Is there an "Age" factor to choice of editions?

[Tetsubo]

I'm 44 and voted 3.5/OGL. I've been gaming and collecting since 1978.

I think that makes me a grognard.

 

[thecasualoblivion]

32, a player since 2E AD&D(and owned though not played BEMCI and 1E AD&D as a child). Very solid 4E fan.

 

[Jack99]

poll is not up yet, but i'll post my opinion here.

i don't now if it is age, as much as circumstances of life. usually, circumstances of life go hand-in-hand with age though.

for example, as i stated in the other thread i just created, my group is 4 guys pushing 40. the other three are married, one has kids. they have other things going on in their lives. dnd is the guys night out nowadays, not the all-obsessive game it used to be. we no longer have 5 hours free time per day to read rule books. by the time you get home, mow the lawn, make dinner, feed the kids, clean the house, and give the significant other a jolly good rodgering, when is there time to learn a whole new game? its easier to just stick with what you know and enjoy playing.

to the extent that age dictates the one's free time situation, then yes i think it is age related. espially with 4e. from what i have ben reading, i don't think there has ever been a more drastic change from one edition to another. all other changs were simple and gradual, relatively speaking. they didn't in essence create a whole new game to learn.

My 7 players and I are just like you guys, except we are "only" 34 and 35 years old. Most of us has kid(s) and are married, with busy important jobs, and for us, D&D is very much the weekly guys-night-out. We however play 4e.

We find that we spend a lot less time on the books, and a lot more time playing. Since starting my campaign, I think we have had to pull the books out 2-3 times at most, to check a rule. That's how hard it was to "learn a new game for us".

So maybe you guys think you do not have the time, but in reality, my guess is that if you had tried, you would have found 4e extremely easy and intuitive to learn. Now, maybe you wouldn't have liked it, but that is a matter of taste after all.

 

[Shemeska]

I voted for 3.x/OGL and I'm 29.

It's also the edition I started with, but...

While I prefer that edition's rules and mechanics, I'm wierd in that I prefer the tropes and design style in mid to late 2e material (tons of flavor text, heavily detailed settings, books that are fun to read rather than looking like a textbook). Of course having tried it, I don't have any particular desire to actually run a game using 2e rules (though I would happily play in one).

 

[Invisible Stalker]

38 and my editions are 1e and 4e

 

[SpiderMonkey]

Playing 4e and BECMI at the moment. Really enjoying the BECMI game. 4e's nice, too, but I'm not 100% sold yet.

I'm 32.

 

[justanobody]

I voted based on my observations of real people playing.

 

[JeffB]

I'm approaching 40, and started with the LBBs- I like 4E and don't like 3E or anime, or modern fantasy, what do I win?

 

[Shroomy]

32, started with BECMI and early 2e (basically, I did flirt with 1e for a bit), love 4e.

 

[Lord Mhoram]

41 (only a couple months shy of 42). Favorite edition is 4E.

I really enjoyed 3.x, but it got to be a bit too much late in it's life and at higher levels - and it was very much a simulationists D&D, and that is how I play my Hero, so I didn't really need two games that filled the same game niche - 4E works much better for me that way.

I skipped 2nd (didn't think it fixed what needed to be fixed in 1st ed - and I hated a number of the campaign settings (Dark Sun and Planescape) and FR has always left me bored. Spelljammer was the only thing I loved about this, and we played it with our house ruled 1st ed.

1st ed - played it from initial release until about 2 years before 3rd came out. Probably my favorite historically, but I would never play it now.

OD&D / Basic/Expert I've enjoyed over the years, but never could campaign with it.