I've found there are a few games out there that the older version is the system you would want to recommend.

1st Edition Star Wars D6 seems like a popular one.  I disagree with this one, but that is me as I prefer Mini-Six Bare Bones.

Palladium Books Fantasy 1st Edition.  I would recommend that everyone who wants to learn Palladium start here.  Yes, the 2nd Edition exists to be compatible with the other Palladium games.  The argument can be made that you should start with 2E so you can step right into the other Palladium stuff (probably Rifts, lets be real).  But, no.  I still think 1E has value in its simplicity and clarity.  Yes, Palladium has a game that is written clearly.

I understand that Warhammer Fantasy is up to version 4, yet (I think) that 2E is the one people say is best.

And of course the big one.  D&D.  I see a lot of people think that Basic D&D (Modvay, or Metzner, ect) or AD&D 1E or 2E are best.  That I can't comment on.  I didn't play D&D.  Still haven't.

What game do you like that they've revised again, and you're not having it?

Tunnels and Trolls 5.5 remains many peoples' 'sweet spot' for that game. I think we're currently up to 8th edition (Deluxe) but that's somewhat bloated and gets away from the easy/cheap to buy/play feel that previous editions had (like the UK Corgi 5th edition which was a cheap paperback when it came out). Not saying Deluxe is a bad game (I run a play by post with it) but it doesn't do anything better or worse than previous editions and is considerably more expensive/harder to get hold of in dead tree format and is a weighty tome containing plenty of stuff I'll never use.

6th was a bootleg, 7th (the metal tin if I recall) was quickly tweaked and forgotten as 7.5 came out and the kickstarted Deluxe edition threw everything into a kitchen sink bullet stopper and finished up as the last time Ken St Andre would have anything to do with his own game. It's tricky to see where the T&T game goes from here as the current owners (Webbed Sphere) have done nothing with it.

In terms of 'older version is the better one' it's hard to say in this case. The system has been tweaked and refined (and spell names changed) but remains more or less the same for every edition with the main changes (for me) being how magic is powered, levelling and experience (based on stats rather than an experience bar that needs to be reached) and spite rules. With that in mind I'd say the smaller/cheaper books were better than the harder to get hold of more expensive books. You could get away with a much smaller/easier to handle book and apply 2-3 house rules to play the same game to a large extent.

What's worse is that there was never an official pdf release of 5.5 as far as I know. 

When i read the title of this thread i thought it was a rethorical question.
But since you have posted the question, i believe the most obvious reply is D&D... and i also believe that no explanations are needed!

D&D... well I find recently I like White Box and its derivatives better than anything subsequent in that line, not considering WoTC-D&D. Certainly Star Wars D6 1e is best. Runequest & Call of Cthulu, for both I like 2e better than 3e+. PARANOIA 1e is best.  White Star Original feels better to me than Galaxy Edition.

If one looks at D&D:

The Original Brown Box / White Box version of the game, was awesome; but it didn't explain itself well to non-wargamers.  Holmes Basic was explained much better, but only covered 3 character levels.  Then Moldvay / Cook B/X, was just right.  But then came Mentzer and BECMI D&D, and it was B/X stretched out across more levels?  Hmm.....  Then came Rules Cyclopedia.

That's a lot of Basic D&D publishing.

1st Edition AD&D is Gary's Legacy.  2nd Edition AD&D was better organized and presented more clearly, but 1E is still considered the authoritative version of AD&D.

Paranoia. The new version they released tries to be a board game instead of an RPG.

OD&D gets my vote for best version of D&D. With supplements, you have almost an early draft of AD&D, though I prefer playing without for multiple reasons.

The 3 LBBs also provide a great foundation to build from if you are into homebrew.

Basic D&D was so fucking awesome, I couldn't wait to get away from it, and the main reason I stuck with the hobby was that I saw the potential in it, not that I liked the game (plus, that was the one my group played and I didn't have any books and wasn't ready to GM yet). The moment I was exposed to 2e and got my own books I jumped ship and never looked back. I also got an old copy of 1e soon after from someone who didn't want it and only skimmed it out of curiosity, but never saw anything in it that made me think I'd rather play that than 2e.

