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paladinn
2021-07-26, 07:26 AM
Just curious.. what do people consider to be the most popular and/or influential edition of D&D (besides 0e of course)?

5e has been hugely popular and has brought a lot of especially new people into the game. But 3e took a dying (dead?) game, made it wildly popular as well, and turned it into the basis for a Lot of other games from other genres (the D20 system).

As much as I appreciate the streamlining that happened with 5e, my money is on 3x. Any thoughts?

RandomPeasant
2021-07-26, 08:23 AM
It depends on how you define influential. I'm inclined to give the crown to 3e, just because it was a big enough deal that Pathfinder was able to survive for a decade (and claim the top slot for part of that) just on the basis of "more 3e", though you might argue that to be a result of 4e's failure as much as 3e's success. 5e is quite popular, but I'm not sure how much of that is the game itself, versus things like Critical Role and Stranger Things driving D&D back into the cultural consciousness.

NorthernPhoenix
2021-07-26, 08:39 AM
5e is easily the most popular by far, it's not even close. But if you're discussing "influential", well, the previous editions had to walk so that 5e could run.

Jason
2021-07-26, 09:11 AM
1st edition AD&D. It was what turned role-playing into a hobby from a fad. It's the version that brought RPGs to the mass market and made TSR into a force to be reckoned with. It is the D&D of the '80s that dominated the hobby like no other version since it has. It had it's own cartoon series. It had one of the first multi-media marketing campaigns in Dragonlance. It was the gold standard of RPGs for more than a decade.

I might have said 3rd if 1st Ad&D wasn't a necessary (and even more influential in its day) forerunner.

Khedrac
2021-07-26, 01:04 PM
1st edition AD&D. It was what turned role-playing into a hobby from a fad. It's the version that brought RPGs to the mass market and made TSR into a force to be reckoned with. It is the D&D of the '80s that dominated the hobby like no other version since it has. It had it's own cartoon series. It had one of the first multi-media marketing campaigns in Dragonlance. It was the gold standard of RPGs for more than a decade.

I might have said 3rd if 1st Ad&D wasn't a necessary (and even more influential in its day) forerunner.

I think I would agree with this. It is probable that Basic D&D sold more copies at the same time, but it didn't forge a community of gamers, AD&D did, even if a lot were not playing AD&D but other systems. To me that makes AD&D the more influential game - it was the face of the RPG market (games and players) to the rest of the world.

Xervous
2021-07-26, 01:24 PM
Popular: 5e. The design intent was for the masses after all.

Influential: 3.5e. Warlocks, modern kobolds, reasonable Psionics rules, complex martial characters, Dragonborn, and above all that and more the OGL content. As mentioned up thread PF1e was a long running reminder of the system’s impact. I will also blame (credit) 3.5e for the general rejection of “lots of fiddly numbers” in TTRPGs as it rose to be the main antagonist in such discussions.

MoiMagnus
2021-07-26, 03:05 PM
4e is pretty much the only edition that didn't successfully redefined "what is D&D" by widely expanding the player base.

1e kind of defined what is D&D.
2e was the first "D&D experience" to many through Baldur's Gate 1 & 2.
3e's legacy was so popular it overshadowed 4e.
5e is literally the most popular TTRPG ever released.

I'd say currently 3e is more influential, but I'm quite confident that 5e (or an even more successful successor) will eventually overtake it.

Willie the Duck
2021-07-26, 03:11 PM
I think I would agree with this. It is probable that Basic D&D sold more copies at the same time, but it didn't forge a community of gamers, AD&D did, even if a lot were not playing AD&D but other systems. To me that makes AD&D the more influential game - it was the face of the RPG market (games and players) to the rest of the world.

It's kind of a split -- once AD&D came out and grabbed hold, it became the dominant version of TSRD&D in the U.S., but B/X and later BECMI got translated more widely and had more of a hold outside the U.S.

RandomPeasant
2021-07-26, 03:13 PM
Popular: 5e. The design intent was for the masses after all.

I don't think 5e is popular because of it's design intent. 4e was supposed to be more accessible too, and it fell flat. 5e is popular because of external factors more than anything specific about the edition.


5e is literally the most popular TTRPG ever released.

I mean, in fairness, I'm pretty sure that was true of every edition of D&D except 4e.

KorvinStarmast
2021-07-26, 03:15 PM
Popular: 5e. The design intent was for the masses after all.
By raw numbers, yes, but that seed was planted in fertile ground.


