People still playing Castles & Crusades?

[RunningLaser]

Don't hear as much talk about it anymore. Just seeing if people are still playing it. There was something about it that I always liked.

 

[Gabriel]

I've played it within recent memory. I like it. I even just ordered the recent big Monsters & Treasures reprint.

My only issue with it is that when I run it I keep wanting to add in stuff from AD&D2e, to the point where I start to wonder why I don't just play AD&D2e instead.

 

[Skywalker]

I used to like C&C as a modern take on old school D&D. But I think D&D5e gave C&C a real knock. This also wasn't helped by C&C's slow evolution to deal with parts of the system that were messy or confusing.

 

[Bunch]

Metamorphosis Alpha's Starship Warden is getting a reboot via a just started Kickstarter using the same engine. Might drive an uptick in people playing

 

[Trippy]

I liked Castles & Crusades in the 2000s, largely because it felt more the D&D I wanted than either the 3.5 or D&D4/Pathfinder games.

D&D5 made that kinda redundant though, as it basically moved in the direction that I was after.

 

[Dumarest]

Q: People still playing Castles & Crusades?

A: Never even heard of it. Is it another D&D derivative? Or am I thinking of Chivalry & Sorcery?

 

[Trippy]

Q: People still playing Castles & Crusades?

A: Never even heard of it. Is it another D&D derivative? Or am I thinking of Chivalry & Sorcery?

I'd say it was arguably the game that pioneered the whole 'Old School' fad.

It isn't Chivalry & Sorcery, it was a game that celebrated the Castles and Crusades Society, where 0D&D was originally invented by Gary Gygax. It was released as a game under the d20 license about the time D&D3.5 came out, with some endorsement by Gary Gygax himself in his final years. It attempted to remove some of the clutter from the official D&D game at the time, like taking away skill lists for example, and drew popularity from not being reliant on miniature play and other perceived developments of D&D play at the time. It was well supported, and appealed to a certain old school mentality. Since then, of course, there have been lots D&D retro clones, but C&C was one of the first.

 

[Gabriel]

Yeah, I've sometimes wondered why C&C gets skipped over when talking about the whole OSR thing. My completely outsider view is that it seems like the people at Troll Lord don't want to be lumped in with the OSR D&D clones, and the OSR D&D clone people don't want to acknowledge that C&C... well, exists.

I don't know how accurate that perception is, but it's what I got.

 

[under_score]

I've got a lot of love for Castles & Crusades. As T Trippy said, it helped kick off the OSR, predating even OSRIC by a few months. When the Trolls were working on it, the OGL was brand new and there wasn't a whole OSR scene, so their intention was to make what they felt would have been the evolution of AD&D 2e had it stayed in TSR's hands (and Gygax, by extension). They even worked with Gary Gygax a bit, before his death, although I do not know if he gave any input on the rules or if that was just for the whole Castle Zagyg adventure.
However, a lot of people wanted C&C to be something it's not, a more strict recreation of 1e AD&D, and there was some drama around this and bad blood and all the usual internet community schism crap, so C&C kind of remains outside the rest of the whole OSR community still, despite the compatibility and design ethos. But because of that, discussion around C&C has always been primarily on the Troll Lord forums, and wider OSR discussion doesn't cross into those forums much and C&C doesn't get brought up in more general OSR communities much. It's all a bit odd, but that's our wonderful hobby for you.
As to people playing it, yes they do. I run the MeWe C&C group and while it's a quiet group, there are frequent play reports (one guy even has a very popular open table at a game store in Minnesota I believe. The Trolls have a pretty steady output and there are some 3rd party adventures as well. Over on the Fantasy Grounds discord, C&C is one of the most popular non-5e rulesets, with great community support and lots of games played.
C&C definitely skews towards the "vanilla D&D" aesthetic. The art is reminiscent of TSR in the 2e period (minus the trend of using random friends as models), with some cheesecake, but nothing I'd classify NSFW.

