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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Bacon Bits" data-source="post: 8518619" data-attributes="member: 6777737">I only played OD&D long after I'd played B/X, 1e, 2e, and several other games. It was basically a novelty to play. And it was such a short campaign that half the time I don't even consider that I really played it.I played this mainly in grade school. So, yes, it was 100% all about kicking in the door, killing everything, and taking all their stuff before the DM would kill us. I played with the older brother of a friend of mine, and often my friend and I were just rolling dice when they told us to. My most prominent memory of B/X play was being on a ship we owned in the middle of a sea, and being attacked by a green dragon. We deployed our 20 or 30 hireling archers and killed it in a few rounds, with heavy casualties. We were upset because we knew there was a treasure hoard out there that we couldn't loot because we had to kill the dragon away from their lair.I do not remember any characters that I played, but I know that I played at least one Dwarf, I was often stuck being the Cleric, and I always wanted to play an Elf but never got a chance.I didn't experience any difference in play between 1e and 2e, really. Sure, the settings moved towards more narrative play, but it was still pulp fantasy adventure. It became more mix-maxy as we started to get the racial guides, but we did also start to have real roleplaying focused games even if they were still pulp adventure.My all-time second favorite character was a 2e human paladin (later ported to 3e) name Tim. Yes, just Tim. I like my human characters to have human names. Tim is known for having survived being the target of a disintegrate spell no less than 30 times. His patron was St Cuthbert, listed as "god of common sense" in the Greyhawk books and -- let me tell you -- being a paladin of common sense is really fun.Super min-max powergaming, eventually giving way to more normal characters after coming back to 3e from 4e. The plots in the adventures were heroic, but the player rewards made the game even more loot focused due to item creation rules. All gold was poured into magic items. Character building was a lot of fun, but I never really want to go back to it. It's like finding an old shirt and realizing that the holes that didn't bother you before really are so bad that you can't wear it anymore.This was the first edition I really DMed, and I learned that I hated DMing 3e. The less said about that the better.My all-time third and fourth favorite characters were:A warforged whirling frenzy barbarian named Gadget that was originally created to be mining equipment. He carried an adamantine greatsword forged at the same time as his adamantine body, and whose entire torso would spin madly like a top during a "rage".A human fire/travel cloistered cleric known only as "Zed", with a phoenix as a patron deity. He had as many reserve and domain feats as I could manage, allowing him to throw firebolts, "teleport" short distances by burning to ash and being "reborn" in another spot, summon fire elementals, and several movement abilities. He was real bad in melee, but nobody ever stayed in melee combat long! This PC was an attempt to push how far the reserve feats could take you, and while they were really good, they did not feel that game-breaking. Well, the teleport did. That was silly.4e was based on heroic and epic fantasy, not MMORPGness. You were supposed to start out at level 1 as superheroes, and you pretty much do.4e was the first time the games truly felt heroic to me, but the complexity of combat and the size of our table at the time meant that one combat would too often take the entire night. I think our table matured a lot from this edition, but ultimately it wasn't fun for us to play very long.My all-time favorite character was in this edition, a dwarf fighter. He had a name, but it was long and hard to remember, so everyone just called him The Dwarf and that's all I remember now. High defense, high damage, and surprisingly mobile due to some good utility power selections. We decided to roll for stats during session 0 (this was the first 4e campaign) and I rolled stupidly well. In case you were curious, you should absolutely not under any circumstances roll for stats in 4e! This was before the 4e MM damage errata, and the DM could not challenge my character. He was a blast to play, however. It didn't seem to matter what happened, my character always seemed to have exactly the correct ability on cooldown.Unfortunately, 4e also includes what I'd easily call the worst D&D experiences I've had that were caused by the game itself. (That is to say, those excluding drama coming from the other players.) Just some sessions that were just a total slog to play through, with the game eventually feeling like a 6 hour business meeting.I'd love to steal the more tactical gameplay from 4e and the whole DM's side of 4e, and stick more of it in 5e, but it really had some significant issues.This is the first edition that I don't think has any critical, game-breaking design issues. It certainly has problems that negatively affect play, even negatively affect play at most tables. But it didn't have pre-3e non-design, or 3e's extreme LFQW and prestige class farming and magic item creation abuse, or 4e's overbuilt combat, too many levels, and loss of D&D identity.Here the game tries to saddle both heroic epic fantasy and pulp fantasy, but it kind does each only so well. It also has a problem with monsters just being sacks of HP. Still, the game is extremely playable and replayable.My all-time favorite characters from 5e (not numbered because they're not in the top 5):A tiefling lore bard named Wormwood, who managed to talk the Erlking out of taking his soul for the wild hunt.A duergar champion fighter named Uther, who began play neutral and later became good due to becoming a werebearA goblin totem barbarian/fighter named Bronk, who confused many enemies by wearing no armor but shrugging off many hitsA dwarf forge cleric named Thurgarr, who found great use in the commodity items table in the PHB after the DM agreed you can craft them</blockquote>

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