The Many Editions of D&D

After some recent conversations with friends about various D&D editions, I thought it would be useful to compile a brief summary of different editions of the game. You could just go and read Wikipedia, of course, but this blog comes with the questionable addition of my personal opinions on each edition.

I'm sure there are errors and omissions in here. Let me know in the comments critical stuff I missed.

Infographic by Daddy Rolled a 1

Major Differences 

D&D's editions can be broadly categorized into two groupings: the TSR-era editions (initial publication through the second edition era) and the Wizard of the Coast editions (3rd edition through present day.) There are similarities across all editions (six ability scores, hit points, leveling progression), but there are distinct core systems that are common in the TSR-era editions that significantly changed in the WotC editions.

• Different mechanics for different tasks: This is probably the most significant difference. In the "d20" era of 3rd Edition and beyond, all interactions--attack rolls, skill checks, saving throws, grappling, initiative, spell resistance, etc--are resolved by rolling a d20, adding an ability score modifier plus other modifiers, and trying to hit a specific target number. In earlier editions, saving throws, attack rolls, ability checks, initiative, etc., all had different rules systems to determine how they function. While this required learning rules for many different subsystems, this also meant earlier editions of the game were easier to hack and harder to break.
  • Easier to hack because you could replace a subsystem or bolt on a subsystem without impacting other elements of the game. For example, you can replace group initiative with individual initiative without affecting other game systems.
  • Harder to break because ability scores weren't tied to every mechanic in the game. In 3rd ed and later, ability score modifiers are incredibly powerful because they impact EVERYTHING, whereas that was not the case in earlier editions where ability score modifiers are more limited in what they affect.
  • More difficult to learn because there was no one core mechanic.
• Descending Armor Class in early editions: Armor class decreased as it got better. AC 10 was the worst and AC -10 was the best. To determine whether a character hits on an attack roll, you consult an "attack matrix" that shows what a particular character has to roll in order to hit a particular armor class. The matrix was replaced by THAC0 ("To Hit Armor Class 0") in Second Edition - a stat that sounds really confusing but is pretty simple once you understand it, and removed the need for different matrices for each class.
• Feats: Feats were introduced in 3rd edition. All character abilities in prior editions were granted by your race or class and as part of your leveling progression or acquisition of magic items, not selected from a bank of options.
• Skill systems: Prior to 3rd edition, the earliest editions of D&D don't have any separate mechanic for most skill checks. Instead, players describe what they want to do, and the DM adjudicates whether they are successful. If a roll is necessary, the DM often has the PC roll equal to or lower than a relevant ability score.
  • There are some notable exceptions: thief skills such as finding and removing traps, hiding in shadows, etc are tied specifically to the thief class and are either d6-based or percentile-based and progress as the thief levels up.
  • Likewise, a few activities like bending bars or lifting gates had specific mechanics that were derived from your strength score.
  • Later in first edition, the idea of "non-weapon proficiencies" were introduced. These were like backgrounds that gave you some limited, specialized skill like pottery or cartography. Most of these skills were not adventuring-specific, but intended to give your character some flavor. Specific mechanical benefits of non-weapon proficiencies were left to the GM to determine.
• Dangerous: In OD&D, BX, and BECMI editions of Dungeons & Dragons, your character dies at 0 hit points. In AD&D, your character begins dying and bleeds out at 1 hit point lost per round until you reach -10, at which point you are dead. There are no death saves.
• Experience points are gained primarily through acquiring treasure in early editions: XP for gold was a system that was designed to incentivize exploration and creative problem-solving. The idea was that you don't have to kill the monsters to get experience, but instead you can just find creative ways to get the treasure. In AD&D, more XP was granted for killing monsters, but gold was still one of the main ways to obtain XP. It was only in later editions that we'd start to see rules like XP for completion of quests or story milestones.
• Different progression rates in early editions: Each class had a different XP table. This meant that each class levels at a different pace. A thief will be third level by the time a paladin reaches second level.
• Character classes are mechanically distinct in early editions: As a result of the separate subsystems vs unified d20 system, each character class in early editions largely had their own separate rules set. Particularly for playing spell casters, it was almost like you were playing a separate game!
• Cantrips: Early editions of the game did not have unlimited-use or at-will spells like cantrips. Cantrip was a first level spell in 2nd edition that could produce minor illusory effects.
• Spells are powerful, saves are difficult: Magic spells are more limited in early editions but also incredibly powerful compared to later editions. Spells don't automatically allow saving throws to resist their effects (Sleep, for example) and low hit points for characters and monsters meant that spells like Fireball or Chain Lightning could wreak havoc.
• Most non-human (demihuman) PC classes had level limits established. Humans didn't come with any special abilities while all demihumans had them, for example the elven immunity to sleep and charm magic, and to balance this, demihumans were capped at how many levels they could gain in most classes, often somewhere between level 8-12. Many DMs waived this rule and instead granted human characters some minor racial benefit like additional non-weapon proficiencies.

