Hey, all!

I've recently picked up Adventurer Conqueror King System, and am really enjoying it. Any of you played it?

Thinking about starting up a game of it this summer, and wondering if there are any pitfalls to avoid.

I think it's great. I'm currently running a campaign on Roll20. I can't say there are any pitfalls as such, but do bone up on how healing works; it's a bit more subtle and convoluted than other systems.

I love it. No real pitfalls. Don't worry about boning up on the higher end domain and economics stuff when you get started. You won't need much of it (other than market class availability) for a while. If quantum uncertainty bothers you, roll the D6 for the mortal wounds table as soon as someone goes down. That way you can describe the generalities of the injury (i.e. location), even though the specifics won't be known until someone treats them.

I really don't understand the love for it. The vaunted dominion system is almost literally Companion D&D (minus the mass combat rules) and the trade system was ripped straight from the GAZ series (09 and 11).

You can see where they copied tables.

"Rabbit, hen" one of them starts. Guess what, so does the same chart in Gaz 09. The rest is changed up a little, but it's obvious it was the source.

It's not terrible (except for their choice to use a different way of determining to hit that doesn't use either regular AC or ascending AC) but it's not even remotely original, yet people act like it had never been done before.

But the rules are literally 20-25 years old.

You are completely missing the point. The similarities to BECMI (specifically some of the domain stuff and some of the trade stuff) and B/X (much of the rest of the system) are a big part of why it's as popular as it is. It's not popular in spite of those things, it's popular because of them. Added to that you are making the rather predictable mistake of those who've given it a cursory read without actually playing it in believing what you regard as small changes to be inconsequential; nothing could be further from the truth. The many, many small changes make for a significantly different game, particularly as one advances in level.

I'm not saying it's to everyone's taste, but dismissing it as BECMI (or B/X, which it's actually closer to) in funny clothes is pretty far from the mark. As far as the rules being 25 years old (or older), this largely describes the entire OSR...is the entire OSR worthless? For me, the neo-clones, such as ACKS, are far and away the best thing to come out of the OSR.

Yeah, its really a re-imagining of the BECMI rules, different enough not to just be a clone.  Has some very good parts, but then some odd choices too I think (like how they handle attack rolls).

Anyways, I reviewed it, think its a nice book and a decent rules-set (especially for what is its specialty: realms management), but I have to say that unlike other games I've gotten (LotFP, DCC) I never ended up actually using it, yet.

Quote from: RPGPundit;760411Has some very good parts, but then some odd choices too I think (like how they handle attack rolls).

This is exceedingly easy to convert to D20-style BAB/AC:

http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?349374-OSR-3-x-ACKs-Conversion-Table

I like ACKS, there's a core of something in there that really appeals to me, shorn of some of the old-school-isms. I used it as the basis for a historical game (no magic, monsters or dungeons) called Tyche's Favourites that was well received by my players.

Quote from: JeremyR;759942I really don't understand the love for it. The vaunted dominion system is almost literally Companion D&D (minus the mass combat rules) and the trade system was ripped straight from the GAZ series (09 and 11).

No it isn't, it's a derivation of the Blue box Moldvay Expert set. I say derivation because it isn't identical (read the two side by side and you'll see the differences), but you can see the influences.

Quote from: Bobloblah;759950You are completely missing the point. The similarities to BECMI (specifically some of the domain stuff and some of the trade stuff) and B/X (much of the rest of the system) are a big part of why it's as popular as it is. It's not popular in spite of those things, it's popular because of them.

Pretty much this.  If "all" I have to do to derive ACKS is somehow know, 30+ years after the fact, that I need to ebay Companion D&D, the right color box of Expert, and GAZ series #'s 9 and 11 (when I don't even know what GAZ is here) then...  I'll take the book that's in print, cleaned up and already collated for me.

Quote from: Bobloblah;759950Added to that you are making the rather predictable mistake of those who've given it a cursory read without actually playing it in believing what you regard as small changes to be inconsequential; nothing could be further from the truth. The many, many small changes make for a significantly different game, particularly as one advances in level.

And also some of this.  The damage bonus that fighters (and fighter types) get, plus cleave equal to your fighter level, feels like a bigger boost in play than may come across when you're reading it.

Quote from: Saladman;760447Pretty much this.  If "all" I have to do to derive ACKS is somehow know, 30+ years after the fact, that I need to ebay Companion D&D, the right color box of Expert, and GAZ series #'s 9 and 11 (when I don't even know what GAZ is here) then...  I'll take the book that's in print, cleaned up and already collated for me.

