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Why was this game made?
An obvious first question when looking at this book is to ask why this book was made. After all, there have been numerous editions of D&D, ranging from the old blue books to Basic to Advanced 1st and 2nd editions and now the new 3e and its revision 3.5e. These range the gamut from thin rules-lite booklets to massive tomes filled with rules with a legion of supplements. I see three factors driving the development of this game.
The first is a desire to see a lighter version of D&D in print and easily available. The current version in print (3.5e) is huge and requires three relatively expensive books to play. There should be a niche for a lighter D&D-type game that requires only one book to run. This lighter version could even be a nice gateway for people to enter role-playing after being put-off by the massive tomes of 3.5e.
The second is a desire to move away from the large number of rules in D&D and promote a more rules-light version of D&D that still assimilates the advancements in game design since the original first edition Advanced Dungeons and Dragons (1e) appeared in the 1970s. A fresh rule-set should incorporate newer mechanics while retaining the rules-lightness of the older versions of D&D.
The third desire seems to be nostalgia. A number of people, though a minority in the game-playing public, prefer older editions of D&D while recognizing some of their faults. They frequently complain of the change in gaming produced by 3e and wish a return to the concepts and feel of D&D. Most of these partisans seem to prefer 1e, though of course there are adherents for all of the editions.
Obviously, these factors are related, but I will frame this review as to whether C&C embodies these factors. Does it deliver a cheap, one-book entry into D&D-like role-playing? Does it meld modern mechanics and rules-lightness together successfully? Does it evoke the feeling of playing old-school D&D in a fun way?
Where I am coming from
I've played D&D off and on since I was a kid, starting sometime around 1980. I played and GMed mostly Basic D&D growing up, collected all the Gazetteers, ran through the B and X modules, and it's still the system I know best. I've played several AD&D 1e campaigns, but oddly enough don't own the Player's Handbook for it, though I have other books in the series, like the Dungeon Master's Guide. I own and have played both 2e and 3e and have 3.5e. I find the newest edition somewhat cumbersome, especially as one gains levels, and want something more rules-light. Ordinarily I would just play the Rules Cyclopedia (probably the single best role-playing book TSR/WOTC have ever produced), but I don't like races as classes, and the skills system and some other small facets of the game strike me as wrong. So I picked up C&C to see if it would be a good alternative.
Immediate Impressions
Let's start out with a quick survey of the book. It's a 128-page hardback. On the cover is a mounted crusader being attacked by small wyverns as he tries to reach a castle in the distance. On the back of the book, it promises that "Spells, equipment, fast-paced combat rules, and all essential information needed to play a game of Castles and Crusades is in this book." So I'm expecting a complete, though stripped-down game when I open the cover.
Inside, the game has acknowledgments and thanks Gary Gygax and lists the play-testers (always a classy move). There's an introduction and then we get to the table of contents. Here's where the trouble begins. First of all, there's the usual stuff: attributes, classes, races, equipment, miscellaneous character details, spells, advice for the Castle Keeper (this game's name for the fellow who sets up the adventures and runs the monsters and NPCs), a skill system, combat, and then the miscellaneous stuff.
Some things are missing: there are no monster listings, no listings of magic items, and the equipment section is only three pages long. This doesn't look good, and it doesn't look like a complete game. In fact it isn't a complete game, and it isn't a complete game in many more ways than not having monsters or magic items, which I will cover in more detail below. So that's my first disappointment, because all essential information isn't actually in this book, and the back blurb is clearly wrong and almost false advertising.
Inside the main part of the book, they go with a wide two-column layout and almost no empty space on the sides and top of the pages. I actually like this. Most new games have big sidebars that are just endlessly repeated art on every page, and I see no need to have decorative sidebars taking up a huge amount of space on every page. I would prefer to read the text in three columns though, like they did in 2e and the Rules Cyclopedia, especially since it is easier to read text if it doesn't stretch too wide on the page. There are page numbers at the bottom of every page, but it would have been nice to bold them and make them a little larger so that they are easier to see, though these are adequate. (Of course, White Wolf always has illegible page numbers in their books and wacky placement, and their books still sell, so who knows.) Another nice thing that is missed is some place on the page saying what chapter of the book you are in.