Initial Publication

1974 Dungeons and Dragons

• Often called 0e, OD&D, the little brown books, or the white box (not to be confused with the retroclone of the same name)
• Published in small booklets sold in a white box with a label affixed to it. Assumed players owned a copy of the wargame "Chainmail" which the game relied on for basic combat rules.
• Expanded through Blackmore, Greyhawk and other supplements and various Dragon Magazine articles.
• Only 3 classes (fighting man, magic-user, cleric) and four races (human, elf, dwarf, hobbit). Three alignments (lawful, neutral, and chaotic).
• I never played it and have no strong feelings for it
• Modern players interested in OD&D should look into the popular retroclone, Swords and Wizardry

Dungeons & Dragons (BX family)

1977 Dungeons & Dragons Basic Rules (Holmes)

• While TSR was mainly focused on collecting and consolidating all the rules from the 1974 game and its supplements into what would become Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, they also decided to pull together a much more simple and streamlined version of the game covering levels 1-3 designed to onboard new players to the hobby and who didn't have a background in wargaming (or own a copy of Chainmail)
• Commonly known as the Holmes edition or the Blue book, it's not super commonly played as it was replaced by the largely superior BX rules in 1981.
• Oddly, this edition had five alignments

1981 Dungeons & Dragons Basic and Expert Rulebooks (Tom Moldvay and David Cook)

• This is the edition known commonly as BX, or the Moldvay-Cook edition
• It revised the Holmes basic rules into something much clearer and aligned to what was published in the first edition AD&D books, but with vastly simplified rules.
• Basic rules covered levels 1-3 as in the Holmes edition, but the Expert rules expanded the game to level 14 and included stuff like rules for adventuring outside the dungeon.
• Four core classes (including the thief), three alignments, and "race as class" - elf, dwarf, and halfling are now character classes.
• With the BX rules, the D&D rules set became distinct from Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. There are many similarities, but enough differences to make them distinct games.
• This remains an incredibly popular edition and is the basis for the retroclone Old School Essentials. (Though Advanced Old School Essentials includes an additional set of play options drawn mostly from AD&D.)
• I really like BX for its simplicity and its hackability. The rules set is streamlined enough that it's easily adapted to most fantasy settings, it's got that old school gritty feel, you never ascend to super high levels (since it caps at 14), and because the core rules are so simple, it's a great game to bolt your own homebrew subsystems onto.

1983-1986 BECMI Edition and the 1991 Rules Cyclopedia

• This is a revision and expansion of the BX rules - expanding the "basic" dungeons and dragons rules out to 36 levels plus godhood through a series of five box sets: Basic, Expert, Companion, Master, and Immortal Rules (BECMI)
• Also detailed an amazing campaign setting, now largely forgotten in the history of D&D, called the Known World. While much of the Known World was reskinned societies from the real world, there was some really strange and inventive stuff in there, like the fact that the whole planet is hollow and there's a lost world civilization inside.
• I started on this edition and I still really love it. It's got a lot of the simplified rules of BX but the Companion and Master rules in particular add a lot of really unique subsystems for things like ruling kingdoms, having mass combat, weapon mastery rules, riding crazy mounts like dragons and wyverns, and more.
• One drawback is that the thief is even crappier in this edition than in BX, as thief skills are now stretched out over 36 levels instead of 14 levels (BX) or 20 levels (AD&D). Also, BECMI retains the limited class selection and race as class that BX does, though the Known World Gazetteer publications offer some additional and interesting options.
• In 1991, TSR published a compiled edition called the Rules Cyclopedia, which included all the rules from the Basic, Expert, Companion, and Master rules in a single volume, including an overview of the Known World setting. The Immortals rules, which were always considered a weird add on, were left out of this volume. As a play reference, this single volume is one of the best things TSR ever published, however, it's not much use as an onboarding tool as it doesn't teach you how to play or run the game, unlike the BECMI box sets. It really is a reference.
• There was a couple of renamed re-releases of the basic set in the 90s, but these didn't get much attention and TSR killed the entire product line in the mid-90s.
• The Known World was ported over to AD&D second edition in a box set setting and renamed Mystara.
• Check out the BECMI Berserker Youtube channel to get a deep dive.

