Best "DnD" game?

Hey guys. Getting ready to move to a new city, hence why I haven't been as active as before.

Anyway, I have a couple friends over in this new city, and was wondering if they would like to start Role Playing with me. However, the only Role Playing game I've ever fidgeted with is Warhammer Fantasy Role Play.

So what is generally regarded as the "Best" Role Playing game/setting? I was planning on, due to my incredibly hectic schedule at my new job, just making them a bunch of mercenaries and giving them one off jobs; "You enter into the dark musty tomb, and find little light inside; the villagers offered to pay you to investigate the screams emitting from the catacomb, though you start to ponder if the money is worth it" sort of thing.

It depends on your group. We used to have a blast with AD&D (First edition for the win!). That's generally more technical and stat based than many other games with an emphasis on rules and therefore dice.

As our groups got older we started delving into Rifts (more similar to AD&D in my opinion) but in space/other dimensions. That was fun but you reeeeeeeeeeally need to worry about the group fitting into the right quest and character balance. I can give you stories but I once was allowed a character that completely outclassed everything.

If you're more into the storytelling aspect of roleplaying, my recommendation is Werewolf: The Apocalypse and/or Vampire: The Masquerade

They're both pretty much the same game and can actually be used together (there's also one called Wraith I believe). The focus is more on character creation leading to compelling storytelling. Even in combat it's not as much about roll this set of dice (although there is dice) and this is the outcome. There's generally greater flexibility to tell the story of the battle. Reading what I just wrote it sounds like this is what I'd lean you towards because it sounds like the other games but more fleshed out. But wait: It CAN be more fleshed out, but only with people who are very comfortable ACTING. In my experience some people aren't into true roleplaying and would rather that their character sheet speak for them. That's a little harder to do here and can disrupt a group.

Also, the opposite is true. In AD&D, I feel we had a good group, and even though we knew all the rules and had our character sheets all set, the first question before any task was always "what would this character do?" and then try to act accordingly.

I am in a live DnD campaign with some friends and we also are doing a play by post campaign together online. Most of us are noobs to it, but it's fun. We are a group of 4 guys and 3 girls and we drink beer, eat pizza, listen to metal and have a blast with the rp. We are playing 4th Ed rules which I enjoy. I am not familiar with earlier rule sets to compare it to though. For a noob it is pretty approachable and the gameplay is fun, but you need to do your homework and really read the player handbook(s). We picked Forgotten Realms for our setting because a lot of us were familiar with places like Neverwinter and Baldur's Gate from video games and from various novels. I enjoy the setting a lot, very vast and really something for everyone.

my favorite is D&D shadow over Mistara unless your talking about pen and paper

Pen, Paper, dice, all that.

Not really looking for Models, though; just some good old fashion word play