Is AD&D 2e Better Than 5e?

Sep 19, 2024

Well you’re here. So you’re likely in one of these three buckets:

1. You think it’s ridiculous that AD&D 2e could ever hold a candle to modern D&D 5e—you’re ready to grab a pitchfork and start a riot in the comments!
2. You’re on the fence. Maybe you’ve played some 5th edition, maybe you’ve played some AD&D 2nd edition long ago, and you’re simply curious about the pros and cons.
3. You love AD&D 2e, you’re tired of the 5th edition hype, and you’re looking to validate your feelings on OSR (Old School Renaissance / Old School Revival).

Personally I’ve been in all three of these buckets, in that order, over the last several years. When I started playing 5e I was instantly hooked. Streamlined rule systems, simplified mechanics, well laid out rule books, tons of exciting new character abilities, etc. Then after several years of playing 5e the novelty started to wear off. I thought back fondly on my twenty plus years of playing AD&D 2e late into the night.

One day on a walk through the forest with two of my favorite sidekicks it abruptly dawned on me: 2nd Edition AD&D does a lot of things way better than 5th edition! That’s right. I said it. So let’s dig in.

Just My Opinion

The following, though largely based on specific aspects of each D&D system, is only my opinion. Please take this with a grain of salt. In no way am I attempting to tell people which system to play; please play the system in which you and your group will have the most fun. May this article simply serve as a far cry to the simpler days of old school roleplaying and why dusting off those old 2e books or picking up a copy of Old-School Essentials Advanced Fantasy might be the best TTRPG switch you ever made.

Which rule system you use is ultimately irrelevant to your group’s ability to roleplay, storytell, and in the end have fun. So what is it I loved about AD&D/OSR that I’m not getting in 5e? It’s a combination of things, but at its root it’s about problem solving and how that impacts roleplaying.

Customization

The 2e core rule books and splat books (rule expansions) state over and over and over that you and your DM should modify the rules to fit your table. 5e barely mentions changing the rules, which leads to the potential of rule lawyering during play and prevents creative exploration of changing game mechanics in an effort create a better experience and/or streamlined game play.

5e doesn’t tell players or DMs to customize the rules because the game is presented as a “complete solution” to game play. That’s silly, it’s impossible to actually have a complete solution to playing D&D, the game is utterly limitless. What happens when you need a mechanic that doesn’t have a specific rule? Do you deny that option to your players? Doing so devolves the D&D experience into something mimicking a video game; you can’t progress the storyline unless you do X, Y, or Z in such and such way. But D&D goes beyond those limitations and tweaking the rules is part of this experience.

Checkout my AD&D 2e House Rules if you are interested in how I customize 2e.

Problem Solving

Old School D&D tests players. 5th edition tests character abilities.

The difference is subtle, and both can be fun but personally I’ve found the latter to be less rewarding and less engaging in the long run. In OSR the rules create an environment for critical thinking and problem solving which adds creativity and collaborative storytelling to the game. In 5e, problems are almost always solvable via the roll of a d20. Where new players get hung up is when that die roll fails to solve their problem. So maybe skip the die roll and let the players advance the story automatically when they come up with a creative way to do so.

Let’s look at an example. The players have to get by a hungry pack of wolves, you could give them an animal handling check and let them get past the wolves on a successful roll (5e style problem solving), or you could challenge them to some great roleplaying and then referee the result (old school style problem solving). For example, if they try to calm the wolves with soothing words and slow movements they’ll get chomped, but if they lure the wolves away from the rest of the party with some bait, allowing the group to escape to higher ground they’ll pass the challenge—no checks necessary. Judging the result based on the player’s action, instead of leaving the result up to chance is in the spirit of first and second edition roleplaying.

In 5e I’ve found that players look at their character sheets to solve problems. “Hmm… I have a problem, which ability can I use to solve it?” The vast majority of 5e abilities are combat focused, and characters are designed to emulate Avenger-like heroes. So encounters are often solved through combat without thinking twice. In contrast, in AD&D healing is difficult, combat is dangerous, conflict is often the least desirable way to resolve an encounter, so combat is typically a last resort for survival.