Advanced Dungeons & Dragons

First Edition (1e)

• Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (AD&D) was an effort to consolidate the various rules that had been exploding out of various Dragon magazine articles, house rules from Gygax and others, and the content from the sourcebooks like Eldritch Wizardry and Greyhawk into an official set of rules.
• Gygax was also trying to use this as an opportunity to cut his former creative partner, Dave Arneson, out of royalties after the two had a falling out and Arneson left the company.
  • Listen to the podcast "When We Were Wizards" for the fascinating, sordid history of early TSR - it's great!
• After the successful launch of the Monster Manual (1977), Player's Handbook (1978), and Dungeon Master's Guide (1979), the game exploded in popularity thanks to the Satanic Panic of the early 80s.
• AD&D first edition had nine alignments and included additional classes like the Assassin, Paladin, Ranger, Illusionist, and Monk. Character race was separated from class.
• Multiclassing and dual classing were first established in this edition. Multiclassing was limited to non-human races and required the player to essential split XP between classes. Only specific multiclass combinations were allowed. Dual classing was the human equivalent and essentially allowed a PC to switch from a first class to a second class, the trick being you had to start over in the second class, and raise the second class to a level higher than the first class before you gained any of the previously obtained benefits of the first class.
• Interestingly, a lot of rules critical to play, such as most of the combat rules and "to hit" matrices, were kept in the Dungeon Master's Guide. In that time, there was a sense that it was the DM's job to know the rules and the players were there to figure the thing out through learned experience.
• Gygax's Dungeon Master's Guide is a hot mess of randomly jumbled ideas and also a thing of beauty - it's Gygax's personal opinions about how to play and run D&D all throughout. And it's packed full of odds and ends rules like the chances of contracting various diseases while on a sea voyage, various properties of different types of gemstones, random tables to generate your own dungeon layouts, rules for how to recruit a sage and what sorts of specialties that sage might have - it just goes on and on. It's a fascinating read and terribly organized!
• First Edition is where we really start to see a more rules-heavy game, especially if you play the rules in the DMG to the letter (though many of those rules remain invisible to the players). It's still notoriously punishing, but characters can survive to -10 HP now, meaning they're not dying instantly at 0 HP, there are spells available such as Raise Dead or Resurrection, and characters generally have more HP and a bit more survivability.
• Books such as Unearthed Arcana, the Dungeoneer Survival Guide, Wilderness Survival Guide, Monster Manual II, Oriental Adventures, Deities & Demigods, Manual of the Planes, and Fiend Folio significantly expanded the rules as well as the setting of the game, offering new subsystems (psionics), new classes (monk, barbarian), planar travel, and the game's first take on a skill system (nonweapon proficiencies in Oriental Adventures)
• Greyhawk was the primary campaign setting in First Edition, though the first Forgotten Realms book I believe appeared late in first edition, and we got the first Dragonlance adventure (War of the Lance, based off the novels) and the first Ravenloft adventure (the now-famous Curse of Strahd).
  • As an aside, I think these two adventures fundamentally altered how people look at adventures and campaigns, especially decades later. We went from looking at adventures as being sandboxes to explore to being constructed narratives we play through.
• Many of the most famous adventures such as Tomb of Horrors, Temple of Elemental Evil, Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh, Against the Giants, Against the Cult of the Reptile God, and more came out in First Edition.
• I never really played First Edition, though I later acquired and read many of the books. First Edition is kind of this mythical edition to me - by the time I started playing, it was out of print, but you'd see books around that the older kids had. And the few times you'd flip through them, they were filled with this strange line art and columns of tiny text. I really had the feeling that these were arcane tomes filled with secret knowledge!
• For those seeking to play First Edition but want something easier to read and reference, the best place to go is probably OSRIC.

