Are our tastes set?

I’m kind of the exception here, in that I have no real desire to go back to my first. I was started with the Blume Basic, switched soon to AD&D, and made the switch to 2e without much fuss. All the while I dabbled with other TSR rpgs, Gamma World, Marvel Supers, and Star Frontiers.

By the early 90s I wanted more out of my DnD and had a notebook of homebrew materials as thick as the DMG and PHB put together. That’s when I discovered the Hero system and played the heck out of that for years. For me, the 90s were filled with rpgs that were just about everything but DnD. Funnily enough I won’t touch Hero these days at all, way too crunchy.

Come 3rd edition I came back but it never felt like my game. But 4e actually blew me away! I think all the reasons many DnD players hated it were the reasons I loved it… with the exception of the lore! I went back to all my 2e books for settings.

These days I’m pretty happy with my 3pp supplemented 5e campaign. I don’t think I’d go back to 2nd or earlier except as a novelty one-shot.

Cheers

deganawida said:

If you you had just one D&D version you could play the rest of your life, with the group of your choice, would it be the one that brought you to the dance, or would it be a different version?

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I came into the hobby via AD&D 1e, but owned the famous red box Basic and had AD&D 2e by the time I started taking over DMing.

But no, I wouldn't use any of those. Honestly, probably never again, at least as a DM. As far as actual "D&D on the cover" games, I'm only interested in B/X. It's so much more elegant and in many ways "complete" in a smaller number of books than any other edition.

That said, to be completely honest, it'll take me a lot to get interested in running ANY D&D edition. My preference is much more to the "New OSR" games, which I find even more elegant. My current setup is a weird amalgamation of Shadowdark (core rules and adventure-building), Errant (various procedures), Knave 2e (various tables and a few procedures), and whatever setting oddity I need for a given campaign (often either books of random tables like AEG's Toolbox or Ultimate Toolbox, or books like Downcrawl, Skycrawl, and Pirate Borg). When you look at how far these games have brought game design yet still (arguably) have the core elements that make B/X so good, it's hard to actually go backwards.

Started with BECMI, then moved to 2e, and ran with it for the longest continuous period of my gaming life (1989 to 2003 or so); there will always be a spot for 2e in my gamer heart.
However, I also love original 3.0 (core only), and to some extent, 4e. Strongly dislike 5e.

These days though, I am more likely to run BECMI (or B/X) or a stripped-down 3.0 (if I want some "advanced" bits.)

CleverNickName said:

Speaking only for myself? The rules aren't the meal, they're the plate it's served on.

You need a plate in order to support the food, meals are messy without one and you can only eat very specific things without a plate. A good plate is strong enough to hold lots of food, is flexible enough to not shatter when you drop it, and doesn't affect the flavor of the food you put on it. When you sit down to dinner, you should be able to focus on the meal and the people you're sharing it with...you shouldn't be worrying about the plate.

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I generally dislike analogies, but that is a very good one.

I started with Gamma World, then B/X D&D for all of about three months before I snagged the AD&D 1E books. Despite those being the early years, I spent more time in middle and high school with Tunnels & Trolls, Runequest, Dragonquest and other games until college when I picked up AD&D 2nd edition. It became my go-to from 1989 all the way to the arrival of 3E. When 3E came out I was both a bit miffed at its different focus and feel and the dungeonpunk aesthetic, and also grudgingly conceded it "fixed" most of the vast catalog of issues I had with AD&D 2E. As a result, when I think of the edition I'd go back to I tend to think of D&D 3E/3.5 for that reason. That said....I burned out pretty hard on it after a long stint with Pathfinder 1E, but it took me a long time to then warm up to 5E and really grow to appreciate it's concession towards simplicity. And I didn't mention 4E, not for lack of enjoying it (I loved playing it) but because despite that I could never reconcile its highly specific play focus with the fact that I could no longer just "tell stories" with it like I could before (I never used maps and minis with D&D until 3.5 made them "very handy to have" so 4E's absolute requirement was a tough sell for my style of play even though the tactical bits were very fun) and that ultimately killed that edition for me.

