Castles & Crusades vs. Old School Essentials vs. Low Fantasy Gaming

Jahydin · Dec 19, 2021

I own pretty much all the major OSR systems, but C&C is what I find myself constantly going back to. The "Trolls" took AD&D, chiseled and polished all the odd and clunky rules till they sparkled, then supplemented it with their SIEGE Engine. The 7th edition Player's Handbook is free on their website; I highly encourage everyone to grab it and take a look through it.

My favorites bits:

1. Power Level:
Characters are more powerful and capable then their OSE (B/X) counterparts, but the world is still dangerous, allowing for plenty of heroic moments. Lower monster HP also makes battles faster, tense, and easier to narrate as well.

2. Treasure Tables:
The random treasure tables in the Monsters and Treasure book are by far my favorite. Find the monster's listed treasure level and roll to get appropriately leveled treasure. Makes stocking dungeons incredibly easy. Oh, and there is an Exp and gold value for each item too!

3. SIEGE:
The SIEGE Engine, once groked, is an incredibly useful tool that allows you to resolve any task on the fly. It also makes rolling high stats much less important than other versions (since you get to choose which stats your character excels at).

Also, Rogues are much more successful at doing their jobs at low level.

4. Easy to Modify:
Because the main driving force of the system (SIEGE) is just layered on top the pre-existing AD&D game, modifying the game to your particular taste is incredibly easy. For instance, in my game, I have a single target number for all skill checks and use 5E's Advantage/Disadvantage!

deganawida · Jun 1, 2022

I recently got the 8th printing of the Castles & Crusades Players Handbook, and love it. I still need to do some more reading, but I'll try to sum up my thoughts thus far, below.

I like OSE, having bought the books for Classic Fantasy, Advanced Fantasy, and the really well done DM screen. However, what I found when I tried running a session is that my appreciation for it is less for how it plays and its default assumptions, but more in how the rules (remember, this is B/X) reinforce and encourage that play style. It's like appreciating the design behind a race car while still preferring horse races and finding car races boring (guilty).

What I have found with Castles & Crusades, is that, while I like the rules, the feel is what I really appreciate. I started with AD&D Second Edition, and that type of fantasy where it's on the border of heroic and high fantasy was what the game system seemed aimed at, whether it captured that or not. C&C does feel that it captures that type of fantasy. The classes aren't designed to be killing machines; each class has major abilities that don't play in combat. Instead, they seem to capture the archetypes that I love in fantasy fiction, and give you abilities that mimic them. I mean, I can think of a mechanical benefit for the Knight class to be able to knight NPCs and thus give them the class, but the real benefit that I glean from this is that is something knights do in the fiction, when they find someone worthy. The mechanical benefit would only be reinforcing the fiction. Deer Stalker allows Barbarians to be superior athletes. Rangers are your expert trackers. The Bard is like that one dude from The Black Cauldron with the brooch whose name I can never remember, instead of being straight Fflewdyr Fflamm, what with the emphasis on persuasion and legend lore and combat and no magic. These elements are most important to me, because they help me to feel that I am like these characters from fantasy fiction and movies that I wanted to be when a young child.

Essentially, it boils down to this for me: For a straight up game, where you just want to play as a fun pastime, OSE is great. I'm sure there's lots of emergent gameplay from it that's not expected, similar to what will happen in a Risk or Monopoly session. However, if you want to emulate the literature and movies and cartoons that may have inspired your preference for fantasy (assuming you started as I did), then C&C all the way.

Von Ether · Jun 1, 2022

deganawida said:
The Bard is like that one dude from The Black Cauldron with the brooch whose name I can never remember, instead of being straight Fflewdyr Fflamm, what with the emphasis on persuasion and legend lore and combat and no magic. These elements are most important to me, because they help me to feel that I am like these characters from fantasy fiction and movies that I wanted to be when a young child.

I felt like the Bard was the "smart fighter," the fellow who could swing a sword one moment and then in the next could tell you the history of the land and perhaps the best customs to practice to keep the locals happy. The folk hero sort who is between the cleric and knight.

It's an option that rarely offered right out of the box and I didn't really consider it before seeing it in C&C.

deganawida · Jun 1, 2022

Von Ether said:
I felt like the Bard was the "smart fighter," the fellow who could swing a sword one moment and then in the next could tell you the history of the land and perhaps the best customs to practice to keep the locals happy. The folk hero sort who is between the cleric and knight.

It's an option that rarely offered right out of the box and I didn't really consider it before seeing it in C&C.

I would concur. I think it also maps rather well to your typical bumpkin-turned-hero protagonist of fantasy fiction.

EDIT: It's also cool that you could make an historical Pericles using the C&C Bard. Heck, could probably even do Plato, given his history and his writings.