Second Edition (2e)

• By the late 80's, Gygax was out of TSR and there was a call for a new edition to rewrite Gygax's purple prose as well as to streamline and refresh the game. Surely the owners of TSR, struggling with debt, decided it was time for a second edition of AD&D.
• The Player's Handbook and DMG were published in 1989.
• A "Monstrous Compendium" series was published starting in 89 as well - this was a three ring binder with loose-leaf monster pages you could add in. TSR published supplemental monster pages for virtually every setting released throughout the 90s that you could add to your binder rather than buying separate books. In practice, this thing was kind of unwieldy and pages would often get easily torn.
  • They released a compiled "Monstrous Manual" in 93 with many of the monsters but they continued to put out the loose-leaf compendium supplements until the end of second edition in 1998.
• 2nd Edition revamped the classes, removing stuff like the assassin, monk, and ninja but adding stuff in like a better version of the Bard (playable from level 1, unliked in 1st edition) and the Druid (which became essentially a subtype of cleric). Wizards could now select a specialization at first level, which differentiated casters from one another to some degree.
• 2nd Edition has a lot of the same very crunchy, nitpicky rules from 1e, but they are (slightly) better organized, and at least (almost) all of the player-facing rules are included in the Player's Handbook. Still, sometimes mechanical rules are often buried in the middle of a paragraph of otherwise descriptive text, and the books are not easy on the eyes!
• Given that it's largely a reorganization, 2nd Edition is mostly compatible with 1st Edition, with a primary focus on reworking some of the classes and cleaning up the rules to be more player-facing.
• 2nd Edition had what I still believe are the greatest campaign settings ever published for D&D, all released in gorgeous box sets with giant full color maps: the Forgotten Realms, Dark Sun, Al'Qadim, Planescape, Ravenloft, Kara Tur, Spelljammer, Mystara, Birthright, Dragonlance and so many more.
• These campaign settings were also flooded with dozens of smaller books that dived into specific locations or were published adventures for those settings.
• 2nd Edition also featured an extensive series of player splatbooks (the Complete Fighter, the Complete Wizard, etc... one volume for each race and class) that offered supplemental rules for each class, like Kits. Kits were what we would now think of at subclasses, but were selected during character creation. They offered minor variation of class abilities to create a specific flavorful version of that class. For example, as a fighter, you might select the pirate kit, the gladiator kit, or the cavalier kit. Each of these would come with some minor differences from the core class.
• There was also an excellent set of DM splat books (the Complete Book of Villains, Arms & Equipment Guide, Campaign Sourcebook and Catacomb Guide, and more) that offered tons of optional rules and actual advice for running different types campaigns and creating great NPCs.
• Late in second edition, TSR released an expansion set called "Players Option." There were three volumes: Skills and Power, Combat and Tactics, and Spells and Magic. These volumes replaced regular class progression with a point buy system. The result was the ability for players to craft completely broken characters by just buying the most impactful abilities from each class to make superhero characters. This seemed super fun at the time but in retrospect I think it ruined the edition.
• TSR printed itself into ruin in the second edition era, literally printing books they were just shoving into warehouses because their distribution contract meant they got paid in advance of sales and were just piling up debt and printing more books to hide the red. It's a weird, fascinating downfall and you can and should read all about it in Ben Riggs' excellent book "Slaying the Dragon: A Secret History of Dungeons and Dragons."
• While I started playing BECMI, I quickly moved to 2e and played it extensively for a decade until the release of 3e in the year 2000. I have extremely fond memories of this edition and as I said earlier, the campaign settings in 2e are still the best campaign settings ever released for D&D.