The art was all done by a single artist, Peter Bradley, and he's pretty good. You don't see ridiculous poses, everyone has armor and weapons and looks like they know how to use them, and no one is a testosterone enhanced freak. His style is clean and clear, and it evokes older fantasy styles without being enslaved by them. In general, the pictures express well the subject at hand, and give you something to picture the world with. I particularly like that they got him to do the whole book - it gives the book a nice thematic unity and really creates a nice feel for the game, much like was done for Planescape. All in all, it's too bad they appear not to have had room for more of his illustrations.
There's no index, which I find truly unfortunate. Indices are useful for everyone, and especially for new players to a game who might not have played prior versions of D&D. There's also no main glossary, though there are mini-glossaries in several places.
In general, the editing is bad. It's bad in two ways - there are obviously misspelled words (unforgivable in the age of the spell-checker) and multiple instances of lack of agreement in sentences. There are also extremely convoluted sentences that meander here and there before getting to the main point. A good editor would have tightened these up significantly, freeing up more space in the text and improving understanding at the same time. One can really see the effects of a good editor like Sue Weinlein Cook in Malhavoc Press's products and one strongly feels the lack of one here.
So let's progress through the book in detail now. In the process of running through the book, I'll be creating a character to show how the system works.
Introduction
The introduction contains the now-canonical "What is a Role-playing Game?" section and a discourse on what books are needed, along with an explanation of polyhedral dice, and a section on how you can't win or lose this kind of game.
This section is obviously there for complete newcomers to the game, who haven't ever played D&D or a similar role-playing game before. That's great, and I'm glad it is in here, but there is a fundamental confusion about this game in the minds of the designers. This section obviously implies they meant for the game to be accessible to newcomers to the hobby, but every other section of the book is clearly designed for those who have played AD&D before. The two objectives don't match and it makes this a weaker game. They should have picked one or the other, or worked harder to support both groups.
Their description of what books are needed is also, frankly incorrect. All the rules for a player are not present in the Players Handbook, and their statement that all that is needed is this book for players is just wrong. I hate it when books tell me things that aren't true.
Creating the Character
I was pleasantly surprised to see in this section a summary of how to create a character. This is always handy in role-playing books. The interesting part of this character creation is the order they tell you to do things in. First, they tell you to imagine a character in your mind: "a noble dwarf fighter, a haggard half-orc barbarian, or a disdainful elf knight". Then they tell you to roll attributes (ability scores), pick a class, pick a race, and then flesh out the character by picking alignment, buying equipment, etc. That's pretty interesting, because what if your rolls aren't suited to the role in your head? Old-school D&D definitely believed in roll first, describe later, but here they turn that on its head. Since you can pick which 3d6 dice rolls go where, you can guarantee that your Strength is highest, for example, but if you roll badly, you aren't going to get the mighty-thewed barbarian in your head. The other interesting thing in this part is that you choose your class before you choose your race, which I can't understand. Is this a statement in game that class is dominant and should be the first thing chosen?
This section also covers attributes, usually called ability scores in old-school D&D. It has the standard six: Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma (note the new order). Only one of these attributes has a relationship between its value and the real world: "characters can military press 10x their strength and dead lift 15x their strength." Since I have no idea what a military press is, this isn't that helpful to me. I find this unfortunate, especially for new people in the game. It would be helpful to state outright that 18 is the normal human maximum, perhaps represented by Olympic athletes or genius chess-players or ancient wizened sages.
The attributes use the old Basic scale, where 9-12 provides no bonus, 13-15 is +1, 16-17 is +2, and 18-19 is +3. Negative bonuses are the exact inverse, with 1 being -4. I don't like this for several reasons: first, there are no rules for extending the scale beyond 19, and there is no explanation of what falling to 0 in an ability means. I can of course make stuff up, but it wouldn't kill them to give a rule for these kinds of situations, since they are inherent in the system. Secondly, since attributes mean nothing in this system beyond their bonuses, this means that a 9 attribute and a 12 attribute are functionally the same, so why have them at all? It would be far better to use the new 3e attribute bonus system (as we will see in more detail later), but here it seems nostalgia for the old ways reigns supreme. I can understand some people believe the bonuses increase too quickly in 3e, but since this game uses 3d6 roll-and-arrange, you aren't going to see many 18's anyway.
