So I come from the 1980s AD&D era and still have the Dungeon Master's Guide and Player's Handbook from back then.
My daughter is going to start playing using the D&D Beyond site, rules etc which, afaict is the nearest thing to the original. My question is. how much use would my old manuals be to my daughter? None? Lots? Historic reading only?
I'm also curious about how close D&D Beyond is to AD&D. I would appreciate your thoughts on this.
I bought all my AD&D books at the same toy store. The PHB and MM each cost $10, and I was surprised when the DMG came out that it cost a whopping $12. https://vidmate****/
I do get a lot of use out of the old 2nd Encyclopedia Magica volumes. Most 2nd Ed Magic item design is actually somewhat usable directly transferred into 5th Ed with little to no changes.
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"The mongoose blew out its candle and was asleep in bed before the room went dark." —Llanowar fable
Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities .-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-. An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more. Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
I do get a lot of use out of the old 2nd Encyclopedia Magica volumes. Most 2nd Ed Magic item design is actually somewhat usable directly transferred into 5th Ed with little to no changes.
Yeah personally I get a lot of use out of my 1e books, but the question was more about how useful they would be to a 5e game being run in DnD Beyond and in that scenario I would imagine it's probably not very useful.
For me personally I can't imagine how I would write an adventure, create a campaign or really do any sort of prep without my 1e AD&D DMG, I mean... its kind of THE book in my world regardless of which version of D&D Im running. The Monster Manuals too, I mean, you always have to do some conversation, but I find a single monster book is not even remotely close enough. I need my Tome of Horrors, Flee Mortals, the 2e monster manual.. these are all critical books in my view.
I do get a lot of use out of the old 2nd Encyclopedia Magica volumes. Most 2nd Ed Magic item design is actually somewhat usable directly transferred into 5th Ed with little to no changes.
Yeah personally I get a lot of use out of my 1e books, but the question was more about how useful they would be to a 5e game being run in DnD Beyond and in that scenario I would imagine it's probably not very useful.
For me personally I can't imagine how I would write an adventure, create a campaign or really do any sort of prep without my 1e AD&D DMG, I mean... its kind of THE book in my world regardless of which version of D&D Im running. The Monster Manuals tool, I mean, you always have to do some conversation, but I find a single monster book is not even remotely close enough. I need my Tome of Horrors, Flee Mortals, the 2e monster manual.. these are all critical books in my view.
Dammit, OSR4Ever, every single time I want to tease ya, you go and do something like this, and make perfect sense.
I am prepped already for comparing the advice and tips and tricks in the new DMG to my 1e DMG tomorrow.
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Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities .-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-. An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more. Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
So I come from the 1980s AD&D era and still have the Dungeon Master's Guide and Player's Handbook from back then.
My daughter is going to start playing using the D&D Beyond site, rules etc which, afaict is the nearest thing to the original. My question is. how much use would my old manuals be to my daughter? None? Lots? Historic reading only?
I'm also curious about how close D&D Beyond is to AD&D. I would appreciate your thoughts on this.
K.
Historical only. You get to see how the game was played back then, as well as how simple the classes were. Sub classes, were simply full classes. The spells were also different, but in most case not by much. Many spells were changed to be not so lethal or damage, like having to do a constitution check to polymorph or be resurrected. Fail and you die/remain dead. Good fun.
So I come from the 1980s AD&D era and still have the Dungeon Master's Guide and Player's Handbook from back then.
My daughter is going to start playing using the D&D Beyond site, rules etc which, afaict is the nearest thing to the original. My question is. how much use would my old manuals be to my daughter? None? Lots? Historic reading only?
I'm also curious about how close D&D Beyond is to AD&D. I would appreciate your thoughts on this.
K.
To be honest, I use them more than anything else. I've got so many old AD&D modules. They are perfect to string together for adventure hooks, sites, story lines, etc. You can modify them easily to fit into any campaign (as intended most of the time). Just take the monster listed and swap out the new version and make sure the power level on them is still appropriate. Easy. I prefer them to the 5E modules. I very much dislike the format of the 5E modules. They are very clunky to navigate and use.
