Castles & Crusades (box set) playtest report

[scadgrad]

"Rules lite"? Are the rulebooks chock full of artwork and whitespace, then? It looks like there's around 40 or 50 pages of rules in the box set and the PHB is listed at 128 on TLG's site... all the systems on my shelf that I consider rules lite have fewer than 10 pages dedicated to rules. C&C seems like an interesting piece of nostalgia, but if they were seriously aiming for a rules-lite approach they dropped the ball.

I haven't seen the final PHB, but you have to realize that EVERYTHING you need to play the game will be in those 128 pages. And just for arguments sake, we're talking about a "Rules Lite" version of D&D here, not checkers. Unless you've played the game, reviewed a full copy, or been an active play tester your "dropped the ball" comment is a bit short-sighted. Give it a try, I'm confident that you'll find that it is exactly what it says it is.

Akrasia,

The basic game doesn't allow you to go back to your original class, but we house-ruled that you could go back. At that point though, you would have to stick w/ the original class. Works just fine for us.

We added feats by giving PCs a feat at every 3rd level plus one at 1st level. In the spirit of the original design intent (of feats that is) we decided Fighters needed a few more than other PCs, so they get one at every 2nd level (one at 2nd, 4th, 6th, etc.). We also decided that Fighters can have either their Weapon Spec at 1st or swap it, same w/ Combat Dom.

We dropped feats that have anything to do w/ AoOs and ignore them if they're in a feat chain. We made ajustments to others to acommodate the slight differences in C&C. I haven't had anyone ask for metamagic or item creation, but I'd say it wouldn't break your game. Without Wizards getting those essentially as freebies, it doesn't make them the no brainer choice they are in 3.X.

 

[gideon_thorne]

There wont be a super amount of art flooding the pages. But remember, the 'rules' themselves are only part of the package. Sure. There may be 50 pages or so of hard rules, but this does not count in flavor text, examples and the various and sundry explanatory or mood text to expand and clarify.

From da dude who does the scribbles for the books.

Peter

C&C Art Troll.

 

[3catcircus]

Hmm - If Only My Players Weren't a Bunch of Whinin'...

Well - you get the picture...

I pointed out this thread to them and every one of my players turned their noses up at it as being too rules lite. Amazinging, these are the same guys who refuse to play non-d20 games like HARP or non-d20 Call of Cthulhu because they have too many rules...

One of my players claim that without the tactical combat system of 3.x, he'd never have started playing D&D again and that 1st edition wasn't much of a game at all because it relied too much on "role" playing as opposed to "roll" playing... The idea of video game-esque feats and actions appeals to him and one or two of my other players, while my other players are D&D snobs.

I'd love to revert to a smaller rules set. As an example, I am currently running the A1-4 supermodule - even though I used an awesome A1-4 3.0 conversion by Scott Jones, when I did the coversion to 3.5, I ended up with, literally, about a half-ream of paper for all of the NPC stats (and that doesn't include the stats for "standard" monsters contained in the 3.x MM/MM2/FF.)

I love the idea of getting rid of the skill system (especially, the Craft/Knowledge/Profession infinite recursion can'o'worms) as it currently stands.

I also love the idea of getting rid of the feat system - especially since it seems like a never ending arms race - by the companies making the products boasting "9 new Prestige classes, 20 new feats!" instead of providing solid "fluff" in their products - and by players' and DMs' use of those feats as point/counter-point in the combat system. The feat system has gotten to the point of forcing PCs to take a feat to wipe their nose or tie their shoes instead of allowing the DM to give a thumb's up or thumb's down to a player's creative/intelligent/ingenious or stupid/illogical ideas.

Even the execution of some of the basic combat rules are unwieldy. Grappling should be resolved by a single opposed grapple check each round. Heck, even the rules for charging are crazy - do you *really* need a 7' 7/8" wide path when charging "diagonally" across a grid but a 5' wide path is ok when charging horizontally or vertically?

I just find that 3.x has become too complicated and unwieldy - becoming worse than the game it was supposed to replace.

Gimme a good game of 1st edition AD&D or Rules Compendium D&D any day - hopefully C&C is today's version of this.

 

[Akrasia]

... I just find that 3.x has become too complicated and unwieldy - becoming worse than the game it was supposed to replace.

Gimme a good game of 1st edition AD&D or Rules Compendium D&D any day - hopefully C&C is today's version of this.

I empathize completely. When 3rd edition first came out, I was very excited, and ran a campaign during my last year of grad school. It was fun, but only because I had some great players (including two guys who worked semi-pro in improv comedy). I started to find the rules frustrating as time went by, and combat tedious. As the campaign wore on, preparing (writing up the statblocks, making sure the adventure was "balanced", looking up the necessary feats and combat material ahead of time, etc.) felt far too much like "work" -- precisely the thing that D&D was supposed to be a break from. :\ The players seemed to really enjoy it -- but from the DM's perspective, it did not seem nearly as fun as the "old days" of playing 1st ed. AD&D or, even better, RC D&D.

