Once you go C&C, you never go back

[Frost]

I never understood the hysterics myself. What does it matter what someone is having fun doing? Sure, I'd like folks to buy the stuff I am involved in, but it won't hurt my feelings if people don't find it to their taste. Seems like a silly thing to lose sleep over honestly.

Well said.

 

[Breakdaddy]

Hi Folks,

I've decided to chime back in after four pages of posts.

Firstly, if someone could tell me how, I would amend the poll to include other options. Namely, I'd like to add "I'd rather just play AD&D/OD&D" and "I play both."

It's interesting to see how heated this became. Some pretty strong feelings about all of this. By and large,
it seems that folks are drawn or repelled to C&C by the same thing: it's half-way between AD&D and 3.X. To me, that sounds like a good thing.

Anyhow, thanks for the info.

Hey man, Im glad you are open to it. If you have any questions feel free to pm me or head on over to the TLG forums for further information on the game itself.

 

[Greylock]

C&C's a good game, but frankly the evangelism of its fans puts me off, as do the (IMO) false claims that conversion is a snap....

Conversions is a snap. My DM and I talk about it all the time, and it's the main reason, first and foremost, why he decided to run us in C&C. He switches quite easily between 1st and 3rd Editions, and rarely bothers to convert. Any given night, you can find us playing in an AD&D module, or a 3.5 module [usually DCC], or a 2nd Edition Dungeon adventure, or a Hackmaster romp. Sometimes all on the same night. And I know for a fact that he converts most of it in his head where conversion is needed. Just eyeballs the stats and let's 'er rip.

 

[Scurvy_Platypus]

That's really strange logic:

"I won't drive cars anymore.

I know a guy who listens to music I don't like, and who doesn't hold the views I do...and he drives a car.

So I'll walk from now on."

Honestly, that truly strikes me as unusual.

No, it's a lot more along the lines of:
"Every person I know of that dresses up and acts like a goth is into vampires and being angsty. I don't want people to think I'm into vampires since I hate 'em, and my life is fine, so I'm not going to dress and act like a goth."

I know you're still not going to get the logic, but let me try explaining it this way...

For some people (like myself), a strong component of the game is the social aspect. I want something I'm going to be able to play with other people. If every person that I find that talks about the game and is interested in the game, is someone that I don't like, or wouldn't want to spend time with, I'm not going to buy the game.

That doesn't mean that every single person that exists and likes the game is a complete jerk. It means that the majority of people are ones I don't feel like dealing with, and it's not worth my time to sort through all the jerks in the _hope_ that I'll get lucky and find cool people.

Gamers are a factional lot. The games that they like (or dislike) are one easy way that people split themselves into factions. Heck, here you've got ENWorld which is basically for the D&D (3E, soon to be 4E) faction. Dragonsfoot deals pretty much with older D&D.

You'll find people within each faction that are nice or not, but each group does have an overall "tone" to their conversations.

Instead of refusing to play D&D/d20 because I really detest the complexity, I look and see if I'd even like playing with the people first. If the answer is "Yes", then I start to worry about whether there's a rules-lighter crowd I can fall in with, or if I could get others that'd be willing to go with something lighter.

Disliking a game because of the people that act as the face of it, is no more rational or irrational than liking or disliking a game for its level of complexity. After all, you can always add more rules to it or remove rules, just like you can try and find someone nice to represent a game that seems to be mainly represented by people you don't like.

And yet people are playing C&C at least in part because they dislike rule complexity.

Or how about this one... try getting most gamers to play an rpg that doesn't use dice. The vast majority of them wouldn't do it. Of those that tried, a smaller portion would actually enjoy the experience. Most gamers like to roll their dice. There's no real "rational" reason for refusing to play diceless games, it's just the line they draw for themselves.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

And just so I'm at least slightly relevant to the topic, I'll reiterate my position:

I _really_ like C&C's approach to stuff. It's simple: Make an Attribute check to see if you succeed. If your class is skilled at the task, add your level to your dice roll. Beat the threshold and you succeed.

