What was the first Dungeons and Dragons rule system you used?

[Man in the Funny Hat]

Started with Holmes Basic, but very soon moved on to AD&D 1E.

 

[Ahnehnois]

Wow, only:
-- 6.50% for 3e/3.5e/D&D Basic Game (3.5 starter box) combined
-- 2.44% for 4e/D&D Roleplaying Game Starter Set (4e)
-- 0% for Pathfinder

Sounds like a serious lack of growth, at least of the "hard corps" audience here.

I find that interesting too, but I think it says more about ENW than about gaming as a whole.

Also, I know that for my part, I played 2e, but I didn't own books, start DMing, or personally investing in the game until 3e. I suspect that many lapsed or otherwise uninterested gamers had their interest reinvigorated by the new edition.

 

[jonesy]

About the Pathfinder thing: it might be that this thread isn't attracting people who primarily play it, because of the All D&D tag. I was going to use the D&D+PF tag for the poll, but for some reason that I don't really understand that isn't available on the D&D+PF forum, only on the Tabletop Gaming forum (I suppose I could have placed the poll there, but I was thinking it would have had a harder time staying visible on the first page. A poll isn't that useful if people can't find it).

 

[Iosue]

Wow, only:
-- 6.50% for 3e/3.5e/D&D Basic Game (3.5 starter box) combined
-- 2.44% for 4e/D&D Roleplaying Game Starter Set (4e)
-- 0% for Pathfinder

Sounds like a serious lack of growth, at least of the "hard corps" audience here.

It's just math. Let's hypothesize that a D&D edition grows in two demographics: 10-15 year olds, and 20-25 year olds. Let's say that every year an edition is out, it grows by 1 person of each year in those groups. So, from 1980 to 1989 (Basic Set heyday) we get 103 players, and from 2000-2009 (3e heyday) we get 103 players. Same exact number for each group. Only, the average age of the Basic Set group is 45 years old, while the average of the 3e group is 15 years old. We might surmise that the age of the average ENWorlder is somewhere in the 30s, maybe mid-30s if it's in any way representative of the median age of the major English speaking countries (35-40 in U.S. and Australia, 40+ in U.K. and Canada), and that it is more or less a normal, bell-shaped distribution. The Basic Set group would line up with a good chunk of the bell curve, while the 3e group would take up a chunk closer to the opposite tail. Essentially, the 10-15 year olds who got into D&D in the latter half of BD&D's heyday are in their mid- to late-30s, and well represented, while those who got into D&D in the latter half of 3e's life time are still in their teens, and not such a big presence.

Now, that's a rather clean abstraction -- reality is a good deal messier and includes the influences of AD&D and changes in the market. (80s hysteria and mass-market fad vs. largely intra-hobby bubble. Also, in the model above, the number of players born in 1975-1979 are low because they don't get the same boost from when they are in their early 20s. In reality, there were probably more 10-15 year olds getting BD&D in 1985-1989 than there were in 1980-1984.) Not to mention larger population trends! There were fewer 10-15 and 20-25 year olds in the 2000s than in the 1980s. But the median age of the site has a significant influence on such poll results.

 

[billd91]

About the Pathfinder thing: it might be that this thread isn't attracting people who primarily play it, because of the All D&D tag.

Well, PF is my primary D&D edition these days, but I started with Holmes Basic as the first one I used. And that is, of course, how I answered the question. So it's probably less a case of not attracting people who primarily play Pathfinder, rather, it's a case of attracting people who got started in the hobby before PF existed.

 

[Grazzt]

First one I used was the Red Box, 1983, but quickly moved on to AD&D 1e.

 

[Scotley]

I marked AD&D 1e but all the books either weren't out or weren't' available to us so we mixed and matched with the Blue Box.

 

[Jester David]

Wow, only:
-- 6.50% for 3e/3.5e/D&D Basic Game (3.5 starter box) combined
-- 2.44% for 4e/D&D Roleplaying Game Starter Set (4e)
-- 0% for Pathfinder

Sounds like a serious lack of growth, at least of the "hard corps" audience here.

Amusingly, I linked to this poll on the WotC forums to try, explicitly to try and expand the audience and demographics contributing (because I think a larger sampling is fun) and the thread descended into a flame/edition war and was locked after 35 posts.

 

[Baron Greystone]

Can you post a link? Would be amusing to read the edition war...

 

[jonesy]

I found the thread, but it's not amusing at all. It goes, on the very first page, from wanting favouritism to warring to personal attacks to thinking this poll has something to do with strawman arguments. I don't really understand how a thread can implode that fast.

Edit: I really have no interest in starting a "What's your favourite edition?" poll. None. Everyone just play what you like.