Proficiencies in 5e consist of super generic “buckets” of actions which give players generic solutions to any given problem. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard something like the following, “What’s in the room? I roll an investigation check. I got an 18. What did I find?” With no pause for the DM to interact. Or something like, “Ok, I persuade the Kobolds to give us the location of the Oghr headquarters. Ha! I rolled a natural 20 for my perusation check!” That’s not collaborative, that’s a player steamrolling the DM via a game mechanic. This dynamic is a video game mechanic: solve problem X with skill Y. As a 5e DM, I’ve had to ask players to not to make any proficiency checks until I request one.

In OSR, the player’s problem solving skills are tested instead of their character’s abilities. The players are forced to think creatively and the DM rewards creativity with XP. Wounds take days or weeks to heal if you don’t have access to healing magic. Memorizing spells can only be done once a day and thus are used only with careful strategic consideration. Combat is one of the least attractive and most dangerous choices for solving a problem. Players have to actually roleplay through searching their environment, or talk through persuading their encounters. Sure, you can also do these things in 5e, but what then are those generic proficiencies for? In ORS when you roleplay persuading someone, either the DM decides it’s a great argument and you get an automatic success, or maybe it’s a terrible argument and you get nowhere, or maybe the DM isn’t quite sure, so they secretly roll a reaction for the NPC (adjusted by character Charisma), now the player’s aren’t sure if they succeeded or not, adding intrigue and uncertainty to the encounter.

Superpowers vs Staying Alive

In 5th edition, characters get ridiculously powerful really quick. At first level they are already heroes, more powerful than any common NPC in town. In 2nd edition, new characters struggle, and often die to be replaced, teaching players to be more careful next time, which leads to better role playing, better character development, better problem solving, and a true attachment to a character who has survived to make it to a decent level.

Race and class powers are bloated and overpowered in 5e to the extent that I rarely see any actually difficult or dangerous situations. WotC designed the game like this to entice players—the biggest market segment. More and more powerful options are released (as we saw with the Xanather’s expansion and then again with Tasha’s) and players can seriously break the game’s balance by multiclassing and mixing and matching feats and spells. The Challenge Ratings in the Monster’s Manual are so off point that I’ve had to double and triple them just to keep in step with character power creep.

Collecting Magic Items

In 2e characters collect magical items which shape their powers, while in 5e DMs are super hesitant to give out magic items simply because 5e characters get so many special powers and abilities already.

By high level in AD&D characters are tricked out with exceptionally crafted armor and weapons, rare magical items, and unique tools and equipment. This makes leaving up fun, unpredictable, and an avenue for character development and uniqueness. These players have earned this gear and magical items and benefit from wielding them. In 5e each subclass follows the exact same path. To quote FatPanda89 on Reddit talking about 2e, “...the powercurve is much like you start as a nobody and while you get more accomplished in your class, most of your options and powers increases with gear - you become batman in the end.” I love this mechanic and it has led me to some truly unique characters in my time.

Magic as a Resource

In 5e spell casters have magical cantrip attacks they can sling out every turn. What good is the warrior if the warlock is simply more powerful across the board? In 2e, spell casters have to strategically use their limited magic, and contribute to the adventure in other ways through roleplaying, problem solving, and pulling up their sleeves and taking a swing with their quarterstaff.

In 2e casting a spell typically takes a full round to cast, and the spell slot will be wasted if the caster takes damage during that round. This requires spellcasters to carefully time when they use spells, first situating themselves in a strategic position, and coordinating with their party members for cover while the spell cooks.

Weapon and Nonweapon Proficiencies

I also really love the granularity of the proficiency system in AD&D 2e. In 5e everyone has access to every proficiency, and chaos determines success/failure with some adjustments for ability scores and proficiency/expertise. In AD&D, everyone can also attempt any action, but characters are proficient in specific skills which make them unique; a character proficient in a skill typically gets an automatic success for related tasks. For example, any PC can attempt to make a bow and arrows, and they’ll get a chance to succeed with an ability check (likely with a difficulty modifier because they don’t really know what they are doing), but a character with the Bower/Fletcher proficiency can make a decent bow and arrows every time. Why? Because they are proficient—they’ve done it dozens or hundreds of times already. Proficient characters may only be required to make a check if they are performing a very difficult task, such as creating an extremely high quality bow (which would grant the weapon an attack bonus).

