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

[Thasmodious]

35, started with OD&D, played every version, play 4e now. Will play 5e.

 

[Wisdom Penalty]

Well, as a 40 year-old who prefers 4e, my argument would agree with Joe but come up with an entirely different answer. He points out that he doesn't have as much free time....neither do I. Which is exactly why 4e appeals to me and my gaming group, who are 38-45. 4e maximizes the parts of the game we find enjoyable, or at least has so far.

We continue to enjoy 3.5, but 4e seems to offer the same or more fun for equivalently less time, which is a big plus.

Wow. Please pretend I said this exact same thing, though I realize it'd be the one time I made a post that actually was succinct and yet elegant.

I'm the same age as you, with the same age breakdown in my (two) groups.

WizarDru, you rule.

WP

 

[Shadowsong666]

I voted for 4e and previous edition.
I started DnD with the 2nd edition and can say for myself that i like it more then the whole 3.x series.
4e really brought me back to DnD and the moment the 4e virtual Tabletop gets released i think i will enjoy it even more (but we will just use it for combat movement and nothing else - rest will be done on paper and with dice rolling, as it should be imho. ^^).

 

[Gilladian]

I started playing with the original 3 books and soon switched to BECMI; I'm 43. My group plays 3.5. We started this campaign with this mix of players about a month ago. We range in age from 11 to 49.

Of course, the 11 year old just wants to play, but the rest of us all prefer 3e, though several (me and at least one other) also play in a 4e game. I don't like it, don't find it intuitive, and am having to refer to power cards, rule book, etc... for nearly every decision.

The others might enjoy 4e if they tried it, but have no desire to relearn a whole new system. They're comfortable with what I'm willing to run, is what it boils down to...

 

[Serendipity]

36, BECMI, 1st ed AD&D, and 3.x.

 

[joethelawyer]

Well, as a 40 year-old who prefers 4e, my argument would agree with Joe but come up with an entirely different answer. He points out that he doesn't have as much free time....neither do I. Which is exactly why 4e appeals to me and my gaming group, who are 38-45. 4e maximizes the parts of the game we find enjoyable, or at least has so far.

We continue to enjoy 3.5, but 4e seems to offer the same or more fun for equivalently less time, which is a big plus.

my group doesnt even have time to learn the new rules though, man. it took us a year of playing to learn 3.0 rules. we learned as we went. now we finally have a decent grasp on them, and have houseruled the ones we dont like. to have to go thru that all over again, for a system that doesn't on its face appeal to us in the first place, doesn't make much sense.

 

[Agamon]

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.

Agreed. The up front cost of learning a new game is far more than offset by prep and play time expenditure in the long run. I'm 35, my players in 2 groups run from 21 to 36, and we all play 4e and are having fun with it.

 

[Gothmog]

I'm 34, started with AD&D 1e. I've played BD&D, 1e, 2e, 3e, 3.5, 4e. I like all the versions of D&D except 3e and 3.5, favorite version is 4e by a large margin (with 1e right behind it). Like many others, free time is a big factor for me (I'm not married and don't have kids, but I'm a doctor and professor), and 4e gives me the best play experience (period) with the least amount of prep time of any edition.

I'm in two groups, with ages ranging from 25-36 (I DM one group, and play in the other), and they all also prefer 4e over other editions.

 

[WizarDru]

my group doesnt even have time to learn the new rules though, man. it took us a year of playing to learn 3.0 rules.

Oh, I got that. It's a perfectly valid answer...I wasn't trying to refute it. I was just pointing out that for my group, we decided to put 4e through it's paces and liked what our 6 or so sessions showed us. When our current 3.5 campaign finishes (Paizo's Rise of the Runelords, to be specific), we'll switch with my new campaign to 4e.

I certainly can understand not wanting to sacrifice rules mastery, especially if it was hard fought and won. For my part, though, there are some parts of 3e that we've never gained complete mastery over, even in 8 years. Dispels, Grapples and a few other concepts still send us running to the books...and 4e has, for us, resolved some of those issues. But that doesn't mean that 3.5 suddenly stopped being a good system. If I'd thought it wasn't any good, I certainly wouldn't have used it for 8 years straight.

 

[El Mahdi]

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?

A cookie, of course.



Also, very nicely said WizarDru and Joe. I wish I had more XP to give out. I'll just have to wait a bit.


P.S.: Also, is it just me, or does it seem the poll really isn't showing any age correlation between editions, but seems to be showing more about the demographics of ENWorld itself. It seems like the majority of players here, for any editions, approximately fall into a range of 30 to 40 (although I do see we have someone voting in multiple age brackets - he must consider himself "timeless").