What's up with ad&d?

[that_one_kobold]

I've played and loved 5e for quite some time now, and just found an old ad&d 2e book. Are ad&d and ad&d 2e any good or what?

[D+1]

I've played and loved 5e for quite some time now, and just found an old ad&d 2e book. Are ad&d and ad&d 2e any good or what?

Yes they are. In some ways superior, in others maybe not so much. But no version of D&D has an expiration date. Read the rules. If you have questions you might want to ask about them on a 1e/2E friendly website like Dragonsfoot. I still play 1E. It's got a lot of house rules but what version of D&D doesn't wind up with a lot of house rules? I've played 3E, 3.5, and read 4E and 5E and I still think 1E is a better set of rules to base a game off of than anything later. Not that there aren't things that can't be improved about it, but as I said I PREFER to start there.

[Mechalich]

2e AD&D probably has the best fluff material of any of the editions, and certainly has the most fluff by word count of any edition. A lot of the extant settings where really hammered into place during 2e and have only evolved marginally if at all since then. So there's a lot of interesting material in 2e for use in games set in later editions in a fashion that isn't exactly true of 3.X or 4e.

Mechanically, 2e has real problems - and I say that as someone who ran it and loved it to death. There's a huge lack of consistency from one book to the next, stuff like racial class and level restrictions are annoying, THAC0 is a frustrating formula to actually use, and there are countless ad hoc rules buried deep in various splat books. Given that 5e was in many ways a means of getting back toward 2e roots while retaining 3e's measurably superior core mechanics it probably makes more sense to run 5e with 2e fluff rather than try to get into 2e at this point.

[Telok]

It should probably be noted that AD&D (at least 1st ed.) is less a fully fledged set of rules to run a game with, and more of a collection of baseline rules and masses of optional and house rules that you choose from and adapt to make your D&D game.

That said, there are reasons for all of the rules and which ones you use or emphasize will change the way that game play dramatically.

[KillianHawkeye]

The older editions of D&D were great (and modern D&D couldn't exist without them), but the trends and general concepts of game design have changed a lot since the 70s and 80s. The rules were looser, with more focus on the story, demanding more creativity and logical thinking from both the players and the DM. And it was a simpler time, back before most gamers had developed a ton of bad video game habits.

[daniel_ream]

They're certainly different. Any good? That's up to you and your group, but you'll certainly be learning some new things about gaming if you investigate them, and that's always a good thing.

You can find recreations of the first edition AD&D rules at http://www.knights-n-knaves.com/osric/ and second edition at http://www.lulu.com/shop/http://www....-22756917.html

In my experience, Gary Gygax's writing style is as crucial a part of 1E AD&D as the mechanics, so if you can find copies of the original books cheap I would pursue that option. 2E print copies seem to be fairly easy to find inexpensively.

If your only experience with D&D is 5E, then you're going to find 1E and 2E rather more...baroque. There's little consistency among mechanics or dice types for similar in-fiction tasks, and the rules as a whole will likely feel more cobbled together in an ad hoc fashion than deliberately designed (because they were). But they worked just fine for many a hexcrawl or dungeon delve back in the day.

Oh, and the 1E DMG is stuffed full of just plain useful stuff for a fantasy campaign. Rules on overland travel, building castles, magic items, occult herbs and gemstones, random encounters for everywhere, it's a treasure trove of ideas that has yet to be equalled.

[Quertus]

2e is my favorite edition, although the mechanics are often inelegant.

3e has great breadth of options, allowing you to play most any character you want. Want a Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot? Someone can probably tell you how to build it.

[JAL_1138]

I've played and loved 5e for quite some time now, and just found an old ad&d 2e book. Are ad&d and ad&d 2e any good or what?

Yes, very. 2e was my favorite edition, with 5e being close behind it but not quite overtaking it. The learning curve is steep though, as they're poorly-organized and the style of writing is less clear and concise. The rules are very, very different than 5e, so don't assume anything you know from 5e will translate to it. AD&D can also be a good bit more lethal; more save-or-die effects, lower HP, and the default rule is that characters die instantly at 0hp (pretty sure there were some slightly more forgiving variant rules later, or else people houseruled them in).

Also be wary of 2e splatbooks for classes and races or any other extra rules—TSR was run rather poorly at the time, and the CEO, Lorraine Williams, forbade employees from playtesting on company time (that's not a joke about game balance being poor; she really did institute a no-playtesting policy). The crunch for the splatbooks wildly varies in quality and balance as a result. The settings, on the other hand, were fantastic. Box sets of awesomeness galore.