There are some complaints about the whole SIEGE engine, tying all skills and saving throws and anything else you can think of to attributes with base difficulties of 12 or 18 is all a bit weird, but in play it's a very easy to use system and I've never had much issue with it. Castles & Crusades is also kind of unique in the OSR for having a true Dungeon Master's Guide equivalent. The Castle Keeper's Guide is an awesome book packed with rules variants and additional options for tweaking the game to suit your tastes and also has a ton of great information on world building.
Oh, and I should mention the main setting of C&C, Airhde. It is a massive world with a lot of rich lore to it. Maybe it reads a bit too much like the Silmarillion for some folks, but there are a lot of interesting ideas in it and overall the feeling is more Germanic fairy tale than the typical D&D pseudo-medieval. Stephen Chenault is a pretty talented writer who has done some short stories in the setting that I really enjoyed. If he writes a full novel, I'd definitely pick it up.

All that praise aside, I'm not currently running C&C. AS&SH has become my goto. But if I wanted to go a little more vanilla D&D, I'd use C&C again.

 

[Bunch]

C&C first was published in 2004. OSRIC (I believe the first retroclone) was first published in 2006. OSRIC was I believe the first one to spend the time/legal fees to in so much as possible ensure making a clone of a non 3.X TSR/WotC product wasn't going to get you sued.

I know for a while C&C was getting lobbed in with the retroclone heavy OSR movement. I could see how that would dislike that as they predate that particular movement.

The OSR has had different elements take primacy during the years. I can see how if you aren't matching the current primary trend you'd get different utility from being labeled OSR.

 

[Gabriel]

When the Trolls were working on it, the OGL was brand new and there wasn't a whole OSR scene, so their intention was to make what they felt would have been the evolution of AD&D 2e had it stayed in TSR's hands (and Gygax, by extension).
...snip...
However, a lot of people wanted C&C to be something it's not, a more strict recreation of 1e AD&D, and there was some drama around this and bad blood and all the usual internet community schism crap, so C&C kind of remains outside the rest of the whole OSR community still, despite the compatibility and design ethos.

Yeah, that's a good point. When C&C was new, it was still in the age where AD&D2e was "teh wurzt gaem EVAR!" among the whole frothing grognard crowd. That alone probably drove the rejection of C&C and the attitude that "it's not really old school!"

There are some complaints about the whole SIEGE engine, tying all skills and saving throws and anything else you can think of to attributes with base difficulties of 12 or 18 is all a bit weird, but in play it's a very easy to use system and I've never had much issue with it.

The skill/saving throw thing confused me at first because I came straight from reading D&D3 and other difficulty number style games. The way C&C did things was really strange. I kept on trying to make it fit the more contemporary way of doing things.

Eventually I realized all I needed to do was follow the way it said it worked. Once I stopped trying to pound a square peg into a round hole, it made perfect sense.

 

[Joseph Wolz]

I play it quite often, having finished a campaign of it about a year ago. It’s my go-to OSR game, I use it consistently, and have been since 2005.

It does predate the OSR, and they don’t like being lumped into it, although that seems to be thawing because of fan crossover.

It’s always been my favorite “D&D” type game. I prefer it to 5e, which gets fiddly in progression. Because I run short games (about 15 or so sessions) with definite beginning, middle, and end, it suits my needs perfectly. I’m not much of a system diddler, so I like a game to just work out of the box.

C&C is huge, by the way, and has all sorts of different rules and rulings for various genres and such. Amazing Adventures is their pulp game, and it’s 100% compatible with regular C&C.

 

[FeralToaster]

Highly recommend the usefulness of the Codex series from C&C for gaming. They did a good job giving each culture its own book rather than just jamming everything together. Classical Greek culture has a book, Celtic culture has a book, Norse culture has a book Germanic culture has a book, Slavic culture has a book, and an Egyptian book is coming out. All easy to use for gaming and full of nice tidbits of cultural folklore.

