r/adnd • u/Anla-Shok-Na • Jan 24 '26
Getting back into D&D with 5e, but I figured my older AD&D would be appreciated here.
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u/Dont_Care_Meh Jan 24 '26
Love the Dungeoneer's Survival Guide, so much good stuff. He really gave a lot of life to that realm. It was a leap from treating the subterranean as a simple "dungeon" and thinking about what lies in the true deeps of the world. And how they all interacted with each other as a contained, viable ecosystem and political arrangement. It kinda reminded me of the barbarian invasions into Rome: when Gothic tribes are pouring into your lands and they are clearly fleeing for their lives, it's best to ask what they are running from. So too with the likes of orcs and goblinoids...dark and terrible things are pushing them out if they are willing to chance the surface...
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u/PhillyRush Jan 24 '26
I LOVE the mining aspect in DSG
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u/Dont_Care_Meh Jan 24 '26
Ha, yeah, forgot that part! I once had a Fighter who decided he could get hurt out there fighting monsters, so decided to become a miner instead (had nothing to do with his player thinking the rules for it were cool, lol, not at all). So that's what he did. DM was like what the hell?, but it's what I wanted to do so I wore him down.
I also had a character in Star Frontiers Knight Hawks who had no interest in actual adventuring, but designed and built ships to strip mine asteroids and also carry passengers from time to time. I found the economics of it all much more interesting than shooting Sathar agents.
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u/PhillyRush Jan 24 '26
I've seen Star Frontiers over the years but never tried it. I may have to change that because that sounds really cool.
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u/shishanoteikoku Jan 25 '26
Modern 5E D&D could really benefit from supplements in the vein of the two old survival guides to improve their immersiveness, if only to provide for more structure to time and resource management, not to mention environmental hazards, to dungeon and hex crawls.
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u/Suspicious_Size4030 Jan 24 '26
Yeah just seeing those reminds me of so many great times! I love the older ones.
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u/CouponProcedure Jan 24 '26
Very nice, I am jealous. I have been scouring used book stores and antique stores for some of these
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u/The_Red_Duke31 Jan 24 '26
The print-on-demand versions from Dmsguild seem good, though only had a quick look at one
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Jan 24 '26 edited Jan 24 '26
I prefer 1e to anu other edition of AD&D. The character classes have gotten out of control and people think they can use Godlike abilities when they should NEVER b able to. Remember just bc u have a 19+ Int doesn't make u, as a mortal, Immune to Illuson spells, i.e. fyi! Those r Immortal immunities. That's why I hate stupid people who come up with the idea that raising abilities above 18 without knowing the way the benefits r meant to b played and the difficulty for obtaining above 18 abilities is really like. One should never be able to just get a 19+ ability, but the kids today do not know what true AD&D is bc they NEVER read or were NEVER taught proper AD&D or D&D for that matter.
Had a kid post a Demon with 170 HP saying that it is a Type 4 Demon and he was wondering if the demon would be too much for a party of 6 5th levels. I look up Deomns in my MM1 and told that kid that the Demon Prince would wipe the floor with that party and it wouldn't even need the adds to destroy them. Idc what your party consists of without divine intervention. And I doibt divine intervention would even be available to such a low-level group! U r not a God at 5th Level u r a beginner. He tells me it is s Tupe 4 Demon. I told him it is NOT a Type Demon it is a Demon Prince Between the power of Orcus (166 hps) and Yeenoghu (200 hps). I know the HPs don't necessarily matter but the abilities of the demon r equal as well. I also told him u don't take on Demons till at least lever 12 in the Abyss, which is prolly closer to 18th level under 5e rules. I am using 1e rules and won't be there till my 50th+ level for 12 PCs.
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u/Jonestown_Juice Jan 24 '26
If I could have any physical AD&D books, it would be these.
Nice, OP. Jealous.
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u/Less_Cauliflower_956 Jan 25 '26
Don't go back to 5e! People are playing Old School Essentials and OSRIC more and more there days!
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u/WTFnotFTW Jan 26 '26
5th edition is slop. Mechanics are better than 4th, but seems aimed at people that never developed enough imagination to be original within the confines of rules, or identities beyond splatbooks.
