CleverNickName
Limit Break Dancing
Forward: I'm a data and statistics nerd. Brace yourself.
So for the last few weeks, I've been collecting everyone's stories about the older editions of D&D. I've compiled the results, and I present them below for your viewing pleasure.
Forward
Earlier this year (I think it was February or so? Seems so long ago...), there was quit a bit of discussion about "the Golden Age" of gaming. There was some discussion about "the Forgotten Edition" too. And I noticed that there was a good deal of confusion about the editions themselves, and how old they were.
I wanted to get people talking about these older editions, and collect some information about their experiences. I wanted to find out which edition, according to EN World members, marked "the Golden Age" of D&D: the ones that got played the most, are still being played, and the ones that generated the fondest memories. I also wanted to find out which editions were largely "the Forgotten Edition," the one that didn't get played as much and nobody remembered (fondly or otherwise). And I wanted us to take the time to examine each edition separately, and learn a bit about the differences and similarities between them. It's pretty cool how the game has grown and changed over the years.
But most of all, I wanted to get people to start talking about their memories of the older editions of the game. The things they liked or disliked about it. How long they played (or have been playing) it. The people and the events that brought us into the hobby, and the things that keep us here. That's the good stuff: that's what defines a "Golden Age" to me. That's the opposite of "Forgotten."
The Survey
I came up with some basic survey questions to measure everyone's experiences on the past/present/future axis and the liked/neutral/disliked axis. I encouraged everyone to add detail in the comments and discussions. And then away we went.
Results were collected and compiled at 4:00 p.m. PST on Friday, April 24th, 2020.
The Comments
I wasn't just collecting votes in a poll; I was also tracking the comments for each edition. Whenever a new comment was posted, I would read it and make a broad judgment about the topic and the author's intent. Then I'd score it in my spreadsheet. I ended up with 13 categories of comments:
So how did your favorite edition do?
Conclusions
I'm not sure if I'm any closer to answering my questions, but I really appreciate everyone's input. If nothing else, you all gave me something to occupy my time (and my brain) with, while I'm under self-quarantine in the Pacific Northwest.
My two cents: the Golden Age of D&D has nothing at all to do with the edition I was playing, and everything to do with where I was in my life. I was in my mid- to late-teenage years, and I was forming bonds and friendships that would last me the rest of my life. If 5th Edition had been released at the time, I would be championing it as the Golden Edition. But it happened to be BECMI, and so that one will always be solid gold for me...yet the data completely disagrees. Ah well.
And the "Forgotten Edition" was the ones that were released immediately after high school, at a time when my priorities were shifting and my free time was diminishing, and my bonds with my friends were loosening. It took me a few years to get back to my hobbies, and the gaming landscape had changed quite a bit in the years since. So for me, that would have been AD&D 2E...but the survey completely disagrees.
What do you guys think? Is the "Golden Age" of D&D behind us, or right here in the 21st Century? Or is it all a myth?
Is there a such thing as a "Forgotten Edition" of D&D? At what point is a game considered forgotten, and why?
The Surveys
OD&D
Basic D&D
B/X D&D
AD&D 1E
BECMI / Rules Cyclopedia
AD&D 2E
D&D 3E
D&D 4E
So for the last few weeks, I've been collecting everyone's stories about the older editions of D&D. I've compiled the results, and I present them below for your viewing pleasure.
Forward
Earlier this year (I think it was February or so? Seems so long ago...), there was quit a bit of discussion about "the Golden Age" of gaming. There was some discussion about "the Forgotten Edition" too. And I noticed that there was a good deal of confusion about the editions themselves, and how old they were.
I wanted to get people talking about these older editions, and collect some information about their experiences. I wanted to find out which edition, according to EN World members, marked "the Golden Age" of D&D: the ones that got played the most, are still being played, and the ones that generated the fondest memories. I also wanted to find out which editions were largely "the Forgotten Edition," the one that didn't get played as much and nobody remembered (fondly or otherwise). And I wanted us to take the time to examine each edition separately, and learn a bit about the differences and similarities between them. It's pretty cool how the game has grown and changed over the years.
But most of all, I wanted to get people to start talking about their memories of the older editions of the game. The things they liked or disliked about it. How long they played (or have been playing) it. The people and the events that brought us into the hobby, and the things that keep us here. That's the good stuff: that's what defines a "Golden Age" to me. That's the opposite of "Forgotten."
The Survey
I came up with some basic survey questions to measure everyone's experiences on the past/present/future axis and the liked/neutral/disliked axis. I encouraged everyone to add detail in the comments and discussions. And then away we went.
Results were collected and compiled at 4:00 p.m. PST on Friday, April 24th, 2020.
