C&C is not just for old school gaming!

[Dragonhelm]

I have to say that I really enjoy the C&C system for a number of reasons. Simple mechanics, hearkens back to the days of AD&D, and so on and so forth. We've heard them all before.

C&C is adaptable to any D&D system. This is one of the main selling points of C&C, yet I feel that despite this being said, it's always equated to adapting AD&D. While I applaud that, it seems to me that C&C is useful enough that it need not be just for old school gaming.

I feel like we're missing some of C&C's potential. Yes, it's a wonderful system for old school gaming, but why can't it also be a wonderful system for new school gaming? After all, we see several threads where someone is asking how to simplify d20, or how someone is looking for a rules-light alternative. Well, C&C's a good option.

Let's take it a step beyond and look at settings. Many people talk about using C&C for old school settings. Why, though, would you limit C&C to just the old school settings? Why not use C&C for an Eberron game, or maybe Spelljammer. What about Kalamar or Dragonstar?

Point is, I think the focus on old school gaming with C&C doesn't really represent the entirety of the system. At its heart, it is an old school system with a rules-light d20 type of mechanic. Yet it's the best of all editions. So why not use it with the materials from all editions of the game?

I'd like to hear more thoughts about this issue, and how C&C could be promoted not only as an old school system, but a rules-light new school system.

Thanks!

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Since True20 has very aggressively carved out the "rules-light new school system" turf, your first challenge would be to explain why C&C is better for that purpose than True20/M&M/Blue Rose.

In contrast, Green Ronin has ceded the old school playing field to C&C, which is probably why it's identified the way it is.

 

[Aus_Snow]

t's the best of all editions.

While some would agree with you, many would not.

I agree with WD's statements, though. True20 is what I like to [occasionally] think of as "more d20 than d20". But again, many would no doubt disagree.

Personally, I see C&C pretty much the way you're apparently hoping for people not to see it. . . sorry! That is, it's an excellent system for integrating D&D material from throughout the years, but particularly the older stuff, and most of all AD&D's staggering list of offerings.

But I'm sure it could be used in its own right, as is, for those who like their rules a little "liter", or their 'skool" a tad older. So hey, you're probably right.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

Yes, it's a wonderful system for old school gaming, but why can't it also be a wonderful system for new school gaming?

Maybe because it was pretty much designed to encapsulate the old-school playstyle in slightly more robust mechanics?

I mean, unlike True20, a game which explicitly sets itself up as mimicking the classes and tropes of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons isn't really shouting out its adaptability to, say, Eberron or Bas-Lag or (ironically) Planescape.

 

[Psion]

I feel like we're missing some of C&C's potential. Yes, it's a wonderful system for old school gaming, but why can't it also be a wonderful system for new school gaming? After all, we see several threads where someone is asking how to simplify d20, or how someone is looking for a rules-light alternative. Well, C&C's a good option.

Let's take it a step beyond and look at settings. Many people talk about using C&C for old school settings. Why, though, would you limit C&C to just the old school settings? Why not use C&C for an Eberron game, or maybe Spelljammer. What about Kalamar or Dragonstar?

I don't think it's really new school or old school unless you regard old school strictly in regard to "D&D before the publication of Oriental Adventures". Even Classic Traveller had skills, a detail that C&C seems to deliberately avoid.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

I have to say that I really enjoy the C&C system for a number of reasons. Simple mechanics, hearkens back to the days of AD&D, and so on and so forth. We've heard them all before.

C&C is adaptable to any D&D system. This is one of the main selling points of C&C, yet I feel that despite this being said, it's always equated to adapting AD&D. While I applaud that, it seems to me that C&C is useful enough that it need not be just for old school gaming.

I feel like we're missing some of C&C's potential. Yes, it's a wonderful system for old school gaming, but why can't it also be a wonderful system for new school gaming? After all, we see several threads where someone is asking how to simplify d20, or how someone is looking for a rules-light alternative. Well, C&C's a good option.