For years 2e was the definitive edition of D&D for me, despite all it's flaws, because earlier editions of D&D sucked worse. Till 3e came along, then that became the new definitive edition of D&D despite having even more flaws than 2e, cuz the stuff it did well, it did better than anything that came before, and the stuff that sucked was mostly due to implementation, not cuz it sucked in a fundamental way.

Then 4e came out, and 4e...was not D&D, and I never even got a chance to play it. 5e is not really D&D either, but it's so streamlined and playable, I'd probably play that now over older editions, cuz I don't have to change as much to make it work. But 2e and 3e were the best.

If you were to make a list, I think you'd find that the examples where the latest version is the better one is a much shorter list. 

It gets complicated with things that have several versions, though, because often the game peaks at 2nd instead of 1st, then declines.  A 2nd version made by the original authors now that they've had the "open" playtest that a 1st version provides, but still have the same vision, is frequently an improvement.  As soon as someone else gets control, all bets are off.

Traveller.

Palladium Fantasy.

All the Whitewolf schlock.

And D&D of course.

For me, most of them. TSR D&D, WoD (VtM1e, CtD1e (the card system is NOT inscrutable, actually pretty easy), etc. Revised stuff really pushed Storyteller that beanbag of math-phobic kludge of mechanics to breaking), Blue Planet, CoC (vs. 7e; previous 6 editions are near the same), Fading Suns (just enjoy the ride, it works better in practice than you think -- a common revelation like a lot of early D&D-isms), L5R (though I will give allowance for 3e-based LBS, as that is its "1e"), SW WEG, Shadowrun (yes, even 1e looseness & 2e punchbowls of dice is better than its devolutions -- so much devolution!), Mechwarrior & WH1e (but only in passing familiarity; I played in said games, never ran them), Deadlands1e (yes, even with the poker game mechanics), Traveller1e or even MongTrav1e (yes, even death at chargen is more a comedic laugh than a play nuisance of ALL THE MATHS, or setting flipped over), early Palladium was still within manageable sanity ranges...

Hard to think of any system that got better over time, now that I think about it. 

I might say GURPS hit its apex somewhere around 3e, though I can see arguments for 2e as well. 4e is... a useful compendium for those who already know what they want out of GURPS. That one I could see got better over time; I could not argue it as well as others, but the sourcebooks did get much more useful along with better production over time.

Another one I might concede would be CP, because I like CP2020, but I don't have enough experience of the earlier stuff to stake a hard stance on that. But then one could count CP2020 as its own 1e, and I am not terribly won over by the latest CPProjectRed as of yet.

The two fantasy games I'm most focused on don't have editions, they have printings: Castles & crusades and DCC. Many of the other games I play, I like newer versions of better, like Traveller and Savage Worlds.

My game with editions that I like an older version of is: Talislanta 1/2E, still the best to me. I think 3/4/5 try too hard to get deep into a more convoluted magic system that is unnecessary for the setting and to course correct some nations' names for certain sensibilities.

D&D is the obvious one for this list yeah. But I like other games that have taken advantage of the OGL to create something new yet similar much better than I will ever like any edition beyond 2nd of that particular game.

Also, Alternity. The OG was 1000% better than the ill-fated Sasquatch monster. Which might have actually been okay if they had A.) owned the IP and B.) not squandered their opportunity to build something interesting with it.

Cyberpunk 2020 beats out red by a long shot. I've seen a few people lift Friday night firefight into their red game

Word of darkness 2e and revised beat out anything after it.

Like others said, D&D. Anything pre wotc.

Traveller kind of most editions are actually good.

Call of Cthulhu

All.  Of. Them.

Quote from: Eirikrautha on October 23, 2022, 03:15:12 PM
All.  Of. Them.

This. I have trouble thinking of any systems where the latest version is the best. Basic Fantasy, maybe? But that's a homebrewed B/X retroclone so not sure it counts.

I notice Call of Cthulhu's been mentioned but I'd be a little more specific: Call of Cthulhu 2nd edition is what I'd run if I ran CoC again. (Why not 1e? Because I don't have it, don't know anyone who does have it, and don't know where to get it for less than several hundred dollars.)

As far as D&D, I find each edition scratches a slightly different itch. Granted I now rarely have the sorts of itches that 3e - 5e scratch, but the TSR-era editions are all just different enough that I can't say that one is The One and the others inferior imitations.