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

[Koren n'Rhys]

Started with BX, moved on to 1E, then 2E when it came out. Missed 3 & 4 completely, and playing 5 and BX again now. 5 is fine as a player, but I don't like running it. Far too crunchy. BX is still my fave by far. Concise, easy to houserule without breaking anything, a joy to both play and run without getting bogged down in needless minutia.

 

[Blue]

Started with Red Box Basic, extending out to Expert. It was amazing because role playing games .. er, game, was a new amazing concept.

Played some AD&D. Played a heck of a lot AD&D. Had the most time and freedom to play. Lots and lots of AD&D, most of any edition. At the end we were using all the Skills and Powers books, we were such twinks but the DM had all the monsters. It was my favorite edition at the time. (And did I mention I played a lot of it?)

Played a good amount of 3.0 and 3.5, ran more of both - these were the editions that I DMed the most of all of them. They brought so much new, they became my new favorite edition. Until I burned out DMing it - too much prep.

Played a good amount of 4e, never ran it outside some one shots. I didn't start playing 4e until it was out for a while, so never got the "just core books" experience. Eventually played with Essentials mixed into the rest.

In a little tangent to other d20, I ran 13th Age for four and a half years. It's my favorite D&D-like system.

I playtested Next, and have done a good amount of 5e. It's my favorite edition of D&D, but my tastes have changed over the years.

 

[Lucas Yew]

I was first introduced with 4.Essentials by the books I picked up at Hawaii, although the Starter Set had one of its supposed booklets replaced with a duplicate and I found about it long after I left Honolulu to go home overseas.

Then switched to PF1 when I learned of the OGL and better simulationism, then started to fund Kickstarters for 3PP subsystems (Dreamscarred Press and Drop Dead Studios are adequate for the time being) when I felt the frustration of intense LFQW.

Now I'm torn with 5E, it generally is OK, but has no concrete skill DCs (though PF2's new GMG variant translates well, it's still 3PP), a sizable chunk of Core still missing from the new SRD (especially guns and epic boons, why), and monster proficiency bonus scaling with CR instead of HD is highly disturbing (don't actually care about bland abilities).

 

[Green Onceler]

I started with the BECMI sets in elementary school before moving on to MERP and Rolemaster in middle school and high school respectively. Then I left the hobby for a long time before returning to play 3.5/3.x/PF. Tried 5e when it released but ultimately decided 3.x was my preferred system for D&D style games. Still my favourite RPG, although The One Ring is a close second.