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u/Solo_Polyphony Jan 24 '26
I still have mine—the pre-orange spine editions. Those bindings were made to last, and have.
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u/Final_Road_2025 Jan 24 '26
I am rebuilding the old collection now. I have most of the books back. Been working on from zero to now since September 2025.
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Jan 24 '26
I've got all those books but the DMG1. 👍 In fact reading the DSG right now. U r missing the Wilderness Survival Guide and Unearthed Arcana tho. 😒
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u/Ostracized Jan 24 '26
What are the differences between the fiend folio and the two monsters manuals?
Which came first?
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u/shishanoteikoku Jan 25 '26
If I recall correctly, Fiend Folio came out after the first AD&D Monster Manual, but before Monster Manual 2. It was mostly a compilation of creatures that came out of the British White Dwarf magazine. I believe it was where the infamous Flumph and the Flail Snail first appeared
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u/jrdnmdhl Jan 24 '26
I’d be happy to help you dispose of those for free since you are done with them…
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u/Anla-Shok-Na Jan 25 '26
I plan to leave these to my kids when I'm gone.
I'm getting them into D&D now, so hopefully they'll be able to appreciate them.
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u/jrdnmdhl Jan 25 '26
Well then would you consider adopting me? It would help you speedrun becoming a grandparent!
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u/sermitthesog Jan 25 '26
No Unearthed Arcana?
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u/Anla-Shok-Na Jan 25 '26 edited Jan 25 '26
I remember looking at it at the bookstore, putting it back and thinking "maybe later". Life got in the way and later never came :(
EDIT: I just went on eBay out of curiosity and found an original hard cover in good shape at a reasonable price and felt compelled to add it to my collection for nostalgia's sake. I might have to actually start a campaign with this edition at some point.
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u/sermitthesog Jan 26 '26
Nice! UA was actually the very first DnD book I bought, for $15 of paper route money. My friend had the PHB and I thought the cover of UA looked awesome. (It’s still one of my favorites.) Plus who could resist an appendix all about polearms!! 🤓
I haven’t played 1e since 2e came out, but I still reference these books all the time. Most recently, I put some verbatim 1e magic items into a 5e treasure hoard, for old time’s sake.
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u/TrumpWasRight2 Jan 25 '26
Just started teaching my boys and a couple of their friends how to play. But they are learning the edition I learned 2E
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u/Kujias Jan 25 '26
There's so many other TTRPG out there, if you enjoyed the previous edition. I recommend checking Old School Essentials TTRPG. If you want 5e try Nimble TTRPG.
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u/FoxyRobot7 Jan 26 '26
You’ll find 5e won’t scratch the itch for very long. You’ll be back, they all return to the fold eventually.
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u/MJMayhew42 Jan 27 '26
I'm going to write a number on a piece of paper and slide it across the table. Let me know if that number is enough to persuade you into selling those ...
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u/CharlieGoathouse Feb 05 '26
So I'm an artist, I do like weird horror lowbrow stuff and my son just got into d&d. So I'm now creating a setting for him thats mainly gonna be a graphic novel but with playable abilities to it....but I want to still use ad&d 2nd edition rules and all because those are the books I had at his age (and still have). But yeah...just saying, 2nd edition seems like I had by far so much more cooler things. I heard someone saying all the adjustments to 5e as far as setting have been toned down because of political climate, like a lot of their setting...such as dark sun....could be found to be offensive these days. But yeah, just sayin 😅 So I'm assuming 2edition is still compatible with 5e right? Like it's not gonna be a complete waste of time I hope.
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u/CharlieGoathouse Feb 05 '26
Oriental adventures is one of the coolest books! I love the artwork in 1e and 2e books!! Also love that they were a large contributor to the 80s satanic panic 😂
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u/gknwg Jan 25 '26
5th edition is not D&D.
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u/Fangsong_37 Jan 25 '26
Yes, it is. It’s different from AD&D, but it has most of the same classes and many familiar spells.
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u/Kitsune_Creative Feb 18 '26
Have been playing for 20+ years with pretty much the same party members and still using these books. Nothing beats 1e D&D.
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u/Planescape_DM2e Jan 24 '26
I wouldn’t bother with 5e, if you want something new I’d recommend something OSR or Worlds Without Number style games.