The number of votes for each category, for each edition, are shown on this table. This information is useful for counting the people in certain categories (the number of voters who still play the edition, for example.)
The number of votes for each category, divided by the total number of votes in each survey, are shown on this table. This information is useful for comparing results against other surveys, because it weighs the results with the number of responses. Not every survey had the same number of voters, after all.
In all 8 surveys, there were 939 votes collected. The table below gives the percentage that each edition scored, out of the total number of votes in all categories. This information is less-useful for comparing overall results from all surveys, since some voters could have voted more than once (some people might have voted in just one survey, some might have voted in all 8 of them, and most fall somewhere in between.) It's still interesting to look at, however.
The categories can be grouped into six different groups, by adding across the columns. This gives us the number of people who have played a certain edition, the number of people who haven't played it, and the number of people still playing it. We can also group all of the favorable, unfavorable, and neutral results to get a raw count of how "favorable" each edition was perceived.
The edition that most people have played: AD&D 2E (88.5%)
The edition that most people are still playing: B/X (13.8%)
The edition that most people didn't play: OD&D (62.4%)
The edition that was most favorably regarded: AD&D 1E (87.0%)
The edition that was most neutrally-regarded: B/X (19.0%)
The edition that was most unfavorably regarded: D&D 4E (36.1%)
I think it's interesting that the most-neutral edition is also the one that is still being played the most. So maybe the key to longevity is to not rock the boat?
The edition that most people have played: AD&D 2E (88.5%)
The edition that most people are still playing: B/X (13.8%)
The edition that most people didn't play: OD&D (62.4%)
The edition that was most favorably regarded: AD&D 1E (87.0%)
The edition that was most neutrally-regarded: B/X (19.0%)
The edition that was most unfavorably regarded: D&D 4E (36.1%)
I think it's interesting that the most-neutral edition is also the one that is still being played the most. So maybe the key to longevity is to not rock the boat?
The Comments
I wasn't just collecting votes in a poll; I was also tracking the comments for each edition. Whenever a new comment was posted, I would read it and make a broad judgment about the topic and the author's intent. Then I'd score it in my spreadsheet. I ended up with 13 categories of comments:
"I remember when..."
"Let's talk about this other edition..."
"The rules in this edition were..."
"You're wrong, I'm right, let's argue, etc."
"So about this survey/I predict that..."
"I didn't play this edition because..."
"You made an error," "thanks I fixed it."
Me, subtly (or not so subtly) bumping the post
Comment deleted by user
Unrelated or off-topic
Moderator warning post
Link to another page
Introduction post (one per survey)
So how did your favorite edition do?
Before I get a lot of angry comments and private messages, let me preface this by saying that this is the least-scientific part of an already not-scientific process. A single human being (me) read each comment and decided which category to file it into, based on their own biased and untrained judgment. It was not peer reviewed, there was no oversight, etc. So take all of this into consideration before, and during, any attempts to draw conclusions.
The edition that had the most comments overall was 4E D&D, with 322 comments. This is impressive for two reasons: one, it got almost 130 more votes than the runner-up (3E D&D, with 193 comments); and two, it accomplished this in about 2 days... @Umbran had to lock the thread after just 54 hours. That's roughly one comment every 10 minutes!
The edition with the fewest comments overall was Basic D&D ("Holmes Basic"), with just 37 comments. The runner up was B/X, with 40 posts. These were also the two editions that had the fewest votes, so this makes sense.
Most comments in each survey were what I asked for: stories and memories about playing the game: things that you liked, things you didn't like, things you missed or didn't miss, all that.
The edition that had the most comments overall was 4E D&D, with 322 comments. This is impressive for two reasons: one, it got almost 130 more votes than the runner-up (3E D&D, with 193 comments); and two, it accomplished this in about 2 days... @Umbran had to lock the thread after just 54 hours. That's roughly one comment every 10 minutes!
The edition with the fewest comments overall was Basic D&D ("Holmes Basic"), with just 37 comments. The runner up was B/X, with 40 posts. These were also the two editions that had the fewest votes, so this makes sense.
Most comments in each survey were what I asked for: stories and memories about playing the game: things that you liked, things you didn't like, things you missed or didn't miss, all that.
Because this part of the "survey" is so unreliable, I didn't attempt to draw very many conclusions. But I'll hit the high parts.
"I remember when..."
The edition with the most comments of this nature were in AD&D 2E, with 88.4%.
"Let's talk about this other edition..."
The edition with the most comments of this nature were Basic D&D, at 16.2%. I think this was largely because so many posts were clarifications of which "basic" edition was being surveyed.
"The rules in this edition were..."
The one with the most comments about rules and mechanics was OD&D, at 26.9%. So many comments about how attacks worked, how many hit points were given out, weapon damages...
"You're wrong, I'm right, let's argue, etc."
