I started out around '91 with some old D&D-style board games, and not having much money, played several home-brewed systems my friends and I created. Played lots of little one-off games in the meantime, and eventually several different versions of Star Wars. Group fell apart, only to be reformed when 3.0 came out. Made the switch to 3.5 and have been playing it since.
I play Pathfinder as well, but I still prefer 3.5, honestly. I love many of the changes PF made, but I'm just more comfortable with 3.5, from the years of playing it. I don't have to constantly scramble through books and see what got changed, since I already know 3.5 like the back of my hand.
It wasn't so much "playing 3.5" as much as "scouring the Complete series for new ways to break the game".
I suspect many other people did the same.
I've played PF with two groups since I started last month, and 3 of the 10 different people I played with in those groups had never played any RPG before, let alone 3.5. And I'm not sure of the gaming backgrounds of some of the other 7.
So my guess is that Pathfinder gets a lot more newbies than posters on these forums seem to realize, but it's most the die hards who have been playing for a while who are on this web site.
Hey, that's great! Glad to hear it.
I played 3.5 when it came out. Still play it, in fact, along with my PF campaign. I currently play in a number of campaigns - a bi-weekly 3.5 game, a weekly Torg game, a weekly PF game, and there are also 3.5 and 4e games currently on hold while we play through a story arc in the Torg game.
As far as D&D experience, I started with the Holmes Basic set, played that hybridized with the Red Box, then 1e, 2e, 3.0e, 3.5e, and PF. 4e, while we've played it and will play it some more, really feels like an outlier to me and I don't like it very much aside from being an occasional fun session as a skirmish game. It really doesn't scratch my D&D itch at all.
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Started out with good ol' 3.5, then tried out 4e before the DM changed from 3.5 to Pathfinder mid-game. I'm currently playing GURPS and a 3.5 game with some house-ruling. I'm curious about trying out 2e, though my group keeps joking about as all getting killed by the end of the second battle.
According to the DM with whom I play AD&D 2e, the 2e rules feel "as flexible and easy to handle as a woodboard nailed to the ground" when compared to later editions.
Started out with good ol' 3.5, then tried out 4e before the DM changed from 3.5 to Pathfinder mid-game. I'm currently playing GURPS and a 3.5 game with some house-ruling. I'm curious about trying out 2e, though my group keeps joking about as all getting killed by the end of the second battle.According to the DM with whom I play AD&D 2e, the 2e rules feel "as flexible and easy to handle as a woodboard nailed to the ground" when compared to later editions.
Haha. I don't know if it's that extreme. I think 2nd edition carried a much larger expectation of DMs to bridge the gaps where the rules were less than transparent. The only core mechanics of that edition that I didn't really care for were Nonweapon Proficiencies and Class Restrictions based on Race. I think the THAC0 chart catches way more hell than it deserves. It wasn't complicated! It just looked intimidating when presented as a block (to some).
I have played AD&D, 2e, 3e, 3.5e,4e, and pathfinder. 4e isn't a bad game, it just is not D&D. Pathfinder is my favorite by far.3.5e isn't a bad game either, it just is not D&D.
I mean what's the deal with them getting rid of THACO and making a high AC good? Kiddies these days can't subtract anymore?
Mmm-hmm. THAC0 was a nonce mechanic presented in only one of the seven pre-3rd versions of D&D.
So let's check the opinion of somebody who is thoroughly immersed pre-3rd D&D, one of the most prominent voices of the Old School community, as to how much continuity there is between 3.x and previous versions of D&D:
Worth Remembering
In working on the second volume of the Dwimmermount Codex, I often found myself poking around in the D&D III SRD, since there are some monsters and magic items in it that don't appear in other retro-clone products (at least so far as I am aware). What I discovered -- or, rather, was reminded of -- was just how much of the DNA of OD&D and AD&D made it into 3e. I'm not just talking about the ideas of those earlier editions; I'm also talking about the actual words used to present those ideas. For example, fireball is described as "detonat[ing] with a low roar," which is exactly how Gygax described it in the Players Handbook. I could cite dozens of other examples just like that.
Stuff like this is why, for all my many problems with 3e, I'm still grateful for the role it -- and the SRD/OGL combo -- played in preserving and transmitting the ideas and words of previous editions, for which every one of us involved in the old school community should be grateful. Were there not a strong family resemblance between D&D III and the TSR editions we all love, the creation of the retro-clones would have been that much harder to accomplish, perhaps even impossible. We've been given an amazing gift, one that only seems more amazing as the years wear on.
My first D&D book was the 3e Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting, which I purchased to supplement playing in Neverwinter Nights persistent worlds. My second book was the 3e Faiths and Pantheons, for the same reason.
After that, I bought all three of the D&D 3.5e core rulebooks in a single transaction in 2003. I didn't know enough about the game to know how different they would be from 3.0 at the time, but in retrospect I'm glad I bought them and didn't pick up the 3.0 books on the cusp of the release of 3.5e.
As for my Pathfinder games, I only allow Pathfinder materials and OGL materials Paizo have themselves used in their Pathfinder NPC construction, such as individual templates from Green Ronin's Advanced Bestiary (a big book of OGL templates that was written for D&D 3.5e). Even in 2011 I've seen a couple Advanced Bestiary templates appear in Paizo's Pathfinder products. After seeing how frequently Paizo used the 3.x Tome of Horrors books, I kicked myself for not buying OGL materials back when the Tome of Horrors books were published, until I was able to pick up the Pathfinderized Tome of Horrors Complete.