Influential: 3.5e. Warlocks, modern kobolds, reasonable Psionics rules, complex martial characters, Dragonborn, and above all that and more the OGL content. It also made OSR happen, right?

In my opinion, and you are free to tell me I'm wrong, but B/X (which eventually turned into BECMI) was the kind of gateway drug for a lot of kids that led them to the hard drugs of 2e and later 3e.

Granted, I got my start with 3 little brown books, but that was marketed in niche hobby shops.

B/X and it's followers were sold in toy store and game stores.
Get them while they're young. :smallwink:

Jason
2021-07-26, 05:18 PM
I still think BECMI was the best introduction to role-playing ever. I gave my Basic set players manual to my daughter when i wanted her to find out what an RPG was just a couple years ago and she thought it was pretty cool. Almost as cool as I did back in the day at age 10 when it was my introduction to RPGs. So BECMI was the most influential on me.

But was it the most influential on the hobby? No that was AD&D 1E.

Zhorn
2021-07-26, 07:06 PM
By raw numbers, yes, but that seed was planted in fertile ground.
Very much this, but at the same time credit should still be given to the system. The potential was there for 4e also and that did not get that explosive growth 5e got.

4e is pretty much the only edition that didn't successfully redefined "what is D&D" by widely expanding the player base.
...
3e's legacy was so popular it overshadowed 4e.
5e is literally the most popular TTRPG ever released.

I'd say currently 3e is more influential, but I'm quite confident that 5e (or an even more successful successor) will eventually overtake it.
For me d&d came onto my radar during the 3e/3.5 era.
I didn't get much into it at the time mostly because finding a group to get properly introduced was very difficult.
Warhammer was the game of choice for the target demographic where I lived, so that's was what I got funnelled towards.
Still, every time I visited a Borders (when they were still here) I'd see a D&D book here or there in the gaming sections (only ever 1 or 2 books buried in the fantasy/gaming sections at a time) and would flick through them now and then, thinking "I'd be keen to learn this if I knew some folks to teach me". First time I got to play was with a group a little too intense for me at the time and so was turned off from picking it up in earnest for a bit.
Xanathar's had just come out when I tried again. I saw the book for sale in a Zing popup and impulse bought it.
Where 3/3.5 had me thinking "I would be interested but need someone to teach me", 5e had me thinking "This is something I could learn and then find/form a group" from that Xanathar's book on it's own.
5e is just so much easier to learn that you can piece most of it together from context.

3/3.5e was good at building loyalty (hence birthing Pathfinder in response to 4e's attempt to move on)
5e brought in the new blood

Vahnavoi
2021-07-26, 07:08 PM
IIRC, BECMI was actually the most sold and most translated version of D&D up to the 5e. I"m not sure how 3.x. D&D would look in comparison if you stacked all Pathfinder and d20 games to its numbers.

The most influential is easy, though: it's original D&D, because it codified modern fantasy roleplaying games and all versions after it, several other tabletop RPG franchises, novel franchises and videogame franchies can be traced to it.

Corvus
2021-07-26, 08:04 PM
That is one of those questions that is hard to quantify.

You could also look at campaign settings that came out as well - basic had Greyhawk, Ravenloft and Dragonlance, 2e had Dark Sun, Planescape and Spelljammer, 3e had Eberron and 4e and 5e didn't really have anything new. Forgotten Realms was acquired right at the end of basic, when they were already working on 2e. Most of its content was done in 2e, as well as Baldur's Gate and a number of other computer games.

Zhorn
2021-07-26, 08:26 PM
IIRC, BECMI was actually the most sold and most translated version of D&D up to the 5e. I"m not sure how 3.x. D&D would look in comparison if you stacked all Pathfinder and d20 games to its numbers.
Those number might be misleading depending on how it is being counted. BECMI is extremely popular and its influence should be recognized, true. Very true even, I don't want to diminish how valid your underlying point is, the following is just to contextualise it a little.
To build on my earlier comments when I said '3/3.5e were good at building loyalty' was because when each successive iteration of D&D came out, a large portion of the playerbase would transition with it to the newer systems, supporting them in their growth. 4e was resisted by a large enough section of the playerbase not transitioning that provided the need for pathfinder.
Also in terms of sales, there's also a large portion of the playerbase that buys into multiple systems. BECMI has a very solid reputation, and people buying later editions will tend to eventually buy into that thanks to its legacy status. However, a large portion of that are players already inside the tabletop community, working their way up from older editions, or going back and revisiting them for the nostalgia/legacy experience.
For 5e, it is the first system of a substantially large portion of the current player base. True there is a big portion that transitioned across from older/alternative systems, but there's still a lot of new blood introduced thanks to 5e. Again, as KorvinStarmast has said, 5e was growing out of fertile ground, where as those old-old edition had to build up from nothing. Still, the underlying point would be we need to look at the growth to the playerbase population based on people's first system they started on rather than raw sales numbers of each edition.