Let's take it a step beyond and look at settings. Many people talk about using C&C for old school settings. Why, though, would you limit C&C to just the old school settings? Why not use C&C for an Eberron game, or maybe Spelljammer. What about Kalamar or Dragonstar?

Point is, I think the focus on old school gaming with C&C doesn't really represent the entirety of the system. At its heart, it is an old school system with a rules-light d20 type of mechanic. Yet it's the best of all editions. So why not use it with the materials from all editions of the game?

I'd like to hear more thoughts about this issue, and how C&C could be promoted not only as an old school system, but a rules-light new school system.

Thanks!

A better question would be - WHY use it as a rules-light new school system?

Obviously, if you think it's the "best of all editions," you'd use it for anything D&Dish; I would put both Basic D&D and 3.5 ahead just in the D&D brand, True20, Mutants & Masterminds and d20 Modern ahead of those in the d20 field, and probably SilCore, HERO, FATE/Spirit of the Century and perhaps Savage Worlds ahead of even my favored d20 games. Of those, FATE is by *far* the lightest.

I can see using C&C for Spelljammer or Dragonstar for ease of conversion (though in both settings the 'dex-based fighter' argument IMMEDIATELY rears its head), or for Kalamar because it's about as old school as you can get.

I wouldn't do it for Eberron because a pulp game like Spirit of the Century or Savage Worlds suits the setting far better than old school D&D locked-in classes; conversion would be more of an issue... except that it's extremely easy to 'convert' (rather, build from scratch with the same flavor) to such quick systems.

Anyway, Dragonstar and Eberron aren't what I think of when I think 'new school.' Dragonstar seems like a direct outgrowth of the Shadowrun concept, and Eberron pretty much 'as new school as the existing fanbase won't lynch us for, except maybe not quite that far.' Spelljammer, may a thousand suns smile upon it, is by a long way the most new school of that bunch, and it's more than fifteen years old.

 

[jdrakeh]

C&C is adaptable to any D&D system.

I agree. Indeed, I see it much less as a return to previous editions of D&D than I do as a stripped down D&D 3.5 -- there's no doubt that it attracts many old school gamers, but I think that this was more serendipity than actual marketing/design. So far as I can tell, it has almost exclusively been marketed as an alternative to D&D 3x rather than as an old school game (many fans and third parties have promoted it as an old school game, but that's not really the same thing). That said. . .

I see the BFRPG as being the 'old school with new rules' product that C&C is often touted as. Where C&C's primary design concern seems to have been stripping out the more complex parts of D&D 3.5, the BFRPG seems to have been more concerned with porting in pieces of past D&D editions. I think that both products succeed at what they set out to do, but I very much think that they set out to do different things.

I'd use C&C as a rules-light alternative to D&D 3.5, but I much prefer the BFRPG as an actual model for old school play using SRD-derived rules.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

there's no doubt that it attracts many old school gamers, but I think that this was more serendipity than actual marketing/design.

Most C&C fans when they evangelize talk about it as an old school gaming system. Maybe Troll Lords didn't plan on it, but the results seem in line with what the players want.

 

[Breakdaddy]

Most C&C fans when they evangelize talk about it as an old school gaming system. Maybe Troll Lords didn't plan on it, but the results seem in line with what the players want.

TLG obviously has no control over how players "evangelize" their system. Personally, I use plenty of 3e stuff in my C&C game, so for me the system is "new school" enough.

 

[jdrakeh]

Most C&C fans when they evangelize talk about it as an old school gaming system. Maybe Troll Lords didn't plan on it, but the results seem in line with what the players want.

Which was exactly my point. I think that it became an 'old school' game by default, not by design. That is, when it first came out it was the best option for old school fans seeking a currently supported product line simply by virtue of existing -- it had no competition in that arena. Now that OSRIC and BFRPG are tackling the same ground by design and steadily gaining on C&C in that regard, I can't imagine that it (C&C) will hold onto its status as the currently supported 'old school' system unless it starts shooting for that market intentionally by folding more actual 'old school' into its system.

[Edit: Part of why I think this is that I've seen many former C&C die hards spending more time talking about OSRIC and BFRPG on forums lately.]