This section also has an introduction to the concept of primary and secondary attributes and attribute checks, which is a complete but simple skill system. The character gets one primary attribute from his class and picks another, and a third if she is human. The character is then superior at all attribute checks involving his primary attributes. So if I create a human knight with Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma as primes, I've essentially created an expert war-leader and tactician. He is good at personal interactions and exhorting the troops (Charisma), well-educated, knowledgeable, and thinks quickly on his feet (Intelligence), and is quite experienced and mature and makes excellent decisions (Wisdom). Basically, the character is good at anything that involves one of his prime attributes. This makes it all the more unfortunate that more time and thought wasn't spent giving examples and comparisons for the attributes, since adjudicating what falls under what attribute will be a critical factor in the game. On the other hand, it also shows that they expect that each attribute is equally important, which I find to be quite refreshing, and genuinely new: no version of D&D has made attributes as equal in importance as C&C, as we'll see later. There are no real dump stats. How critical a factor? Well, attribute checks are done by rolling d20 and adding the attribute modifier, the character level (if applicable), and any other modifiers. This resulting number is then compared to 12 if the attribute is primary and 18 if it isn't. If the resulting number equals or exceeds 12 (or 18), the character has succeeded in his objective, otherwise he has failed. It is quick, easy, and I like it. It's a very quick and dirty skill system and since the Castle Keeper can add situational modifiers, it is easy to adjust on the fly.
There's only one problem, and this shows to me that the authors of the game haven't assimilated 3e in its entirety. Essentially, this is a DC check against 18, and you get a +6 modifier if a prime attribute is involved. This Prime system can't handle opposed checks easily. What if Arnold and Peewee are wrestling, and Arnold has Strength as a Prime and Peewee doesn't? What roll is done? The clear system would have been for Arnold and Peewee to roll, with their modifiers, and Arnold to get a +6 to his roll from his Primeness, and whoever rolls highest wins. But this isn't easily done here, and in fact, there is no mechanism for opposed rolls in C&C, probably for precisely this reason. This is weakness that makes the game more complex and less general.
Incidentally, this kind of bias towards numbers instead of modifiers crops up everywhere. A 1st level monk gets an AC of 10, instead of an AC bonus of +0. He gets a speed of 40 at third level, instead of a speed of +10, since small races are slower with speed 20 base. It would have been clearer and simpler if they talked mostly in terms of modifiers, but the designers seem to prefer the old-school hard numbers, and I think it makes the game more complicated and less intuitive than it could have been.
My character is a human female woodsman, short, strong, and hardy, with good reflexes. I roll attributes and get S 15 (+1), D 14 (+1), C 12, I 9, W 9, Ch 10.
Classes
There are a lot of classes in C&C. The classes are organized by their primary attribute: fighter, ranger (strength); rogue, assassin (dexterity); barbarian, monk (constitution); wizard, illusionist (intelligence); cleric, druid (wisdom); knight, paladin, bard (charisma). I particularly like that the historical dump stat has three classes that are required to take Charisma as primary, meaning that they will tend to use it often in play.
Unfortunately, this chapter in general is a mixed bag, and really shows its AD&Dness. Classes like assassin, barbarian, and illusionist are fairly superfluous, and essentially map directly onto their AD&D 1e counterparts. I can't understand their placement except as sops to nostalgia, especially since they aren't sufficiently distinguished from their counterparts, especially in the case of the assassin and illusionist.
Also, for some reason, C&C decided to introduce additional complexity over 3e and go back to customized experience tables for each class, instead of using a single experience chart for every class. Not only that, the experience charts do not follow a mathematical formula, so you are out of luck expanding them past level 12, which is the limit of the tables here. This is just dumb and seems to be a total submission to nostalgia. Is it really that important to people that their rogue (not thief, nostalgia is not completely hegemonic) be two levels higher than everyone else in the party? Some might favor this as backward compatibility, but these values aren't backwards compatible with the Rules Cyclopedia, for example.
It gets worse. For some reason, after level 10, you don't roll for hit dice anymore and just get a bonus to hit dice. This is just in the tables and isn't discussed under the hit dice section for classes. This is another pure nostalgia hit. I know where this comes from, it's called name level, and the character is supposed to be building strongholds or thieves' guilds at this point. But none of that is actually here in the book, and there is no explanation for why 11th level is magical. The book also doesn't say whether you get a constitution bonus to hit dice at this point. (Historically, you don't, but in C&C, who knows?)
