Editions of D&D you have played the most in your life

[Arilyn]

1. 3.5/Pathfinder, by far. Love the customization but GMing it is becoming a pain, so haven't been doing it lately.

2. 13th Age is catching up, and is my F20 game of choice

3. 5e is fun, but has become our quickie, backup game.

4. Basic was my intro to game. Only played for short while, though. Made tons of characters though!

5. 4e only got played few times.

6. 1e. Very little. Turned me right off DnD

7. 2e Once only. Too close to 1e. Loved the supplements though, so bought them for my GURPS campaign.

8. Original Never

 

[Rhenny]

I started with Basic/1st edition, but pretty soon 2nd took over.

So...here's the time played for me:

1) 2nd Edition. This was the height of my teenage gaming years. We had so much free time to play D&D.
2) 3rd Edition/3.5/Pathfinder - This was my first reawakening to D&D. I ran a few campaigns one of which lasted over 2 1/2 years.
3) 5th Edition - I've been back to gaming with this and pretty soon it may over take 3rd edition and even 2nd edition. I've run a number of campaigns, adventures and now I play this more than any other version. Give it another year and this will take over the top spot.
4) 1st Edition - This was the first system I actually played substantially. I played for about a year before changing to 2nd Edition.
4b) 4th Edition - Oops...I forgot about this one. I played and ran some of this, but not too much.
5) Basic - I read the boxed set and played some one player vs. DM type of games to learn D&D, but then it was right to Advanced D&D!

In the early years, I also played some of the other TSR games like Top Secret, Boot Hill, Gamma World. Played a bunch of other systems through the years too, but D&D is the one I always come back to.

 

[ccs]

Hmm, let's see....

1e: about 20 years worth, maybe more?
PF: 9 years
5e/2e: 5 years worth each. I like 5e. I can see it catching up to my PF tally.
BC/CMi: roughly about 4 years worth
3.5: 3 years
4e: 2 years
3.0: 8hrs
OD&D: never

*I estimate this time as about 1 4hr+/-session per week. Roughly about 45 sessions/year. It's not an exact science.

OD&D:
Never.
I didn't even know it existed until I began reading Dragon along about '82/83. Though I have the reprint box from a few years ago, I doubt I'll ever actually play it.

BECMi:
Christmas 1980 - roughly mid '83.
We were kids, so we had a lot of time. So we played a lot of B&E in contrast to the actual years. Progressively less of the CMI portion as our games faded more & more into 1e.
Now & then over the years as one shots etc

1e:
'82-'89 - 7 years by the calendar, but hour wise probably closer to 14.... At least. We played ALOT of 1e.
'89-'94 - Sporadically because of 2e etc, a few short side games, stuff mixed into 2e, & every year at GenCon.
'94-2012 - pretty much only at GenCon. So about 1 years worth split into 3 day segments spread over 18 years.
2012-july 2016 - Yay! A weekly+ 1e game! Nearly 4 happy years.
2016-present - "sigh", I'm back to the GenCon only diet. About 12hrs of play.
But since finding 1e there's never been a year where I haven't played this edition.

2e:
'89-94 - weekly game
After that only sporadically at cons. Mostly due to a combo of MTG, Vampire, adult life/job/etc & finally being able to afford my miniature war-gaming interests.

3.0:
'99? Y2k? (the year 3.0 launched.)- I played about 8 hrs worth at GenCon that year & owned the 3 core books. It was ok. But work etc. & mini-gaming.... Lots of miniature war-gaming. Late '90s - 2006 I spent a lot of time/$ waging war across all genres in 15mm-30mm scale.

3.5:
After an extended tour of duty in miniatures war-gaming I returned to RPGs in early/mid-2006 when some friends from the college days wanted to get a game running again.
Overall I ended up playing 3x (we mixed 3.0 & 3.5 books) weekly 2006-2009.

4e:
2008 - as DM
2009 - as player
That was enough of that.
There's some games you find where you can play as either DM/player. Others just as a player. 4e was neither for me.

