Gary M said: Posting... what sort of setting you like would really help... That's pretty far outside the scope of new players. 4e is really good if you don't have any experienced players/dm's to rely on, and all you know are video games. So if absolutely everyone in your game is new, 4e is great for that. Otherwise i'd recommend BECMI or "Basic" D&D from the 80's. It has the same basic elements as every other D&D version. But it leaves lots of room for each group to decide how things should be in-between the rules. Plus, the books you need to read at the start are like 120 something pages total. Sixty something for the player's book, sixty something for the dm's book, and most of those are a multiple-choice adventure and a starter dungeon respectively. Less reading and optimizing, so you can get right into playing. That's just my two cents though.