There are other little blips, for example. Assassins are essentially rogues with death attack, disguise, and poison use. They discuss their poison ability briefly and point you to a larger discussion of poisons on page 114. There are no poison descriptions on page 114, though there is a very general description of poisons on page 112. Unfortunately, no real guidance is provided. If an ability of a core class is not adequately discussed, the game is not complete. It is as simple as that.
This crops up also for the knight, a warrior who gains a lot of abilities while mounted and for leading troops. Unfortunately, there are no stats for horses anywhere in the book. Another class's core ability inexplicably not supported.
In general, the classes are amalgams of all the various versions of the classes from various editions. The big changes are the monk, knight, and bard. The monk gets d12 hit dice, the knight (perhaps a greatly improved version of the cavalier) is an entirely new class focused on horse-riding and leading people, and the bard also gets d20 hit dice and has no spells - approximating more the Nordic skald. Interestingly, the ranger and paladin don't get spells either, which I like. Spell-casting should be handled by multi-classing. But wait, there aren't any multi-classing or dual-classing rules, and we can't handle it the elegant 3e way because every class has a different experience chart! Aargh! We're stuck with crappy baroque AD&D rules for multi- and dual-classing!
The classes get set class abilities at set times - there is little flexibility. Interestingly, there is a sort of parallel skill system emerging in the class descriptions. The rogue and ranger, for example, have clearly defined class abilities like Climb (Dexterity) and Survival (Wisdom) that it appears only they can do. It is never really explained what sort of things rogues and rangers can climb that others can't. Comically, a rogue can move silently indoors and out, but as soon as a ranger moves indoors, he loses his ability to move silently. Even worse, a ranger can scale naturally slopes, but give him a brick wall with handholds, and he is out of luck. It would be nice if there was only one skill system in the game, instead of one general and one extremely specific one.
Interestingly, the classes all have armor and weapon restrictions, but no restrictions on shields. So it appears that shields are allowable for all classes. Unfortunately, as we shall see, C&C continues the AD&D tradition of considering shields to be crap, so they are barely worth it anyway. This is another weird one - if a character dons armor he is not rated to use, he loses access to all of his class abilities magically, unless of course he is a rogue or assassin, where he gets a penalty according to the armor class. Why these special rules? Why not make this penalty a general rule? This is part of what I hated about old-school D&D: arbitrary restrictions that aren't even applied across the board. Why not just make things uniform and simple? Unfortunately, it looks like the nostalgia crowd won this one as well.
Once again, C&C spells things out here by listing in detail exactly which weapons and armor people are allowed to use. There are no categories, like simple, martial, and exotic or light, medium, and heavy. No, everything is spelled out, but they don't even use that flexibility: they are all exactly what you expect from earlier versions.
Aside from the knight, the classes in general aren't that imaginative or greatly changed from before. The wizard and illusionist still have only d4 hit points and are thus easily killed by house cats, though at least they aren't single-use magic items anymore, having several 0 and 1st level spells. The monk now has d12 hit dice, but his AC starts at 10 and goes up really slowly, so unless you put in a high Dexterity, he will be bleeding a lot of the time. At least the barbarian doesn't instinctively hate magic and attack wizards - such a pure expression of nostalgia would have forced me to throw the book across the room.
The barbarian is actually a poor class, though, because his signature ability to go berserk, called Primal Fury for some reason, actually takes control of the character away from the player. If the barbarian defeats his foes while still berserk, he turns on any nearby allies and starts pounding on them unless he makes a successful Wisdom check. This actually makes the ability not very good, and it is further compounded by the fact that in the Primal Fury, he gets a +2 to damage and wisdom saves and a -2 to AC and intelligence saves, can't talk and can't use abilities requiring patience and concentration. This doesn't even seem to really even out, since a +2 to damage and -2 to AC is either a wash or possibly a net negative. Why would a barbarian ever enter Primal Fury, since it doesn't really help him mechanically and there is a definite chance his party members will have to kill him to stop him killing them. Oh, I forgot the best part: he can enter it only once a day, and after he comes out of it, he is fatigued (-2 to Str and Dex, -10 ft speed, and can't run) for _four hours_. Four hours is a really long time - I hope the barbarian doesn't have to fight too many battles in a day, because he is screwed if he does. (Of course, if the barbarian's Strength and Dex are 11 or 12, this doesn't affect his attributes at all.) I really don't understand why they changed this from the perfectly serviceable 3e modifiers, and also why they didn't playtest it.
