Castles and Crusades

[Neopopulas]

I haven't played C&C but i'm sort of familiar with it, and i've seen it played. I liked the mix of OSR and more modern DnD-style games. I've been playing modern games for a long time now and i feel like i appreciate the old OSR style a little more - not everything about it, i'm mature enough to admit some of it is kinda garbage - but still, there is an appeal there. I especially like how classes often work in OSR. It has this strange blend of simplicity but also just a ton of variety. C&C isn't quite like that (it only has 12 classes) but when you look you see some niche classes that you don't see in modern games.

Modern games prefer to give you big, general classes that hold a niche and they you refine them with tons of options, but other systems give you tons of niche classes instead. C&C for example adds in Knight and Assassin. I also tend to like how it handles magic.

[Excior]

Are you saying Halflings can not have a strength score over 9 I think it was? or was it 6?

[cailano]

On 8/13/2023 at 3:03 AM, Neopopulas said:

I haven't played C&C but i'm sort of familiar with it, and i've seen it played. I liked the mix of OSR and more modern DnD-style games. I've been playing modern games for a long time now and i feel like i appreciate the old OSR style a little more - not everything about it, i'm mature enough to admit some of it is kinda garbage - but still, there is an appeal there. I especially like how classes often work in OSR. It has this strange blend of simplicity but also just a ton of variety. C&C isn't quite like that (it only has 12 classes) but when you look you see some niche classes that you don't see in modern games.

Modern games prefer to give you big, general classes that hold a niche and they you refine them with tons of options, but other systems give you tons of niche classes instead. C&C for example adds in Knight and Assassin. I also tend to like how it handles magic.

Six. They’re three feet tall. I’ve never understood why their strength is so high in most systems. To me, that ruins the point of playing such a small character. Can you imagine a six year old child with the strength of an adult man? And I know halflings aren’t children, which is why their strength can be six instead of three.
 

Gnomes, dwarves, and elves also have strength caps. Humans and Half-orcs are the largest races, and thus the strongest.

[Excior]

19 minutes ago, cailano said:

Six. They’re three feet tall. I’ve never understood why their strength is so high in most systems. To me, that ruins the point of playing such a small character. Can you imagine a six year old child with the strength of an adult man? And I know halflings aren’t children, which is why their strength can be six instead of three.
 

Gnomes, dwarves, and elves also have strength caps. Humans and Half-orcs are the largest races, and thus the strongest.

yea but making them have a score of 6 I could understand making their scores max out at +0 they may be the size of a kid but they can have muscle muscle mass. the only halfling stories I know of was the hobbit and Bilbo and Frodo and the rest was not described as being weak in a fight ( Having a neg number to hit will greatly hinder them)

[cailano]

It would! Playing a melee-focused Halfling character would be a challenge. But then, being a child-sized person in a sword fight against a big, strong opponent would be a challenge.

That said, if someone really wanted to do it, I would work with them. There is an equivalent to feats in the Castle Keeper's Guide that we could potentially look at on a character-by-character basis, or they can try to offset with some of the bonuses of Fighters (weapon specialization) or Rangers (combat marauder) along with placing high stats in Dex or Con. Also, Halflings can multi-class, giving them some advantages over their human counterparts.

In short (heh), it's not a race/class combo I'd recommend to someone new to RPGs, but I think it could be a lot of fun for someone who wanted to get creative and RP an interesting character who would seem, on the surface, not well-suited to their job.
 

[cailano]

I've reworked the setting description in the game and I like it a lot better now. Aihrde has been a bit of a beast to wrap my head around, but I think I've got it well enough to start a campaign.

I've been running a lot of OSR games lately, and they've all been more sword and sorcery than epic fantasy. I haven't paid much attention to setting in any of them.

That said, I love settings, and I'd like this Castles and Crusades game to lean toward the epic. That means I have to bring in the history and lore, so hopefully, I can find a batch of players that appreciate that sort of thing.

[Neopopulas]

I was looking in the Castle Keepers book and they do have a recommended attribute generation type for epic fantasy so it certainly supports it.

Looking through i think there are some really fun combos but you really have to turn off your 5e brain for it. I'm loving the look of a simple elven fighter though. Normally i'd angle for magic in one of these but i'm not feeling this one.