Two years passed, I moved and found a new group, and started DM'ing again. I thought my earlier frustration with 3rd ed. was probably due to the fact that I just had not fully "internalized" the rules during the last campaign (clinging to my old-fashioned RC D&D notions, etc.). But sure enough, after DM'ing a 3.x campaign for 6+ months, the same frustrations and irritations returned. I came to hate prepping for our sessions -- it still felt like work, and I seemed to be constrained by the rules as to what kinds of adventures I could run.

Although the sessions themselves are fun (again, thanks to the fact that I have players willing to interact with the world and stories I have set up), combat remains tedious IMO (I am just not into the mini-wargame aspect of 3.x), and prepping/statting for adventures a pain.

So once the current campaign arc ends in a few weeks, I have had it. I will never DM 3.x again. It just is not fun enough. :\

This is not meant to be a universal dismissal of 3.x. I certainly enjoy being a player in a well-run 3.x campaign! But as for DM'ing a FRPG, I have come to realize that 3.x is definitely not my bag.

In contrast, DM'ing the session of C&C last week was a blast. And prepping for it did not feel "like work" at all -- it reminded me of the good old days.

 

[Andrew D. Gable]

I know what you mean...I love 3e, it got me back into DnD after having left it for years. I'm not sure why it is that it feels like the games I played in Basic and 2e had such a completely different feel. When we tell stories of the campaigns of the good ol' days, it's always one of those, not 3e or 3.5e. That speaks to me. I'll never turn my back on playing 3/3.5e... but I'm checking out CnC, and might be using that for my DMing from now on. Not that I get to do a lot of it...

Don't know if it's been answered yet, whether in past announcements or in this thread. Is the CnC magic system the typical D20 Vancian system? Or something else?

 

[gideon_thorne]

Is the CnC magic system the typical D20 Vancian system?

Short answer. Yes

Long answer. Its the baseline of the game system. No reason why someone couldnt expand it into something else that suits them.

 

[knifespeaks]

Very happy to hear so many other folks feel similarly about 3.5's general unwieldiness. Like most others here, I run a hybrid 3.5/1st Ed (feats and some skills/combat and roleplay) which works a treat. Battle grids are da debbil!!

C&C sounds like it is worth a look, thanks for the post Ak

 

[Akrasia]

Very happy to hear so many other folks feel similarly about 3.5's general unwieldiness. Like most others here, I run a hybrid 3.5/1st Ed (feats and some skills/combat and roleplay) which works a treat. Battle grids are da debbil!!

Actually I doubt very much that most ENWorlders play a 1st/3rd ed. hybrid. I suspect that most want to keep 3.x "pure"...

And I actually have no idea how such a hybrid would work. I guess I've been running 3.5, but "hand waving" a lot of the time, and improvising difficulty classes, etc. when necessary. Not sure if that counts... :\

C&C sounds like it is worth a look, thanks for the post Ak

You're welcome. It's been a fun way to procrastinate!

 

[Turanil]

I just got my C&C boxed set. I did read through it. I definitely like the attribute system (the 12/18 thing) using it for saving throws as well as various checks. However, the lack of skills, feats, and other stuff makes this game appear really rule-lite. Finally I don't know if I appreciate it so much. For instance, if I allow a fighter to climb (using that 12/18 system), it makes the rogue Climb class feature less appealing, and thus weaken that class. Now, I can rule that the fighter cannot climb, but we are going toward a simplistic game. But well, I think I should playtest it once, to see how it works...

 

[Akrasia]

I just got my C&C boxed set. I did read through it. I definitely like the attribute system (the 12/18 thing) using it for saving throws as well as various checks. However, the lack of skills, feats, and other stuff makes this game appear really rule-lite. Finally I don't know if I appreciate it so much. ...

Yeah, it is indeed "rules lite" -- definitely not for everyone. OTOH, there will be options for adding skills, etc., once the full rules are released (though I don't know the details). And adding such options youself should not be a problem (as Scadgrad mentioned earlier in the thread).

For instance, if I allow a fighter to climb (using that 12/18 system), it makes the rogue Climb class feature less appealing, and thus weaken that class. Now, I can rule that the fighter cannot climb, but we are going toward a simplistic game. But well, I think I should playtest it once, to see how it works...

Well, a rogue always adds her class level to her class abilities. So a first level rogue would get a +1 to climb, whereas a 1st level fighter would not. After the characters get to 7th level, there will be a big difference!