AD&D gave us adventures, 2E gave us settings... Retrospectives.

[Ulrick]

Here's my retrospective of the all criticisms against each edition--its supposed to humorous, but make of it what you will:

0e: I furrow my brow in a vain effort to understand it.
1e: It was fine until Unearthed Arcana and Dragonlance ruined everything.
2e: Thac0? But I don't wanna deal with Thac0! It's counter-intuitive.
3e: People still play that? Attacks of Opporunity are confusing. The ranger was nerfed.
3.5e: Human Barbarian 1/Bard 1/Cleric 1/Druid 1/Fighter 1/Monk 1/Paladin 1/Psion 1/Psychic Warrior 1/ Ranger 1/Rogue 1/Sorcerer 1/Soulknife 1/Wilder 1/Wizard 1 = 15th level character.
4e: Either Ruined everything or everything's finally BALANCED to be World of Warcraft.
Pathfinder: It's not D&D, or is it?
Retroclones: The cause of, and solution to, all of D&D problems.

You can always find a reason to blast an edition. But my philosophy is to just sit down and play.

 

[Mercurius]

I've seen this discussion before and what I've seen is:

1e: adventures
2e: settings
3e: characters
4e: encounters

And that seems about right to me.

This works for me as well, but I think we could also call the defining feature of 4e balance.

As for 5e, I'm guessing/hoping it be flexibility.

 

[TerraDave]

Here's my retrospective of the all criticisms against each edition--its supposed to humorous, but make of it what you will:

0e: I furrow my brow in a vain effort to understand it.
1e: It was fine until Unearthed Arcana and Dragonlance ruined everything.
2e: Thac0? But I don't wanna deal with Thac0! It's counter-intuitive.
3e: People still play that? Attacks of Opporunity are confusing. The ranger was nerfed.
3.5e: Human Barbarian 1/Bard 1/Cleric 1/Druid 1/Fighter 1/Monk 1/Paladin 1/Psion 1/Psychic Warrior 1/ Ranger 1/Rogue 1/Sorcerer 1/Soulknife 1/Wilder 1/Wizard 1 = 15th level character.
4e: Either Ruined everything or everything's finally BALANCED to be World of Warcraft.
Pathfinder: It's not D&D, or is it?
Retroclones: The cause of, and solution to, all of D&D problems.

You can always find a reason to blast an edition. But my philosophy is to just sit down and play.

I should have given XP to this.

Apologies for the obscure cross-thread reference.