 Goto [ Index ] |
My players, 9th level, ventured onto the Shadow Plane to rescue one of their associates, who had been imprisoned in a black castle deep in the plane. The castle gate was guarded by the aforementioned wraiths and erinyes, and combat ensued.
Halfway through, I realized that my players were manipulating figures on the battlemat as if this were a complex board game. At the end of long rules-consultations, they announced their actions. "I guess I'll cast flame strike." I spent long seconds flipping around in long stat blocks, selecting from one special ability and another. We had a question about whether a type of weapon would overcome a particular sort of magic resistance, and everyone spent some time looking this up.
I was devastated at the end of this encounter, which should have been an epic combat - it had played like a chess game, not a D&D combat. And I began looking for a lighter rule set, in which I wouldn't be slowed down as much by the rules - I felt that a quicker-resolving combat system might resurrect the sort of play in which the player stands up to demonstrate just exactly how his sword blow is going to cleave an enemy in twain. Then quickly sits back down and rolls a die.
I found Castles & Crusades -- and I have never looked back in the month or so since I bought it. We have played five sessions, and every single one has demonstrated that a quicker style of combat brings back the excitement - there's less page-riffling and more talk about the combat rather than the rules.
The book has typos. I'll mention this at the outset, because my first impression wasn't great. I made the common (and almost always justified) assumption that a book with typos is a book with weak content. In this rare case, it's not true. Castles & Crusades is an incredible rebirth of an older style of gaming - recapturing a feel of intense risk and emotion, full of flavor - mainly because of the pacing.
How's the quicker pacing achieved? The game returns to the archetypal form of character concept - instead of building a character from a large buffet of feats, skills, and prestige classes, characters are created in one of eleven archetypes: fighter, wizard, illusionist, knight, cleric, etc.
Without the vast smorgasbord of d20 options, combat and role-playing move much more quickly. Players don't spend much time looking up rules, they spend time thinking and talking about the SITUATION, not the numbers.
From the game master's side ("Castle Keeper." Ugh.), preparation for the game is incredibly fast compared to the later editions of D&D (about the same as 1E and 2E).
As the DM, I loved the game unreservedly. I found time to build the roleplaying side of my adventures that had been devoted to messing around with monster advancement and preparing for exact DC references.
One of my players hated it at first glance, and still prefers 3E; however, he has been very impressed with the sudden and dramatic change in the quality of play and the richer quality of my DMing that has resulted from the additional time and faster pacing.
Another of my players preferred 3E as a ruleset, but is quite comfortable now with the new system - he prefers the tactical options of 3E.
The other two of my players are into Castles & Crusades pretty much unreservedly. These are the ones who didn't dominate the tactical rules-heavy 3E game. They are suddenly a much bigger part of the party and are certainly a bigger factor in combat than they were before.
I'm not going to cover the exact rules of C&C, which have been reviewed before, both favorably and unfavorably. Suffice to say that it's very similar to a cross between AD&D and d20, using d20 mechanics to improve AD&D but without adding the entire d20 system into the bundle. It plays like a streamlined, mosern AD&D. There are no feats and a very slick new system for skills. Characters aren't as closely tailored in terms of rules mechanics. House-ruling is considerably easier than it is in 3E - we added feats back into the system, but use the stripped-down skill rules.
That's my review. If you feel like your game's missing a certain vitality, a certain snap - if you feel swamped by preparation for the game, or unable to keep track of your players' vast array of specialized qualities - if you feel like the characters have an oddly "superhero" feel...you should try this game.
This is something new.
It resurrects an old feeling, and it's reminiscent of an older style of roleplaying, but this is a new and wonderful game. I recommend it unreservedly.
