D&D 5E Going from 1st to 5th Edition

[Lanefan]

One of the earliest modules - X1 Isle of Dread - had a fold-out map in the middle that covered a fair whack of area and was the kernel of the setting that eventually became Mystara; I've known DMs base their own settings on that map.

 

[Ath'kethin]

I get it.

I myself started in 2e (mid 90s) and didn't realize there was a difference between 1e and 2e for months; maybe years. I invested heavily in 3.x (both time and books) but 4e left me cold when it came out.

I have always been a big Dragonlance fan (I was a huge fan of the Chronicles before I'd ever heard of D&D), and I love Spelljammer and Al-Qadim as well. But I was also one who scoffed at published adventures for a LONG time - we're talking up until the 5e days. I bought tons of setting books but never bothered with adventures except some of the Al-Qadim ones that were so freeform they were essentially outlines with the occasional statblock thrown in.

And at the time, mine was a fairly common viewpoint amongst my friends (almost all of whom, to be fair, were far more experienced with the game than I).

 

[Blue Orange]

1e was so similar to 2e they goofed and put 2e versions of monsters in the goldbox games. Sometimes the only way you could tell was XP totals.

 

[DnD Warlord]

The main thing that confused me when I moved from 3e to 5e was that I couldn't figure out how many skill points I would get. Turned out: none. My beloved skill points had not made it to this edition.

Similarly, I think fireball blowback and lightning bolt reflection were gone at some point (I think this happened in 3e, but at the same time I feel we still used it at least in the first years of 3e).

The undead thing I remember, and I find these guys to lack scariness overall, especially in 5e. But at least in that case I noticed

I forgot about bouncing lightning bolts...I miss that

 

[ccs]

I apologize. We ridiculed those who used them. Dark Sun and many of the adventures (UK1, for example) are masterpieces. But the idea of using someone else's setting and adventure felt more like plagiarism than art to us.

And no doubt you patted yourselves on the back & congratulated yourselves on how clever you were - as you borrowed ideas, bits & pieces of whatever books/movies/TV/myth/etc were inspiring you.
Meanwhile the rest of us were doing that borrowing as well. Except our menu also included the settings & modules. More options for us.

 

[MNblockhead]

Where are all the tables?

 

[Lanefan]

I forgot about bouncing lightning bolts...I miss that

Trivially easy to add it back in. . .just sayin'. . .

While you're at it, might as well add expand-to-volume fireballs badk in as well. . .

 

[the_redbeard]

In early DnD, you were not meant to fight all the enemies. You got XP for treasure. WoTC DnD has an inference that enemies are to be defeated rather than avoided. So if you want XP, you can't just run away. You have to defeat or otherwise get past the monster.

You can run 5e with XP for treasure. I've been doing that for years. I use the book XP budget of the dungeon level to determine how much treasure is on that level, distributed according to the old dungeon stocking tables. The players can find it instead of fighting everything. I also added back in Reaction Rolls and Morale. That and a simple encumbrance system and you've gone a long way towards old school play.

The last two groups, I used Into the Unknown, which takes 5e mechanics and runs the game with old school assumptions.

There's also a subreddit of people who play 5e in an old school style: r/DnDO5R

 

[the_redbeard]

I mean... The desire to have a richly detailed and storied world to play in, and the lack of time, inclination, and/or writing ability to do it all one’s self.

The idea that there was a STORY that was pre-written, even for a pre-fab world, didn't come up until DragonLance. And a lot of us hated that even then.

What the characters choose to do, the implications of those choices and the next choices we made - that was the story.

 

[Hawk Diesel]

I'm continually amazed how invincible PCs are nowadays. And how not scary at all undead are anymore.

So I'm currently running Descent into Avernus. Outside of adapting it for Eberron, I haven't changed much in the way of encounters. Before they party even reached Fernia (my Eberron substitute for Avernus), our party of 6 had three character deaths. If you want 5e to be more deadly, it's not hard. All a DM has to do is control the frequency of rests.

Oh, I also house ruled that a character can only heal 1d4 points of ability loss per long rest (rather than fully heal it) and I'm toying with the idea of characters who've lost max HP having to roll one hit die per proficiency bonus per long rest and they heal that total. Still thinking that second one through.