Blue
Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal
Basic & Expert - the sense of wonder was alive. Maybe more because it was my first, but we were doing things for the very first time. We would come up with crazy stuff and the DM would figure it out - the concept for "a rule for everything" had yet to be applied.
AD&D - my first longer campaign, characters that lasted a while. Over Basic it gave us so much more flexibility. Though I remember sticker shock at how much the cost of plate mail jumped. Reading every issue of Dragon magazine cover to cover.
AD&D 2ed - Cleaned up and ready to go. My longest and largest campaigns I've ever played in to this day, as well as most time put in. Years with a character - because that's what the slow down of the XP system did, have forever set my preferences towards advancement doesn't stop, just slows and slows. Epic level play - I did say it was most time put in. Kits, the origin of splatbooks when there was still a controllable number. Min/maxing with Skills and Powers.
3ed - Following Eric Noah's page every day trying to get a feel. Something new. Unified mechanics were a big thing. No more multiclassing or dualclassing, now something completely new. I can play a dwarven wizard, it's allowed! Wow, rules for everything I could ever want. And the SRD, releasing the d20 rules so that 3rd party suddenly blossomed.
3.5 ed - Revised and fixed. And so many character crunch options, it made character creation into it's own minigame. Crunchy when I have time in my life for crunchy.
4e - Skill Challenges - a concept (if not exact implementation) I use heavily today in many RPGs. Very codified, satisfied the coder in me. Highly dynamic combat. Healing surges. The corporate ability to admit rules and whole subsystems could be improved and changing them via errata. Digital tools; a reasonable subscription, a great compendium, a good offline and then a decent online character builder.
5e - Streamlined; when I don't have time in my life for overly crunchy. So much faster to do everything. And putting power back in the hands of DMs - I didn't understand when a veteran DM bemoaned the loss of this with 3ed, which was quite the simulation with rules for everything. Upcasting spells, a concept I loved back in the old Wheel of Time d20 but hadn't seen anywhere else. Bringing all the classes closer in terms of balance, and the same for single classed and multiclassed characters. Bounded accuracy to let me use a wider selection of foes no matter the party level. Taking magic item pluses out of character advancement math expectations with those foes. Advantage and disadvantage - so much better then a flood of small bonuses to track. Inspiration finally trying to make RP mechanically supported in D&D, a first step.
AD&D - my first longer campaign, characters that lasted a while. Over Basic it gave us so much more flexibility. Though I remember sticker shock at how much the cost of plate mail jumped. Reading every issue of Dragon magazine cover to cover.
AD&D 2ed - Cleaned up and ready to go. My longest and largest campaigns I've ever played in to this day, as well as most time put in. Years with a character - because that's what the slow down of the XP system did, have forever set my preferences towards advancement doesn't stop, just slows and slows. Epic level play - I did say it was most time put in. Kits, the origin of splatbooks when there was still a controllable number. Min/maxing with Skills and Powers.
3ed - Following Eric Noah's page every day trying to get a feel. Something new. Unified mechanics were a big thing. No more multiclassing or dualclassing, now something completely new. I can play a dwarven wizard, it's allowed! Wow, rules for everything I could ever want. And the SRD, releasing the d20 rules so that 3rd party suddenly blossomed.
3.5 ed - Revised and fixed. And so many character crunch options, it made character creation into it's own minigame. Crunchy when I have time in my life for crunchy.
4e - Skill Challenges - a concept (if not exact implementation) I use heavily today in many RPGs. Very codified, satisfied the coder in me. Highly dynamic combat. Healing surges. The corporate ability to admit rules and whole subsystems could be improved and changing them via errata. Digital tools; a reasonable subscription, a great compendium, a good offline and then a decent online character builder.
5e - Streamlined; when I don't have time in my life for overly crunchy. So much faster to do everything. And putting power back in the hands of DMs - I didn't understand when a veteran DM bemoaned the loss of this with 3ed, which was quite the simulation with rules for everything. Upcasting spells, a concept I loved back in the old Wheel of Time d20 but hadn't seen anywhere else. Bringing all the classes closer in terms of balance, and the same for single classed and multiclassed characters. Bounded accuracy to let me use a wider selection of foes no matter the party level. Taking magic item pluses out of character advancement math expectations with those foes. Advantage and disadvantage - so much better then a flood of small bonuses to track. Inspiration finally trying to make RP mechanically supported in D&D, a first step.