The C&C poll

[Flexor the Mighty!]

Personally I've found that converting from BECM D&D is easy as flipping the AC and assigning Primes, it works perfectly. 1e AD&D takes a slight bit more effort for PC's since the stat bonuses are different, Monsters are still pretty easy. 2e added in more crap so that makes it a bit harder but still not that bad. 3e with its feats and whatnot takes more work unless you just want to figure out how to impliment feats and stuff that may be critical to the creatures power on the fly. So I just stick to using D&D and AD&D stuff for it and leave out the 2e and 3e stuff for the most part.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

C&C's has a built-in system for handling skill and feat-like actions (i.e. the "SIEGE engine")
Classes are slightly different (e.g. class abilities, level progression, Bard, Knight, etc)
Ability bonuses are different (more like B/X than AD&D)
Initiative rules are different (similar to 2E AD&D, I guess)
Surprise rules are different (uses the SIEGE engine instead of a separate subsystem)
No weapon vs. Armor type tables
No weapon damage by opponent size
Movement rules are different (more like B/X movement than AD&D)
XP awards are different

I covered the SIEGE engine in my post; I suppose the question I'd ask about the rest is... would that stuff really make AD&D preferrable to C&C? Most of it appears to be the sort of fiddly, book-referencing rules details people who play C&C (or earlier versions of D&D) seem to want to get away from in d20.

 

[Philotomy Jurament]

I covered the SIEGE engine in my post; I suppose the question I'd ask about the rest is... would that stuff really make AD&D preferrable to C&C? Most of it appears to be the sort of fiddly, book-referencing rules details people who play C&C (or earlier versions of D&D) seem to want to get away from in d20.

It doesn't make AD&D preferable to C&C for me. (My post wasn't intended to argue the point one way or another; I was just responding to your question.)

I'm not sure that I have a definite preference for C&C over AD&D, either. It's a close call. I'm running C&C right now because I wanted to try it out, and it worked out great and was fun, so I've continued to run it. However, I may run an AD&D game, again, at some point, too. Picking a favorite D&D version is difficult, for me, because there are certain aspects of all the editions that I like. (This is probably one of the reasons C&C has so much appeal to me -- it pulls influences from all the editions.) My tastes have changed, over time, as well; I've gradually come to recognize what works best for my games, and changed my opinions about some things I used to consider flaws in RPG systems.

Actually, C&C isn't at the top of my "hot list" at the moment. While I'm running a couple of C&C games, I'm also running a Holmes/OD&D hybrid (using B4 The Lost City) right now that is an absolute blast.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

See, thats a major difference in how we look at it. Every "d20 game" is compatible with C&C.

Provided you're willing to gut the mechanics and convert everything.

Every d20 book is compatable with Unknown Armies, World of Darkness, Toon and Deadlands in that respect too. This is *exactly* what I refer to when I talk of how C&C's compatability is frequently misrepresented.

 

[Treebore]

Provided you're willing to gut the mechanics and convert everything.

Every d20 book is compatable with Unknown Armies, World of Darkness, Toon and Deadlands in that respect too. This is *exactly* what I refer to when I talk of how C&C's compatability is frequently misrepresented.

That just shows me you don't understand how its so easy to do with C&C in comparison to any other rules system I know of. So easy, once you see how to do it, that you can do it without writing everything down. You just write out a half page to a page long document as to how you do it for 3E, Paladium Fantasy, Midnight, etc.... and your done.

A lot of these have been nearly identical, so a good bit is just copy and paste and then modify that to fit the specific needs of that particular conversion.


Much shorter and easier than the FAQ and Errata documents you have to have to run 3.5 by the book.

 

[Ranes]

To be fair, you don't need FAQ and/or errata documents to run 3.5 by the book. Suggesting otherwise could be construed as being disingenuous.

Not by me, of course.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

Provided you're willing to gut the mechanics and convert everything.

Every d20 book is compatable with Unknown Armies, World of Darkness, Toon and Deadlands in that respect too. This is *exactly* what I refer to when I talk of how C&C's compatability is frequently misrepresented.

So is the statment that it is just as easy to convert WoD or Toon to d20 as it is to covert say Isle of Dread module from Basic D&D to C&C?

 

[Geron Raveneye]

Provided you're willing to gut the mechanics and convert everything.

Every d20 book is compatable with Unknown Armies, World of Darkness, Toon and Deadlands in that respect too. This is *exactly* what I refer to when I talk of how C&C's compatability is frequently misrepresented.

Personally, I'd find it a bit more complicated to use, for example, Tome of Battle: Book of Nine Swords with Shadowrun or Legend of the Five Rings (d10) than using it with Castles & Crusades. YMMV, obviously.

 

[jdrakeh]

Personally, I'd find it a bit more complicated to use, for example, Tome of Battle: Book of Nine Swords with Shadowrun or Legend of the Five Rings (d10) than using it with Castles & Crusades. YMMV, obviously.

This is why I made the distinction about the "d20+adds versus target number" mechanic earlier. While it may be more difficult to use (f'rinstance) the Book of Nine Swords with Shadowrun than C&C (which I 100% agree with, BTW) it will be just as easy to use it with the default Target Games engine as it is with C&C (both are level/class systems with the same basic core mechanic).

Similarly, using the product in question with the BFRPG, Advanced Quick 20, Legends, Core Elements, etc is just as simple as using it with C&C (possibly moreso in the instances of Quick20 and Core Elements). Point being, C&C doesn't exactly have a corner on the "easy conversion" market. It's a definite plus for the system sure, but as I mention earlier, the easy converison is essentially house-ruling.

That is, there aren't any rules in C&C for feats, challenge ratings, etc -- if you want to use these things, you can, but doing so requires some house rules (i.e., it's up to you to determine how they work in C&C). Same thing with any of the other systems mentioned above. So it's less about true conversion than it is about easy modification.

 

[Imaro]

So it's less about true conversion than it is about easy modification.

I'm just curious...what exactly is your definition of "true conversion"? It seems, IMHO, from reading what you've posted so far that the only thing "true conversion" equates to is "has to be the same game". But then no conversion would be needed. If this is not the case, would you care to elaborate on what your definition of "true conversion" is?