That's awesome, and it basically covers how C&C handles most of the stuff. The subsystems of the game are kept to a minimum, allowing things to speed up even more.

I like that the system strips down so far, and then I can plug in individual bits to add complexity to those elements that I think need more complexity, or that I'd like to focus on.

The flaw in C&C stictly speaking in system terms (and my own personal opinion) is that many people these days are not comfortable with the rules of the game being something that's either negotiated by the group, or left in the hands of the GM. People _like_ the rules being established by a some other person entirely, and additionally like the fact that the rules "apply" to the GM as well as the players. It provides a common baseline for a conversation about the game to happen.

For example, D&D's Difficulty Class thingy. A lot of the DC checks of D&D are "hardcoded"... if you make over DC of X, then you get result of Y. Like Open Lock. An Average lock is a DC of 25. I might not know what the particular difficulty of any specific lock is that my character tries to open, but I _know_ that if I can consistently make over a DC of 25, my character should be able to consistently get into some place that has Average locks. If I'm told in game that the place we're going to try and break into is well secured, I can guess it's going to have better than average locks, and even be able to do a basic assessment of just what my character is capable of.

I also know that the GM (generally speaking) isn't going to be giving me some insane number to beat for an average test. If it's an average lock, and he tells me I have to beat a DC of 45, I know there's something strange going on. It might be something special about that particular situation, or it could be the GM trying to screw with me. Over time, I can figure out if it's the GM screwing with me or not.

Without a common baseline in rules, people can become annoyed and upset because they expected one thing, and the GM expected something else. In other words, the rules are the "language" of the game and how things get done.

Having said that, I personally prefer rules-lighter systems. I don't mind negotiating the rules with the group. Or "making my own language" if you want to stick with that metaphor. As long as everyone else is fine with it, everything is good.

But I do understand that some people aren't comfortable with that (for whatever reason) and that's going to be an issue for them when they sit down with C&C.

The other thing that's either a flaw or a strength depending on your tastes, is the lack of mechanical differentiation between characters of the same type. Some people want to see mechanical reinforcement of being different, rather than just having some different base attributes, and roleplaying the personality. They'd like to be able to have an entire group of Rogues that all have their own specialties and capabilities and have that represented mechanically, rather than strictly based on roleplaying.

If you don't care about mechanical differentiation, want something that's lighter than default d20/D&D and want to be able to blend together older D&D stuff with newer stuff with relative ease, I'd say C&C wins hands down. There isn't really anything out there that tries for this sort of thing.

It does have some determined anachronisms (like individual XP tracks for each class) but they can be worked around (stripped out) without any real problem.

 

[slimykuotoan]

No, it's a lot more along the lines of:
"Every person I know of that dresses up and acts like a goth is into vampires and being angsty. I don't want people to think I'm into vampires since I hate 'em, and my life is fine, so I'm not going to dress and act like a goth."

I know you're still not going to get the logic...

I understand your dislike for the fans, although the logic of your example would illustrate that because you don't want to dress like a goth (act like an obnoxious poster), you avoid being into vampires (you avoid the game), rather than avoiding the style of dress (style of posting/the posters).

Anyhap, with regard to the SEIGE system and DCs, some checks are hard wired, as listed on the CK screen, which details certain actions and their corresponding CLs.

 

[Matthew_]

I like Basic Dungeons & Dragons and Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. My preferred rule set is somewhere inbetween these two. I find D20/3e too rules heavy for my taste and there are a number of cosmetic aspects that I don't think much of. I like the fact that it seems to have reinvigourated the industry and that it fits the tastes of so many other gamers. I also like the fact that the OGL has made it possible for some adventurous folk to create simulacrums of previous editions (OSRIC and Labyrinth Lord) and that this has resulted in new material being produced by professional companies to complement what was already being produced by individuals or groups of fans.

I am also happy that the OGL has allowed for the creation of Castles & Crusades, which is so very similar to my preferred system as to make virtually no practical difference, though I am not actually much of a fan of the SIEGE engine (I won't deny that it works perfectly well, it's just not for me). The more stuff being produced that supports or virtually supports my preferred system, the better.

