Tell me about C&C

[punkorange]

tell me about C&C

I hear a lot about c&c on the boards, and I think it might be intersting to my group. What are some of the pro's and cons of it, and would it be easy to run some older stuff, like the night below using it? Is there any place where I could find maybe some samples of some of the contents, or maybe some OGC from it? thanks in advance.

 

[Frostmarrow]

I've tried to DM the small box that came first. It was pretty neat, simple and to the point. We enjoyed the game very much. Basically it's D&D without skills and attacks of opportunity with lots of 1E nostalgia. The downside of the game was my players found it hard to take the game seriously. It's a bit too flimsy and could do well with a little more meat. It seems that this opinion is shared with many people on this board and at Dragonfoot's for there are many suggestionsd for house rules.

I see C&C as a great game that requires a lot of work in the tweaking department. To some people this is a strength (I love tweaking) but to others it's a weakness (some of my players prefer 'official' rules).

 

[Turanil]

I have both the Digest Boxed Set (35 $) and the PHB (20 $). My first advice is to buy the PHB and not bother with the boxed set which is good only for nostalgia value (for those who remember the first OD&D white box).

C&C is an unofficial sort of version of AD&D 1e that would have been streamlined using d20 concepts. I suggest reading some reviews of C&C here on Enworld (there are four reviews!).

In any case, C&C is very easy to GM, and you can easily use modules, DMG, and other material from AD&D 1e and 2e, with minimal conversion work. Personnally I have run a 11th level adventure with C&C (using an AD&D 2e module), and it's much easier to do than with d20/3e.

The cons are that the game is oversimplified, and possibly some players will miss the level of customization (lack of skills and feats) available to d20/3e classes, while the characters look weaker than d20/3e classes. However, houserules are easy to implement, and when my big netbook of houserules for C&C is released, there will be stuff to make more powerful and customizable C&C characters, while the game will still retain the simplicity and fastness of C&C.

http://www.trolllord.com has some few things for download. Look also at the link in my sig.

 

[der_kluge]

This is my opinion:

C&C is a ruleset built entirely from a foundation of nostalgia, and has no basis in sound game design principles. They creators abandoned whole-cloth *good* ideas from 3rd edition, which would have made the game more portable to 3rd edition modules, in favor of nostalgic rules from 1e. Armor class is backwards, for example. Initiative is a d10, not a d20, and the save mechanic (which was not broken in 3rd edition, IMO) was completely and replaced with something that feels like it was designed by 12 year olds - i.e., it makes no sense, and in fact makes saving throws MUCH harder on average.

The book is a mess. The classes aren't in alphabetical order. The layout is terrible. It's hard to find things, and is filled with embarrassing typos, the such that would have been easily corrected with a single pass with a spell checker.

Save your money. Buy Grim Tales instead. OR better yet, go download HARP Lite. It's free - http://www.harphq.com/free_downloads/3000L_HarpLite.pdf

 

[PapersAndPaychecks]

My opinion is that C&C is a thinly-veiled reprint of 1e/2e AD&D with the SIEGE engine chucked in on top. The system is cheap to purchase (you can actually play C&C with only the Player's Handbook, total cost around twelve pounds sterling). It is also unencumbered by the horrible rules-bloat that's infected 3.5e, and it hands proper control over the game back to the DM where it belongs.

That makes three major respects in which it scores over 3.5e and C&C is making waves accordingly.

However, it is even cheaper to buy old 1e AD&D rulebooks on Ebay and there is far more supporting material available for 1e at present.

 

[Jupp]

This is my opinion:

C&C is a ruleset built entirely from a fast gameplay point-of-view, and its basis is the D20 system with some reference and hommage to older editions of D&D. This has nothing to do with nostalgia but with a different kind of gameplay compared to 3E. The creators abandoned all the (in their opinion) cumbersome and bloating features from 3rd edition, which in the end makes C&C as portable to 3rd edition modules as to 1e/2e modules. You can port monsters from all D&D edition pretty much on the fly while playing C&C. Armor class is *NOT* backwards, for example, and the save mechanic was completely changed and replaced with attribute based saving throws. That means that, i.e., saves against poison are based on the Con modifier, evading a falling boulder is based on Dex, etc. Allin all control of the game rules got handed back to the DM and the players dont have to look into their PHB all the time to find a rule fitting the current game situation.

