"Try Castles & Crusades", they say. But no one's playing it!

[Calico_Jack73]

Hoody Hoo!!!! I just found out today that my group's new GM is going to us C&C for his new campaign! I finally have justification to go buy the book(s).

 

[Rhuvein]

Hoody Hoo!!!! I just found out today that my group's new GM is going to us C&C for his new campaign! I finally have justification to go buy the book(s).

Well woohoo and hoody hoo!

Good to hear, Calico_Jack. Hope it goes well and let us know!

 

[Treebore]

Excellent! I hope to see more of you and your group members on the C&C boards.

 

[Calico_Jack73]

I just received the C&C Players Handbook and Monsters & Treasures yesterday and I am very impressed. I love that skills and feats have been done away with... there is IMHO no reason to get that specific in what a character knows and does not know. If it makes sense that your character knows how to do something you make an attribute roll against a difficulty determined by if that attribute is a primary or secondary attribute. Super easy! Eliminating skills and feats certainly speeds up character generation. And thank god they brought back individual class xp level progression charts. It certainly beats trying to maintain "balance" between the classes.

My group is giving it a go tomorrow night and I can't wait!

 

[francisca]

The "retro" appeal of C&C is lost on people who never played the game you're trying to evoke nostalgia for. Remember that 3e came out 6 years ago now, that means a lot of younger gamers have only ever played 3rd edition. Some might have started on 2nd Edition, but from what I've seen, they never turned back.

It's lost on a lot of people who played 1e as well. To me, and all of the old schoolers I game with on a regular or semi-regular basis (about 20 people), if we want the feel of the 1e, we'll just play 1e. We already have the books. Replacements can be had online or at used bookstores for less that half the cost of a C&C book.

So, in summary, for a bunch of Grognards to play C&C, the following has to happen:
1) They have to be aware of it. Of those 20 guys mentioned above, I'm the only guy who has heard of it, at least until I told them about it.
2) They'd have to shell out $20 for a new book, even though that 1978 copy of the PHB is probably just fine, and a used copy can be had for $7-$10. If they've already shelled out the $40 for a 3.5 PHB, they might be even more resistant to the idea.
3) They'd actually have to make this leap of faith: I'm going to learn a new system, and the result will be a game, which is kinda like the game I used to play, but not exactly. And it's supposed to be just as fun. At this point, they look at step #2 again.
4) Finally, they would have to find some other guys to play it. Which means a fistful of other grognards who went through this same thought process. They think about about #2 and #3 again at this point.

I bought the C&C books. It's an OK system, but to me, it really does not capture the feel of 1e or B/X D&D enough for me to bother to seek out other C&C players, let alone try to convince my old school buddies to "update". To a lot of people, 1e isn't broken, so they aren't going to try to fix it (beyond houserules, of course. )

I'm content running my 1e Greyhawk game, and playing in my buddy's 3.5 DragonLance game. C&C just isn't gaining any traction.

 

[RFisher]

If it makes sense that your character knows how to do something you make an attribute roll

Why make an attribute roll? The vast majority of the time, success or failure isn't in doubt. In the few cases it is, just decide that character's chance of success in that situation & roll d%. No need for anything as sloppy as an attribute roll.

 

[xnrdcorex]

Another game worth looking into is Runebound!