dead said:
I played the Mentzer set. I guess I'm just generalising . . . I wouldn't know if the different editions of the Basic Set each had a markedly different feel.
But the Mentzer set certainly filled me with a dreamy wonder . . . you must remember, I was about 10 at the time.
There are definitely differences in feel between the different editions of the Basic Set.
Holmes - This edition was really a case of the wrong person doing it. It's badly edited and written with many confusing rules. Despite that, as part of the first introduction to D&D, there are plenty of people who enjoyed it.
Moldvay - Where Basic D&D actually became a game that was 'easy' to understand and learn. Moldvay had a great touch for making the game exciting to read about - his introduction to the Basic book is fantastic.
This version of basic is also themed by the early modules, especially "Keep on the Borderlands" and the "Isle of Dread" - not too serious; fantastic adventures! (in the sense of 'fantasy', not found in the regular mundane world)
Keeping things logical didn't seem that important to me for this edition of Basic D&D; keeping things fun, did. This progressed into
Mentzer - Like Moldvay, except more professionally laid out, though I feel that they're not quite as useful as Moldvay.
During this edition, the "if it's fun, we'll use it" thought continued. Although there is certainly logic employed (at times), you can get a bit of the 'kitchen sink' approach as well.
Advanced Dungeons and Dragons (1st edition)
A strange blend of the fun and the serious. AD&D has for many years been one of the most frustrating games I've encountered. It overcomplicates matters (e.g. initiative, surprise, weapon factors, helmets), and certainly moves towards a more serious and logical approach.
This also shows in the modules: the adversarial DM is prominent in many, where the players must survive the challenges thrown at them. It's a tough, serious game. (This is undermined in later modules, such as Gygax's "Alice" duology and the awful material that came from the RPGA).
AD&D had a very strong feel of "this is how the world is", with the relationship between the various races very clearly defined.
Although nowhere near like the "kitchen sink" of Basic/Original D&D, there are such elements in the rules, with poorly developed additions to the system. (Monks, Bards, Psionics). Oh, and warnings about making up your own rules or extending the system past what it was designed for. AD&D isn't always consistent. (Late AD&D made the inconsistencies worse).
Advanced Dungeons and Dragons (2nd edition)
"AD&D made understandable."
With the loss of Gygax's prose, you also encountered a blandness in style. Gygax's writing may have been hard to understand at times, but it was normally entertaining.
On the other hand, the game became a lot better at handling a variety of different styles, although the flaws in the system became more and more apparent.
For me, 2E (as displayed in the Forgotten Realms) made AD&D less a game about adventurers facing dangerous challenges and more about world-building and role-playing. In 1E, I really got the feeling the role-playing took a back seat (although most players would add it themselves). In 2E, the NPCs were characters to interact with...
By the time Skills and Powers rolled by, AD&D 2E had also become a game where the _players'_ choices also mattered more than in 1E. The role of their actual character became much more important. Individuality was also important. Was your fighter a peasant hero or a heroic knight?
A key omission from the core rules was the XP for treasure rule. At this point, the game's focus changed from "overcoming monsters and traps to gain loot" to a more story-focused game.
Dungeons and Dragons 3E
All of sudden, the rules changed to match 2E's desire for individuality. All of a sudden you could make meaningful decisions as to what your character was like, and because the system properly supported it, the gap between character types was no longer as wide.
This permeated all aspects of the system. Where 1E had a feeling of "this is the game world you use", 3E seems to be a lot more broad in what it can handle. (That's not to say that it can handle everything, but you're not trapped in Greyhawk or clones of that setting any more). Even the monsters could be individualised.
The drawback here was that the game could become too mechanical. The sense of "we'll make it up" of original D&D and basic D&D began to be swallowed by an ever increasing list of "balanced" feats and prestige classes.
With the triumph of Crunch over Fluff, the style in the supplemental books also began to be much less inspirational (though occasionally more useful - there have been some terribly boring and useless bits of fluff over the years).
The broadness of the system also had a related drawback: without a strong shared setting, strong flavourful elements were extremely difficult to write (and appeal to the general role-playing public).
Dungeons and Dragons 3.5E
Just in recent days - really, since the release of
Eberron and
Races of Stone, there has been a move back to inspirational writing in the D&D supplements. I'm not saying that it's perfect, it's not that, but it is an encouraging sign!
D&D 3.5E can still be too mechanical, and many feats are too restrictive (you can't attempt action A unless you have this feat!), but I do know that in my campaign that the options (even without the fluff) provide just as strong a campaign as under 1E or 2E, with interesting PCs, plots, adventures and suchlike.
Cheers!
O. 
