup truck.

I'd have to say AD&D with a caveat.  We never played it exactly rules as written, hard enough to do even if that is your goal.  So going by TSR editorial's of the time I guess we were not playing AD&D just some confused OD&D/AD&D hybrid.  To this day I'm still not sure if the "parry" mentioned in the back of the PHB is a rule.

That said, I cut my teeth on OD&D and AD&D, basic D&D was just too basic at the time.  By the time RC came out there was no chance we were going to change.

At this point, after going back and playing several old school D&D versions, the only D&D versions that still work for me are B/X + BECMI + Rules Cyclopedia (essentially one game with minor differences IMHO) pre-WotC and 3.x post-WotC. All of the other pre-WotC versions of D&D have got problems that make play less fun now.

I have to say, while younger and less experienced with gaming and with the newness of the hobby, a lot of the pre-WotC versions of D&D seemed fantastic at the time they were released. It is only with hindsight that many of the flaws come clear and the rules do not age well for me.

Quote from: Soylent Green;366516I never liked AD&D. I always found it disjointed, confusing, bloated and intimidating. Every group I joined seemed to play it differently so in end I never had a clear idea what the game was really like.

I prefer basic D&D. It's simple, innocent and iconic. I think simple, innocent and iconic is what whole point of fantasy.

This is pretty much me, too.

Seanchai

Quote from: noisms;366536The Rules Cyclopedia is all you need in one book. It's great.

I agree with the "innocent and iconic" sentiment too.

Thirded. I love AD&D too, but given the choice between any of the editions of DnD the RC would be my first, even over 3.x cuz my goto d20 game now is True20, followed closely by M&M.

AD&D 2e is the only incarnation of D&D I do like.  I've tried most of them (I might have missed one of the early iterations and I have only read and not played 4e)...but yeah, 2e for the win.  I like the wonkiness of the kits and stuff from the handbooks, and I ditched level limits pretty early on...(no one seemed to feel like their humans were being crapped on for not having higher advancement opportunities)

Quote from: Peregrin;366514Which version do you find most satisfying, and why?  

Are there any versions you dislike or avoid playing?

There's none that I would avoid playing.

The best versions of the game IMO are OD&D (1974) and AD&D First Ed, for very, very different reasons.

OD&D: I love the pseudo-medieval feel of it, the roots in miniatures gaming, etc. It's quick, fast, and gets to the point of role-playing. It's a game which, to me, got it right from the start. All others iterations of the game are kinda like heavily houseruled versions of the original. The best part is that you can start playing OD&D and from there, build your "own" advanced version of the game organically, so that it fits exactly what you want out of it. That's the brilliant genius about it.

AD&D: I just posted above that all the iterations of the game are kinda like heavily houseruled versions of OD&D. Well, AD&D is Gygax's D&D. I like all the definite medieval feel of it (polearms, anyone?), the rules with exceptions, little sub-systems, etc. The fact that most of the rules are managed by the DM behind the screen makes it extremely appealing to me: DMing first ed is a bit like playing the Wizard of Oz as DM - all the tools are at your disposition, and the PCs may not have to worry about any of that stuff. AD&D is simple from a starting player's point of view. Detailed from a DM's point of view. I like that the game accomplishes what it's set out to do. It's coherent with itself.

Now, the specific pre-WotC version I would not play if I wasn't specifically invited at a game with friends or some such is AD&D2.

AD&D2 because is an half-assed game design with a feel killed by political correctness. It takes First Ed, adds stuff like (the optional) non-weapon proficiencies which are in contradiction with First Ed's design, and just runs with it like it makes sense, while at the same time removing a class like the Assassin, or the mention of devils and demons, because "hooo... BADD might not like it". FUCK YOU, Patricia Pulling.

Always felt the game came in to its own with AD&D 2nd edition, despite some odd theme decisions at the time (the whole let's make nice with the radical religious right issue, for example).

Although I started with Gamma World and the Otus D&D sets I quickly (as in a few months) grew out of them, then graduated to AD&D by the end of 1980. By 1984 AD&D 1st edition was looking rather clunky compared to my subsequent choice of systems (Runequest, Tunnels & Trolls and eventually Palladium). By the time I hit college in 1989 I was running Dragonquest regularly, and my group gradually convinced me to look in to the new 2nd edition books. After I bit the bullet, the new campaign got off to a great start and precipitated about 11 years' worth of weekly 2nd edition game sessions. So I would have to say yeah, 2nd edition was where it was at. And I still prefer the TSR look and feel; the later WotC black books just didn't quite have as much character, to me....and the Player's Option books were at once fascinating and abominations.

I often wonder if the preference for one edition over another has entirely to do with age, circumstance and timing. I know I prefer 2nd edition because it hit me during my first year of college, and led to the best games and campaigns I ever ran or participated in, while 1st edition was something I found to be ponderous and sometimes inpenetrable in my late grade school and middle school years. I loved the basic and expert sets, even though I found them to be too limiting (will never, ever like a system that treats races and classes as one and the same) and often used them as clarification and reference when I was having trouble figuring out what the DMG was talking about. In the end, I got swept up in the "AD&D sucks" crowd for a time and went off with the 80's equivalent of the indie scene, playing Runequest, T&T and such. It wasn't until college that I found a real sense of comfort with the AD&D rules, and it was largely because the 2nd edition, despite trying to be PC (initially, that obviously went away within a couple years) was also geared toward embracing a much broader scope of play...even if the rules were still inadequate for it. I mean, 2E brought us books like "Cities of Gold," in which southwestern Puebloan anasazi cultures were introduced with play mechanics.....no edition before or since has managed such diversity; even the most interesting stuff from 3.X was usually from 3rd party publishers.

My favorite is the 1974 OD&D rules set. They are open-ended and allow for interpretation and customization to whatever setting I want to run. Later editions of the rules just seem to be tight and constricting to me.