I cut my teeth on Red Book, then moved into 2nd Edition and did a bit in 3rd Edition, though I much preferred the EverQuest d20 over D&D, as a good number of cool things were added in (namely the canning of bloody asinine spell slots). I have only played one game of 4th, and found it pretty cool (for that one game, I couldn't say how it would play out over the long term). I do however play in a weekly Pathfinder game, and enjoy it (but only as a player).
However, my biggest beef with 3.5 and its variants, including Pathfinder, is how needlessly complex it is, and higher level fights just seem to turn into hit points grinds where all you do is try to wear down your foe's hit point totals before they just suddenly fall over dead since they actually ever weaken from wounding. Hit locations are meaningless and non-existent, and the chart for Attacks of Opportunities is practically an entire page! Combat, which what D&D and the variants surround themselves around, is quite unfriendly to new people who don't know all the tricks and maneuvers - like cast your touch combat spell first then step into combat, rather than step into combat and cast your spell... because for some reason casting a COMBAT spell provokes an AoO.
Personally, I like the Pathfinder system despite its over-complexity, but I would never run it as a GM. For people just getting into gaming, I'd suggest Savage Worlds, it is quick, easy, and generic - one system for any genre, though it does have some balance issues and can be easily broken by knowledgeable players, nor is it a good choice for grit or realism.
However, my personal favourite, and the only game system I will run on a consistent basis is GURPS 4e (3e was badly broken). Again, generic and usable with any genre - I run 3 games a week, one is sci-fi space opera, the other low to mid fantasy, and the last a modern world sorcery game. Not to mention combat is very fast, and no character has to worry about more than 2 modifiers when making an attack.
However, my biggest beef with 3.5 and its variants, including Pathfinder, is how needlessly complex it is, and higher level fights just seem to turn into hit points grinds where all you do is try to wear down your foe's hit point totals before they just suddenly fall over dead since they actually ever weaken from wounding. Hit locations are meaningless and non-existent, and the chart for Attacks of Opportunities is practically an entire page! Combat, which what D&D and the variants surround themselves around, is quite unfriendly to new people who don't know all the tricks and maneuvers - like cast your touch combat spell first then step into combat, rather than step into combat and cast your spell... because for some reason casting a COMBAT spell provokes an AoO.
Personally, I like the Pathfinder system despite its over-complexity, but I would never run it as a GM. For people just getting into gaming, I'd suggest Savage Worlds, it is quick, easy, and generic - one system for any genre, though it does have some balance issues and can be easily broken by knowledgeable players, nor is it a good choice for grit or realism.
However, my personal favourite, and the only game system I will run on a consistent basis is GURPS 4e (3e was badly broken). Again, generic and usable with any genre - I run 3 games a week, one is sci-fi space opera, the other low to mid fantasy, and the last a modern world sorcery game. Not to mention combat is very fast, and no character has to worry about more than 2 modifiers when making an attack.