This shows a broader point though. I don't think the classes are balanced, I don't think a lot of effort and playtesting was put into their construction, and I think the "balancing" experience tables for each class were essentially copied out of AD&D first edition. The designers just made shit up and expect you to like it. Some of it is frankly rather interesting, like the ranger's ability to heal and delay poison, but it's all completely arbitrary. If you didn't like the way classes were balanced in AD&D, C&C isn't an improvement.
My character wants to be an outdoorswoman, so she picks ranger and Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution as her primaries. She gets combat marauder (bonuses against humanoids), conceal (Dex), delay/neutralize poison (Wis), move silently (Dex), scale (Dex), traps (Wis), and track (Wis).
Races
The races are the standard AD&D ones: dwarf, elf, gnome, half-elf, halfling, half-orc, and human. In general, the races are what you would expect from D&D of whatever version, though interestingly, dwarves are rated as small along with gnomes and halflings.
Races get several special abilities (except for the humans, who get an extra primary, a huge bonus), attribute modifiers, and bonus to certain class abilities in certain situations. They also get typical classes, which the book tiptoes around: "Each race is most commonly associated with the classes listed. This list of these preferred classes can be changed at the Castle Keeper's discretion but both Castle Keeper and player should confer prior tomaking [sic] a decision." In practice, this seems to mean nothing, since there is no mechanism for "preferred" classes, but I feel like this is like a vestigial tail of nostalgia waving by the authors so the AD&D grognards don't hit them. They don't want to tell you dwarves can't be wizards or elves clerics or knights (though this makes no sense to me), but they want to hint it. Of course, half-orcs have knights under their list, so I've given up on any thoughts of consistency on this score.
In general, the races all get positive special abilities, except for the dwarf. The dwarf has animosity (elves), which means that dwarves have a -2 penalty to charisma checks while dealing with elves they do not know very well. Strangely, elves have no such penalty dealing with dwarves. They also have enmity (goblins/orcs), which gives them a +1 to hit goblins or orcs, but also gives them a -4 to charisma checks when interacting with half-orcs, goblins, and orcs. Dwarves are the haters of C&C.
The attribute modifiers are -1 and +1 in general, so of course dedicated min-maxers can work well with that. I don't understand this design decision. Why have attribute modifiers if they often won't make a difference? Is this another nostalgia thing? With the unified mechanic, only Strength's actual numerical value matters at all, and that only slightly when military and dead lifts are done. This is where +2 or -2 modifiers make sense in 3e and would make sense here, even though C&C, unlike 3e, does an admirable job of making all the attributes important.
Amusingly, because half-orcs get a bonus of +1 to AC while unarmored and attribute modifiers of +1 to Str and Con and -2 to Cha, they make the best monks, wizards, and illusionists. I kind of like the subversive nature of this and can imagine a campaign where half-orc monks and wizards have their own secret societies secretly running things. It's nice to see something hit back at nostalgia.
Since I picked a human and three primes for my character, I'm already done here.
Completing the Character
This section unsurprisingly covers most of the other details concerning characters. The game encourages players to fashion personas for their characters, focusing on appearance and personality traits and continuing to develop them over the course of the game. I found this section to be good and worth reading for any type of D&D game. Alignment is also covered, and explained concisely and well. The game then focuses on choosing a deity and lists all the various possibilities, including not choosing one at all. This section is also well-written and surprisingly good, though it stumbles a bit dealing with druids, who never have made that much sense. Strangely, there is more discussion about cleric's chosen weapon, when I thought that was covered back in the cleric chapter. This little bit only serves to muddy the waters. The final section focuses on names and discusses how to make them and why epithets are useful for creating a quick image of a character. I liked this section best of all the ones I've seen. This is pretty much what I was expecting from the book in the first place.
