Challenging the Players

I went into AD&D with the notion that if the players accurately described what they were doing, I would allow them success or failure on their task depending on their description. I thought this would be a refreshing change from modern D&D, where everything is resolved with a skill check and a die roll.

Unfortunately, this did not work in practice. My players simply described what they were doing and blazed through most challenges with nary an effort. How would you adjudicate climbing a tree in AD&D, without the Thief's climb skill? Surely you don't need to specialize as a thief to climb a tree. 5e's athletics or acrobatics skill would be an easy fit, but if I use AD&D's climbing speed rules and give my player an instant success on the climb attempt, the loss of a few segments of time is hardly worth tracking and what should have been a mobility challenge just became a few seconds of wasted time IRL.

 This is especially true for the most common dungeon challenges - locks and traps. By letting players describe 'alternate' methods of cracking them open and disabling them, I merely taxed them by only 1 turn of action, and so they moved past the challenge virtually unhindered. The occasional wandering monster did little to impede them. On the other hand, D&D 5e would approach these challenges with a die roll that has to meet a target Difficulty Class number. Failing die rolls is often frustrating, but the hidden upside is that it causes a natural deterrent to player behavior. If they fail a die roll multiple times, in the AD&D system, that means that they're losing multiple turns. Which means that other players are doing other things, and there are more frequent wandering monster encounters.

Sadly, it seems like I'll have to implement more dice rolls in my game. A 1-in-6 chance or % out of 100 seem like the best fit for AD&D. The Difficulty Class system is a better fit for BECMI, since it uses attribute stat bonuses anyway.