Name ONE favourite thing about your favourite edition

CleverNickName · May 21, 2019

In BECM, I really appreciated the art by Larry Elmore. I still get a pang of nostalgia whenever I browse through the old Expert Rulebook.

Aldarc · May 22, 2019

pemerton said:
My favourite edition is 4e. The one thing I will choose for this thread is the integration of PC build, monsters and mythic history: so the default of the game is the PCs engaging with and transforming the fundamental cosmology of the game. It's the Glorantha-isation of D&D!

This is probably my favorite thing about 4e as well. The mechanics, the races, the classes, the characters, the monsters, and the cosmology are integrated into a cohsesive thematic whole by the its mythic lore.

It still influences a lot about a number of my game worlds. And you can also tell that it influenced the world of Critical Role too.

Voadam · May 23, 2019

4e Balanced roles.

PCs were well balanced against each other with well defined teamwork roles from strikers and defenders etc and the monsters were balanced well for their threat levels and had well defined combat roles of their own, such as brutes and artillery and minions and elites, that felt thematic for the flow and strategies in combat.

doctorbadwolf · May 24, 2019

4e.

It’s hard to choose between the breadth of meaningful customization for players, and all the various widgets like rituals and skill challenges that help fill out out of combat challenges.

DammitVictor · May 24, 2019

Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition: Player's Option

Hard to pick just one here, as I could have easily gone with Rules Cyclopedia or even 3.PF (if you houserule it hard enough), but this is the version of D&D that occupied the top spot in my heart for the longest.

And the thing I'm going to single out for praise is how the class customization rules in Skills & Powers and especially in Spells & Magic allow you to produce wildly different spellcasting traditions with wildly different casting mechanics and spell lists in a way that no other version of D&D approaches. Using these rules as DM toolkits rather than PC customization options allows a DM to really drill down on what the player-facing elements of their setting mean.

For instance, one of my long-standing homebrew projects is to redefine the AD&D class system, with the standard PHB classes being human classes and all of the playable races in my campaigns having their own selections-- incorporating their standard class and multiclass selections with their lore and with their B/X and 3.X variations.

It'd be a huge, horrible pain in the ass to do in any other edition-- even vaunted Pathfinder with its building block classes and archetypes.

Imaculata · May 25, 2019

In 3rd edition I love the expansion books that focus on a specific climate. There's Sandstorm for desert adventures, Frostburn for arctic adventures, and of course Stormwrack for sea adventures (which I am using for a campaign right now). These books are a fantastic help in creating a campaign that is very different in tone, style and theme than normal D&D campaigns. I especially love the various types of natural hazards that the books provide, and rulings on things like sunburn, hypothermia and navigating at sea.

reelo · May 25, 2019

The simplicity of classes in BX. The "Big 4" plus, Elf, Dwarf, and Halfling, that's it. It curbs munchkinism and optimization. Just pure, unadulterated dungeon-delving.

Garthanos · May 26, 2019

Voadam said:
4e Balanced roles.

PCs were well balanced against each other with well defined teamwork roles from strikers and defenders etc and the monsters were balanced well for their threat levels and had well defined combat roles of their own, such as brutes and artillery and minions and elites, that felt thematic for the flow and strategies in combat.

Well this pretty much exactly