[FreddyNoNose]

I've played and loved 5e for quite some time now, and just found an old ad&d 2e book. Are ad&d and ad&d 2e any good or what?

They are great! Unless you need everything spelled out for you like you are a child like the newer games do, you should love them.

[BWR]

I am quite fond of 2e (and BECMI/RC) but there is a reason I play Pathfinder. I may bitch about how easy PCs have it these days, with save-or-die being rare and not something 1st level PCs could be expected to encounter and whatnot, but PF runs more smoothly and is the preferred system of two of my players.

As already pointed out, what 2e did better than any edition was settings and ideas. I doubt you will find any edition that has as great a breadth and depth to the types of supplements and settings as 2e.

[2D8HP]

I went '77 "Basic D&D" -> oD&D (plus "All the World's Monster's, and Arduin) -> 1e AD&D -> other RPG's -> 5e D&D, and I only glanced at 2e through 4e, but 2e looks sweet, and I think it would be fun

If someone wants to easily learn TSR D&D, probably the easiest way would be to pick up '91 "Basic" or '94 "Classic" (same thing TSR just slapped a different cover on '91 Basic, and called in "Classic Dungeons & Dragons" in '94

Because I just can't resist bloviating, I'm going to point out that the '91 rules were once known as "Fifth edition", see:

here.

It went:


1974: Arneson/Gygax "Original" (Brown box/White box)

1977: Holmes "Basic" (Bluebook)

1981: Moldvay/Cook "Basic" (B/X)

1983: Mentzer "Basic" (Red box)

1991: Brown/Denning "New Easy to Master" (Black box) - 1994: "Classic" (same as '91, just a different cover).

Out of all of those, the '91/'94 rules really are "Easy to Master" as the editing/English is better, but my favorite is the complete game in just 48 pages Holmes authored 1977 version, which because it was my first FRP, I can't be objective about.

I enjoy the thought of calling OD&D/Holmes 1e, Moldvay 2e, Mentzer 3e, The Rules Cyclopedia 4e, ignoring AD&D and 3e/3.5/4e WotC D&D, and then came Mearls 5e.

But yeah the biggest change I know was between TSR AD&I/D&D and WotC "3e" (was 4e a big change?).

If anyone wonders:

The first Dungeons & Dragons box was in 1974.



The first Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Player's Handbook was in 1978.



As far as "complete" rules, the Dungeons & Dragons Rules Cyclopedia were published in 1991.



The Classic Dungeons & Dragons Game: Rules and Adventures Book, (only was for levels one to five) was published in 1994.



And in 2014 was 5e Dungeons & Dragons

The Holmes Basic "bluebook" rules were reprinted in '99 as part of the 25 "Silver Anniversary" Set.

Holmes is... not AD&D, or B/X or OD&D, it's sort of all of them and none of them... and it was AWESOME!

If someone wants to easily learn TSR D&D, probably the easiest way would be to pick up '91 "Basic" or '94 "Classic" (same thing), because those are the most clearly written, but if you want to be COOL, then get Holmes, "Basic", OD&D, and AD&D all within 2 years of each other. That's what I did!


Also 1.5 was LAME! I'm still boycotting it!

By "1.5" I mean 1985's Unearthed Arcana, if you decide to use it, be prepared to do some serious house-ruling.

[Xuc Xac]

They are great! Unless you need everything spelled out for you like you are a child like the newer games do, you should love them.

Or, they are terrible! You have to make even basic things yourself because the "designers" didn't think things through and left a lot of glaring holes. There's "some assembly required" but it includes too many of some pieces and not enough of others you need, like a chair from IKEA with two extra seats in the box but only two legs.

[Anonymouswizard]

THAC0 is a frustrating formula to actually use

THAC0-(1d20+bonuses)=AC hit, not that hard. If you precalculate your 'effective THAC0' when writing weapons down by just subtracting your bonuses it becomes eTHAC0-1d20=AC hit.

Still annoying it's not addition, but otherwise fine.

They are great! Unless you need everything spelled out for you like you are a child like the newer games do, you should love them.

Actually modern games are moving towards rules light and spelling out significantly less than 2e. But go on and insult people who like new games, I'll make sure not to invite you to any Rocket Age games I run.

