So what version of...? D&D

A stray comment on Facebook today had me pondering about what versions of roleplaying games I have and what I saw in them. Seemed worth some thought so I decided to start with the elephant in the room, Dungeons & Dragons.

On the pure Wizards/TSR Dungeons & Dragons line I own:

1. Holmes Basic - my introduction to D&D, repurchased for nostalgia a couple of years back, because I really like it's ethos and style (which influenced my view on D&D).
2. Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition - the version of the game I played most of at school. It's up in the loft, and kept for nostalgia. My copies have book plates in from the school, where I got them as a prize one year (they said you could get books, I picked the Player's Handbook...).
3. Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition - my current go-to version, which I'm using for Curse of Strahd. I find this very playable, I just wish that the rules would stick in my head better. Fortunately I have a player, Alex, who knows them like the back of his hand, and also the Roll20 Compendium to look up things quickly.
4. Dungeons & Dragons Starter Set - enough rules and a decent campaign to get you underway. I reviewed this here.
5. Dungeons & Dragons Essentials Kit - effectively a combined Basic and Expert set for the current edition with Screen, dice, cards and a campaign that can be used in conjunction with the one in the Starter Set. I like this version a lot and recommended it here. 

Forks:

1. 13th Age - I picked this up because it intrigued me, and Baz' King of Dungeons made me want to find out more. Most of those said that this was a fork of D&D 4e.  Many people have said great things about it, and I like what I read as I skimmed it. I need to read it properly and possibly give it a run out, but it will have competition for that time.
2. Blueholme Journeyman - absolutely brilliant extrapolation of Holmes Basic up into higher levels (20!). Definitely check this one out if you liked that version of Basic.
3. King of Dungeons - Baz' fantasy heartbreaker hack of 13th Age; I enjoyed this and it made me buy 13th Age. Some nice stuff giving reasons to adventure.

Retroclones:

1. Labyrinth Lord - purchased back when I started buying D&D scenarios to use with Dungeon World so I had a rules set to reference. Skimmed, didn't really excite me.

OSR:

1. The Black Hack - I have the first and second editions of this, and it's great lightweight fun that can take pretty much any D&D scenario and let you start running straight away if you are steeped in the lore of D&D.
2. Heroic Fantasy - Graham Spearing's take on the Black Hack, a version that feels like it's a complete modern take on Basic D&D. I've run several one shots of this including the Ice Cold in Arrendale sequel to Frozen.
3. Beyond the Wall - This game is built around mini-campaigns where you are kids coming of age and making their way in the world, discovering who they are. It has a wonderful style, like some of the young adult fiction I loved growing up. I must get this out at some point, maybe for a Longcon.
4. Lamentations of the Flame Princess - I picked up a copy of this back when I was buying the interesting (as opposed to icky-metal) supplements for the game (sadly now unusable in many places due to the toxicity of the author). In honesty, it looked pretty but I found it not to my taste.

Not D&D but they have a flavour of it:

1. Dungeon World - fantastic game. In fact, I think that this is really the game that got Powered by the Apocalypse games out of their niche. It feels like D&D but is very fresh and modern in design.
2. Into the Odd - the designer states that this is a D&D evolution, but it's come a long way. It does grab the flavour very well. I'm not going to mention Electric Bastionland and Mausritter, as I've reviewed them previously and they move even further away. However, you can still see the DNA.

There's a quite a variety of flavours in these, and quite a few I'd like to get to the table.

My favourites (at the moment) are D&D 5e, Heroic Fantasy and Beyond the Wall. 

I've no urge to run Dungeon World at the moment (probably because I'm running D&D).

If I had a need to run D&D quickly, I'd grab the Black Hack.

I'll probably sell Lamentations of the Flame Princess, but I wonder if there'll be a market for it.

I plan to read 13th Age soon.

How many takes on Dungeons & Dragons do you have, and why attracts you about them?

7 December 2020