Moving to C&C... need help

[SavageRobby]

The evangelism of C&C has become quite "classic" in its own right.

So has the anti-evangelism. Its like the Troll Lords killed y'alls dogs or something.

It all depends on how much you want to deviate from the RAW and how much work you want to put into it. However, people new to the game should be given honest assessments of how C&C plays straight "out of the box" before taking personal game development or house rules into account.

RAW, C&C has a mechanic for performing player-defined actions with a difficultly level as defined by the DM, and has a few pages in the rules explaining how that mechanic works and examples of in-game implementation. That is "out of the box". Again, if you're actually interested in a better understanding and not just making up assertions to support your argument, go read pages 109-112 (PHB 2nd printing).

So if a player wants their character to perform an action that emulates a 3x feat, out of the box C&C has a mechanic designed to handle it - no house ruling necessary. That is the honest assessment.

It is also important to note that the SIEGE engine isn't designed specifically for emulating feats, but for any kind of action the player wants to do - skills (swimming, tracking, stealth), actions (lifting a heavy object, holding your breath, running and sliding under an Otyugh) and pretty much anything else (a player had Wizard dangling from a rope and wanted to cast a spell; he made a SIEGE check to do it and the spell went off).

It is further important to note that - as some have rightly pointed out - much of the actual implementation of the mechanic is based on DM adjudication - and that is by design. So if you have a DM who doesn't want the characters swinging from chandeliers or sliding under Otyughs or making Whirlwind attacks or Cleaving or whatnot, they won't allow them. While I would (and have, in some cases) allowed actions like the above, I won't allow non-spellcasting classes to use the SIEGE engine to try to cast spells. That is my prerogative as the DM for my campaign. YMMV.



Now, if you wanted to add feats lock, stock and barrel to the game, then it would require house rules to do so - but that is a different conversation completely. With the way C&C and the SIEGE engine are designed, out of the box, C&C doesn't need feats, because they can be duplicated with the SIEGE engine.

 

[seskis281]

Indeed, when one refers to "evangilism" of C&C what you're really saying is there are those of us who like C&C a lot and want to share our experiences. There's another thread right now for those who tried C&C and didn't stick with it... the point is our particular game system isn't as well-known, so we encourage others to try it. If they like it, great! If they find it's not their cup of tea, great too.

What's a little baffling is how hung up some get on proving that the system is somehow "inherently flawed" for not following certain specific RPGing philosophies. As I understand it, some of the early playtesters of the system weren't happy that it didn't go even further towards 1e (and so OSRIC was born). To me that wouldn't have made much sense, as 1e is already out there, and C&C wanted to capture the "spirit and feel" of that older D&D game while adapting certain d20 concepts and ideas.

I keep coming back to the split in philosophies - and this is never more apparent when conversations turn to semantics. To be able to be played "out of the box" is one example - one school of thought says the foundational approach of a C&C game is all you need, relying on the GM (CK) to interpret and apply in actual gameplay; the 2nd school says if its not provided for "on the page" then it is not "inherent" in the system. A discussion like this will never breach those opposing views, and again neither is "right" or "wrong," just a POV.

The 2nd example is what is meant by "options." The primary crux of the arguments above come from two different interpretations here - either options mean specific feat-trees, well-developed, playtested and codified in rules for specific actions, or options mean characters can try just about anything at any level (which is the intent of the Siege engine mechanic.

I will add that I have been reading another thread on more codified rules for "social interaction," the idea that non-combat encounters have more specific rules governing their interaction the same as combat. Plenty of people say "this will be great!" That is one school of thought, and good for them if 4e gives this sort of highly structured setup for them. I would not look forward to bartering-stat blocks, but this is my personal preference.

So maybe it really comes down to the way the phrase "well-designed" gets thrown around. The gist of some (and by no means most) anti-C&C posts tend to concentrate on proving "flaws" in intent and that it is not well-designed. This is really the one thing I take exception to. I think 3.5 is extremely well-designed. I just don't like the emphasis of the system (again - just personal preference). 1e was well-designed. 2e was well-designed. True20 is extremely well designed, but I prefer the medieval flavor still of C&C over it. I will bet that 4e will be very well-designed, but it most likely will move even further away from my RPG interest and emphasis. For me, C&C is extremely well-designed for my tastes, desires and preferred gameplay.

Disliking a system is ok. Getting in a twist that others like it and find it works when you don't, well that's a little "off."

 

[Eridanis]

Before this thread goes off the deep and and is irretrievably flameridden:

Please abide by the rules of civility. Defending your position is great; flinging scorn at others is not. Please don't get any closer to that point.

 

[Ourph]

Its classic to argue somantics when you feel you haven't won whatever argument it was that you wanted to win.

I'm not arguing semantics. You seem to have made two contradictory statements and I'm asking for clarification.

Now if your really interested in seeing how C&C's SIEGE engine handles feat like actions, inherently, read my last post previous to yours.

