D&D 4E Going/Not Going to 4E which edition did you start with?

[smootrk]

Not going to 4e (at least as DM), but will likely acquire PHB to facilitate games when I have no alternative.

Started with Red/Blue Basic/Expert sets with Keep on the Borderlands for first campaign... soon afterwords mixed in bits of AD&D 1e as I acquired books over time (limited budget when I was a child of 11-12).

Moving forward might seem like a bit of regression... I am going to try to put together groups using Basic Fantasy rules instead. http://www.basicfantasy.org/

 

[Brother MacLaren]

Started with Moldvay Red Book, and not going to 4E.

 

[greatamericanfolkher]

I started with 3.5, and as far as running games, I’m going to stick with 3.5. I’ve not seen any major problem in the games that I run that would require an entire retool of the system. I follow the 4e news because I’m interested in where they are taking the game, and I’ve told the other people in my group that I wasn’t opposed to playing in a 4e game.

 

[Jack Daniel]

I started gaming in off-and-on in the mid-90s with the Black Box classic D&D game, and by 1997 I had switched to AD&D 2nd edition. In 2000, I jumped on the 3e bandwagon; but last year, I got so fed up with 3e that I switched back to the Black Box/Rules Cyclopedia, and I have no intention of playing any other edition, least of all 4e.

I prefer OD&D and AD&D because you *play* characters in those games. I detest 3e (and likely will detest 4e) because you *build* characters in those games, and that, in my experience, always does nothing but distract players from *playing* their characters.

In order to prove me wrong, 4th edition would have to be far less complex and option-laden than its previews are making it out to be. Option-glut is what killed 2e and 3e for me, and it seems to be hard-wired into 4e.

 

[Steely Dan]

Started with 1st Ed, went to 2nd Ed, went to 3rd Ed, and going to 4th Ed.

 

[Derren]

In order to prove me wrong, 4th edition would have to be far less complex and option-laden than its previews are making it out to be. Option-glut is what killed 2e and 3e for me, and it seems to be hard-wired into 4e.

Its not the number of options which decides if you "play" or "build" characters but the method you decide which options to use.

 

[Zinovia]

Funny, I just wrote a precis of my gaming career in the "Why will you be switching" thread. I did a better job of it there, but to sum up:

I owned the Red and Blue boxes of the BECMI set, but didn't actually play the game until AD&D. The boys were happy to teach me. Never played 2E; we were off doing Rolemaster by then. 3E came around with customizable skills and feats, and I said, "Look! Every magic-user wizard isn't the same as every other magic-user wizard! Finally!".

I'm concerned about skill customization going bye-bye. If they oversimplify it with no good mechanism to make Rogue A different from Rogue B, then we'll try to fix 3.5, or else houserule 4E.

 

[thalmin]

I started with 2 sessions of Blue Basic, went right to 1E, switched to 2E, 3E, and 3.5 as soon as they core 3 books were all available. But this time were are 3 years into a campaign that probably won't be wrapped up anytime soon. We will take short break and look at 4E, giving it a test run. What happens after that depends:

1. We may decide to just continue the campaign 3.5
2. We may convert the campaign to 4E
3. We may decide 4E is just looking too good, abandon the campaign and start fresh.

I expect we will really try to convert, as everyone has worked hard to get where we are in the campaign, and we are lall ooking forward to 4E. So it will probably boil down to how easy the transition will be for the characters and NPCs.

 

[Firevalkyrie]

Started in 1989 with a mash-up of 1st and 2nd, played off and on through the early 90s, started playing consistently in the late 90s with the awful kludge of 2nd Edition black-book version, have played through all of 3.x and jumping into 4th Edition right away. I even have a campaign cliffhanger set up for my current 3.5 campaign... Ohhhh my players are going to find me particularly evil after this.

 

[Jack99]

Started in 89 with 2nd edition, and switching to 4e for sure.