Jahydin · Jun 2, 2022

deganawida said:
I recently got the 8th printing of the Castles & Crusades Players Handbook, and love it. I still need to do some more reading, but I'll try to sum up my thoughts thus far, below.

I like OSE, having bought the books for Classic Fantasy, Advanced Fantasy, and the really well done DM screen. However, what I found when I tried running a session is that my appreciation for it is less for how it plays and its default assumptions, but more in how the rules (remember, this is B/X) reinforce and encourage that play style. It's like appreciating the design behind a race car while still preferring horse races and finding car races boring (guilty).

What I have found with Castles & Crusades, is that, while I like the rules, the feel is what I really appreciate. I started with AD&D Second Edition, and that type of fantasy where it's on the border of heroic and high fantasy was what the game system seemed aimed at, whether it captured that or not. C&C does feel that it captures that type of fantasy. The classes aren't designed to be killing machines; each class has major abilities that don't play in combat. Instead, they seem to capture the archetypes that I love in fantasy fiction, and give you abilities that mimic them. I mean, I can think of a mechanical benefit for the Knight class to be able to knight NPCs and thus give them the class, but the real benefit that I glean from this is that is something knights do in the fiction, when they find someone worthy. The mechanical benefit would only be reinforcing the fiction. Deer Stalker allows Barbarians to be superior athletes. Rangers are your expert trackers. The Bard is like that one dude from The Black Cauldron with the brooch whose name I can never remember, instead of being straight Fflewdyr Fflamm, what with the emphasis on persuasion and legend lore and combat and no magic. These elements are most important to me, because they help me to feel that I am like these characters from fantasy fiction and movies that I wanted to be when a young child.

Essentially, it boils down to this for me: For a straight up game, where you just want to play as a fun pastime, OSE is great. I'm sure there's lots of emergent gameplay from it that's not expected, similar to what will happen in a Risk or Monopoly session. However, if you want to emulate the literature and movies and cartoons that may have inspired your preference for fantasy (assuming you started as I did), then C&C all the way.

Perfectly said!

C&C just feels right. I think because it plays the same way I ran my AD&D games as a kid and not what was RAW, haha.

Also, I'm not quite sure how to say it... it just has an integrity about it. I own many OSR products that are great in their own right, but many rely on artistic gimmicks and/or shock value to stand out and be interesting. C&C has stayed true to just being traditional D&D when it still pulled from ancient stories rather than being self-referencing.

I was just reading a low-level OSE adventure and there's a creature that you have to Save vs. Breath Weapon or suffer a permanent mutation like growing a third eye on your forehead. While great for "one-shots", that sort of disregard for PC worth just isn't my thing.

BenTheFerg · Jun 4, 2022

Whizbang Dustyboots said:
I haven't played OSE, but it has a great reputation. When I looked at the Kickstarter earlier this year, I think I bounced off not having racial classes (which I've come back around to liking as an option) and I think it uses decreasing AC, doesn't it? That's also a dealbreaker for me nowadays -- once I got a unified resolution system with 3E, I am never going back in D&D games.

It has racial classes. In the basic game, elf, dwarf & halfling.
Plus you can use increasing or decreasing AC.

Yora · Jun 4, 2022

OSE Advanced has both options.

Von Ether · Jun 4, 2022

As a side note: Since levels get added to class-related siege checks and the Thief has the quickest skill progression, I feel like C&C is one of the D&D variants that give rogues some respect.

It doesn't hurt that you can try things related to your PCs history, motivating players to create backstories.

Zardnaar · Jun 4, 2022

Von Ether said:
As a side note: Since levels get added to class-related siege checks and the Thief has the quickest skill progression, I feel like C&C is one of the D&D variants that give rogues some respect.

It doesn't hurt that you can try things related to your PCs history, motivating players to create backstories.

That and the DC 12/18 system. A rogue in effect gets +6 on all trained skills at gamestart.

teitan · Jun 5, 2022

Of the options OSE if you like B/X. It’s simple and easy. It gets out of the way. C&C I found to be a valiant attempt at a more AD&D style game but wasn’t a strong system and it’s early success was probably on the back of Castle Zagyg. It’s a viable game but OSE is just better. Buutttt…

If you want a more advanced option then Swords & Wizardry Core is good for BX style with race decoupled from class and Complete is good with the expanded class lists and you won’t need to spend 100+ to get the set of rules.

Then if you want more modern mechanics, while it seems more daunting than it is, Dungeon Crawl Classics is a great option for old school gaming. Some people mistakenly think it’s 3.x but it’s about as 3.x as Mutants & Masterminds is 3.x. It’s founded in the OGL but is it’s own game with very classic takes more akin to early D&D and smooth to run even with the various charts for spells. Importing the thief skills to OSE/S&W or OSR game of choice would also be an easy way to bring in a unified mechanic.