I named the character Meg of Stonebridge and decided she was small, compact, and wiry with mud-brown hair. She's taciturn and moody and likes sky-watching and knows all the constellations and the stories associated with them. She worships Baernor, the stag.
Equipment
Unfortunately, the equipment section isn't just bad, it is an embarrassment. It starts off ok, discussing the fact that the actual appearance of equipment will vary depending on culture and the equipment chosen will depend on the adventure proposed. The game also operates that there is no standard pack of equipment, everything must be purchased individually. I like this attitude, and the gritty nature it engenders.
The rest of the section is a list of starting gold for the various classes, and tables of armors, shields, weapons, ranged weapons, equipment, provisions and lodging, and transport and tack, along with a few illustrations of pole-arms with labels. That's it. There's no description of each weapon. Most of the weapons don't have illustrations, and in the illustrations of weapons, cruelly, some of them aren't labeled, so you have no idea what they are. Want to know what the hell a bec de corbin is? So do I, because there is no information on it and no illustration of it. Hey, but there are four slight variations of bardiches pictured! Want to know which weapons are two-handed and which are one-handed? So do I. No information on that either.
This is just rank incompetence. How do they expect people to play this game if they don't understand that a heavy flail is two-handed while a light flail is one-handed (I'm assuming)? The weapons section has even more problems than this. A good example is the sword section. There are eight types of swords listed: bastard, broad, falchion, long, rapier, scimitar, short, and two-handed. They do anywhere from 1d6 to 2d6 points of damage. The game lists three types of swords that do 1d6: short, rapier, and scimitar. They cost slightly different amounts and weigh slightly different amounts, but they have the same encumbrance. Why isn't there just one sword listing for these three swords: short sword? They are mechanically the same, yet there are multiple listings for them. There are no rules differences, and if there are no rules differences, you should only have one sword and if the character wants to call it a rapier let him. There is also the opposite problem: there are something like ten different pole-arms. Each one is different and does radically different damage: but I see no reason to pick a Bec de Corbin (assuming it is a pole-arm) that does 1d8 damage or a Fauchard (again, assuming) that does 1d6 over a halberd that does 1d10. Why this pole-arm fetish? Why not just call them all pole-arm, give them the same stats, and then in the description list the various options for pure flavor (like the Rules Cyclopedia)? Another approach would be to actually make them mechanically distinct but not one obviously better than the other (also done in the Rules Cyclopedia with optional rules). This splitting of the difference because every pole-arm and sword must be listed with no balancing in the mechanics is just poor design. Incidentally, it's also funny that you can't set pikes against charges to deal double damage in these rules.
Shields are broken also but in a more subtle sense. Every shield gives the same bonus to AC, +1. But the larger the shield, the more foes this is applicable against in a round. So if I buy a small shield, it only gives me +1 to AC against a single foe in a round. This is a pretty small bonus, unless I enchant the shield. (Oops, there are no rules for magic items - they aren't even really mentioned in the rules, so we have no idea how magic item enchantments work. Forget I said anything.) Why did C&C go back to the ridiculous old-school assumption that shields stink? And if they were going to do that, why did they make it a cumbersome mechanic where you have to have different ACs to different foes in a round? Why not have just a straight AC bonus of +1, +2, and +3, while having actual special description for a buckler? That would be too logical apparently, so they came up with a cumbersome mechanic to cover their bad design. Incidentally, there is no game-mechanical difference between wooden and steel shields except the steel ones cost and weigh more. Whee!
I'm getting exhausted with how lame this section is, so I'd better just move on. Suffice it to say that this section should have descriptions and illustrations of the different weapons and armor and decent rules for them, but sadly none of that is in evidence here.
Magic
This section covers spells for the spell-casting classes. A glossary is given, and at least they don't use the term memorization - thank god. This section attempts to tell me that wizards and illusionists are different, but since game mechanically most of the spells for the two classes are identical, I don't believe it. There really is no need for the illusionist in the game, and if discussing the illusionist prevents me from having even an adequate equipment section, then I don't want him.
Amazingly, they include the rule that it takes 15 minutes of preparation per spell after resting eight hours. Since wizards can have something like 20+ spells at reasonable levels, we're talking half the day or more here spent preparing, effectively meaning wizards don't really get their spells back every day. That is why 3e intelligently added the rule that preparing all your spells takes one hour, period. The C&C rule was dumb in AD&D and it is dumb now and I can only attribute its continued existence here to pure nostalgia.
