Dungeons and Dragons - Any one here play

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Yeah, psionics in 2nd Ed had a reputation for being horribly broken no matter what way you played it. On the other hand it did make Dark Sun quite popular for a while. Druids were another sticking point in 2nd Ed: "What do you mean I have to ax the other guy in a duel to go up a level?".

I lived in Williams Bay, Wisconsin for a couple of years back in the late 1970s. To the west was the Yerkes Observatory, where Carl Saga (allegedly) put a hole in the floor with a telescope eyepiece (look it up!). To the east was Lake Geneva, home of TSR and the Gygax family. I had the pleasure of meeting them and playing a few sessions of Gamma World and D&D in the basement of a bowling alley.

Rules? What rules? We just had fun!

It never got too fun or too serious. Yes, the rules were respected, but not strictly adhered to. It was only a game, after all.

I had a pretty cool experience last weekend.

I went to a new game advertised as learning 5th ed.
The DM has been playing since the 70s.
There were 13 players! It was supposed to start at 3PM, but I was late. It did not start playing till 5PM
The DM was still learning to play 5E himself. But you could tell he was an experienced hand at the helm.

The cool thing was that there were some open Aspy/Autistic at the game. Seems like most games lots of people show signs that they might be on the spectrum. But one guy asked me how much experience I had. I told him I played 1st edition in the 80s and then gave it up until I started playing again when 5E came out. he asked me why I decided to start playing again. I told him I was diagnosed with Aspergers a couple of years ago and I needed something to help me unwind and take my mind off of things. That is when things opened up and people started talking about themselves being on the spectrum.

When I was first diagnosed I tried to find people on the spectrum to talk to and even when to an aspergers auitsm group, but most of the people I know who are on the spectrum dont want to talk about it and the people at the group were more autistics and I had trouble relating.
This was great to be able torelate to others in that environment.

I rarely get the opportunity to, due to travel constraints, but I'd love to, especially 5e. I even have a homebrew race for 3.5 that I need to playtest sometime...

Played D&D a loong time. I switched at 4.) to playing Pathfinder or sticking to older versions. During at time when I was having trouble finding age appropriate group to tabletop game with I started playing WoW and it caught me tighter than WC had and I OCD stayed there. I took break at Cataclysm.
Afte rso many moves and a few break ins I dont have much left in books or figures though I am looking at my Shadowrun on my desk an hour ago.

Standard rations have greater encumbrance, cost less, and don't last long (imagine bread, cheese, and fruit in a paper bag).

Iron Rations have lesser encumbrance, cost more, and last "forever" (imagine the medieval equivalent of a military MRE).

I've dabbled a bit in 3.5 and Pathfinder (which is still D&D, let's be real). Thinking of giving 5th ed. a shot. I had fun trying them, but some stuff kind of made it hard for me to stick with these games though:

Contrary to the OP here, I get turned off of these games very easily if there's too much combat and too little RP. I'll get super-bored and ask "why are we even doing this?" For combat stuff to hold my interest it needs to be heavily tied in to the RP so it feels meaningful and it needs to feel like it's dangerous, desperate and holds the real possibility of a gruesome TPK if approached incorrectly. I like it to be intense and personal... and book-ended by long, intense roleplay that justifies having that combat in the first place.

Sadly, it seems a lot of DMs just string some combat encounters together and call it a day.

I don't think the alignment system helps; it's too vague so everyone just comes up with their own idea of what it all means and there's no consensus on it... so it just creates conflict between players and makes moral conflict within the story boringly simplistic, like checking a few boxes. I much prefer adventures where it's not clear who the bad guys are. I especially like them when that's not clear even after the last session. It adds depth. It adds a nice philosophical angle. I hear they worked on alignment a bit, so that's good.

Also, loot. My attention span for anything pertaining to loot is about 3.7 seconds. I'd be most pleased with a DM who at appropriate intervals goes "Oh, and you find some stuff worth X amount of gold" so we can get back to doing something that isn't high-fantasy bookkeeping. Even spending that much time on it is annoying to me and I'm usually inclined to just hand my sheet to someone else and let them figure it out while I go get snacks or something.

This stuff is hard to find. Still, I like the creativity and social interaction involved in these games... which is why I have trouble enjoying them online as opposed to in person... which is in turn another reason I stopped playing. Thinking about getting into it again when I have the time. Might not be a good fit for me though, i think some of the stuff I listed above is just a part of it.

It really does depend on the DM, though. I know some guys who will hold your hand the entire time, for the sake of telling their story...other guys who will throw you into a huge battle with absolutely no consideration for challenge rating. I've played games with no battles or monsters at all.