About Edition Wars

Dungeons & Dragons has been around for 45 years and in that space of time the game has been owned by two different companies and has had numerous editions of its rule set published. From its initial incarnation of Chainmail to the most recent 5th Edition, everybody who has played the game has had a preferred edition. Small wars have broken out on the internet between individuals who disagree about which version of D&D is the best. well, today in this post, I hope to settle that argument once and for all.

The best edition of D&D is.....the one that you prefer playing.

I know, what a cop out right? Maybe you were expecting me to say something controversial like 4th Ed. or maybe you'd expect an old guy like me to sing the praises of one of the earlier versions like 1st or 2nd Ed. Nope, I'm going to stand by my answer and I'm going to share some of my own experiences to provide some context.

So, let's start with a little background, shall we? I've been playing D&D for a long time, since 1987 to be exact. That's more than three decades of D&D goodness. I cut my teeth on the old Basic Red Box edition of D&D and then graduated to the brand new (at the time) AD&D 2nd Edition rules. I took a break for a few years and then moved on to 3.5 and I eventually dabbled in 5th Ed. and Pathfinder a bit. In fact, the only edition that I haven't played is 4th Ed. Even after all of that, my favourite edition is still 2nd Ed.

You may ask "Little Wooden Boy, why do you like 2nd Ed.? It's rules are way too dated and THAC0 is stupid!" Why indeed. There are a few reasons why I prefer 2nd Ed. and all its THAC0-y glory, which I'll get to in a moment. But first, I want to clarify something. What follows is merely my opinion and should not be taken as statements of fact. Nor is it meant to disparage a version of the game that you prefer. This is just my own feelings. Now that we got that out of the way, let's get down to business:

1. Fond memories: When it comes to my favourite edition, I'll be the first to admit that much of my opinion on it comes from the hours of happy memories I have playing with my friends in my buddy's basement. To this day I still tell stories to my current group  about the time the party chugged flagons of really potent ale and lost all of their hair, or the time Silber the idiotic mage decided the best thing to do in the face of a huge Bronze Dragon was to dance the Macarena or the time that Routh got charmed and chopped poor Kalius in half with a halberd. Call it nostalgia goggles or whatever, but these are powerful memories that I cherish.
2. It was my first: As I mentioned above, my first experience with D&D was the old Red Box but it wasn't until this edition that I started to play with a regular group which led to all of those awesome memories. I learned how to DM with this edition, which has encouraged my love of storytelling to this day.
3. It 'feels' the most like D&D: This is a tough one to quantify and maybe it's just part of reason #1, but to me this edition just feels like D&D is supposed to. I can't really go into more detail than that. It's not rational, but not everything has to be. You may feel differently, but for me it's this one.
4. I actually like the rules: BLASHEMPY!! You may be shouting at your screen but it's true. I like the rules for this edition. Sure it's got its warts but what edition doesn't? I mean, that's what homebrew is for, right? Any group that's played any edition for any length of time always tweaks the rules to suit their needs, I know I do. 

So, there are my reasons for my preferred edition. I'd be willing to bet that most people reading this probably can apply at least one of those to their own preferred version. So, all of that is just a long way of saying that, as long as you're having fun, the best edition of D&D is the one you're currently playing. I'll close by paraphrasing a quote from a good friend of mine "It's not about the rules you play with, it's about the people you play with." You could not be more right, Sam, you could not be more right.