[cailano]

I have a house rule in place that I borrowed from a Dungeon Crawl Classics forum online. It's the Zero-To-Hero rule.
 

• Initial characters are generated using 3D6, with results placed however the player would like
• At each new level, the player chooses an attribute and rolls 3D6, if they roll higher than the chosen attribute, it increases by 1.

The idea is to create that epic fantasy character arc. Sure, your fighter might only have a 12 Strength at level one, but by level 10 it could be 15 or 16, and likely your character's Constitution and maybe other stats will have increased as well. This makes a lot of sense to me, one would expect that characters would get physically and mentally sharper as they gained experience.

[Malkavian Grin]

In so being Epic Fantasy, I take that to mean there'll be some pretty big stakes on the table then? I.E. world-ending stuff we have to stop or perhaps a large-scale war or something equally gigante? (no spoilers necessary)

[cailano]

2 hours ago, Malkavian Grin said:

In so being Epic Fantasy, I take that to mean there'll be some pretty big stakes on the table then? I.E. world-ending stuff we have to stop or perhaps a large-scale war or something equally gigante? (no spoilers necessary)

That’s the kind of thing that is on the table, although I don’t have a central plot in mind. But that’s the genre. Wheel of Time, Belgariad, Rift War kind of stuff. Aihdre lends itself to that style of fantasy.
 

But the game is more about what the players want to do. Want to stop the rise of a dark lord? You can do that. Want to build a stronghold, raise an army, and flat-out conquer the place the monsters come from? That’s also fine. Want to raid dungeons and get rich? There are plenty to raid. Want to search for arcane secrets in the lost ruins of the God-Emperors? I think you get the idea.
 

I’m going to use the Mythic GME to generate random game elements from time to time, so even I don’t know what all is out there.

[Malkavian Grin]

1 hour ago, cailano said:

I’m going to use the Mythic GME to generate random game elements from time to time, so even I don’t know what all is out there.

That's one of the reasons I'm interested in this game. I feel like it has a lot of potential to be, quite frankly, awesome.

[cailano]

On 8/13/2023 at 3:03 AM, Neopopulas said:

I haven't played C&C but i'm sort of familiar with it, and i've seen it played. I liked the mix of OSR and more modern DnD-style games. I've been playing modern games for a long time now and i feel like i appreciate the old OSR style a little more - not everything about it, i'm mature enough to admit some of it is kinda garbage - but still, there is an appeal there. I especially like how classes often work in OSR. It has this strange blend of simplicity but also just a ton of variety. C&C isn't quite like that (it only has 12 classes) but when you look you see some niche classes that you don't see in modern games.

Modern games prefer to give you big, general classes that hold a niche and they you refine them with tons of options, but other systems give you tons of niche classes instead. C&C for example adds in Knight and Assassin. I also tend to like how it handles magic.

It’s got a lot of strengths and seems to have a knack for finding the sweet spot between different styles of play.

[cailano]

1 hour ago, Malkavian Grin said:

That's one of the reasons I'm interested in this game. I feel like it has a lot of potential to be, quite frankly, awesome.

I hope so! It’s going to take a strong group and some time.

[Neopopulas]

4 hours ago, cailano said:

That’s the kind of thing that is on the table, although I don’t have a central plot in mind. But that’s the genre. Wheel of Time, Belgariad, Rift War kind of stuff. Aihdre lends itself to that style of fantasy.
 

But the game is more about what the players want to do. Want to stop the rise of a dark lord? You can do that. Want to build a stronghold, raise an army, and flat-out conquer the place the monsters come from? That’s also fine. Want to raid dungeons and get rich? There are plenty to raid. Want to search for arcane secrets in the lost ruins of the God-Emperors? I think you get the idea.
 

I’m going to use the Mythic GME to generate random game elements from time to time, so even I don’t know what all is out there.

Belgariad and Rift War. I haven't heard those names in awhile.

[cailano]

7 hours ago, Neopopulas said:

Belgariad and Rift War. I haven't heard those names in awhile.

I just scored the first four Rift War novels at a used bookstore for $12. Now I have to re-read them. It’s been a while.