Pathfinder:
2009 - present. Weekly game. Time spent evenly split between being player/DM

5e:
2015-present.
2015 - 1 game/week
2016 - present - 2 games/week
Overall I've spent this time pretty evenly split between DMing & player.
I like 5e & can see it catching up to my PF totals. It'll probably fall short of my 1e xp when 6e eventually comes along.

 

[rgoodbb]

2nd - Tons
5th - Getting there
1st - Fair amount
4th - Small amount
3/3.5/Pathfinder - Never played (Life got in the way (How sad))

 

[mrpopstar]

2E from 1994ish to 2000ish.
3E from 2000ish to 2008ish.
4E from 2008ish to 2014ish.
5E from 2014ish to the present.

I was exposed to 1E in my 2E days, but that was more imagination fodder than table action.

I guess I'm just a bleeding edge type who welcomes change and stays current.

 

[Lylandra]

3.x was certainly the longest period, from 2002 till the launch of 4e

Then there's Pathfinder because we play it more frequently than we played 4e (had a RIFTS campaign in parallel) which we still play right now

4e from launch till we somewhen stopped after our 2nd DM ceased to have time for our ropleplaying group and our primary DM lost all interest in the edition

5e which we playtested during various iterations of the edition's genesis. Didn't find a long-term DM who'd play it with us though and we are not really interested in one-shots.

 

[Irda Ranger]

My own list is dominated by the fact that (1) I started playing D&D just as AD&D 2E was coming out, and while I had some AD&D 1E adventures I never owned the AD&D 1E rulebooks, and (2) once I went off to college (in 1996) I didn't have a regular gaming group until I joined an Iron Heroes campaign in law school (around 2004).

1. 2nd Edition. The edition I played from grades 7-12 (6 years).
2. Iron Heroes. The game I played all through law school. (3 years)
3. 5th Edition. So far I've run CoS and am playing in TFtYP. (2+ years).
4. BECMI. The first D&D book I was given was a B1-12 omnibus book, and I've run several of the adventures in it (especially B2 and B9) several time as one-shots, but not extended campaigns, usually using Labyrinth Lord rules. I'm currently running B2 for my son (age 8) using Dungeonesque 5E. (1 year, total, maybe)
5. 3rd Edition. Ran a brief campaign in college that died quickly; also joined a group shortly before 4E that didn't last long.
6. 4th Edition. Maybe two sessions.
7. 1st Edition, Pathfinder. Never played either one.

I fully expect that 5E will eclipse AD&D 2E at some point. It's just too much fun, and well designed. I could see myself upgrading to a 5.5E if it was backwards compatible and just cleaned up some of the rough/weak spots of 5E, but I literally cannot imagine a better version of D&D. Maybe that's my failing, but I'm really that happy with it.

 

[Irda Ranger]

Oops. double-post.

 

[jgsugden]

* Basic & Expert - 1977 to 78 - I cut my teeth as a 5 and 6 year old kid. Rules were... questionably followed.

AD&D from 1979 to 2004 - 20+ full campaigns that ran from low level to at least level 11... Most to 20th level or above.

2nd edition 1989 to 2000 - A few games here and there, but I was mostly playing AD&D during this era.

3rd edition (including 3.5) 2000 to 2008 - I played this very heavily during this era, especially once they moved to 3.5 (pour one out for Andy Collins).

4E 2008 to 2012 - We switched to it, but in retrospect I regret doing so. It was not D&D. Playing time dwindled as people I played with began to prioritize other things over D&D.

5E - 2012 to present. Once the playtest was out there, I had multiple games in play. 4E was phased out (with the exception of one game that played every few months) and we've been playing a lot since.

So, AD&D > 3E > 5E > 2E > 4E >Basic/Expert. I fully expect 5E to surpass 3E in play time sometime in the next year or so, but I do not think it has, yet.

 

[pogre]

1st ed
3.x ed
BXCMI/O-D&D
5th ed
4th ed

Never really played 2nd. We went from a weird combination of Basic and O-D&D to 1st sometime around '79-'80. BXCMI is inaccurate for my groups - we never really played much of the XCMI rules. In '86 we played WFRP for a few years until 3rd edition. We playtested 4th and played a brief campaign, but came back to 3rd via Pathfinder. We've been playing 5th since it came out.