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Message: <blockquote data-quote="T. Foster" data-source="post: 2060914" data-attributes="member: 16574">My favorite editions of D&D are 1st ed. AD&D and OD&D (pre-supplements; IMO if you're using all the OD&D supplements you might as well be playing AD&D), pretty much neck and neck. Later editions of Classic D&D (Holmes, Moldvay, Mentzer, RC) I like a bit less well -- and like each subsequent edition slightly less than the one before. I've never actually played 3E/3.5E/d20 and have no particular desire to (I'm perfectly satisfied with the editions I have, and 3E feels too quantitative IMO -- too much seeming influence from MtG and CRPGs) but don't bear it the sort of ill will that a lot of earlier edition die-hards do (though I do wish WOTC would return some version of earlier (pre-2E) D&D to print as a 'collector's' or 'nostalgia' edition for people who prefer that style of game). I save all of my ill will for 2E (including late-period/post-Gygax 1E), which IMO was a truly terrible game and pretty much wrecked D&D. All of the rules-stuff that was undeniably clunky and awkward but nonetheless seemed (at least to me) to 'fit' and 'make sense' in the context of 1E was carried over into 2E but the context was sufficiently changed that it no longer fit or made sense and was just, well, awkward and clunky. And then they made it even worse by adding even more layers of awkward and clunky stuff (kits, specialty wizards and priests, all the PO stuff, etc.) on top of that. I'm thoroughly convinced that the people behind 2E had no real idea of what it actually was that made D&D 'tick' in the first place and were relying solely on brand-identity and customer inertia to carry them forward (which it did, at least for awhile). 2E drove me away from D&D -- after running a 2E campaign for about a year we were all so disgusted by it that we gave up D&D and played other rpgs (RuneQuest, WFRP, and DJ/Mythus were our most frequently played fantasy games). 3E is what brought me back. Well, sort of -- the wave of enthusiasm aroused by 3E inspired me to take another look at D&D, but instead of buying into 3E (I looked at it on the game-store shelf but was turned off by the bulk of the rulebooks (and general unfamiliarity of the rules beyond a few common (mostly jargon-related) touchstones) and the art/graphics-style) I went back to my original loves -- OD&D and 1E AD&D.  So IMO 3E/3.5E/d20 > 2E, but (for my own particular tastes and purposes) 1E & OD&D > 3E.Regards,</blockquote>

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