DM Journal 1: Jumping from AD&D to 5e

"Do you have a moment? I have a brief survey for you to complete."

I’ve been ‘running’ the D&D campaign as game master for almost a year now. I hadn’t game mastered since high school, or even played, other than a few one shots over the years. I think they were version 3 or 4? Can’t remember, we used pre-generated characters and I didn’t get into the rules. 

So what’s it like leaping straight from AD&D to D&D 5e? It’s hard to say exactly, because it’s been so long since I played but the impressions I have are:

• The game is still spread across three core books: Dungeon Master Guide, Player’s Handbook, and Monster Manual, and I still kinda hate it. To do most things, you have to refer to multiple books. You need weapons stats from Players, monster stats from Monster, but you have to get the Player’s out to find out what the monster’s spells do. I wind up using my phone to look stuff up a lot, it’s faster. Since the web is not space constrained, why not just put the relevant spell stats right there with the monster? (I’ve tried to do this with my own mega dungeon)

• Gameplay has become a LOT more streamlined. Those early AD&D books looked like physics texts, with endless tables, percentages and glossaries galore. The new books are more friendly looking, spaciously laid out, and while there are still a good number of tables (and a lot to learn), the basic rules are far simpler and more organized. So simpler surface, but still a lot of depth.

• Characters in AD&D started out much more limited than 5e. For example, in AD&D, a first level magic-users got one spell, and that was it. You fire your magic missiles, or whatever, and you were done for the day. The rest of the time you’d have to hide your 1 hit point body behind the nearest fighter and just try not to die, because a strong breeze could kill you. Now? All magic users get cantrips, which they can use endlessly. I do remember cantrips being introduced in AD&D, but they were little more than parlour tricks, not bolts of flame that could incinerate people. Hell, even rogues (thieves and assassins are no longer a thing, too judgemental I guess). 

• Characters in 5e are much more robust and resilient than in AD&D. Ability score minimums prevent you from running hopeless characters; before minimums were just a house rule. Everyone is now above average. Healing happens faster and a long rest brings you right back up to your maximum hit points. Short rests recover a couple of hit die, so having a healer as part of a party is not as crucial as it used to be. You also get multiple saving throws after reaching 0 hit points to not die. 

• Dungeon crawls and mega dungeons are practically unheard of in 5e; they were bread and butter with AD&D. 

• The number of classes and races players can choose from is vastly expanded. Whether you like this or not depends on the kind of fantasy setting you want to use. I prefer a more limited set, as the game was meant to be set in the world of Dragon Garage.

• First level monsters mostly have 2 hit die rather than the old 1 hit die. They're tougher to better match the more capable 1st level modern character.

• Monsters all have ability scores now, they never used to.

• There's no To Hit table that goes by player level or monster hit die.

• Armour Class is reversed, with 20 being great and 0 being terrible. In AD&D, AC 10 was an unarmored new born babe and -10 was practically invulnerable.

• The advantage/disadvantage system didn’t exist in AD&D; it’s elegant, simple and I like it in 5e. 

• Monsters now come with assigned weapons. This feels really weird, but I understand it for the sake of flow and simplification; I swap weapons out if I feel like it.

• Characters advance in levels a LOT faster than before: in AD&D it could take 1,500 to 3,500 XP to reach 2nd level; now it’s a uniform 300 points! Punch a couple goblins and you’re second level. I don’t mind this, as 1st level characters are so fragile we died like flies back in The Before Time.

Ultimately, 5e is a lot more forgiving, and less deadly, than AD&D.

I wasn't really aware of this when I started, which led me to make early encounters much easier for the party than they should have been. I was pitching at AD&D difficulty for 1st level, rather than 5e. The result is that the players steam rolled through the first adventure, The Tomb of Aethelwulf, even though I was bumping up and strengthening the baddies as we went. It just was never enough.

The final boss fell a little flat (in my opinion), with the necromancer forced into a hasty retreat by the hard charging fighter. A barrage of missile attacks (both magical cantrips and non-magical arrows) made it impossible for him to hold focus. It didn’t help that I deliberately didn’t pick the deadliest spell collection (again, still thinking of player fragility). 

That mini-dungeon adventure took 2.5 sessions; the remainder of the third was spent in town threatening to murder the NPC I had set up to be their fence for treasure and magical goods. The complications from this will be fun to play out, for while the wheels of justice turn slowly in Pelshire, they do turn. Nothing that a pot of gold can’t solve, though.

I’m still trying to get a handle on player expectations for 5e. Their experience with the game is completely different from mine, and I don’t have a really good idea of how the game is now played. I just know the game we are playing isn’t what they’re used to, and I’m curious what the heck their usual game sessions are like. I gather they are more story focused, rather than exploration with a story running in the background. 

I’m basically running an AD&D megadungeon crawl (also no longer done) using D&D 5e rules.

 

I did try and inject some motivation in the beginning: each character got 3 ‘story cards’ at the outset, and chose their favourite; they each have a bit of background with a story hook tied to the megadungeon, such as a lost family artifact (which will make them the legitimate leader of the family house) buried deep in Druidun, or a missing relative, or an evil sibling rival, or what have you. 

First session, they started at a tavern (naturally) and were interrupted by a couple of villagers fleeing Aethelwulf’s tomb, where their coworkers had been captured by an evil necromancer’s crew. 

For the next adventure, they were given a mission by a medieval fixer/talent agent… whom they immediately betrayed, going behind his back to cut out the middle man. He's not going to be giving them any more missions. My NPC set ups are 0 for 2. 

The only ‘person’ the team has bonded with (and not threatened to kill, behead, mutilate, torture or worse) is a decapitated talking head the necromancer left in their path to intimidate them. Now the head’s hanging from the cleric’s belt. Every now and then they un-gag him to listen to threats of death and dismemberment. 

That’s probably why they like him.