Third Edition / 3.5

In 1998, Wizard of the Coast, flush with piles of cash from the extraordinary success of Magic: The Gathering, bought a TSR that was literally dying and on the verge of bankruptcy. In many ways, WotC saved D&D, giving it another lease on life. They brought in some of the TSR designers and some new designers and begin development of a new edition that sought to "modernize" the game in the wake of successful character-focused or skills-forward games of the 90s like the White Wolf line, Shadowrun, and others.

• In 2000, the 3rd edition Player's Handbook, Dungeon Master's Guide, and Monster Manual were released, reverting to the original name: Dungeons & Dragons (dropping the Advanced bit).
• 3e was notable for being the first version that had centralized everything in the game around the d20 mechanic, such that it came to be known as the d20 system.
• Another thing that was really notable about 3e and later editions was the move from DM-adjudication in many cases to having explicit rules for players on anything they want to do in the world. An activity like deciphering some ancient runes in early editions would have been adjudicated on the fly by the GM, whereas in 3rd edition and later, players could just consult a convenient list of skills to determine how best to approach a problem.
• 3e introduced skills and feats, generous (though complex) multiclassing rules, and high-level "prestige" classes. The result was a powergamer's dream come true and the first real build crafting began.
• 3e was also the first version of D&D to explicitly be built on the idea that combat happens on a grid using 5 foot squares for movement and range. Earlier editions offered suggestions for using miniatures but 3rd Edition basically required it.
• 3e added the barbarian and sorcerer classes and renamed the thief as the rogue.
• Later products added epic levels to take your character above level 20.
• 3e also brought about the release of the Open Game License: the first official third party license of D&D, allowing other companies to create and publish their own d20-compatible material without paying a license fee to Wizard of the Coast. This brought about an explosion of d20-compatible content and really helped 3e become the center of it all.
• 3e became the edition of modifier heaven. A single d20 roll might have as many as five or six different modifiers added to it - ability score, range modifier, environmental modifier, base attack bonus, class specializations, racial modifiers, and more.
• Eberron was (I think) the only new campaign setting released in this era. The designer, Keith Baker, won a contest that resulted in Wizards acquiring the rights to Eberron and publishing the core setting book.
• In 2003, WotC released an updated version of the rules, commonly known as 3.5. The main purpose was just cleaning up and clarifying some of the clunkier subsystems, balancing spells and feats, and other minor changes. But overall, this was largely the same game as 3.0.
• When WotC tabled the third edition era to work on 4th edition in late 2007, Paizo (formerly the third party licensed publisher of Dungeon and Dragon magazines for Wizards) put out their own 3.5 clone called Pathfinder. This became known as 3.75 and is almost exactly the same as 3.5 with again minor differences. It wouldn't be until Pathfinder second edition that we'd see more substantive design changes that really sets that game apart from D&D.
• I personally played a ton of 3rd/3.5 editions in college. I was really into the math of the game and spent hours crafting character builds. Monsters could have class levels, so as a DM, I was statting out my villains with powerful feats, spells, and prestige classes. It was a great game if you love crunchy, tactical systems with tons of rules and exploitable modifiers, but now I don't think I'd touch it with a ten foot pole.

Fourth Edition (4e)

• D&D sales were apparently struggling in the face of video games, and Wizards wanted a new edition of the game to boost sales and draw in players from games like World of Warcraft.
• Fourth Edition was released in 2008, just five years after the 3.5 revamp, and it was a major overhaul to the game. Combat became acknowledged as a central focus of the game, and the designers built a version of D&D that plays in many ways more like a tactical combat board game than a role-playing game. Grids are required, character classes are driven by powers categorized into "at will," "per encounter," and "daily."
• I didn't play a ton of 4e. I really liked the innovations in design at first, but after playing it for awhile, I found the focus on combat as a tactical boardgame limited the feeling of being in a fantasy world and I lost interest.
• I wasn't the only one - 4th edition is one of the most divisive editions and got a lot of hate when it was released. Huge numbers of players left to go play Pathfinder instead, which as an extension of 3.5 felt more like D&D to them.
• That said, I think there were some great products published for 4th edition and some interesting design innovations, I just didn't get into it much as a system, so I don't have a ton to say about it.

