Overall, I have to say that 3.5 does it best for me. Yes, there are tons of options and complicated bits, and about a million books to trawl through to find exactly what you want, but I feel that if it slows play up we can just dump some of them (which we do). I like the ‘anything goes, within reason’ ethos, and goddammit, I like the characters and games I’ve had playing 3.5 more than any other edition.

2e was fun, while it lasted, but 3-3.5 was just so much more fun to play (for me, at least), and 4 was released, in my opinion, years ahead of schedule. I felt like I’d only just got my 3.5 collection together and was happy with it before Wizards showed up with a big bag with a $ sign on it saying “Time to update! By the way, miniatures are mandatory now, unless you really don’t want the game to work.” On top of that, it felt… like a board game, I’m sorry, but that’s the only way I can put it. When I finally got around to playing it (with my cousin’s books, I’m not stupid) it reminded me of the dinosaur of a GW product Space Hulk with extra bells and whistles.

Damn, I have gone on, haven’t I?

So yeah, 2, good, 3, better, 3.5, great, 4 cash cow. And not even one I liked. Sorry 4-ed fans!

I started with a boxed basic D&D with chits instead of dice. I grew up playing some D&D, some first edition AD&D, quite a bit of edition “1.5″, (first ed with Unearthed Arcana and some other sourcebooks, Dragon Mag mods, house rules, etc.), and a bunch of 2nd edition. I have stacks of old 1st and 2nd edition books, modules, and magazines, a big bag of dice, enough miniatures to lay out a medium sized battle, and TONS of good memories of time spent as a player and GM. Many of my old players call the stuff I GM’d “2.Rob”

Year later (but still several years ago) I started to playing again after 3.0 had been out awhile… but just as I was getting comfortable with it they put out 3.5. I am getting too old to keep track of constant rule changes, and while I liked 3.0 well enough, I did not appreciate having to buy the books again. When they announced that they were doing 4.0 I drew the line. It’s not that I can’t afford it, I just don’t believe in ‘edition extorsion’ If the game works, leave it alone and put out a bunch of supplementary material.

My kids are almost ready to start playing. Their introduction will be “2.Rob” :-)