Interestingly, scrolls are described in the magic section, but there is no mechanism to actually create them listed. After this, there is a discussion of the various features of spells, like casting time, range, etc, followed by the spells listed alphabetically, along with spell tables. The spells themselves are fairly standard with all the usual favorites here. The only really old-school feature is that all the usual problem spells are dealt with in old-school style - haste ages you a year and may cost you a hit point permanently. Wish ages you three years, and teleport is damn dangerous.
The Castle Keeper and the Game
This next section contains advice for the Castle Keeper on things like styles of play, pace, scale, and creating adventures. The advice isn't bad, although it is a little too general and lacks enough examples. A detailed adventure or example of play would be quite invaluable here. Overall I like this part of the section - it is honestly trying to make the game fun for people who play it.
After this is a discussion of attribute checks work. This is a great section. Numerous examples are given for each attribute, and it does a good job of explaining how these come up and how they are adjudicated. There is even a nice mechanic for allowing someone to do something that is another class's special ability - they don't add their level to the check. Saves are also covered, and it is nice to see that there are important saves for each attribute. Although this makes saves more complicated, it also balances out the attributes better, so I think it is overall a clear net positive. This also gives the book an excuse to discuss all the different types of situations that would trigger saves, which is always useful to have codified. This is a good useful section.
Combat
Combat is next, and this is a streamlined section. A glossary begins it and then a discussion of the combat round, which is ten seconds long. They take care to mention it is an abstract measurement, which I think is the right approach. Surprise rounds are decided by wisdom checks, and initiative is rolled every round, which is too bad. Only rolling initiative once at the beginning really does tend to speed things up.
All the standard things are here, though I did notice that charging gives you a -4 to your AC for the combat round. That seems really steep and should tend to discourage it, especially since you only get a +2 bonus to damage. This seems like a poorly-play-tested rule.
Various special attacks are mentioned, like grappling, pummeling, overbearing, and touch attacks. Grappling and overbearing work similarly to in 3e, though somewhat simplified. Other modifiers are given for situational combat. I was surprised to see a -2 to attack from a horse but only a +1 modifier for a defender being at a lower elevation. That means attacking from a horse gives you a net -1 to attack, which makes no sense. Attacking from a horse should give you an advantage, not a disadvantage. Why weren't things like this caught before publication?
There are combat maneuvers like dodge, disengage, disarm, evade, flank attack, rear attack, and two-weapon fighting. I like the fact that anyone can do these maneuvers, and they seemed mechanically sound. Damage and healing are covered, and the healing system for hit points is somewhat baroque, involving healing rates increasing every week of rest and constitution bonuses applied at the end of the week. I don't see the advantage personally, but it does seem grittier than the standard 3e system.
Options for winging it when characters do something dramatically appropriate are presented, but there are no real rules for this. It would be more interesting to have something like drama or karma points that the players themselves could utilize.
Turning undead is also presented, but they saved an interesting mechanic for almost the end: encumbrance. Don't laugh, it actually is interesting. They have a real system for calculating the encumbrance values of items and levels of encumbrance. Every level of encumbrance from none to light to moderate, etc. produces a modifier. So a light level of encumbrance reduces your move by a 1/4, and gives you -1 to all physical attribute checks and AC. That's a pretty big penalty, and it means players will ditch things during fights and might not carry them at all. I equipped my ranger with sword, hand axe, short bow, arrows, and studded leather and that was enough to put her over to light encumbrance. Frankly, this rule alone should kill the characters who carry everything with them and make the game more interesting right away. After all, you don't see Aragorn carrying around a longsword, mace, dagger, composite long bow, and 20 arrows. It slows him down, and it slows down characters in this game too. I love this rule, especially since it means a high strength doesn't allow you to carry everything but the kitchen sink, like in previous editions.
After this is experience points, and C&C awards experience for any and all of monsters, money, magic items (which are never discussed), story, and role-playing. The chapter is rounded out with discussions of movement, spell resistance, languages, vision, and time. The last section is on creating an adventuring party and what each class's role is in that.
The final two pages are an ad for C&C products and the OGL. And that's that.