I've read all your posts Treebore and, honestly, you're not saying anything in that post that you haven't been saying since page 1. I'm not going to repeat myself anymore. If you're not willing to respond with some degree of intellectual honesty to the counterpoints I've brought up to your assertions then I think the usefulness of this exchange has probably come to an end.

 

[Treebore]

... I think the usefulness of this exchange has probably come to an end.

That has become obvious.

 

[Ourph]

Real life example:

Last night the party was taking on a bunch of bugbears in the Mines of Chaos. The half-orc fighter, Blarg, attacked a wounded bugbear, finishing him off with a nasty shot from his bearded axe. The player asked me if he could cleave through the first bugbear to attack a second next to it. I said sure and quickly calculated a CL of 21 (18+3 for a 3HD bugbear). Blarg easily hit the CL with his strength prime and took down the next bugbear in one blow.

The bottom line is this: the player dropped one bugbear, as a result getting a free attack on another - a technique known in D&D as "cleave." We are playing C&C by the book. None of our houserules affected this combat in the least. How can this be?

Where in the C&C rulebook does it say "if a character kills an opponent with a melee attack, the character may immediately make an additional melee attack on another opponent within reach by making a successful SIEGE check"? Because if it doesn't say that somewhere in the rulebook (and it doesn't, because, yes, I have actually read the rulebook and know what I'm talking about) then your group DID just implement a houserule. The fact that the book tells you to create houserules and gives you a universal resolution mechanic to handle determinations of success/failure isn't the same thing as actually presenting rules information covering those situations. The procedure you were using borrowed information contained in another game system, it was not based solely on information in the C&C rulebook.

 

[SavageRobby]

That is the biggest pile of doublespeak I've read in a good long while (and since I've been reading way too many contracts lately, that is saying something).

By your definition - ie, "the rules tell you how to do it but don't cover every exact permutation, so if you use the rules as written to adjudicate a situation, then you're house ruling") then most situations in most game are house ruling. Which makes your point nothing but ... semantics.

 

[Treebore]

That is the biggest pile of doublespeak I've read in a good long while (and since I've been reading way too many contracts lately, that is saying something).

By your definition - ie, "the rules tell you how to do it but don't cover every exact permutation, so if you use the rules as written to adjudicate a situation, then you're house ruling") then most situations in most game are house ruling. Which makes your point nothing but ... semantics.

Don't worry about it. I guess some people can only follow rules exactly as written and can't see how they apply beyond what is written/spelled out.

Like has been said before, some like basic rules, others like to be told everything in precise detail. C&C obvioulsy isn't for people who prefer the latter.

 

[Ourph]

That is the biggest pile of doublespeak I've read in a good long while (and since I've been reading way too many contracts lately, that is saying something).

By your definition - ie, "the rules tell you how to do it but don't cover every exact permutation, so if you use the rules as written to adjudicate a situation, then you're house ruling")

Please explain why that is doublespeak. I'm saying that there is a difference between rules which tell you how to adjudicate success and failure and rules which actually detail the mechanical effects of success and failure. To me that seems pretty straightforward. There is a significant difference between a rule that tells me "flip a coin to determine success (heads) or failure (tails)" and a rule that tells me "A success means your character lives, a failure means your character dies". C&C provides the first, but not the second for the use of the SIEGE engine that tankschmidt is talking about.

I'm also saying that such a distinction is important to most people when talking about how a game works "out of the box" rather than after individual players put their own spin on the rules. Individual tweaks won't be a shared experience, the actual rules contained in the book will be the only universal common ground for everyone who picks up the game. As a result, it seems important to acknowledge whether certain characteristics of a game under discussion derive from "out of the box" sources of "individual player input" sources. Telling people that "mechanic X replicates the effects of mechanic Y from this other game you are familiar with" is misleading. It implies that the presence of mechanic Y will be a shared experience amongst all games because it derives from an "out of the box" source. If the reality is that mechanic X is a simple resolution mechanic and the rulebook encourages you to use it in conjunction with mechanics imported from other games (such as mechanic Y) or created by you to expand on the base rules, it seems important to acknowledge that, because the presence of mechanic Y isn't likely to be a shared experience for everyone who picks up the game.

 

[Ourph]

Don't worry about it. I guess some people can only follow rules exactly as written and can't see how they apply beyond what is written/spelled out.

If we could leave the passive-aggressive hyperbole out of the discussion that would be great. As I've said before, this isn't a discussion about style preferences or value judgements. I'm just as capable of running a rules lite game with lots of DM adjudication and creative input as the next guy, if not moreso. It seems strange to me that you keep insisting I'm wrong when I say C&C doesn't provide information on the mechanical effects of actions covered by feats in 3e and then pat yourself on the back for playing C&C and not needing those things "spelled out". If the mechanical effects are not spelled out then you are either making them up yourself or borrowing them from another source, which is the point I've been making all along.