I played a ton of 2nd edition in college and still have all the books. Most of my current group never played AD&D, and so have no concept of what it was like. I'm thinking I'd like to give them a taste of what it was like by running an AD&D 2e game, but I don't really have the time to create a full campaign (even a shortish one) from scratch. I was thinking I could run them through one of the classic AD&D modules, possibly with some homebrew on top if necessary.

I'd prefer for it not to be purely a dungeon crawl, though... we like some story to go with it.

For reference, I've run them through the Village of Hommlet, Against the Cult of the Reptile God, and Keep at the Borderlands (all converted to 5e), so I don't want to use those again, and we ran the 5e version of Secrets of Saltmarsh.

Any suggestions?

I have a core resolution (dice) mechanic that I have been toying with for several years, and I keep expecting that some other game will have done something similar, except that as far as I can tell, no (at least not exactly). (and maybe there's a good reason for that, but hear me out 😆)

This CRM is used for skills, including combat, and it has two main goals:

1. emphasize that skill/practice is more important than innate ability
2. If you have to roll, success is never automatic just because of how skilled you are

Skill Ranks

Rank	Roll	Description
Unskilled	2d4	No training, no experience, just doing their best to muddle through.
Skilled	2d6	Trained, practiced, does this regularly and is competent.
Veteran	2d8	Someone with a lot of experience, and even laypeople can tell they're good.
Expert	2d10	Clearly exceptional, performs extraordinary feats regularly.
Master	2d12	A virtuoso, they perform feats most others can't even imagine.

Your rank in a skill determines what dice you roll, with a generic target number of 6+ for success.

I like the physicality of the dice going up. Each rank gives you dice that roll nicer than the ones below. Rolling 2d4 *feels* awkward, as doing something unskilled should. 2d6 feels boring. 2d8 feel more interesting, etc.

Contested Rolls

For contested rolls, the active player rolls against the defender's die size. For example, if you're Veteran rank in Melee, and you're attacking someone who is an Expert in Melee, you need to roll a 10+ to hit. And if the Expert later attacks you back, they need to roll an 8+ to hit you.

Someone who is Skilled will hit 6+ 72% of the time. This is the skilled person doing something they are very familiar with, and probably the only reason there's even a 28% chance of failure is because it's being done under stress (otherwise, just don't make them roll). The success percentage is intentionally high.

Success Tiers

Matching the target number gives you a tier 1 result. This could be success at a cost, a minor success... whatever fits your game.

For every 3 by which you beat the target number, you increase the tier of the result by 1. So with the default 6+ target number, a 9 gives you a tier 2 result, and a 12 a tier 3, etc. What the tiers actually do is up to your game and each individual ability.

I like that Skilled folks (2d6) can get a tier 2 result (9+) a bit less than 1/3rd of the time (28%). This is the slightly-unexpected better result that doesn't always happen but isn't super remarkable. If you hit boxcars (12) you get that one in a million (ok, 1/36) tier 3 result, and it feels great.

But then the Veteran hits that tier 3 almost as often (23%) as the Skilled hits tier 2.

Roll percentages

     % Chance To Roll      Result
    2d4 2d6 2d8 2d10 2d12    
5-  63  28  16   10    7   Failure
6+  38  72  84   90   93   Tier 1
7+  19  58  77   85   90  
8+  6   42  67   79   85  
9+      28  56   72   81   Tier 2
10+     17  44   64   75  
11+     8   33   55   69  
12+     3   23   45   62   Tier 3
13+         16   36   54  
14+         9    28   46  
15+         5    21   38   Tier 4
16+         2    15   31  
17+              10   25  
18+              6    19   Tier 5
19+              3    15  
20+              1    10  
21+                    7   Tier 6
22+                    4   
23+                    2   
24+                    1   Tier 7

How Attributes Affect Skill Rolls

This is the part I am still working on. What I definitely do not want is flat bonuses from attributes. I want skill to vastly outweigh innate ability. The gymnast isn't good because they have 18 dex, they are good because they practiced for 8 hours a day for years.

Maybe attributes don't affect skills at all. Or maybe it's even the reverse... buy up enough Dex skills to veteran, and your dex moves up to veteran. I kinda like that.

Conclusion

Anyway.... I looked around and couldn't find any RPG systems with scaling dice for skill level. This approach was partially inspired by Savage Worlds, which has scaling dice for increased ability, but it's always d6 + <skill die> and also has tiers of success (they call them "raises"). But I think two dice of the same size gives some cleaner math, and means you can just leave your dice in pairs and grab the right pair each time.

Obviously this is not fully fleshed out, but I wanted to post it because I think it's cool and maybe someone will steal it and use it in a cool game.

**Addendum - Stuff I forgot to post**

Difficulty in checks is raised by increasing the target number. A standard lock might be 6+ to pick, but a more complex lock might be 8+, and a magical lock might be 12+, etc. basically stepping up the way skill dice do.

Advantages and disadvantages on rolls function basically like they do in 5e D&D - pairs of advantage/disadvantage cancel out. unlike D&D, if you have 2 advantages and 1 disadvantage, you're still counted as having an advantage (and vice versa if more disadvantages). After cancelling out, for each -vantage left over, roll an extra die of the same size as the rest of your dice, and either choose the two highest or lowest, depending on whether you had a net advantage or disadvantage. (there's probably a better way to word this, but I think you get it).

One More Addendum

Helping others

When you assist someone else with a task, you contribute a die of your skill level to their roll (as if a special form of advantage). They still roll and pick the two highest.

This means that someone who is an Expert helps a lot more than someone helping who is unskilled.