Kickin' it Old-School - C&C Rocks

[fredramsey]

I apologize if there has already been a thread for this game, but I got my boxed set of Castles & Crusades from Troll Lord games. Man, it is cool, if you wanna go old-school. It takes the cool parts from OD&D (4 classes, short spell and monster lists) and combines them with the simpler AC mechanic of 3rd Edition D&D, to make a really smooth game.

Now, my players and I aren't about to give up our Feats and AoO's , but I can see this as a once-in-a-while diversion. I highly recommend it to anyone looking for a "blast from the past".

 

[Jupp]

Yeah I got two of the Spartan 300 boxes and since then I plan to take over the world..errrm...I mean to bring our DM to switch from our current ruleset (Runequest..yeargh) to C&C. I hope my devilish plans come to a good end *cackles* Now if the hardback PHB would only be available already. 5 weeks can be such a long time

At the moment I am trying to put the old AD&D multiclasses into C&C. There is a very nice approach to this on the C&C forums over at dragonsfoot.org. Now I only have to add some spicey abilities at certain key levels as well as general tweaking on the EPPs and such. The cool thing with C&C is that you can houserule until you faint without breaking the original ruleset structure in any way.

 

[JoeGKushner]

I bought one at Gen Con and still haven't looked at it yet. (Raises fist at pile of review material...)

 

[francisca]

I bought one at Gen Con and still haven't looked at it yet. (Raises fist at pile of review material...)

What a nice problem to have!

 

[JoeGKushner]

What a nice problem to have!

You'd think but there is the whole reading the book, trying to use it, check some of the game stats out...

In many ways, I'm glad John Cooper is a staff reviewer now. He's much better at finding both grammatical and mechanical errors than I am.

Still, for me, I try to avoid reading stuff that I've bought when I have stuff that I have to review. The exception to that is if I'm going to be using that material in my campaign.

 

[National Acrobat]

I love this

My group had been looking for something a little less strenuous, especially with melee. I got the set a few weeks ago and we ditched the 1E game I was running, and the 3.0 game that another one of us was running, and now are only playing a Castles and Crusades game that I am running. It's been awesome, everyone loves it. We are eagerly awaiting the PHB to be published in a few weeks, and all of us have preordered it. Again, it's great.

 

[National Acrobat]

We love it!

grr...double posts

 

[trollwad]

its not necessarily either/or. you could port some feats into c&c real easily. i.e. 1 at level one, 1 at level 5, etc.

 

[Akrasia]

Yes C&C does indeed rock!

The box set is very cute, and lots of fun to play (despite including a number of typos). (BTW, if you're interested, my terribly insightful review of the box set can be found here: http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/10/10797.phtml . )


In fact, I prefer to DM C&C over 3E D&D so much, that once the current 'story arc' of my 3E campaign wraps up in a few weeks, and another person takes over as DM (to run his own FR campaign), I am converting my campaign over to C&C. So from now on, when my group plays in 'Ilmahal' (my yeasty, tasty, homebrew setting), we will be using the C&C rules.

(Now, just to be clear, I am happy to play 3E, so 3E zealots please do not freak out at my comments, but I just find DM'ing C&C ten times more enjoyable. It suits my DM style much better than 3E. I like to keep the story moving at a very brisk pace in my games, and I also like to improvise encounters on the fly -- very easy to do with a rules lite system. Plus, I find prepping for C&C games to be a lot faster and easier than prepping for 3E games. For all these reasons, and the fact that I am a selflish person, I will be using C&C for my future fantasy games.)

What I am really looking forward to now, though, is the PHB. It will be great to finally get the full rules!

(Imagine: a ranger without spells; a paladin without spells; a real 'skald-like' bard without spells. A system that recognizes that, gee, maybe the majority of adventuring classes should, you know, not have spells. At last.)

I am a long time champion of the RC D&D rules, but the C&C core rulebook should capture all the benefits of RC (one book, a coherent and balanced rules set, good feelings, etc.), but without some of RC's disadvantages (e.g. the 'races-as-classes', etc.).

Yeah, the box set is nice, but I can hardly wait until my C&C PHB arrives.

 

[National Acrobat]

eh?

its not necessarily either/or. you could port some feats into c&c real easily. i.e. 1 at level one, 1 at level 5, etc.

You could, but what my group was looking for was a game that used the best part of the d20 mechanic without feats and skills. We are patiently awaiting the PHB.