I don't allow any 3.x player materials such as feats or classes, and any player materials from third-party Pathfinder-compatible products would still require GM approval before I'd let them in my games. If I want to run 3.x materials, I'll run a 3.5e game. My 3.5e FR game just ended back in the summer.
I own the Masque of the Red Death campaign setting for 3.5 (published by Swords and Sorcery under license from WotC), and I still hope to DM a Pathfinderized version of that setting and its variant rules one day. It includes alternate classes and heavy changes to spells and skills from 3.5e core, but it's still technically a 3.5e game I hope to run in Pathfinder so I mention it.
I own the Masque of the Red Death campaign setting for 3.5 (published by Swords and Sorcery under license from WotC), and I still hope to DM a Pathfinderized version of that setting and its variant rules one day. It includes alternate classes and heavy changes to spells and skills from 3.5e core, but it's still technically a 3.5e game I hope to run in Pathfinder so I mention it.
I have that book too, but I'm having trouble wrapping my head around basing a D&D/Ravenloft game on actual, real Earth. I'm a detail freak, and I'm scared to death to set it somewhere and mess up actual history, and get called on it by a player who might have actually been there(location-wise, not time-wise)...
Yes, I know exactly how crazy that sounds, lol.
I just like to keep my fantasy games distant from reality, I like my "escape" to be as far from this world as possible. It's an awesome book, full of campaign possibilities, but I just can't find an "in." If you do someday Pathfinderize it, please share it here!
I began to play rpg with Maléfices and Judge Dredd. I began to Dming with the red box (basic, then expert and companion). Moved the following year to AD&D1.
Played AD&D2 even if I still prefer 1st edition. Then I mostly DM 3.O and 3.5 as soon as they came out.
I've played also amost any other rpg I could try, which is too many to mention.
I'm still not DMing Pathfinder because of the power creep that I dislike, but I bought the PDF to use some rules I found interesting to use in my 3.5 games. And with all the option books every year, I don't think I will ever DM Pathfinder as it is. I don't want the same problems 3.5 has with too many options books, but the core rules of PRPG still bother me with the power creep. I'm trying to make some changes in 3.5 and tone down the capacities of the characters.
It wasn't so much "playing 3.5" as much as "scouring the Complete series for new ways to break the game".
I suspect many other people did the same.
Guilty as charged...
...on the other hand I have let someone play a venerable dragonwraught kobold before...
...and some of the most fun I have ever had DMing was the encounter when I told someone to "please make 22 Reflex saves and a Fortitude save" (although that was a PF/3.5 combination game)
(casts thread resurrection)
Personally, I started with Tunnels & Trolls during a retreat in high school. Couldn't find that at Toys 'R Us so I bought the D&D Blue Box with the DCS cover instead.
Went from that to AD&D, boy was it a pain waiting for them to get around to publishing books other than the Player's Handbook. Played a little AD&D 2nd Edition but never much basic D&D.
Played AD&D off and on for a few years, jumped right into D&D 3e, felt betrayed when they released 3.5e so soon after (and I had to re-buy all the freakin' books), but overall I think 3.5e was an improvement.
Been playing 3.5e since; started my current campaign in 2006; it allows all material from WoTC books so long as I have a copy (and anything from the Dragon upon approval; I've never rejected anything), and I started folding in Pathfinder material once there was something new to fold in (after all, there's not really much in the Core Rulebook that could be added to a 3.5e campaign).
Did play 4e for a bit over a couple years, starting with the playtest, but I prefer the feel of 3.5e and Pathfinder, and I've finally gotten used to Pathfinder glomming together more skills than I think they ought to have (I still think it was a mistake to mash together the Strength- and Dexterity-based athletic skills).
Started running straight Pathfinder games last year; now I have a second group doing that.
Over the years, I've played Traveller, Shadowrun, Amber, GURPS, the original Gamma World, Star Wars (d20, not d6) and even took part in a horrible Bushido game back in the day; I've probably forgotten a few, but D&D/PF has always been my preference.
I'll never switch to straight Pathfinder for my primary game group unless they come out with above-20th rules :)
I started with Dungeons & Dragons by Tactical Studies Rules. Yes the three little books. I think that defines me as an 'old-fart', but not quite a fossil as I didn't play Chainmail.
Worked my was along ...
Dungeons & Dragons (blue box)
Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (still have the original DMG)
2nd Edition
3.0
3.5 (big improvement)
Pathfinder (very polished)
Didn't try 4.0, not interested.
-Swiftbrook
When I was younger I played Basic(Red and Blue Box), AD&D, along with some TMNT/Ninjas and Super Spys/Robtech. I did play some Car Wars, if I remember correctly, but I am not sure that counts as a roleplaying game. I did pick up second ed after college, I fell in with a group of gamers that were hold outs on converting to 3.0, from 2.0 we moved to 3.5 then to Pathfinder(currently running a game).
I am currently playing in a 4th ed game too, it seems like D&D light to me. I am not running the game so I can't complain too much because I get to play.
SGH
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My first experience was with 3.5 in 2005, but only got so far as rolling up a character. Never got farther than that as the group couldn't commit to it. Jump to 2009, and I hoped into a Star Wars Saga group that completely hooked me. Around the time I had to quit that, I joined up with Pathfinder Society just before PaizoCon 2010 and am currently shield-fighting for my Legacy of Fire party.