I'm an old codger. I still prefer 2nd edition D&D.

Yes, I like the skills and saving throws in D20. That's all. Stinking combat rounds that are 1/10th the time in game time, but take the DM ten times as long to run! You kids get off my lawn!

I will confess that the 2nd edition I run is HEAVILY modified. Who needs to change editions, anyway? Why, back in my day...

***insert neverending monologue here***

My favorite edition is 3ed.

I can't stand the started packs or board games at all,
but recently I've met a guy who plays 2nd so I confess
that my 3ed edition games are highly, er, altered with 2nd edition stuff.

Actually its a funny story how I met this guy, and even funner how I found out about D&D altogether...

***INSERT ANOUTHER SUPER LONG MONOGLOGE***

Now here's 4th ed coming out, and I'll give it a chance, but honestly, I doubt I'll be impressed. 2nd I have been, and 2nd I shall stay.

personally I strive to improve my game and so if there something new and it's good then I'll take it on board and change my game rules again.

Of course, I won't refuse it just out of spite, I'm a big fan of contstantly striving to improve my games however I can... but I've been pretty universally unimpressed by WotC for well over a decade now, i don't hold any high hopes.

I'll gaze at the 4e, but Im not going to bother buying a lot of books.

2e is where its at.

3e if you're desperate.

3.5e if you're drunk and desperate.

...and by books, you mean DVD ROMs, right? Haven't you heard? You play 4th on your laptop with virtual dice in a CG dungeon.

That is true. Most of 4th edition will be available for your laptop, but the CDs come with the core books to begin with. You need to buy the books to get the CDs is what I've heard.

I won't buy 4th edition. I'll check it out if I know someone who'll get it, but where is the fun if you don't roll the dice yourself? And what about fudging the dice (or whatever it is called)? If you want the players to succeed in killing the guard, you can't change the outcome of the diceroller in the game in 4th ed. I sometimes do this to make things more interesting. Sometimes I want them to find the hidden passage or defeat the guard in order to get to the big bad, but I don't see how WotC are going to make that possible when I'm using a bloody program to do the rolls and apply the outcomes for me.

I think that D&D should stay either a table top game or be done over forums. I also agree with

3.5e if you're drunk and desperate

3.5 is even more complicated then 3.0

Oh, and don't forget that you have to pay a monthly fee to get access to the website with the errata, sidebars, and the actual real complete rules, which will not be included in either the hard copy or ROM.

That wont work, someone will copy the text and it'll be passed on. That restriction on the info will just lead to the loss of money as people will just copy the information.

Money is their native language.

I'm sure they'll finagle a way to coerce their customer base into paying them for it. Knowing WotC, it wouldn't surprise to see them disable prestige classes on your system if you aren't current or something of that nature.

I have no hands-on experience with 2e, but if it's the same as in Baldur's Gate, I'm glad I started out with 3e. I get along just fine without racial restrictions, a half-dozen different saving throws, and negative armor classes, thank you very much.

It is the same, more or less. The race/class restriction weren't iron-clad, but as far as I'm concerned, they all made good sense, and I'd question anyone wanting to play a character outside of them, even in later editions. Elven paladins don't make a lick of sense to me, neither dwarven wizards. Half a dozen saves compared to three I can see the point, but frankly, I think three is too few. Wisdom is perception, not wisdom, in 3e, for example... How precisely do more sensitive eyes make you more likely to avoid being blinded by a bright flash of light in the face (will save vs. Color Spray)?

Negative ACs might seem counter intuitive at first, but think of it this way - in golf, do you want a lower score or a higher? In racing a higher time, or a lower? There are quite a lot of situations where bigger numbers are simply not better. None of the people I introduced to the game took more than a few rounds of combat to grasp why a lower AC was fundamentally better. The simple fact is that 2nd ed combat and 3e combat are essentially the same. Thac0 works exactly the same way as BAB except the number count down instead of up. A first-level cleric with a strength of 11 has exactly the same chance of hitting an opponent with a 10 Dex wearing chainmail in either edition. Roll a 15 or higher to hit.