Picked it up in 93 or 94, in middle school, already on the second edition. I loved the Dark Sun, Planescape and Birthright settings, as well as parts of the Forgotten Realms (Aurora's Whole Realms Catalogue, the Forgotten Realms Atlas, and the Menzoberranzan Boxed Set in particular). I met several older players that claim that 2e ruined D&D, but I certainly don't see it that way. Back in the day, the game had few rulebooks (the three basic books, the Complete * Handbooks and the MC Annuals), the rest were mostly fluff books, and it was glorious. As the decade came to an end, that policy changed, and the optional rule arms race began; by the time the third edition came around, the shadow of the future was plain for all to see.
Don't get me wrong: 3e/3.5e was great, the rules were MUCH simpler, being designed with more modern sensibilities in mind: design policies, not special case rules; the variant games (Mutants and Masterminds, Blue Rose) were also great fun, but the streamlined system and the careful(?) balancing of the different races, classes and options took away most of the flexibility of the game. Back in 2e days, you could play anything from ultra high fantasy like Planescape to historicals set in classic antiquity where there were no mages and few magic items; take magic out of 3e or turn it up to eleven and mid- to high-level characters become unplayabe.
Pathfinder recently someow managed to add some of that flexibility back into the system, but I haven't been able to get Birthright ported over to my satisfaction, so there's still plenty of reason to play the old editions.
This is my cue to thank the folks at CGL for the streamlining of the ATOW as compared to MW3; rules should be simple, and there should be checks and balances, but the flexibility to adapt to different eras and even the occasional AU is the strongest point of the new system.
So, uh, thanks a lot!
