Castles&Crusades plug; not for the roleplaying squeamish

[slimykuotoan]

The system is amazing, and brings a flavour back to the game I'm not sure 'purely d20 types' have ever experienced...

I recently had a discussion with a friend about why d20 didn't give us the same 'rush' as earlier D&D additions did:

I don't hate d20 by any stretch, but I'm beginning to feel that there's a 'psychological component' which differs from 1st and 2nd editions.

Before I sound too creepy or Mazes & Monstery, I'll elaborate:

For us, we noticed that we spent much more time focused upon battle maps, miniatures, scale, etc. and began to feel less conected with the stories and narrative of the DM; I felt little more than a disembodied god moving chess pieces around, whereas in earlier D&D, there was a different 'feel', with people seemingly more emotionally charged and connected with what their characters were doing, and with the world itself.


Indeedy, it got to the point in those earlier games that hours would slip by without notice...

I remember dming Queen of Spiders years ago, when the party was in an underground city and had to run up the stairs of a tower or face certain doom:

Well, it was about 3 in the morning, we'd been playing all day, and a guy's girlfriend showed up and joined the game in the middle of things...

She began asking specifics about what the terain looked like, the size of the steps, etc. all the while some dark god floated closer and closer to the party.

You could literally cut the tension with a knife.

Finally players began tearing at their character sheets, holding their heads in hands and some literally screamed at her to: "Get up the Stairs!!!!!!"

She sat down in shock, eyes wide in astonishment and yelled at me: "Geeeze, O.K!"

Maybe that's partially how D&D got a bad rap at the time: because of its ability to get people soooo rapped up in it.

I remember seeing players days later, suffering from sleep deprevation because they'd spent the last night tossing and turning thinking about what to do in the next game.

Maybe I and the people I played with were just 'not right in our heads' you ask?

I dunno.

I truly think that taking away the gaming boards and complex battle board tactics (ie. this square's touching this square so you can fire, etc.) and no longer having every action described in rule format, has relinked us to the game somehow; we imagine we're there, and things seem more 'real'.

I think my friend termed it being 'in the flow', when you're 'in' d&d land, and that's something -for some reason- we didn't experience with 3rd edition.

[JediOre]

You pegged it well. The game has completely re-blossomed for me when I dropped 3.X cold turkey and when to Castles & Crusades.

The game flows so much more as it did when I gamed with AD&D (first edition only).

I just finished DMing (CKing) DCC#0 two hours ago. It's ten o'clock, I'm having terrible asthma and I'm crazy tired. BUT I'm still on cloud nine! We had the time of our lives. Smiling and talking. We didn't have to worry about any of the "game mechanics" as we did in 3.X. We simply played the game and it was fast paced. We didn't start the module until 11 am, yet the game was over and the experience was given out, players went up in levels and the clock struck 8pm.

These are the games I remember from my high school and college days. Talk about them for days on end and can't wait to get together to quest with your paper hero.

I'm glad you're having fun too slimykuotoan.

[Philotomy Jurament]

Yeah, me too. C&C revitalized my gaming; I went from burnt out to running three different campaigns, and loving it.

[Argamae]

What I would like to know--and I am SQUEAMISH about it--is when they will release the Castle Keepers Guide!!!?!

[gideon_thorne]

What I would like to know--and I am SQUEAMISH about it--is when they will release the Castle Keepers Guide!!!?!

In theory, around GenCon.

It's really a non essential book for the system, more an expansion, which is why time is being taken to put it together properly. ^_^

[fathead]

What C&C events will be at GenCon? I haven't tried the system, but I'd be interested in an introduction to the game.

[GnomeBoy]

Yeah, me too. C&C revitalized my gaming; I went from burnt out to running three different campaigns, and loving it.

Not having tired C&C and not knowing much about it, the above comment makes me wonder exactly this:

Were you playing D&D d20 with tons of books, or more or less just Core Books?

The group I'm in has been playing D&D since 1990 (me since 1992) and we've been using 3.x since it came along, and I don't find that we're burnt out at all. We pretty much stick to Core with the occasional bits and bobs pulled in from other books. Speaking for myself, I have only about 10 books beyond the Core, with three or four of those largely unread (i.e. I'm going to set up a campaign in a city overrun by undead, so I picked up Heores of Battle, Heroes of Horror and will get Cityscape to help set up the campaign, but I haven't really read any of them yet...)