EDIT: really, the main difference is that AD&D gives you all the materials you need to build and furnish a room, while modern games are more like a room you can furnish to your taste. The difference is where the work has to go, with a modern game you don't have to do any work to use it, but will likely want to personalise it, with AD&D you can't start using it until you've at least built a roof, and ideally four walls.

[ATHATH]

3e has great breadth of options, allowing you to play most any character you want. Want a Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot? Someone can probably tell you how to build it.

Off of the top of my head... Be a Warforged with the Incarnate Construct and Necropolitan templates, take a few levels of Rogue and Swashbuckler, then take the Craven and Daring Outlaw feats while continuing to advance as a Swashbuckler.

Next?

[ATHATH]

1st edition AD&D has a ludicrous number of game design flaws in it. Some examples:

Female members of some races have lower STR caps than males of their species- and no mechanical benefits elsewhere (except maybe for not being attracted to Succubi and such?)to make up for this (across any other species).

The "exceptional strength" system. Instead of, say, raising the STR cap, the game designers of 1e decided to create this weird fractional system for STR so that they could say exactly how much stronger or weaker He-Man is than Conan and the like (but not for the other stats, because ???).

Non-human races have level caps in most classes to "balance out their power", and are barred from some classes entirely (because a Dwarven Paladin is INCONCIEVABLE!). Due to the way that the system worked, if you were, say, an Elven Magic-User and reached your level cap, you could never gain another level EVER AGAIN (unless you used a Wish spell or the like, but that could only work once or twice). Your human party members could, of course, and would soon outclass you (because !@#$ you, you chose a cool, non-human race). Some races/class combinations had level caps as low as 7.

And just to rub it in your face- Guess what the one (and, bar a few exceptions, ONLY) class that every race doesn't have a level cap for is. Go on, guess.

THIEF.

Because anyone who's different than us clearly can only excel in taking things from us good, hardworking HUMANS! Praise the EMPRAH!

The Psionics system is !@#$ed up. Your Psionic power is completely independent of your level, so if you get really lucky in character generation, you can drive pretty much anything sentient that you encounter dead/comatose/permanently insane several times per day, INCLUDING GODS. And that's just if you rolled well for your power points- there are some utility powers that are really good as well. If you get unlucky, however, you're basically !@#$ed as soon as you encounter a Psionic enemy, which could and would one-shot you instantly because you were unlucky enough to be a weak Psionic character. Even if you ARE in a fair fight with a Psionic enemy, you basically have to duel them while the rest of the party sits around and twiddles their thumbs, because one round of Psionic combat (between two Psionic characters) takes 1/10 of a normal round. That's right, you get 10 turns for everyone else's one. !@#$ 1e Psionics.

What happens if you roll 3s for two ability scores, which would force you to take two different (possibly incompatible) classes? Whoooooooo knoooooooowwsss?

So, you wanna play a guy that shoots fireballs out of his hands, do you? Well, I hope you roll well for your stats, or else you're gonna play the "guy with a stick" class again, just like last game. And the game before that. And the game before that.

So, you rolled up the stats required to be a Barbarian, huh? Well, I hope none of your party members are Magic-Users, because your character now really, REALLY hates Magic-Users as part of their class. But don't worry! Once you get to a high enough level, you'll be able to begrudgingly work with Magic-Users if it's absolutely necessary! I hope you haven't met your party's Magic-User before then (or their Cleric, for that matter, if you're starting at low enough level that you hate Clerics too)!

Clerics and Druids have their spells capped at 7th level (spells), while Magic-Users get to go up to 9th level spells. Why? Whooooooooooo knooooooooooowwwwssss?

Oh, and a Dragon Magazine article reveals that 1e's game designers believe in the Guy At The Gym Fallacy.

In summary: 1e is a terribly-designed system. I highly recommend that you use a different system instead, like, say 2e (which shares some of 1e's flaws, but has much less of them and has the same general "feel" that 1e has (or so I'm told)).

[Anonymouswizard]

Off of the top of my head... Be a Warforged with the Incarnate Construct and Necropolitan templates, take a few levels of Rogue and Swashbuckler, then take the Craven and Daring Outlaw feats while continuing to advance as a Swashbuckler.

Next?

A balanced character?

[daniel_ream]

1st edition AD&D has a ludicrous number of game design flaws in it. Some examples:.

No one denies that the AD&D 1E rules are something of a cobbled together mess. But "I don't understand why these choices were made" != "game design flaws". Everything you've cited here was done for a very specific reason.

