A lot of my D&D preferences in terms of editions boil to a matter of vibes. Each edition of D&D just carries a very different vibe and even in cases where the actual character options may be similar the "shape" of a character may change in my brain if taken across different editions. A lot of it boils down to rules differences of course, like the same concept will look different depending on the rules used to represent that character, but even minute rules differences can communicate a completely different vibe to me.
For an example, the Dwarf class from B/X D&D is basically just a simplified representation of a Dwarf Fighter. But a B/X Dwarf has a completely different shape than an AD&D 1e Dwarf Fighter. Even though the actual rules governing those two characters are for the most part compatible and the differences in presentation are negligible, they still feel like two completely different characters.
There's another example I can think of: back in the day when I consumed R.A. Salvatore's Legend of Drizzt books religiously there was a character, Kimmuriel, who was written as a Drow Psion, but at the time the book was written it was obviously written under the assumptions of AD&D 2e. I don't know why I found the character interesting but the Expanded Psionics Handbook for D&D 3.5 had just come out so I got to work making essentially the same character (Drow Psion) in D&D 3.5 and... it just felt wrong. The shape was all wrong. Kimmuriel in the books didn't feel like a guy who had ranks in Concentration and Psicraft on his sheet.
Anyway it's a very powerful vibe-based economy here.
This cuts the other way too: even if I built the most basic Human Fighter in 5e (just like the most archetypal sword haver, swing sword, have shield, hit autoattack all day every day) I couldn't just transport them into B/X as a Fighter. Even if I brought in all the conceptual elements 1:1 it wouldn't feel right! That character no longer is the Fighter they started as in 5e, and it's all down to how I visualize a 5e Fighter vs. a B/X Fighter
The inverse is possible, too. At least in my experience. I've played the same character in both Pathfinder and 5e. And yeah, those two "editions" are closer than B/X and 5e, but hear me out. Said PC, Calico Deschain, has the same vibe in both versions, but mechanically are different. In PF, she was a rogue/cleric/shadowdancer. To recreate the same feel, but not the same mechanics, she's now a rogue/warlock and going into monk.
I absolutely agree with the point you made, but it's cool, to me, that the flipside can be true, as well.
Oh definitely, Pathfinder and 5e while having pronounced mechanical differences still have a lot of the same vibe to them, to the point where I could easily port over a concept from 5e to Pathfinder and while the mechanical building blocks would be different the feel would stay intact. For an example, I could easily port over a Pathfinder Magus into 5e as an Eldritch Knight, or a 5e Artificer (Artillerist) as a Spellslinger Wizard (maybe with the Technomancer prestige class on top)
Please explain how you visualize a fighter (or any other class) between these different editions. It sounds fascinating.
