D&D 5E So 5E is the Successor to AD&D 2nd Edition? How and How Not?

[Chaltab]

Paizo's adventure paths are not railroads but they are linear. Linear adventures/campaigns aren't bad as they still allow players to decide how they handle a situation and progress the story their table is telling.

I mean that's probably fair given my sample size is one. It just annoyed me as a player that, per the DM, the adventure path for WOTR specifies that you absolutely cannot

Spoiler: Wrath of the Righteous

retrieve or purify the Ward Stone, you have to destroy it, and any other course of action leads to a game over.

 

[DragonLancer]

I mean that's probably fair given my sample size is one. It just annoyed me as a player that, per the DM, the adventure path for WOTR specifies that you absolutely cannot

Spoiler: Wrath of the Righteous

retrieve or purify the Ward Stone, you have to destroy it, and any other course of action leads to a game over.

Agreed. Not all their adventure paths were up to standard. A couple were truly bad for things like that. There was one I played (something of fire?) that locked you in a demiplane for 3 or 4 levels with no way to buy or sell anything and it made everyone just gnash their teeth. Badly written was an understatement. Most were well within the linear storytelling though.

 

[Remathilis]

What do you think? Do you think 5e feels like 2nd edition? Do you see any other differences? What are the similarities?

I see plenty of similarities

1. Emphasis on multiverse/multiple interconnected settings
2. People bemoaning "they changed it" lore updates
3. People hate the ranger (though that might be universal to all editions)
4. Changes made to appease criticism of the game's issues
5. "D&D is dying"/being abandoned

 

[mamba]

I wonder if he had something more specific in mind as the basis for drawing that parallel in his interview with Stan!…

I think it was more the vibe, ‘rulings over rules’, magic items not being as important / baked in. That kind of stuff

 

[Sorinth]

I think it's a successor in how players are expected to approach playing the game moreso then the mechanics being very similar.

With 3e things often felt constrained where if you wanted to do something you could only do it if you had the specific feat/ability that allowed you to do it, or had been building your character around the thing since level 1 so that modifier was high enough to have a reasonable chance at success. In 2e and 5e you could specialize in certain aspects but you were broadly good at a lot of stuff and so could use creative play with a decently good chance at having success. In terms of mechanics it's very different with 5e really streamlining things into having it be quick/simple, whereas in 2e there would often be a whole mini-system involved. But anyone could realistically engage in that aspect without having to have intentionlly designed their character around it.

 

[Charlaquin]

I have a question: doesn't creating more varient and optional rules eliminate rulings over rules?

I don’t think so, because if a game has a consistent ruleset, it creates an expectation that the gameplay experience will be consistent across different tables with different DMs. If there are lots of variant and optional rules, you necessarily must start any new campaign with a discussion about what variant and optional rules are being used, which dovetails nicely into discussion of house rules. The expectation is that each campaign will have a unique gameplay experience, and centers the rules as the domain of the group, rather than the domain of the books.

I feel subclasses actually allows me more dm fiat, as I can make my own way of doing things vs having to use structures provided by the game.

I don’t follow how subclasses are your own way of doing things. They are very literally structures provided by the game.

 

[Charlaquin]

3. People hate the ranger (though that might be universal to all editions)

There were certainly people who hated the 4e ranger, but I feel like most people who played and liked 4e liked its ranger.

 

[Shardstone]

I don’t think so, because if a game has a consistent ruleset, it creates an expectation that the gameplay experience will be consistent across different tables with different DMs. If there are lots of variant and optional rules, you necessarily must start any new campaign with a discussion about what variant and optional rules are being used, and opens the door for discussion of house rules. The expectation is that each campaign will have a unique gameplay experience, and centers the rules as the domain of the group, rather than the domain of the books.

I don’t follow how subclasses are your own way of doing things. They are very literally structures provided by the game.

Way of doing things from the dm side, as in, exploration mechanics, big battles, movs and raids, etc. Subclasses don't impact that at all IME.

I love optional systems, but imo they close off rulings over rules, not enable it. If you are a more experimental DM it doesn't matter, but if you play by the book, and the book tells you how to do something, that is how you now do that thing, no?

 

[TiQuinn]

AD&D 2nd edition is at my nostalgic core for TTRPGs. It was my first edition. It was the one game that I felt got "yanked out" from me when my players demanded we upgrade to a very different 3rd edition. It was the home of my longest and most "meaningful" campaign (in case you're wondering, it served as the catharsis as my players and I navigated entering adulthood and the death of a friend) - in short, it was our "Stand By Me" experience. I am still best friends with the players from that group 25+ years later ... even though we have moved hours apart.

So when I say I loved 2nd Edition AD&D and the nostalgia of it, I really mean that.

In Chris Perkin's recent interview with Stan!, he claimed that 5e was the descendent of 2nd edition. As I bemoan on online forums that there isn't a good modernized update of 2nd edition (as Old School Essentials does for B/X), people say "you've got 5e - that's the 2nd edition retroclone." However, 5e has been a struggle for me and it feels very different from 2e.

Here's a list of differences between 5e and 2e that I think keep 5e from delivering on 2e feel...
Overnight full heal.
Easy access to healing magic (ESPECIALLY Healing Word).
No stat requirements to qualify for "rare" classes (Bard, Druid, Paladin, etc.).
Bonus actions.
HP bloat.
Bounded accuracy.
Monster damage resistances and spell resistances being inconsequential.
Monster special attacks not being threatening (Mummy Rot, Lycanthropy, etc.)
No specialty priests or specialist wizards.

Some differences, such as positive AC I think are good changes and don't really detract from the feel anyway.

What do you think? Do you think 5e feels like 2nd edition? Do you see any other differences? What are the similarities?

I think the reasons for concepts behind 2e and 5e are similar, but separated by 20+ years. 2e's purpose was to provide greater simplicity and clean up the rules of its predecessor. 5e was very much doing the same for 3e and 4e.

Also, the idea of "Rulings, not Rules" cleaves it closer to 2e, but if you compare the two, you see a lot more of an expectation for the 2e DM to have to make rulings than 5e which we've often been told "the rules say precisely this, and no more." 2e spells, for instance, could take a paragraph or two.

I think 2e had a kind of bounded accuracy (maybe by accident rather than design?).

And really, that's about it for me. I really wouldn't say the two are comparable, but oddly enough they do remain my favorite editions, so on some level I guess I get the comparison. (That makes zero sense, I know)

 

[pukunui]

If they really wanted to "neotrad" up an AP, they'd make it more like Baldur's Gate 3.

Have an adventure with 4-6 "roles" to play (like a PbtA playbook) that don't have a tight race-class dependency (like "My heart was replaced with a Devil Engine" or "Escapee Vampire Spawn"). The characters gain bonuses depending on the role chosen, but can customize the character otherwise (maybe with some "recommended" classes). Portions of the AP are then devoted to that character-specific story.

WotC has experimented with stuff like that in a few of their campaign books.

Hoard of the Dragon Queen provides options like “ex-Cult of the Dragon member” and “gold dragon trapped in humanoid form”.

PotA also has a few pages devoted to character hooks.

IIRC ToA has a table with hooks for the PHB backgrounds.

Rime of the Frostmaiden has character secrets, including one that puts a slaad tadpole inside the PC.

In Witchlight, you can play a Witchlight carnival employee.

And so on.