My preference....
A long time ago, and far, far away...
When I was first introduced to Dungeons and Dragons, I worked at The Sunset Drive-In theater in Bellevue Washington, and was going to school part time at Bellevue Community College. There were a group of students in one of the lounged playing Chainmail - using a handful of home brewed tables for splls and magic. I was hooked immediately. About this time the old Basic, Expert and Master boxes came out. We played these ravenously - and finally the Holy Grail: AD&D.
The options, complexities and the myriad abilities, spells, items, monsters - oh my. We LOOOVED it - and I am one of the few people I've ever heard of to fully comprehend and master 1st Edition Psionics. The timing is arguably the most confusing thing in any version of DnD. We played this for years - YEARS - when TSR came out with Second Eidition.
We resisted 2.0 like fiends faced with drinking holy water. It didn't matter what anyone else said - we weren't switching, period. The Scott and I went to Gen Con that year. My mind was still firmly closed, but his was open enough that we sat down and gamed a bit in 2.o at the con.
When we returned home to San Diego (long since departed Bellevue now), we returned with 2 Second Edition Players Handbooks, and a DMG... they resisted at first, but once I was onboard fully, said resistance crumbled. Soon our group ended up embracing 2.0 whole-heartedly, especially the new psionics - which we adored with the subsequent expansions TO psionics in Dragon Kings, the Will and the Way and the Way of the Psioniscist. Compine these three books with The Complete Psionicists handbook, and in this gamer's humble opinion, you have the greatest psionic rules set in any game, bar none.
I was living in Japan, having found a new group of players there (of mixed American and Japanese heritage) when WOTC purchased TSR.... was still there when the first 3.0 Books hit the shelves. I found myself more open to 3.0 than when 2.0 first came out, but not open to the eventual replacement of years of 2.0 books, modules and addendum. My two volumes of the Monsterous Compendium were bursting at the seams of my 2.0 critters (several hundred home-made at the back of the second volume). So again, we stayed the course as a group, though a couple of the guys played with another group that preferred 3.0.
Once back to the states a couple years later, 3.0 had subsequently given way to 3.5, and that's when my BSometer started to peg. Indeed, having now read and perused all of the 3.0 rules and errata, I was aware of the fixes and changes that 3,5 presented for us. I was also keenly aware that a couple of my friends in the states had purchased everything 3.0, and were now faced with switching over to 3.5 to keep up to date (a couple of whom who were hardcore RPGA-ers). WOTC had apparently (and idiotically) decided to apply the same marketing scheme they use with Magic the Gathering. Come out with new editions to make the old editions "illegal" - to force the player base to spend more money. I know I am not alone in the firm belief that 3.5 was nothing short of a money-grab. With that belief firmly in mind it wasn't until my move to Florida - years later - that I was willing to invest any money in 3.5, and that was simply due to by this time so many players had switched over to 3.5, I was having difficulty getting a gaming group together who wanted to play 2.0.
Of course, not long after the game was totally reinvented into World of Warcraft.. errrr... DnD 4.0... I digress. This time I DIDN'T fight! I actually got the core books, right away, and at one of our local game stores ran a regular Wednesday Night "newcomers" game for the better part of a year! But for me to accept 4.0, again I speak for myself - I had to make the mental determination I wasn't playing DnD. When I played 4.0, that's what I played: 4.0. I wold look blankly and without understanding at anyone who referred to it as DnD... (and still do).
My group is now firmly embedded in good old Second Edition. We'll still dabble in 3.5, 4.0 and Pathfinder for a sitting here and there, usually those days a mix of the people can't make it - but our bread butter and gold pieces are all 2.0 - universally, our favorite.