In 2e, each class is super unique, and adds unique qualities to the party—players have to work together and lean on each other’s specialized skills. In 5e, everyone with a decent dex can sneak, pick pockets, etc. What good then is the thief? The barbarian can make an arcana check while the wizard fails it. What good is the wizard’s years of study and research?

Character Specialization

Why is it that only a thief can sneak and a barbarian can’t? Well both can attempt to sneak, and the barbarian might succeed if their enemy doesn’t detect any noise, but a thief has a much greater chance of success with an opportunity to negate the enemy’s chance to hear noise all together. The thief has dedicated their lifetime to learning and perfecting the art of the sneak. The barbarian meanwhile has dedicated themselves to strength training (and really kicks butt with that great ax as a result). I really like this dynamic, and I think it allows for more dynamic game play with each player “owning” a specific role instead of everyone having generic access to all proficiencies.

Available Content

2e has sooo much great content: expansion books, optional rules, prebuilt worlds and campaigns. Players and DMs are encouraged to pick and choose what will make their game the most fun. Maybe you play with just a few splat books, such as the Complete Monstrous Manual and/or the Fighter’s Handbook. Or maybe you just play with the expanded Player's Options books. It’s up to you. Dig in and find what you like!

With 2e, your DM has an epic amount of campaign settings, pre-built adventures, gods, cultures, cities, towns, and more to pull from. These can still be picked up used from the 80s and 90s, found as PDFs online, or reprinted on demand. Your DM can go all in on a single setting like Forgotten Realms, or they can pick and choose locations and cultures from pre-built campaigns and splat books to formulate their own custom world.

THAC0

Ok. So you made it the end of this extravagant rant, and yet you say there’s that awful thing called THAC0! Well it’s just simple subtraction, I did it for decades and didn’t think twice about it. The great news I have for you is that it’s actually trivial to reverse the THAC0 math to an ascending AC system, dovetailing nicely into the “go forth and customize the game!” mantra sprinkled throughout all the AD&D books. Checkout how to do this in my article on fixing THAC0 in AD&D 2e.

Conclusion

To summarize, 5e is a table top game designed and played like a video game, it’s designed for younger audiences (for marketing reasons) who typically have short attention spans and less imagination (this is demonstrated in my weekly game by one guy who plays video games on his phone while we play 5e!). 1e and 2e were designed for adults, who understand that failure and loss is a part of life, learning and growth. These early editions a focus on role playing and storytelling over fancy abilities and damage per round.

2e isn't a balanced game (like a PvP video game would be) and it actually doesn't even attempt to be either. 5e attempts to be blanched (particularly in combat) because we wouldn’t want one player to be jealous of another’s power would we? Who cares about balance! Especially in combat. Work as a team to solve the problem, lean on each other's specialized abilities. Some characters shine in combat, others shine when exploring dungeons, while others excel at information gathering and scheming. Let go of who’s min/maxed character build does more damage and let’s do some roleplaying already!

1e and 2e can be customized to be played as a fast based action game by ignoring lots of the complex optional rules for things like weapon type vs armor, or by simplifying things like initiative (see my AD&D 2e house rules for more on this). Conversely, 5e’s rules are rigid, at each turn of combat everyone waits while the player tries to strategically maximize their turn: movement, action(s), bonus action, and object interaction. Decision paralysis during combat in 5e is a very common thing in my experience. I mean geez! Just make a move already and let’s go!

Ok, that’s all for today. To be fair I’ve had a ton of fun playing 5e, but as you can see, I’m excited to dig back into OSR and relive the rich experience it has to offer. Let me know what you think in the comments, I’d love to hear your opinion!