[Xuc Xac]

No one denies that the AD&D 1E rules are something of a cobbled together mess. But "I don't understand why these choices were made" != "game design flaws". Everything you've cited here was done for a very specific reason.

Their terrible decisions were made for known reasons, but that doesn't mean they weren't terrible decisions. Things like demihuman level limits don't work the way they are described as working and don't accomplish their stated goals.

[daniel_ream]

What do you think their stated goals are? And why don't you think they accomplish that?

[Arbane]

AD&D was a LOT more adversarial than most modern games. It was taken for granted that the GM was going to try to murder the PCs (hopefully within the rules), and the players would have to try to avoid it. And if the PCs did survive, there were plenty of ways to mess with them further - rust monsters, a section in the DMG on taxes to dump on PCs, a type of bug that will lay eggs in your ear if you try to listen at keyholes, unidentified magic items that had to be tested in a manner not unlike handling unexploded bombs...

The older editions of D&D were great (and modern D&D couldn't exist without them), but the trends and general concepts of game design have changed a lot since the 70s and 80s. The rules were looser, with more focus on the story, demanding more creativity and logical thinking from both the players and the DM. And it was a simpler time, back before most gamers had developed a ton of bad video game habits.

Yeah, they had entirely different bad habits, like ingrained paranoia due to the abundance of screw-you instant-death traps that passed for 'clever'.
There were no real skill rules (at least not in 1st ed, I never played 2nd), so accomplishing anything outside of combat required a lot of playing Mother-May-I with the GM and trying to play 20-questions to avoid the inevitable screw-you insta-death traps. It's kind of telling that the example of play in the 1st ed DMG of a party finding and trying to open a secret door - and when they succeed, the poor chump who opened the door is immediately paralyzed and eaten by the ghouls on the other side. FUN TIMES!

No one denies that the AD&D 1E rules are something of a cobbled together mess. But "I don't understand why these choices were made" != "game design flaws". Everything you've cited here was done for a very specific reason.

Mostly that reason is because Gygax & Co made up some stuff they thought would be fun. For example, Clerics only exist in the game because they needed a way to rein in an overpowered vampire PC.

[Thrudd]

1e AD&D is a snapshot of the creation and revision process for RPGs. Gygax and friends made the very simple original D&D rules, and then played and added what they felt they needed in a very ad-hoc way, occasionally collecting the new rules and things they had invented into a new booklet. Every game something new was being created. AD&D was another step in this process, which Gygax in his introduction to the DMG blatantly acknowledged - that this is a work in progress and these books are the first attempt at putting together something more comprehensive than what had come before.

So they are the first guy's first ideas about what a role playing game might be - literally the first guy who ever thought of a role playing game, that published his first attempt at designing such a game, with the full intent of continuing to revise it and playtest it and expecting other people to playtest it and come up with their own stuff that will make it better. (Of course, he was rather bitter about being cut out of that process by his own company, and bad mouthed everything that came after he was forced out, and said a lot of contradictory things at different points, but that's a different issue from what his frame of mind was in '77 or '78 when AD&D was being put together)

Looking at 1e AD&D for what it is, and reading all the advice and ideas found in those books, it's pretty amazing and easy to see why it became so popular. There are understandable flaws in it, it's like the first rough draft of a novel that has been collected from an array of disparate notes. But there is definitely a reason and clear rationale for everything in there and Gygax goes out of his way to explain his goal or rationale for many of the rule choices. They may not be the best way to accomplish what he was trying to do, but they definitely make sense according to what he was trying to do.

[Quertus]

THAC0-(1d20+bonuses)=AC hit, not that hard. If you precalculate your 'effective THAC0' when writing weapons down by just subtracting your bonuses it becomes eTHAC0-1d20=AC hit.

Still annoying it's not addition, but otherwise fine.

It's not "not Addition" that condemns THAC0, it's that it's not intuitive. But, really, it's bigger than that. It's the whole "are high numbers or lie numbers good here?", "do I want to roll high or low here?" Etc that is a systemic failure of 2e and earlier.

I've played with college educated adults who were still confused by older editions after years of play, and I've played with 7-year-olds who played 3e competently by their first session.

Off of the top of my head... Be a Warforged with the Incarnate Construct and Necropolitan templates, take a few levels of Rogue and Swashbuckler, then take the Craven and Daring Outlaw feats while continuing to advance as a Swashbuckler.