Inappropriate Name
One weird thing is the fact that Castles and Crusades aren't that important in this game. Dungeons and Dragons are very important in D&D, so I'm not really sure why they called the game what they did. There aren't really crusaders in the game, and despite the name Castle Keeper, it isn't like adventures normally take place in castles. Why not call it Hacking and Half-Orcs, or Caverns and Carrion Crawlers, or even Spells and Spectres. Castles and Crusades I don't get.
Conclusion
Overall, I'm disappointed. I expected a streamlined, modern mechanic rule set for dungeon-bashing. Instead, I got a poorly edited mishmash of good and bad ideas missing essential parts. I feel like the designers did not playtest the system adequately or take enough care in the writing and construction of this book to make sure things fit together.
Castles and Crusades is a game built mainly on nostalgia for AD&D first edition. In almost all cases, if there is a game element you cannot figure out or understand the reasoning for, it's because it was in AD&D. Unfortunately, because this seems to be the overriding impetus for the game, it actually harms the rules-lightness and modern rule set nature of the game, and indirectly, I think, prevents it from being a complete game. Because the designers spent all their time including a lot of classes and every pole-arm every mentioned by a medieval chronicler, they neglected to make sure the game was complete. I'm sure the playtesters were largely AD&D nuts, and they all just filled in the gaps from their AD&D books whenever the rule set was unclear. That unfortunately means the rule set was never meticulously tested, and frankly it shows. I don't want to be dragging around my old AD&D books to look up what a voulge is or what poisons assassins can make - I want it to be in the damn book!
If you are a new role-player with no experience with D&D, it's going to be a little difficult to get started with this game. There is a lot of essential material missing, and the Castle Keeper instructions, while good, aren't enough to really get going. The game is not self-contained and does not explain things adequately. It is a failure as a one-book game.
If AD&D done slightly more rigorously and intelligently is what you are after, then C&C is for you. If you wanted something more like a streamlined, modernized Basic D&D (like me), then I would weigh your options before considering C&C. You'll want to house rule things anyway, so it might be to your advantage to house-rule from Basic forward than from C&C backward. I'd also wait for the second-printing, since they promise to fix some of the problems, though unfortunately, I'm not sure they even really recognize some of the problems.
Additional material
Additional material for the game is available (as of January 27, 2005) by download from Troll Lord. It includes errata for the Players Handbook, a short list of monsters, a character sheet, and a full 3e adventure converted to C&C: "A Lion in the Ropes".
The errata is not really an errata; it's more like a first draft of the rules they forgot to include in the book in the first place. It includes class progressions beyond 12th level, which classes can use shields and helms, spells-per-day for the wizard and illusionist, aging tables for the races, stats for helms and coifs (which don't really do anything), and a list of which weapons are two-handed and which are one-handed. Unfortunately, the errata still demonstrates the problems of the game itself. The errata themselves are not complete. Spell progressions for the wizard and illusionists at level 20 are great, but what about after that, since there is no limit to level progression? What does Old in the age charts mean game-mechanically in C&C? (Since I know AD&D, I have a pretty good idea, but why don't they say so?) And of course, a lot is still missing, like poison rules, and any sample magic items at all!
The monster list has a short discussion of how to award experience for monsters and then launches into a list that thankfully includes stats for things like goblins and horses (without which the knight is sort of hard to use effectively in the game). The monsters mostly looks like older AD&D monsters, though there are a few things I don't understand. Is Intelligence (which is represented by Int, which it might have been nice for them to explain) rated on some weird scale? Is Inferior Int better or worse than Low Int? Also, unfortunately, there isn't a single dragon in the monster listing, which would have been nice to see frankly, though at least they do give you wyverns, making it possible for you to reenact the cover scene. Finally, why are the XP values 500+5 and such? What is that +5 supposed to mean or be?
The character sheet is drowning in nostalgia, even having a little shield for AC. They also provide two versions. Strangely, they don't really provide any room for this long backstory you are supposed to write about your character, instead putting in a small Notes section, dwarfed by the equipment section. There's also no place for your movement rate or encumbrance. Overall, it is too basic even for C&C.
The adventure "Lion in the Ropes" is an old 3e introductory module that was converted over. It seems fine, but I haven't read it in depth.