 

[Stan]

Just got an email From Troll Lord today - They are giving away a pdf adventure for C&C for the holidays.

 

[Gringnr]

C&C was responsible for my getting back into roleplaying after a lengthy absence. I was in a regular group on their forums for a couple of years. I see a lot of he same names there as I do on other forums. I don't go there as much anymore, but from time to time.

In my experience, most posters there really like C&C and the SIEGE engine, but also dig other games. The forum itself is quite open to discussion of non-TLG games.

Almost everyone I met there was quite friendly and chill.

One of my old group said recently that a lot of the regulars have migrated to Discord.

I remember hearing a bit about the old OSRIC-C&C beefing, but I couldn't ever really figure out why it was, and no one on the Troll Lord forums seemed invested in it, if they even remembered it.

At the end of the day, I'm not too terribly interested in C&C, but the TLG forums is filled.with good people, and you can talk about non-TLG stuff all you want.

 

[The Butcher]

When C&C came out it cashed in on the then-unmet demand for a simpler D&D, that hearkened back to TSR editions.

The fact that it was not AD&D1 sparked the development of OSRIC, which more or less opened the floodgates if the OSR.

And even among the clones, C&C stood out as a simpler system operating on modern design principles, yet immediately compatible with adventures from any edition, like a Rosetta Stone of D&D.

Personally, I am also quite fond of the Trolls’ enthusiasm, the art, and of the anachronistic layout. And I like it that Bards and Rangers are pretty badass and not spellcasters. Their take on the Knight class is aces too.

The SIEGE and Prime Attributes mechanic sucks, though, because it wreaks havoc with class niches — it means e.g. that the Cleric will be a better trap-finder than the Thief. My suggested fix was to ditch Prime Attributes, make all tests 1d20 + ability score + level vs. DC table cribbed from the d20 OGL, and just give PCs a flat +4 to tests relevant to their character class. (I also used a background or secondary skill system that would allow PCs +4 on something not directly class-related.)

D&D5’s Proficiency mechanic achieves the same, with less niche bleed-over (though still some). It’s a more elegant design , even if it does get considerably more intricate as one levels up. It’s also got “Dungeons & Dragons” on its cover and these two things IMHO help understand why C&C might not be as hot as it once was within its middling-crunch D&Desqueniche.

I’ve never gotten around to picking it up in hard copy, which I kind of regret — the core book, Monsters & Treasure and Castle Keepers Guide all are great. Not sure how the rest of the line holds up — the adventures and the more recent mythology books I know nothing about, but none of the blurbs did grab me.

Besides, it’s not like I don’t have a ton of D&Desques gathering dust at my bookshelf, begging for a turn at the game table.

 

[The Butcher]

C&C was responsible for my getting back into roleplaying after a lengthy absence.

Same here, actually. Played a regular game a couple of years, starting near the end of my residency, after 7-8 years away from the game tables.

The pitch was we (PCs + retainers) were the survivors of a mercenary company routed by an army of demons, taking up residence in a fantasy metropolis by the desert. Dungeons were crawled aplenty and the city saw its share of intrigue. Then the demon army finally caught up with us and the city begged us to lead the defense — I was all for it, but everyone else was like fuck it, let’s get into a ship and bail.

We ended up in an exotic tropical island run by vampires. Then we got TPK’d.

Heh. Good times.

Highly recommend the usefulness of the Codex series from C&C for gaming. They did a good job giving each culture its own book rather than just jamming everything together. Classical Greek culture has a book, Celtic culture has a book, Norse culture has a book Germanic culture has a book, Slavic culture has a book, and an Egyptian book is coming out. All easy to use for gaming and full of nice tidbits of cultural folklore.

What’s the actual content of these books? New monsters, items, class? (I would really dig a “specialty priest” sort of thing for C&C.)