The most influential is easy, though: it's original D&D, because it codified modern fantasy roleplaying games and all versions after it, several other tabletop RPG franchises, novel franchises and videogame franchies can be traced to it.
Very much so, in the same way tolkien set the tone for fantasy in general, or how starwars cemented the formats for blockbuster cinema.

Corvus
2021-07-26, 08:30 PM
Very much so, in the same way tolkien set the tone for fantasy in general, or how starwars cemented the formats for blockbuster cinema.

For epic fantasy. Other authors, like R. E. Howard, set the tone for sword & sorcery gritty fantasy.

paladinn
2021-07-26, 10:07 PM
That is one of those questions that is hard to quantify.

You could also look at campaign settings that came out as well - basic had Greyhawk, Ravenloft and Dragonlance, 2e had Dark Sun, Planescape and Spelljammer, 3e had Eberron and 4e and 5e didn't really have anything new. Forgotten Realms was acquired right at the end of basic, when they were already working on 2e. Most of its content was done in 2e, as well as Baldur's Gate and a number of other computer games.

Just FYI, "Basic" (BX/BECMI) is different than AD&D 1e. Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms were originally 1e. Greyhawk was originally 0e/OD&D.

Vahnavoi
2021-07-27, 05:21 AM
@Zhorn: the statistics I saw comparing editions up to 4th are pretty dated by now - IIRC they were from 2010 or 2011. BECMI's relative dominance was largely due to receiving largest number of localizations and bulk of its sales were made during TSR era. I'd argue up until 5th edition, there were way more people who transitioned from BECMI to AD&D or only played BECMI, with people who transitioned from AD&D, 3.x. or 4th edition to BECMI being a drop in the ocean.

Now, this was physical books only. Since then, WotC has made D&D's back catalogue more accessible in PDF format. So if BECMI has grown a fat tail due to digital distribution, I wouldn't know.

Psyren
2021-07-28, 09:14 AM
I would say 3e, both because it kept the lights on and because it proved that open-source gaming could be not just achievable but commercially successful. I believe 5e wouldn't be nearly as successful if it weren't for the accessibility of things like Basic or its SRD lowering the barrier to entry, on top of the strongest brand in the industry. This also one of the reasons why 4e faltered as much as it did.

KorvinStarmast
2021-07-28, 09:45 AM
For epic fantasy. Other authors, like R. E. Howard, set the tone for sword & sorcery gritty fantasy. Fritz Lieber, Moorcock, Burroughs, and the entire Arthurian cycle, Greek Mythology, Norse Mythology, and even Chinese legends (where do you think Gold dragons came from? Original D&D) and I think McCaffrey's Pern ... speculative fiction of all sorts fed it. (Lovecraft => mind flayer was apparently confirmed by E.G.G.).

BECMI's relative dominance was largely due to receiving largest number of localizations and bulk of its sales were made during TSR era. I'd argue up until 5th edition, there were way more people who transitioned from BECMI to AD&D or only played BECMI, That squares with what I recall

with people who transitioned from AD&D, 3.x. or 4th edition to BECMI being a drop in the ocean.
Weirdly, I did this for a few years when I introduced my kids to D&D. But as we oldsters usually do, what I actually ran was a mish mash of multiple editions. Mostly B/X with some of my AD&D 1e world stuff in it also.


Since then, WotC has made D&D's back catalogue more accessible in PDF format. So if BECMI has grown a fat tail due to digital distribution, I wouldn't know. I got B, E, C and M off the shelf, but I also got the whole suite and some neat maps from DTRPG .pdf recently.

kyoryu
2021-07-28, 09:54 AM
I'd suspect something in the 1e, B/X, 2e era for exploding it, also 5e for the ridiculous reach it has had.

I'm not sure 3e really expanded the market significantly. I think it maintained the market well, but I don't think it gained much ground.



B/X and it's followers were sold in toy store and game stores.
Get them while they're young. :smallwink:

I got my copy of Moldvay Basic in a WALGREEN'S.