The layout of the PHB, which was somehow less nice to look at while not really being terrible, got revamped in the second print run and looks rather good now and the typos that were there got stomped, erased and vaporized.

Spend your money. Buy the C&C PHB. OR better yet, go buy the C&C PHB AND preorder the Monsters&Treasures book. It's not free - but worth it. Our group has a blast so far playing with it.

 

[der_kluge]

This is my opinion:

C&C is a ruleset built entirely from a fast gameplay point-of-view, and its basis is the D20 system with some reference and hommage to older editions of D&D. This has nothing to do with nostalgia but with a different kind of gameplay compared to 3E.

Sorry, but I have to completely disagree with this point. If this were true, and nostalgia didn't play into it at all, then there would be no "illusionist" class in the book. The very fact that it exists in this product speaks very highly of the nostalgia factor, IMO.

 

[Akrasia]

This is my opinion:

C&C is a ruleset built entirely from a foundation of nostalgia ...

"... entirely from a foundation of nostalgia ... "?!?

What complete rubbish.

Armor class is backwards, for example.

False. Have you actually looked at this game? :\

... the save mechanic (which was not broken in 3rd edition, IMO) was completely and replaced with something that feels like it was designed by 12 year olds - i.e., it makes no sense, and in fact makes saving throws MUCH harder on average.

Rubbish. The saving throw system is in fact very intuitive, and is widely touted as one of the game's strengths, as it unifies all skill checks and saving throws into a single mechanic (the SIEGE mechanic).

Yet again, the author of this post is revealing a basic ignorance of the game system.

Save your money. Buy Grim Tales instead. OR better yet, go download HARP Lite. It's free - http://www.harphq.com/free_downloads/3000L_HarpLite.pdf

Grim Tales is not 'rules light', for people who want that.

I have nothing against HARP, and in fact quite like it. But C&C (unlike HARP) is compatible with all editions of D&D (98 pecent compatible with pre-3e stuff, about 75 percent compatible with 3e), which is a great virtue.

 

[Akrasia]

There are a few reviews of the C&C PHB here at ENworld by people who have actually read the book.

Here is the most recent one:

http://www.enworld.org/reviews.php?do=review&reviewid=2232573

And here is my own, from a few months ago:

http://www.enworld.org/reviews.php?do=review&reviewid=2082201

I think TLG will be having a free pdf download of the 'basic' rules in the near future.

 

[der_kluge]

"... entirely from a foundation of nostalgia ... "?!?

What complete rubbish.

Well, that's my opinion. Feel free to disagree with it.

False. Have you actually looked at this game? :\

Maybe I am mistaken on this point, but I do recall my GM mentioning that he would simply have to reverse the ACs of creatures in 3rd edition modules. Maybe I'm thinking of something else.

Rubbish. The saving throw system is in fact very intuitive, and is widely touted as one of the game's strengths, as it unifies all skill checks and saving throws into a single mechanic (the SIEGE mechanic).

If it's so intuitive how come I still don't get it after my GM tried explaining it to me three times? About all I understand is that there are 5 saves, not three (in homage to 1st edition, not 3rd), and people have different saves depending on whether the stat tied to the score is "primary" or secondary. All I know is that we had DCs of like 26 to beat a fireball, which was next to impossible, unless you had "dexterity" as a primary save.

Yet again, the author of this post is revealing a basic ignorance of the game system.

Not sure what you mean by "yet again", Bucko. If I'm wrong on the AC aspect, so be it, but as far as I can tell, that's the only rules point I'm wrong on. The rest is opinion, which I can't technically have any ignorance of.