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

[Morrus]

I was thinking about this last night, trying to work out which editions I have played the most. I'd be interested in seeing what others have played.

While I think that 5E will eventually take the top spot, it hasn't been out for as long as I played some other editions for yet. But it has all the time in the world to catch up. That said, here's my estimated ranking, although I'm not 100% sure.

1. 2nd Edition. Definitely the one I played most, and the one I had most material from. I played this for 10 years at least, pretty much solidly, and really had a ton of stuff.
2. 1st Edition. Another long one, but I was a little young to start it when it first came out. I started playing this at school in the early 80s, until 2E came out.
3. 3rd Edition. Including 3.5, I played this for about 5 years, I think. I'm not completely sure! But again, mainly solidly, although there may have been a couple of short campaigns from other games in there. I ran the entire Age of Worms adventure path from Dungeon Magazine, plus two home-brew campaigns.
4. 5th Edition. It's been out for 3 years, and I ran Curse of Strahd, and am currently running a 5E Middle Earth campaign, plus I ran the Starter Set when it came out. I suspect this one will eventually catch up with 2nd Edition, but sheer longevity will mean it'll take time. It probably ties for Pathfinder right now.
5. Pathfinder. I've included this, as it took over the tail end of 3E before we tried 4E, and then we went back to it between 4E and 5E. I'd say I've played about 3 years of Pathfinder in total, at a guess.
6. 4th Edition. I played this for maybe a year.
7. OD&D & Variants. Too young for these, I have played them since, but not for more than a few months.

A lot of this is based on hazy memory, and I could be wrong. And, of course, there are other games mixed in there.

 

[jasper]

Ok, I going by number of games.
1. First Edition started around Sept 1980 when to 2 edition came out.
2. Second Edition played till 3rd edition came out.
3. Fifth edition. I am playing weekly if not two sessions a week.
4. Third edition includes 3.5 and traveler t20. I wasn't playing weekly. My group was falling apart, playing multiple systems, and dms. Also life was criticaling me.
5. OD&D play some during my 1E days.
6. Played ONE and ONLY ONE session of fourth edition. Main problem was it was pick up group. Strangely enough I dm regularly now for two of the pick up group.

 

[Warmaster Horus]

1) 1e is probably still on top as far as hours played.
2) 5e is rapidly catching up.
3) 3e was something I ran weekly for a couple of years.
4) 2e not so much, came in during a period when there were a lot of other RPGs springing up and competing for play time.
5) OD&D, had the books but was playing 1e instead. Never played 4e.

 

[amerigoV]

For me,

1. Its probably a tie between AD&D 1e and D&D 3.x.

2. AD&D 2e was for a modest time - the splat books broke things for my group. At that point, I wondered into homebrew until D&D 3.0 came out

3. 4th and 5th edition - a couple of sessions. I have some 4e books but we dropped it about 4 sessions into a campaign. I ran one 5e one-shot.

Never played Pathfinder (after being exhausted by 3.x, I had no interest in touching that), OD&D, or BECMI.

I would count Baldur's Gate (1e/2e), Neverwinter nights, Icewindale 2 and Temple of Elemental Evil (3.0) in the above. I did play some Neverwinter over the weekend as XBOX had free multiplayer. More hours in there than I have played 5th.

Note, I kinda like 5th, but my group is Savage Worlds group now so we have only occasional interest in D&D.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Herosmith14]

Seeing that it's the only edition I've ever played, 5e has to take the top slot.

 

[Coroc]

2nd and 5E dunno which has more hours, since 2nd is long ago. S
till love some concepts of 2nd, still hate others.
3e has ist own charms and is probably the most balanced editon of them all but not very well suited for pen and paper.
As with 4e, 3e is best used with Computer games.
1e is basically 2e there is so Little difference
Basic is nice in some aspects and very puristic but to limited for most modern playstyles.

 

[Mr. Wilson]

3/3.5/Pathfinder: The first time I started running DnD seriously. We played this up through release of 4E and have run 1 campaign in it since. Loved it at the time, but I would not run it now.
4th Edition: My favorite edition, but the groups least favorite. It's a shame it took such a beating because I really enjoyed the combats.
2nd Edition: My starter edition. Quite frankly we rarely played AD&D, but instead played Vampire, Call of Cthulu, Deadlands, Star Wars d6, Rifts, or TMNT instead.
5th Edition: Only 1 ongoing campaign being ran as of yet, so about 8 months of play. I enjoy the game.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Blue]

I'm going to include "D&D-like" d20 games in here.

AD&D 2ed blows all of the3 others away in terms of length of time as well as hours played. Really, it's in an unassailable spot for me both with how long it was out but also those were my HS and college years and I'll never have the density of gaming - the number of hours per week spent - that I don't see any edition ever surpassing that.

Hmm, for 5e to surpass it in years is possible. To surpass it in hours spent, I think it would need to be "the version" for four decades (~35ish years more), and that I have an active gaming life after I retire.

3ed (combining 3.0 and 3.5) is next. I ran 12 years of campaigns in it as well as being a player in several campaigns. But I completely burned out on the system, so I skipped Pathfinder completely.

13th Age is next, but I'm running the only local campaign of it I know so I don't get to be a player. But that's been going on since before 5e was out.

4e is next, but 5e will likely surpass it. 5e would have passed it if 13th Age didn't exist, but moving 5e down to lots of play but only limited running took a chunk from it that running a regular campaign would have put it over 4e.

BEC (never got to the M or I) is last - I had it for several years, but really didn't have anyone to play with for big swaths of that time.