I'm curious what folks in this thread would attribute their burn out to, more specifically than 3.x, if they can....

I tend to think players scooping up all or most of what Wizards puts out -- whether you think its good, bad or indifferent -- would burn anyone out! Just a matter of too much information....

"What do you think, sirs?"

J.

[ragnar1965]

Ok, I haven't posted to this thread yet, but I think I can answer your question for our (JediOre's) gaming group.

As I have said on these boards in the past...I liked 3.0/3.5, and I appreciated how tightly everything was woven together. You really couldn't change one thing without screwing up something else. Everything worked in perfect harmony with each other. I like the character creation system. I liked that every fighter wasn't the same with the same abilities (I know, I know...role play your character different). I liked that exp went fast. I liked that my wizard might actually see 7th level spells at some point in his career. I liked feats and skills. I liked the tactical combat. But I didn't start playing DnD until 3rd edition came along. I wasn't a member of my gaming group's 1st edition play, not really. I played through a couple of modules before I convinced them to go to 3rd edition with the help of one of the other members of our group at the time.

Once we started 3rd edition, I was hooked. At the same time, JediOre's brain had begun to slowly ooze out of his ears. That went on for about 5 years until he decided that he had lost enough of his being. He proclaimed that our gaming was over unless we switched to C&C or I started dm'ing. Well, I made my attempt at dm'ing, and that was not my bag. So, I decided to give C&C a try. I was completely taken aback by my own attitude after playing one module in the C&C style. I realized that I wasn't really losing that much flavor. The reason was that Jedi could now go back to his original dm'ing style. He was reborn (so to speak). He could change things on the fly. He was able to make use of modules from every version of DnD with little effort. He was able to run quick combats that didn't require a Field's Medal winner to sort out. All of the things that I loved about 3.0/3.5 were all the things that made his dm'ing so difficult. I still miss my tactical combats, but watching his dm'ing blossom again makes my sacrifice more than worth it.

So, don't know if that's what you were looking for GnomeBoy, but that's why we're playing C&C.

Oh, and to add a small addendum, we only used core books. No splat books except for one that he got one prestige class out of for one of my characters.

[Philotomy Jurament]

Were you playing D&D d20 with tons of books, or more or less just Core Books?...I'm curious what folks in this thread would attribute their burn out to, more specifically than 3.x, if they can....

I've been playing D&D since the late 70s. At one time or another, I've played just about every edition (OD&D, Holmes, B/X, BECMI, OAD&D, AD&D2E, and 3E). I started playing 3E when it first came out. I didn't really expect to like it, but was pleasantly surprised.

I never got much beyond core. I don't like a lot of splat-books, etc. The burn-out I experienced with 3E is related to my preferred style of play, and to the way the 3E rules are constructed. That is, they're a well-integrated, cohesive whole, and they're pretty granular and detailed. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but it became annoying to me as levels rose. Combats took too long. PC and NPC creation took too long. Et cetera. The feel of the game, with its emphasis on builds, feats, skills, etc., was also different from previous versions of D&D. Fun -- but not the same.

I still like 3E, but I've come to realize that it isn't the best system for the style of game I like to run. I'd run 3E for a heavily tactical/military type one-shot (e.g. sack the keep!). However, that's not the kind of emphasis I enjoy in my D&D campaigns (at least, not all the time). I admit that 3E could be used to play a game with a style similar to mine, but I've become a firm believer that the system does matter -- 3E might work, but a different system might work better.

For me, C&C hits the sweet spot. It's much less granular, but you can still customize PCs, just in a more general manner. And you don't really lose much, IMO. For example, many actions that would use feats in 3E can just be treated as maneuvers -- assign a difficulty, make a roll, and see if the PC can pull it off. Your options as a player aren't really decreased in play -- there's just less stuff on your character sheet.

[JRR]

What I would like to know--and I am SQUEAMISH about it--is when they will release the Castle Keepers Guide!!!?!

It's going to be a boxed set, packaged with Duke Nuke 'em 4ever.