Honestly, I cannot really understand why people feel the need to belittle one system over another or criticise in absolute terms, nor what the point may be beyond a cathartic or ego building excercise. Some people like rules light or old school Dungeons & Dragons, some people like rules heavy/detailed or new school Dungeons & Dragons, big deal. Both styles are now receiving plenty of support, even if the majority is D20. I can go into my local game store in Newcastle and pick up an Advanced Adventure by Expeditous Retreat Press, a Castles & Crusades Module by Troll Lord Games or a Dungeon Crawl Classic by Good Man Games; hell, I can write and publish my own material if I feel like it.

The way I see it, things are better than they have been for years.

 

[Jackelope King]

The way I see it, things are better than they have been for years.

And there's the moral of the story. Right on. Even if I didn't like C&C much myself, listen to this guy. He's speaking with much wisdom.

 

[gideon_thorne]

And there's the moral of the story. Right on. Even if I didn't like C&C much myself, listen to this guy. He's speaking with much wisdom.

Wont get an argument from me.

 

[Dristram]

C&C Fan

I voted Yes. When I read the books, I liked it, and I switched…sort of. I switched as a GM. But not as a player. I have yet to play C&C as any gamers I play with that GM, GM other game systems like D&D 3.5, HackMaster, Home-Brewed D&D, d6 Star Wars, Shadowrun, etc. So it’s kind of a silly poll, because it mostly applies to GMs. As players, you can easily play a multitude of rpgs and every player I personally know does or has. But as a GM, usually one system is chosen because it takes a lot of time and energy to prepare and run even one game per week.

I have noticed that there are some elements of C&C that players of 3.5 that have never played older editions are seen as strange “changes” when in actually, they are “throw-backs”. Mainly different XP progressions for classes and 6 Saves instead of 3. I remember having similar reactions to 3e’s single XP progression and only 3 Saves! LOL As for C&C, what seemed strange to me was the Attribute bonus progression. I thought it was strange until I looked back at Basic D&D and found the same progression there. So C&C really seemed to combine elements of OD&D, AD&D, and 3eD&D.

I was a player of 1st Ed. AD&D and didn’t really like 2nd Ed. I switched to 3e mainly because it streamlined the rules and added a standard way for the GM to rule various Skills of a character. After 3.5 came out, that version of D&D quickly started looking to me like too much of a good thing. There were just too many rules and too many options that diluted what I considered the focus of a D&D game which was the story in the form of a campaign, with the rules being in the background. From my DM’s view, keeping up with all the player’s options became a headache. I kept being surprised by some new Feat or Class Ability combo that would turn my challenging encounter into a mundane one. And from a player’s view, my flavorful characters were way under-powered by the min-maxed characters. The focus of the game seemed to have changed. 3.5 is a good game for what it is, but to me it did not capture the feel of the older editions. C&C captured the feel of the older editions for me and still allowed the DM, or CK, a standard way to handle the various situations that arise in a game in a unified manner through the SEIGE mechanic. That was one thing that sold me on C&C. The other was the Prime and Secondary Attributes as a way to further differentiate the Attributes in a meaningful way.

All that said, I don’t understand why such a distinction of switching needs to be made. Why can’t players be fine with playing multiple rpg systems? Why does it have to be one? From playing so many different systems, I can see strengths in them all. I mainly stick with C&C because of its familiar feel to what I played as my first rpg and I haven’t gone back to AD&D because to me it fixes some things I had issues with in AD&D. I would expect players who learned D&D through 3e to feel the same way about 3e that I do about AD&D. I would bet that most who really enjoy C&C used to play AD&D. And I’d be surprised that a player who likes and who has only ever played 3.5 to give it up for C&C. Mainly because I think it would feel incomplete to them and lacking in familiar details.

Anyways, I think I’ve written quite enough.

 

[Mouseferatu]

Sigh. Nevermind...