I do get a lot of use out of the old 2nd Encyclopedia Magica volumes. Most 2nd Ed Magic item design is actually somewhat usable directly transferred into 5th Ed with little to no changes.
Those were some of the best books ever made for D&D. I also really liked the spell compendium ones as well.
I still use the 1e DMG—the random tables remain useful and are among the best to be found in any book in the hobby—and the Fiend Folio because I like to keep encounters unpredictable.
An AD&D Player's Handbook is about as compatible with 5E as a 1980s computer manual is with Windows 11.
Vastly overestimates evolution of the hobby. That's not to say it's actually useful (unless you're running AD&D or a retroclone), but I'm pretty sure it would be a lot easier for a gamer from forty years ago to understand modern games than it would be to understand modern software.
The only things that are really the same between AD&D and 5E are some of the terminology. Rules-wise, nothing is really the same beyond some of the terminology.
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Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
The only things that are really the same between AD&D and 5E are some of the terminology. Rules-wise, nothing is really the same beyond some of the terminology.
Certainly not in a way where one book would apply to the other game, but I would argue you can take any sub-system as written in 1e and inject it into 5e and it works fine. 5e was designed to be very modular and its actually very easy to make really large changes that bring the two systems closer together.
For example you can simply remove sub-classes and skills from 5e and at that point, you're basically playing 1e AD&D with math reversed.
The two systems have far more in common than they have differences.
An AD&D Player's Handbook is about as compatible with 5E as a 1980s computer manual is with Windows 11.
That's not entirely true given the ease of conversion. I play in 5E games but have only run the one and when I did I did not use the Monster Manual but instead used the old Fiend Folio tome. Because I didn't want the players to be meta-gaming provided their familiarity with monsters in the Monster Manual. Nor did I want things to be painfully predictable.
As an old gamer and programmer/user I have to say that the rules/coding have changed considerably in both obvious and subtle ways but the general game experience is generally close.while the actual classes have changed tremendously in detail a fighter is still wearing armor and swinging a weapon, a mage is still casting spells etc. it was true for a long time that some of the code for the various windows iterations was essentially unchanged from the earliest versions ( some may still be), an old “basic” user can still get to a txt screen and put in commands ( I see them in boot up but no longer know where to access). For the OP’s daughter they are really just historical reading, but for the OP there are many sections of the three that could be very usefull - either because they don’t exist in 5e manuals or are better written in the 1e books. Some things (psionics) don’t really exist n 5e but could be included without too much trouble with rewrites based on the 1-3e books (BTDT). In that sense the game and programming are actually fairly similar - in programming your using formulas, loops, if/thens etc - logical sequences of operations. Whether your programming COBOL, Fortran, C++ OR WHATEVER. Same thing with game play - the core pieces are the same but syntaxes change.
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Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
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So I come from the 1980s AD&D era and still have the Dungeon Master's Guide and Player's Handbook from back then.
My daughter is going to start playing using the D&D Beyond site, rules etc which, afaict is the nearest thing to the original. My question is. how much use would my old manuals be to my daughter? None? Lots? Historic reading only?
I'm also curious about how close D&D Beyond is to AD&D. I would appreciate your thoughts on this.
K.
Historical reading only.
Rules wise other non-D&D games have more in common with modern D&D than you would find in the D&D Beyond rules.
They are effectively very different games based on the same idea.
I bought all my AD&D books at the same toy store. The PHB and MM each cost $10, and I was surprised when the DMG came out that it cost a whopping $12. https://vidmate****/
I do get a lot of use out of the old 2nd Encyclopedia Magica volumes. Most 2nd Ed Magic item design is actually somewhat usable directly transferred into 5th Ed with little to no changes.
WiTh it being the 50th anniversary of the game, they are valuable or bragging rights, nostalgia, and historical reading.
Maybe comparisons of how it was "in the old days".
https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/dnd/free-rules is the free rule set for the 5th Edition of the game being released right now.
Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities
.-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-.
An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more.
Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
Yeah personally I get a lot of use out of my 1e books, but the question was more about how useful they would be to a 5e game being run in DnD Beyond and in that scenario I would imagine it's probably not very useful.
For me personally I can't imagine how I would write an adventure, create a campaign or really do any sort of prep without my 1e AD&D DMG, I mean... its kind of THE book in my world regardless of which version of D&D Im running. The Monster Manuals too, I mean, you always have to do some conversation, but I find a single monster book is not even remotely close enough. I need my Tome of Horrors, Flee Mortals, the 2e monster manual.. these are all critical books in my view.
Dammit, OSR4Ever, every single time I want to tease ya, you go and do something like this, and make perfect sense.
I am prepped already for comparing the advice and tips and tricks in the new DMG to my 1e DMG tomorrow.
Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities
.-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-.
An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more.
Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
Historical only. You get to see how the game was played back then, as well as how simple the classes were. Sub classes, were simply full classes. The spells were also different, but in most case not by much. Many spells were changed to be not so lethal or damage, like having to do a constitution check to polymorph or be resurrected. Fail and you die/remain dead. Good fun.
To be honest, I use them more than anything else. I've got so many old AD&D modules. They are perfect to string together for adventure hooks, sites, story lines, etc. You can modify them easily to fit into any campaign (as intended most of the time). Just take the monster listed and swap out the new version and make sure the power level on them is still appropriate. Easy. I prefer them to the 5E modules. I very much dislike the format of the 5E modules. They are very clunky to navigate and use.
Those were some of the best books ever made for D&D. I also really liked the spell compendium ones as well.
Castle construction is still good. Height and Weight chart. Character age. Hirelings chapter for ideas. Time in campaign.
No Gaming is Better than Bad Gaming.
Thank you all for your responses, they have helped a lot :-)
I still use the 1e DMG—the random tables remain useful and are among the best to be found in any book in the hobby—and the Fiend Folio because I like to keep encounters unpredictable.
An AD&D Player's Handbook is about as compatible with 5E as a 1980s computer manual is with Windows 11.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Vastly overestimates evolution of the hobby. That's not to say it's actually useful (unless you're running AD&D or a retroclone), but I'm pretty sure it would be a lot easier for a gamer from forty years ago to understand modern games than it would be to understand modern software.
The only things that are really the same between AD&D and 5E are some of the terminology. Rules-wise, nothing is really the same beyond some of the terminology.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Certainly not in a way where one book would apply to the other game, but I would argue you can take any sub-system as written in 1e and inject it into 5e and it works fine. 5e was designed to be very modular and its actually very easy to make really large changes that bring the two systems closer together.
For example you can simply remove sub-classes and skills from 5e and at that point, you're basically playing 1e AD&D with math reversed.
The two systems have far more in common than they have differences.
if you were to ask me i wouldn't know.
That's not entirely true given the ease of conversion. I play in 5E games but have only run the one and when I did I did not use the Monster Manual but instead used the old Fiend Folio tome. Because I didn't want the players to be meta-gaming provided their familiarity with monsters in the Monster Manual. Nor did I want things to be painfully predictable.
As an old gamer and programmer/user I have to say that the rules/coding have changed considerably in both obvious and subtle ways but the general game experience is generally close.while the actual classes have changed tremendously in detail a fighter is still wearing armor and swinging a weapon, a mage is still casting spells etc. it was true for a long time that some of the code for the various windows iterations was essentially unchanged from the earliest versions ( some may still be), an old “basic” user can still get to a txt screen and put in commands ( I see them in boot up but no longer know where to access). For the OP’s daughter they are really just historical reading, but for the OP there are many sections of the three that could be very usefull - either because they don’t exist in 5e manuals or are better written in the 1e books. Some things (psionics) don’t really exist n 5e but could be included without too much trouble with rewrites based on the 1-3e books (BTDT). In that sense the game and programming are actually fairly similar - in programming your using formulas, loops, if/thens etc - logical sequences of operations. Whether your programming COBOL, Fortran, C++ OR WHATEVER. Same thing with game play - the core pieces are the same but syntaxes change.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.