 

[David Johansen]

Yeah, not a fan but I wouldn't have written Dark Passages if I hadn't gotten disgusted with C&C after running it a few times. The SIEGE Engine means that a prime attribute of 3 is as good as a non-prime of 18 for tasks but offers no improvement to hit, damage, or armor class. The encumbrance system was ridiculously punitive in the original version. There's too many class specific abilities. But for me the worst offense is the hack job they did of the weapon statistics, with damages mainly lifted out of AD&D but with crossbows doing 1d10 damage for a point more encumbrance than a longbow. Anyhow, the problem is that most of those damages are intended for use with the weapon verses armour table and don't make much sense without it. Now if you don't care about any of these things then C&C will probably rock your socks.

When I started writing Dark Passages there were maybe half a dozen retro clones. By the time I was done there were about three dozen. Once I did the second edition there were over a hundred. I assumed that the rate of progression proved that the dark matter of the universe is entirely composed of retro-clones.

Anyhow, I went back to work on The Arcane Confabulation, which had started out as d% version of D&D. But I honestly think Castles & Crusades did us a service by being so determined to be what it is. Had it been a little closer to AD&D and open to outside development the OSR might look very different today.

 

[E-Rocker]

Yeah, not a fan but I wouldn't have written Dark Passages if I hadn't gotten disgusted with C&C after running it a few times.

What is Dark Passages?

 

[Joseph Wolz]

What’s the actual content of these books? New monsters, items, class? (I would really dig a “specialty priest” sort of thing for C&C.)

All of the above and a decently readable (if a tad academic) look at the cultures and folklore.

 

[Gabriel]

The SIEGE and Prime Attributes mechanic sucks, though, because it wreaks havoc with class niches — it means e.g. that the Cleric will be a better trap-finder than the Thief. My suggested fix was to ditch Prime Attributes, make all tests 1d20 + ability score + level vs. DC table cribbed from the d20 OGL, and just give PCs a flat +4 to tests relevant to their character class. (I also used a background or secondary skill system that would allow PCs +4 on something not directly class-related.)

My fix is that anything in your "class niche" is always treated as Prime. Is it a thief ability and you're a thief? Then it doesn't matter that your Wisdom is a non-prime. Since you're a thief and finding a trap is a thief class ability, then treat it as a prime regardless.

 

[Bunch]

I feel like all game systems have flaws you have to work around. The only shipyard advice of "Pound to fit, paint to match" applies.

 

[Moonglum]

I played a lot of C+C 5-10 years ago and have nothing bad to say about it. I think it has just faded a bit from people's minds because it now exists in a competitive landscape where there are a dozen or so well supported OSR systems, plus the community that would like C+C might also really like 5E, which has the benefit of wide distribution and visibility. And increasingly people seem to just be going back to original materials rather than OSR reboots. It is hard to keep market share in a situation like that. Basically, there are just tons of similarly good systems with similar aims, and people choose among them for all sorts of minor, idiosyncratic reasons that are beyond the control of the publisher.

 

[under_score]

Yeah, I've never had that much trouble with the SIEGE engine. I don't know how anyone has a Cleric that's better at finding traps than the Thief. That doesn't make any sense to me. Maybe you're doing some weird build, creating a Thief with terrible Dex/Int abilities and assigning your primes to Con and Wis. The system allows you to gimp your characters if you want.
Also, common sense applies. Just cause a skill uses an ability that you have marked as prime doesn't mean you have learned that skill. I've never had issues with that.

As for this:

The SIEGE Engine means that a prime attribute of 3 is as good as a non-prime of 18 for tasks but offers no improvement to hit, damage, or armor class.

I like that at the most extreme edges of abilities, natural ability is equivalent to training. The combat modifiers apply regardless of Prime or not Prime as your combat skill is represented by your class and level.

 

[David Johansen]

What is Dark Passages?

My retroclone of course! Everyone here wrote at least one right?

Let's see if it's still up: http://www3.telus.net/public/uncouths/passages.pdf

hmmm...nope, I'll have to poke around and see what's wrong later.

