D&D General My Favorite Edition of D&D is...

[Reynard]

Just a poll inspired by a lot of answers I am seeing in other threads.

As usual, feel free to expound in the comments. Also note that in this case "edition" can also mean, clone or simulacrum or weird house ruled Frankenstein's edition.

 

[Stormonu]

Started D&D in ‘80, using the latest edition (And greatly enjoying it). The edition I think I played the longest was 2E, and if I were to do retro gaming, that’s probably the edition I’d use.

 

[Fenris-77]

Red Box is still my favorite even if I wouldn't necessarily bust it out and play it. Keep on the Borderlands ftw,

 

[Enrico Poli1]

I started with BECMI.
The edition I played the most is AD&D2e.
My favorite setting is Dark Sun, the original boxed set, for AD&D2e.
My favorite adventures are Age of Worms and Savage Tide, for D&D 3.5, from Dungeon Magazine.

But the best edition for me is D&D 5e. Given retrocompatibility, I can play old settings and adventures with the best engine.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

The trouble is that for me, "Favourite edition" is not the same as "Edition I actually want to play". 2E is clearly my favourite edition, in that it was the edition that did so much to make D&D, D&D, for me, and had by far the coolest settings of any edition. The complete books of various things, and the concept of kits massively expanded how people saw classes and races, and really laid the foundation for all the later editions. The Skills & Powers books really dug into ideas about flexibility and choice, without which I think D&D could very easily have essentially become an OSR-type deal with 3E (it wasn't likely, but I think was possible), and if that had happened, we'd all be playing Earthdawn 6th edition or something, because D&D would have made itself irrelevant. And the settings as I said, were totally amazing, again expanding ideas of what D&D could be about, as well being tremendously cool both conceptually, and to play in. Some were overlooked, despite being awesome, like Taladas (Time of the Dragon), but Spelljammer, Dark Sun, and Planescape were absolutely huge deals and all are influential to this day.

So 2E is clearly my "favourite" edition (to me). It was also, narrowly, the edition I spent most time playing, because I was a teenager and had far more time to play, and because I played pretty much from the moment it was released (entirely accidentally - my brother and I went out to buy D&D, and the nearest Games Workshop - because that's where you could buy D&D books back then - had just got a bunch of 2E stuff in and it was prominently displayed). So I voted accordingly.

But would I play 2E? Definitely not, not unless it was some kind of short-form nostalgia campaign or something.

In terms of what I'd like to play (and indeed am playing), 5E is narrowly my favourite (ahead of 4E, not by a huge margin, but it is ahead now). In terms of running, I'm conflicted. 5E, from a DM-side perspective, seems objectively less well-designed than 4E, and whilst Beyond is amazing, the tools for monster design and so on aren't as good as they were in 4E. Plus there's the central and fundamental "bad idea" of 5E's design that you should expect 5-8 encounters PER DAY and the game is balanced accordingly, which is berserk and out-of-step with everything else about 5E, so it's hard to make non-dungeon-crawls which are both challenging and don't feel forced/ridiculous encounter-wise (not impossible, but by making it 5-8, instead of say 3-6, they made it significantly harder). So I dunno what I prefer to run. I run 5E largely because 4E bogged down so much after about level 13 into massive chains of actions and counter-actions and interrupts and people adjusting initiative positions and so on. So I guess 5E, despite it's flaws wins out there too, but it's even narrower than with playing.

 

[Oofta]

My favorite edition is generally the one that is current. I have fun stories from every edition, but that's different from favorite edition of the rules.

 

[Skayaq]

Started with 3rd Edition, my favourite is 4th edition.

 

[Li Shenron]

Neither

Started with BECMI
Played most 3.0
Favourite 5e

 

[R_J_K75]

Although I've played other RPGs, Ive definitely played D&D the most and is all I am playing now. Our baseline is 5E but I tend to incorporate rules from other editions, sometimes intentionally for characters or writing adventures and sometimes its out of necessity because I get the rules mixed from edition to edition. So I chose the last option, ...neither the one I was introduced to D&D with nor the one I played the longest/most of. I'd prefer 5E nowadays as a DM but I don't think theres any edition I wouldn't play as a player.

 

[GlassJaw]

Neither

Started with BECMI
Played most 3.0
Favourite 5e

Exactly the same for me.