Fifth Edition (5e/5.5e)

• Seeing that 4e wasn't really successful, D&D decided to release a new edition of the game and Fifth Edition was released in 2013. In many ways, 5e tries to take many of the best parts of 3e and 4e while returning to the "feel" of earlier editions. It was a big risk but proved to be the most popular version of D&D ever, at least partially thanks to the rise of streaming actual plays, shows like Stranger Things, and a global pandemic.
• 5e features the skills and d20-based mechanics of 3rd edition combined with the at-will and class-based powers of 4th edition, while scrapping prestige and paragon tier classes for subclasses selected at 3rd level.
• Feats and Skills make a comeback, but are listed as optional rules. However, basically everyone uses them.
• The DMG is notoriously bad at onboarding new DMs, but thanks to the Internet, we have Youtube to teach people how to run games.
• One of the biggest innovations in 5e is the advantage/disadvantage mechanic, which streamlined much of the fiddliness of tracking modifiers into a single die roll. It's so simple and so popular that it's now used in many other games besides just D&D and its clones.
• The other big mechanic from 5e is the action economy, with each PC having three actions: move action, main action, and optional bonus action.
• Fifth Edition didn't have a ton of rules expansions, at least in comparison to earlier editions, with just three volumes: Tasha's Cauldron of Everything, Xanathar's Guide to Everything, and (for DMs) Monsters of the Multiverse. Other publications were largely epic 1-20 campaign books and a few starter box sets with smaller sandbox-style adventures that were largely well-received.
• Healing is easy and dying is rare in 5e, pushing the "superheroic fantasy" theme that its known for.
• I only started playing 5e in 2021, and overall I do like the simplified and streamlined mechanics of 5e. I think it's probably the simplest version of the game to teach to new players with the exception of maybe BX, and all the classes have a strong and clear class identity. I think my two biggest drawbacks for 5e is that past second or third level, the game is rarely "dangerous" for PCs beyond third level, removing a sense of risk. If you're playing a superheroic style game, that's probably great, but if you want any other style of adventure, the mechanics of the game start to hold you back. Like Ravenloft is supposed to be this terrifying, dreadful adventure, but are you really worried if you 15th level Monk can resist all Strahd's abilities and basically punch him to death in a couple of turns?
• The other issue I have with 5e, and it was an issue in 4e and 3e as well, is that combat takes a long time, especially at higher levels. The action economy means players are figuring out three things to do each turn, sometimes more, which significantly slows the game as they get into higher levels and have even more "buttons to push" on their character sheets.
• In 2024, a refreshed version of the game was released. There was a lot of fuss about whether this was a new edition or not, with Wizards bouncing back and forth with its naming convention, before finally sucking it up and agreeing to call it what everyone else was calling it, which is 5.5. Like 3.5, it's largely a rebalancing and cleaning up of the rules. Classes were given more power, leading to criticisms of power creep, but monsters were also beefed up. The DMG was revised to make it much friendlier for new DMs in terms of teaching them how to actually run a game. I haven't played 5.5 yet, but I'm sure I will at some point!

What Edition Should I Play?

• If you want an epic fantasy game with lots of character options and aren't afraid of some crunchy rules, and a game where even powerful characters aren't superheroes and combat is relatively quick, play AD&D (1e if you want assassins and monks, 2e if you want kits and more interesting spellcasters, but avoid the Player Option books at all costs).
• If you want a super fast-playing, easily hackable adventure game for lower levels that often feels gritty and dangerous, play BX or one of the many BX retroclones.
• If you love the rules-light, streamlined feel of BX but want to take it to higher levels and rule kingdoms and duke it out with immortals, play BECMI.
• If you want to play the latest version of the game with streamlined mechanics, and you want a high-powered superheroic fantasy game, play 5e/5.5.
• If you want to play an in-depth tactical combat minigame, play 4e. Or, you know, just play a board game like Gloomhaven or play Draw Steel.
• If you want to spend hours theorycrafting builds for 30th level characters with an AC of 80, go look at 3rd edition, but I can't really recommend bringing it to the table - you're probably better off playing Pathfinder.
• If you want to play the latest version of the game with streamlined mechanics, but you want a gritty, low-fantasy game, play Shadowdark.