I got a number of my AD&D books from SEARS.

In those days, D&D had retail penetration it doesn't even have today.

Eldan
2021-07-28, 10:03 AM
But I think that may also be because you don't really need a store to get into D&D today? I know a lot of People who get into D&D over Youtube or social media, and then just order the books or buy PDFs.

NorthernPhoenix
2021-07-28, 10:07 AM
But I think that may also be because you don't really need a store to get into D&D today? I know a lot of People who get into D&D over Youtube or social media, and then just order the books or buy PDFs.

That's certainly true. While DnD is now in stores again, the real sign of success is that it is constantly high up on the Amazon top lists.

Telok
2021-07-28, 11:36 AM
Influential within the realm of d&d: AD&D, for all the awesome settings that still shape the game today. Dark Sun, non-vancian psi, Spelljammer, Planescape, FR, Dragonlance, dragonborn being knockoff draconians, etc.

Influential outside the d&d brand: 3.x, for the OGL.

Popular by numbers: 5e, because advertising.

Popular by the love & dedication of fans: tough one but probably BECMI, maybe 3.x or AD&D.

Vahnavoi
2021-07-28, 01:00 PM
The talk about toy stores brought to mind another venue: public libraries.

At least here, BECMI's localization's helped create a market for other localized products (Middle-Earth Roleplaying Game, Cyberpunk, Paranoia, etc.) in the late 80s and early 90s and those localizations made it to shelves of public libraries, where they remained accessible to anyone for free well into 2000s. This didn't happen for 2nd Edition AD&D or 3rd Edition D&D, because they didn't get localized and so either didn't make their way into libraries or were put in a different section reserved for foreign language books. Notably, this trend has reversed for 5th Edition. Despite not having a localization yet (I think), it's still made its way into the same section as local language games and rather prominently placed.

So what's the situation in other countries? How visible and accessible is D&D in your libraries?

Batcathat
2021-07-28, 01:22 PM
So what's the situation in other countries? How visible and accessible is D&D in your libraries?

I can't speak for the entire country of Sweden, but at least my local library has a fairly impressive display of RPG books, including D&D (mainly 3.5 and 5e, I think). Certainly not everything published but it should be more than enough for anyone who wants to play the game. This is despite the fact that D&D isn't that big here. It certainly has a lot of name recognition but the place of "the role-playing game" it has in some countries is occupied by local competitors here (at least historically, it might've changed in later years). Oh, and I don't think any D&D products has ever been translated into Swedish.

Vahnavoi
2021-07-28, 03:06 PM
Ha! Finland got Finnish BECM! :smalltongue:

I suspect the reason Sweden didn't get theirs was because that niche was taken up by Drakar och Demoner, back when it was relevant. So you just made do with the English versions.

Batcathat
2021-07-28, 03:23 PM
Interesting. I assumed it had to do with Swedish being such a small market but Finnish must be even smaller. But yeah, you're probably right. "Drakar och Demoner" was most of the local competition I mentioned and trying to knock it out of the saddle in its heyday would probably have been more work than it was worth.

Vahnavoi
2021-07-28, 03:52 PM
It's also possible there were all kinds of copyright and licensing hurdles, or that nobody just had the balls to approach TSR for the rights. Back in the day, some complete amateurs got a licensing deals just because they thought to ask, as TSR was expanding aggressively and wasn't looking too hard at who was asking.

As contrasting example from WotC and Hasbro era, 4th edition would've made for decent videogames but they never got done because somebody was sleeping on a license. Videogames based on earlier editions had done fairly well and even launched franchises of their own, so 4th edition videogame at the right time could've done wonders to the edition.

RandomPeasant
2021-07-28, 05:18 PM
Influential outside the d&d brand: 3.x, for the OGL.

This is an interesting point. People have mentioned how BECMI got the whole TTRPG thing started, and it's true that it did, but but the games it inspired had their own rulesets. Such was the power of the OGL that a huge portion of the TTRPG market released things that used D&D's rules engine. I think there was even a Vampire d20 product at one point.


Popular by the love & dedication of fans: tough one but probably BECMI, maybe 3.x or AD&D.

I feel like that has to be 3e. BECMI fans didn't put a non-D&D game to number one just for continuing to give them the thing they wanted.

Jason
2021-07-28, 05:30 PM
So what's the situation in other countries? How visible and accessible is D&D in your libraries?
Libraries in the US don't generally stock D&D books, because they went missing too often.