So yeah, if I had to go back to an edition I'd probably do 3E/3.5 but I feel no compunction to do so, as 5E accomplishes 90% of what I need from a D&D type of game right now.

If I could ONLY play one version of D&D, I'd play...

My version of D&D...or a hybrid version between 1e and 2e.

Mostly, it's 1e, but it has some things from 2e such as the THAC0 table (so much easier for me to remember on the fly than the ToHit tables). 2e initiative...and other such things from 2e that I integrate into the more hybrid games. Overall...it's almost all 1e, but with a few 2e adaptations.

I'd imagine there are many who would have something similar...where instead of one straight edition or version...they'd run a hybrid type D&D which borrowed at least one thing or another from one other edition or version (I know back in the day there were tons who started with the Red Box and basically played Red Box rules with AD&D classes and monsters and such. I imagine soon there will be those that play with basically 5e rules but use the reorganized and rereleased 5e books for various things they want...or vice versa)

If it HAD to only be one ruleset...I'd probably go with AD&D (1e)...the One and true AD&D. I'd have a full set of the hardback rulebooks (so that includes everything from UA, to OA, to DLA, to WSG/DSG...etc).

AD&D isn't my first D&D, nor was it my last, but if I HAD to choose only one...that would be my preference.

Strong disagreement with the question in the title.

My RPG history: D&D 3.0 -> D&D 3.5 -> PF1 & D&D 4E -> D&D 5 & PF2

An attempting at ranking the above: PF2 > PF1 > 4E > 3.5 > 3.0 > 5E

Someone might argue that my tastes have been set: I like crunch. Except I love a lot of systems not listed here that are not crunchy at all. Nobilis, for example. Latest version of Dragonbane is also lighter on crunch than even 5E.

I would say my tastes are set for the current offerings based on my personal experiences; That being a taste for 2E. The sheer volumes of content and lore is wonderful and nearly everything from 1e can be used as well with minor tweaking. The rules themselves are quirky but seem to make more sense the more you play with them(more so than other systems I've tried)

The more I've gone back and played/hosted 2e in current year and compared it to my 3-5e experiences the more I am convinced that WotC remerging Basic and Advanced into a single product line was a mistake(in my personal opinion of course). Obviously what is done is done and I do not believe WotC will split D&D into two branches again.

With the above being said; I am always willing to give a new system a shot if the new system has a decent stream of content coming out for it from it's creators. Rules by themselves are not really useful to me. The theoretical best system in the world is meaningless to me without lore and adventures to go with it. I know some people are more than happy to just take a basic ruleset with a vague world and make their own lore and world to adventure in and that's awesome. My hat goes off to them.

However, due to my personal circumstances; I do not want to spend too much of my time writing up a unique world and adventure every time I want to run a table top session. Having some fleshed out premade worlds and scenarios to work with is heaven sent; I can run the premade scenarios straight or I can rework any aspect of them.

My analogy for it would be painting. Not everyone who paints wants to make their own paint, paintbrushes, canvas, and easel from scratch. Some painters just want to buy all that naughty word and paint with it. Some will go a step further and take simple sketches from someone else and paint over it or use a photo as reference to start their painting. None of these approaches are wrong.

deganawida said:

I’ve been thinking a lot lately, about D&D, editions, and tastes. I’ve noticed that, while I love the mechanical purity of B/X, the weirdness of 1e, the balance of 4e, and so forth, my tastes always seem to come back to 2nd edition. I mean, I love all the editions, but 2e was my first real embrace of D&D, and I end up judging every other edition by it, even when other editions are better and just as fun (which is really frustrating, of course).

If you you had just one D&D version you could play the rest of your life, with the group of your choice, would it be the one that brought you to the dance, or would it be a different version?

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Play Basic forever? Nope. Gimme my Rules Cyclopedia.

What is BEST in life?

TO CRUSH OTHER EDITIONS! SEE THEM DRIVEN BEFORE YOU! HEAR THE LAMENTATIONS OF THEIR PLAYERS!

deganawida said:

If you you had just one D&D version you could play the rest of your life, with the group of your choice, would it be the one that brought you to the dance, or would it be a different version?

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I'd create my own date, like the two nerdy kids in Weird Science.