The edition that had the most caustic conversation was 4E D&D, at 24.7%. It's easy to see why the thread ended up getting closed.
"So about this survey/I predict that..."
Speculation or commentary on the survey itself was most popular with D&D 3E, at 12.4%.
"I didn't play this edition because..."
Some folks wanted to clarify why they didn't play an edition. And most of them were saying it about Basic D&D, at 8.1%. This is related to the clarification issues on which "basic" edition was being surveyed.
"You made an error," "thanks I fixed it."
I'm not perfect. I made the most mistakes and corrections in the Basic D&D survey, which ended up accounting for 5.4% of the total comments.
Me, subtly (or not subtly) bumping the post
Sometimes interest would flag, and I would feel the need to kick the survey up to the top of the stack to generate some more interaction. This happened most often with OD&D, at 3.8%.
Comment deleted by user
The survey that had the highest number of deleted comments was AD&D 1E, at 9.2%.
Unrelated or off-topic post
By and large, these were pretty rare. But the edition with the most of them was AD&D 1E, at 7.1%.
Moderator warning posts
Also very rare; only two editions required moderator intervention: 4E D&D with 0.9%, and D&D 3E with 0.5%.
Links to other pages
The edition that has the most shared links was BECMI/RC D&D, at 10.3%. This was mostly people linking the survey to other online communities where they can meet other players of the edition. This was so awesome, please do more of this. In all editions.
Introductory post
Every survey had exactly 1 of these.
"I remember when..."
The edition with the most comments of this nature were in AD&D 2E, with 88.4%.
"Let's talk about this other edition..."
The edition with the most comments of this nature were Basic D&D, at 16.2%. I think this was largely because so many posts were clarifications of which "basic" edition was being surveyed.
"The rules in this edition were..."
The one with the most comments about rules and mechanics was OD&D, at 26.9%. So many comments about how attacks worked, how many hit points were given out, weapon damages...
"You're wrong, I'm right, let's argue, etc."
The edition that had the most caustic conversation was 4E D&D, at 24.7%. It's easy to see why the thread ended up getting closed.
"So about this survey/I predict that..."
Speculation or commentary on the survey itself was most popular with D&D 3E, at 12.4%.
"I didn't play this edition because..."
Some folks wanted to clarify why they didn't play an edition. And most of them were saying it about Basic D&D, at 8.1%. This is related to the clarification issues on which "basic" edition was being surveyed.
"You made an error," "thanks I fixed it."
I'm not perfect. I made the most mistakes and corrections in the Basic D&D survey, which ended up accounting for 5.4% of the total comments.
Me, subtly (or not subtly) bumping the post
Sometimes interest would flag, and I would feel the need to kick the survey up to the top of the stack to generate some more interaction. This happened most often with OD&D, at 3.8%.
Comment deleted by user
The survey that had the highest number of deleted comments was AD&D 1E, at 9.2%.
Unrelated or off-topic post
By and large, these were pretty rare. But the edition with the most of them was AD&D 1E, at 7.1%.
Moderator warning posts
Also very rare; only two editions required moderator intervention: 4E D&D with 0.9%, and D&D 3E with 0.5%.
Links to other pages
The edition that has the most shared links was BECMI/RC D&D, at 10.3%. This was mostly people linking the survey to other online communities where they can meet other players of the edition. This was so awesome, please do more of this. In all editions.
Introductory post
Every survey had exactly 1 of these.
Conclusions
I'm not sure if I'm any closer to answering my questions, but I really appreciate everyone's input. If nothing else, you all gave me something to occupy my time (and my brain) with, while I'm under self-quarantine in the Pacific Northwest.
My two cents: the Golden Age of D&D has nothing at all to do with the edition I was playing, and everything to do with where I was in my life. I was in my mid- to late-teenage years, and I was forming bonds and friendships that would last me the rest of my life. If 5th Edition had been released at the time, I would be championing it as the Golden Edition. But it happened to be BECMI, and so that one will always be solid gold for me...yet the data completely disagrees. Ah well.
And the "Forgotten Edition" was the ones that were released immediately after high school, at a time when my priorities were shifting and my free time was diminishing, and my bonds with my friends were loosening. It took me a few years to get back to my hobbies, and the gaming landscape had changed quite a bit in the years since. So for me, that would have been AD&D 2E...but the survey completely disagrees.
What do you guys think? Is the "Golden Age" of D&D behind us, or right here in the 21st Century? Or is it all a myth?
Is there a such thing as a "Forgotten Edition" of D&D? At what point is a game considered forgotten, and why?
The Surveys
OD&D
Basic D&D
B/X D&D
AD&D 1E
BECMI / Rules Cyclopedia
AD&D 2E
D&D 3E
D&D 4E
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