Next?

A balanced character?

That one's easy: at will Mind Seed. Turn the entire planet into copies of yourself.

Perfect balance.

[Anonymouswizard]

It's not "not Addition" that condemns THAC0, it's that it's not intuitive. But, really, it's bigger than that. It's the whole "are high numbers or lie numbers good here?", "do I want to roll high or low here?" Etc that is a systemic failure of 2e and earlier.

I've played with college educated adults who were still confused by older editions after years of play, and I've played with 7-year-olds who played 3e competently by their first session.

Oh, sure, I was mentioning that for most people subtraction takes slightly longer.

For the entire 'are high or low good', I wouldn't single out THAC0 for that. Descending AC did come first.

[daniel_ream]

But there is definitely a reason and clear rationale for everything in there and Gygax goes out of his way to explain his goal or rationale for many of the rule choices.

I will point out that the AD&D DMG doesn't actually contain very much of this compared to his Sorceror's Scroll column in Dragon, which is where the real gold is. To truly understand AD&D, read all of Appendix N and all of the Sorceror's Scroll columns. It dispels a great many misconceptions. (Among other things, that AD&D is about "telling a story")

[KarlMarx]

Essentially, in later editions, the basic format will be taken for granted. How do I try to do something? You roll a d20 and add the relevant modifier. Will taking seemingly mundane actions result in my unexpected gruesome demise? Probably not. Will there be any internal consistency? Yes.

Older editions buck this trend. Much less is invested in formal mechanics, and more in player-DM 'cooperation', because sweet-talking the guy at the end of the table out of insta-killing you, no save, is totally how cooperation works. Players, I find, die much more often, especially at lower levels. On the flip side, it's also much easier to roll up new ones, leading to less emotional investment.

It isn't a system I would recommend to inexperienced players, because there is so little consistency in the rules, nor necessarily to a group focused on min-maxing, because there aren't mechanics to be exploited utilized. But if your group is fine making it up as you go and using something other than a D20 to do everything, by all means, give it a whirl.

[Mr Beer]

AD&D was completely ground breaking, it was my first RPG and I played it exclusively for years. However if I was going to play D&D again, 5e is clearly a superior product in just about every possible way. As it should be, having the benefit of 40 years or so of game evolution.

[johnbragg]

Clerics and Druids have their spells capped at 7th level (spells), while Magic-Users get to go up to 9th level spells.

For people who never played 1st or 2nd edition, I'd like to point out that although cleric/druid spells only went up to 7th level, they weren't less powerful than wizard spells--clerics just spread the same power spread over 7 levels instead of 9.

Why? Whooooooooooo knooooooooooowwwwssss?

Indeed.

[AMFV]

I've played and loved 5e for quite some time now, and just found an old ad&d 2e book. Are ad&d and ad&d 2e any good or what?

I personally like AD&D better, but it's a lot more of a mess to wade through. I just like the way things are written and the flavoring of it better. It's got a ton of setting material and practically everything is somewhat flavorful.

[Jay R]

You need to realize that it is not a different version of the same game. It's a very different game, with very different approaches.

There is no CR. Many monsters you meet can and will kill your characters if you meet them head-on. You often need to run away, or make allies. Much of the time you should be sneaking around, often finding ways to get the treasure without fighting.

There are many fewer character options. There is some character build optimization, but nowhere near as much. Real optimization occurs during play.

I love it. But I also recognize that it plays very differently.

[LibraryOgre]

One aspect I very much like is that character creation tends to only take place at the start of the game, instead of every level thereafter.

I am playing a [blank]. That blank could be something mechanically very simple, like "Human Fighter", or it might be very complex, like a gnome Bard/Illusionist/Thief with the Professor kit (which I think is allowed, because Complete Bard's is both Excellent and Nuts at the same time; quick check shows I am wrong... it's either a Thief/Bard with the Professor or Jongeuler kits, or an Illusionist/Professor). But once that character is commited to paper, they seldom have much in the way of mechanical changes. I don't have to figure out what I'm going to take a level in at level 2; it will be in my class(es). I don't have to plan out my advancement for the next 20 levels to make sure I can hit the right prestige classes at the right time... pretty much my main choices are "What NWPs and WPs am I going to take" and "Where will I focus my thief skills, if I get a choice"?

Beyond that... the play is the thing. Unlike 3.x where character creation is a loseable, on-going minigame, character creation in AD&D is hard to lose.