D&D Versions

Hi there Billy!

First off, there are hundreds if not thousands of other RPGs out there besides 
D&D, especially a set of very modern ones (not the ones I mention below) from 
the last 15 years or so that are laser focused on "getting the game to be 
exactly what you want it to be", and ones that are focused on things other than 
"a zero to hero narrative about people who go into places not inhabited by good 
humans, and take their stuff". Let me know if you want more about those for a 
particular experience.

As to actual D&D, there are several phases in its history.

Old Simple Tomb Robbers: OD&D, B/X D&D, BECMI D&D.

These versions of D&D give you experience primarily from stealing gold from 
tombs and such. Killing monsters gives almost no XP and you have to loot absurd 
amounts of cash to level up. These forms of D&D expect you to become a leader 
of a military band as you reach the middle levels, and are hyper lethal as 
well, especially at lower levels. Modern Rpgs that try to capture this are 
called "Old School Renaissance" and some examples of that are DCC (Dungeon 
Crawl Classics), Labyrinth Lord, Lamentations of the Flame Princess, and 
Castles and Crusades. There are relatively few tactical rules, and you're 
focusing heavily on adjudication as a GM and there is a lot of coordination 
among players especially as you're leveling into the "henchmen required' levels 
of the game. This phase was from the mid 70s to the mid 80s. Keep in mind when 
reading these rulesets, many of the players came from mini wargaming 
backgrounds, so there are assumed rules and norms sometimes present you're 
unaware of.

Playacting, Heroics, Fantastic Lands and Intrigue: AD&D, AD&D 2nd Edition

Gygax definitely went on a rant about the style of roleplaying with few rolls, 
and lots of talking. That said, people definitely still enjoyed playing games 
that way. In these edition of the rules, more settings that weren't simple 
caverns or remote villages start to pop up, including ones of high intrigue, 
and strange ones like Dark Sun (cannibal hobbits), Spelljammer (space D&D/space 
pirates), and more. In this era of game, XP starts to be rewarded for magical 
items in AD&D, greatly reducing the amount of loot you had to find to level up. 
Additionally, most of your XP is starting to come from quest completion and 
monster kills, motivating those activities a bit more over raw currency 
acquisition. Henchmen/hirelings are still present in these editions, but by 
second edition, are far more optional. This phase lasted from the mid 80s 
through the turn of the century. It also started to see the proliferation of 
supplements offering class customizations and extra powers, (called splatbooks 
by many). 

Tactical, Build Planning Games: D&D 3.0, D&D 3.5, Pathfinder

By the turn of the century, D&D was in a bit of a down period, so a shake up 
happened in what the next version offered: Simplified math that was more 
codified and less adjudicated. Additionally a greater combat focus was granted 
to the game, as well as some mechanical changes such as Thaco being changed to 
d20 as well as skills and saving throws all being normalized. This may sound 
simpler than 2e...but by the end of this period it was quite a bit more 
complex. Especially when you consider builds. The splatbooks of 2e were 
partially rolled into the base rules, and on top of that more splatbooks were 
added to the game. When this was done, not enough care was given to balance, so 
I'd go so far as to say 95% of possible builds are least half as good as the 
other 5%. Additionally, entire classes vary wildly on effectiveness. Pathfinder 
helped to reign some of this in...but it's still very much present. This 
version of the game is playable, especially if you're willing to look up builds 
in that 5%....but I think many people vaguely get a feel of cheating when doing 
that, and if you make a mistake on one of these spectrums, there goes months of 
work. Leveling up often requires a good bit of "away from table time". 
Pathfinder in particular is very "rules not adjudication" oriented as well. 
This period lasted until 2014, even though D&D 4 came out in 2008. 


Tactical, Simplified Gaming with Long Combats: D&D 4th ed

This game did a ton to simplify the game. It took the huge skill list from 3.5 
and greatly narrowed it to less than a 3rd its former size. Language for the 
actions were greatly normalized, and similar concepts were used to explain 
actions across all classes, making them far easier to understand for people who 
didn't want "away from table time". One problem though was that in all this 
balancing, healing got spread out a lot, and large hitpoints pools were spread 
around monsters and players alike. This means many combats got pretty long, and 
less deadly...additionally, people who loved all that away from table time and 
being masters of a complex system *hated* the normalization of everything to a 
smaller, easier to understand vocabulary. It felt to them it removed the 
customization (it did partially), and made it a "MMO button masher". I think it 
mostly pissed off people on forums far more than people who were out and about, 
and the 4th edition sold fine, as the current version of D&D always done. Gone 
were the huge swaths of really bad idea builds.  Gone were the mandatory healer 
party makeups. This had some good stuff, and if it had shorter combats, I think 
we'd be calling it "good but not super well received" as is, I think it's a bad 
idea to play it without halving health pools. This period lasted from 2008 till 
D&D Next (whats is now called D&D 5th edition) came out, in 2014.


The Scaled Back Everyman's D&D: 5th Edition

This game again got new people to look at all the combat system instead of 
longtime fans, and they really simplified a lot of the little pieces of math 
that made things hard for people. Now everything is based on 1-20 values for 
skills, there are a lot fewer bonuses that may or may not stack 
(advantage/disadvantage is rolling an extra d20 and taking the better/worse 
one), and inspiration is a weird, but alright carrot for roleplaying. There are 
decent pieces of meaningful background that aren't as meaningful as many 
non-D&D style games.  This in a way is a redo of the 3.x redo, in the the total 
level of system complexity is far less than 3.x versions of the game, but it's 
small, simple and understandable like AD&D2 and earlier games were. This 
version does have a few builds that are meh, but far greater care has been 
taking to make sure the books are filled with mostly serviceable builds. This 
is far more reasonable for play by people who don't want to 1> go to the 
internet for real builds that work and 2> roll some dice and kill some orcs. It 
is also reissuing a lot of the favorite IP of past versions redone for this 
one, and it's converting many 3.5 people who held out when 4.0 came out.

So, this is the history, what should you play:

If you're not willing to put in the time, skip 3.x/pathfinder.

If you're willing to put in time, play anything that sounds fun to you. 

If you don't want to concentrate on robbery/looting, avoid the OSR games unless 
the GM assures you that's not what the XP is around.  If you don't want to 
concentrate on long elaborate combats, avoid 4e.

If you want to put in the minimum amount of effort, always play whatever the 
modern version of D&D is. Now that's 5. Go do that. That is what new folks will 
learn, and that is easy to learn.

    --Michael

PS: If you're interested in types of gaming beyond those described above, come 
out and see some of the games based on Burning Wheel/Apocalypse World/Fate/The 
Forge/7th Sea/Houses of the Blooded at other events, including Intown 
Roleplaying Day the first Saturday of every month down in Atlanta 

PPS: If this small book of a email is useful to anyone, feel free to post it 
wherever, just give me credit :D