David Howery
Hero
I'd have to go with option 2 and 1E; a lot of it is nostalgia, and I never played any editions after 2E, but I have a LOT of fond memories of those early days of D&D...
D&D General My Favorite Edition of D&D is...
Nope.
The D&D that I was first introduced to was AD&D 1st Edition.
The D&D that I played the most was 3.5.
My favorite D&D is AD&D 2nd Edition Player's Option, (Though 3.PF with the right 3pp comes pretty close.) I like them for pretty much the same reasons, but the 3.PF family just does too many things the wrong way and takes too much work to fix. All the problems I have with AD&D, Player's Option gives me the tools to fix them.
The D&D that I was first introduced to was AD&D 1st Edition.
The D&D that I played the most was 3.5.
My favorite D&D is AD&D 2nd Edition Player's Option, (Though 3.PF with the right 3pp comes pretty close.) I like them for pretty much the same reasons, but the 3.PF family just does too many things the wrong way and takes too much work to fix. All the problems I have with AD&D, Player's Option gives me the tools to fix them.
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ccs
41st lv DM
My favorite is the one I've played the longest. 1e.
I've been playing 1e since sometime in '83. So 37 years & counting.
I started with Basic during Christmas vacation 1980, adding the Expert set within the year.
We played B/X for about 2 years. During that 2nd year we started mixing in 1e.
Somewhere in '83 things pretty much faded into 1e (with the occasional BECMi bit incoreperated).
Granted, these days I don't get to play 1e often. And I've played plenty of 2e (largely '89-95), 3x ('06-2012 mostly), 4e ('08-'10, determined I really don't like this edition, so hard stop, never going to play it again. Hell it doesn't even make the list when I rank editions), PF1 & 2 (launch - present), and 5e (launch - present, often twice/week).
But whenever the opportunity presents? I return to 1e. And I run games, whatever their actual edition, from a 1e PoV/style. So yeah, I'm still playing 1e....
OD&D - this I've never played. I'm not opposed to trying a one-shot.
I've been playing 1e since sometime in '83. So 37 years & counting.
I started with Basic during Christmas vacation 1980, adding the Expert set within the year.
We played B/X for about 2 years. During that 2nd year we started mixing in 1e.
Somewhere in '83 things pretty much faded into 1e (with the occasional BECMi bit incoreperated).
Granted, these days I don't get to play 1e often. And I've played plenty of 2e (largely '89-95), 3x ('06-2012 mostly), 4e ('08-'10, determined I really don't like this edition, so hard stop, never going to play it again. Hell it doesn't even make the list when I rank editions), PF1 & 2 (launch - present), and 5e (launch - present, often twice/week).
But whenever the opportunity presents? I return to 1e. And I run games, whatever their actual edition, from a 1e PoV/style. So yeah, I'm still playing 1e....
OD&D - this I've never played. I'm not opposed to trying a one-shot.
I don't have a favorite D&D game, I have my favorite campaign based upon who my players were. This has always been the case... I don't really care about the mechanics, I care about how cool and fun it was to play with certain players and how interesting and fun they made playing with them.
Now I do have opinions on which editions have better game mechanics than others, but that doesn't ipso facto make them my favorite games. I had a fantastic campaign run in 4E and several great campaigns using 5E. But I also had some in each I was less fond of. So I can't determine which edition of the two is I think more my favorite than the other.
Truth be told... every D&D edition results in the same thing-- eventually I just get tired of playing the mechanics of it. And usually by that point there is a new edition out that changes things up just enough to make playing the new edition a fresh experiience.
Now I do have opinions on which editions have better game mechanics than others, but that doesn't ipso facto make them my favorite games. I had a fantastic campaign run in 4E and several great campaigns using 5E. But I also had some in each I was less fond of. So I can't determine which edition of the two is I think more my favorite than the other.
Truth be told... every D&D edition results in the same thing-- eventually I just get tired of playing the mechanics of it. And usually by that point there is a new edition out that changes things up just enough to make playing the new edition a fresh experiience.
Well. If you'd asked me fifteen years ago, when I still playing 3.5, I would have told you it was my favorite.
First Edition would have only been my favorite edition when it was the only edition I'd ever played-- even as much as Fifth Edition makes me genuinely angry, I think I'd still rather play it than either version of AD&D without Player's Option.
Gladius Legis
Legend
Started with 2e and also played some 1e back in the day. Liked them both a lot and would play a game using those rules, though I have to acknowledge their flaws.
Couldn't stand to play much of 3e (3.0 and 3.5) and gave up on 4e about a year and a half in.
5e got me back playing consistently, and it's probably what I've played the most, so that would be my favorite.
Couldn't stand to play much of 3e (3.0 and 3.5) and gave up on 4e about a year and a half in.
5e got me back playing consistently, and it's probably what I've played the most, so that would be my favorite.
FlyingChihuahua
Hero
If "The only one I've actually played" is an option, I would pick that one.
I've only really played 5e. I would try the other ones, but there's other versions that are probably more developed versions of the D&D versions that they wereripping off based on. Like Pathfinder for 3.0, the entire OSR for 1e, etc.
I've only really played 5e. I would try the other ones, but there's other versions that are probably more developed versions of the D&D versions that they were
It could be that there are others like me... the first D&D I bought, read and dabbled in barely ever actually got played. I was in Elementary and Jr. High in the mid 80s and there was not enough of a cadre of players that made actually running and the playing the game possible.
I didn't get a real chance to play in continuous games until later in high school with 2E and by that point I had already moved through Red Box and AD&D.
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