 

[Bunch]

My retroclone of course! Everyone here wrote at least one right?

Let's see if it's still up: http://www3.telus.net/public/uncouths/passages.pdf

hmmm...nope, I'll have to poke around and see what's wrong later.

Do a Google search for:

site:http://www3.telus.net/public/uncouths/ filetype:pdf

And you should be able to find what you are looking for.

 

[Gabriel]

I feel like all game systems have flaws you have to work around. The only shipyard advice of "Pound to fit, paint to match" applies.

I played and ran Palladium system games nearly every week for over a decade. I'm used to dealing with systems with far more fundamentally broken results.

Yeah, I've never had that much trouble with the SIEGE engine. I don't know how anyone has a Cleric that's better at finding traps than the Thief. That doesn't make any sense to me. Maybe you're doing some weird build, creating a Thief with terrible Dex/Int abilities and assigning your primes to Con and Wis. The system allows you to gimp your characters if you want.
Also, common sense applies. Just cause a skill uses an ability that you have marked as prime doesn't mean you have learned that skill. I've never had issues with that.

Another big part of SIEGE is what checks your character level adds to. It doesn't always add in. For the thief, finding a trap is a class ability, so his level is always going to add in. As I understand the rules for checks, then the cleric's level probably should not add in to any Find Trap checks. Only the thief is getting any better at finding traps as he levels up. The cleric is going to have a good default, but that's going to be their chance whether they're 1st or 10th level.

It's true that if we assume Cleric with 18 Prime Wisdom and a Thief with a 10 Non-Prime Wisdom, then it's going to be a LONG time before the thief catches up to the Cleric's default ability. The thief would have to be 9th level before his check would be the same as what the cleric started with.

But if you assume that any explicit class feature is treated as under a prime stat, then the thief only has to hit level 3 before he matches the cleric's default, and from 4th on, he'll be better. Possibly not ideal depending on your POV, but definitely an improvement.

Personally, I don't know why there isn't a little rule in C&C that says "if it's a class feature, treat it as Prime". It largely fixes the issue with the thief class and it's abilities under varied attributes. Plus, after all, it's the character class. They're supposed to be good at what they do. Maybe it's buried in the CKG somewhere.

 

[Moonglum]

Whatever you make of the way the 'favored stat' bonus is defined, in practice C+C has arguably the best treatment of skills used on adventure of any D+D like game.

 

[FeralToaster]

What’s the actual content of these books? New monsters, items, class? (I would really dig a “specialty priest” sort of thing for C&C.)

All of the above and a decently readable (if a tad academic) look at the cultures and folklore.

I'll only add to the above reply that I thought they were comparable to the old ADnD faux leather era setting books.

 

[Tulpa Girl]

Personally, I don't know why there isn't a little rule in C&C that says "if it's a class feature, treat it as Prime". It largely fixes the issue with the thief class and it's abilities under varied attributes. Plus, after all, it's the character class. They're supposed to be good at what they do. Maybe it's buried in the CKG somewhere.

Caveat: I only have the quickstart rules.

For anything that covers a specific class ability (like pick pockets or a ranger's tracking ability), I'd probably apply a -5 penalty for anyone not of that class attempting it, in addition to not adding their level in.

I wouldn't make all class abilities as per a Prime, just because I like the idea of different thieves of the same level being good at different things, depending on which Primes they took.

 

[RunningLaser]

I don't have it anymore, but remember that Amazing Adventures did their primes a bit differently and a lot of people liked it.

 

[Joseph Wolz]

I don't have it anymore, but remember that Amazing Adventures did their primes a bit differently and a lot of people liked it.

First edition did a straight plus five to rolls using a prime attribute. Second edition did away with that and made it the same as C&C so that everything would be balanced or whatever.

Game balance is bullshit anyway, but it is nice to see everything the same so classes can be traded around more easily.