There is no question that we founded ACKS on Moldvay Basic, Cook Expert, Mentzer Companion, and Gazetteers 9 and 11; but the game is substantially revised from those books. I know this because I *started* with those books and it took years of active play to develop ACKS from that foundation.

Among the changes... modulating prices and adjusting wage rates to be properly related; correcting the cargo capacity of ships to historical levels; tying the domain management rules into the mercantile rules so that you can trade at the city you run; tying the treasure rules into the mercantile rules so you can engage in arbitrage with your loot; adding hijink rules for thieves so they can steal the merchandise in the towns; magic research rules to create crossbreeds and constructs and undead and ritual magic; congregation and blood sacrifice rules; developing XP for campaign activities rules that correlate to the demographics of NPCs, the living expenses of nobles, and the GP earned from trade, rule, and magic research;  etc. The spreadsheets alone for this work run to dozens of tabs and thousands of entries.

But even if you disregard ALL of the above, ACKS still offered a useful service to the OSR. How many campaigns, prior to ACKS, were actively running using Companion domains and the Gazetteer trade rules? None that I know of. Now there are many using ACKS.

QuoteAnd also some of this.  The damage bonus that fighters (and fighter types) get, plus cleave equal to your fighter level, feels like a bigger boost in play than may come across when you're reading it.

Yes. I think this gets overlooked a lot. It was very thoroughly playtested. The best rules are simple but have important impact.

Spellcaster's repertoires and non-Vancian spellcasting are also substantially different in play even though the game "reads" closely to B/X.

I got a copy from Tavis.  It looks like a nice game, although I confess that I didn't read it closely enough to figure out how the combat system would be different from OD&D.

Which is OK because the rules are the least important part of any RPG experience.

I did like the domain stuff, and how there are different domain paths for each class.

The only thing I really didn't like was that you are supposed to come up with a "group name" for your group, like the "Invincible Brotherhood" or some such nonsense.  This struck me as a total tone-breaker, being the sort of overwrought emotional crap you get from fourteen year olds who really think it's COOL that their Boy Scout patrol is named "Eagle Patrol."

It's also the place where the authors miss "replicating OD&D play" by a quadrillion parsecs.  It assumes "a group," whereas both Dave and Gary ran "a bunch of players, any subset of whom may play together at a given time, and whose interactions range from friendly rivalry to outright competition for scarce resources."

The "One True Band of Heroes" is the exact OPPOSITE mindset of the early years of Blackmoor and Greyhawk, and its inclusion is the single biggest disappointment.

Not to mention when you have character names like "Yrag" and "Robilar" and "Sir Fang" and, Crom help us, "Gronan of Simmerya," if you FORCE players to come up with a "group name," you have nobody but yourself to blame when you get "Order of the Stick."

In my college group we would have ended up with "The Hairy Nutted Monster Whackers."  Or, more likely, "The Hairy Monstered Nutsack Whackers."

Quote from: Old Geezer;760581It's also the place where the authors miss "replicating OD&D play" by a quadrillion parsecs.  It assumes "a group," whereas both Dave and Gary ran "a bunch of players, any subset of whom may play together at a given time, and whose interactions range from friendly rivalry to outright competition for scarce resources."

The "One True Band of Heroes" is the exact OPPOSITE mindset of the early years of Blackmoor and Greyhawk, and its inclusion is the single biggest disappointment.

OG, is there a game that you'd recommend for that style of play (outside of early iterations of D&D)?  That style of play is exactly what I'm interested in when I play D&D.

Quote from: robiswrong;760582OG, is there a game that you'd recommend for that style of play (outside of early iterations of D&D)?  That style of play is exactly what I'm interested in when I play D&D.

It's how myself (and many others if the play reports online are to be believed) actually play ACKS. Without searching the book, I don't even know what OG's comment was about; the intro fiction interspersed with "what is an RPG", maybe? Regardless, ACKS is extremely well suited to troupe play, if that's your thing. Moreso, even, than any version of actual D&D that I've played.

Quote from: Bobloblah;760584It's how myself (and many others if the play reports online are to be believed) actually play ACKS. Without searching the book, I don't even know what OG's comment was about; the intro fiction interspersed with "what is an RPG", maybe? Regardless, ACKS is extremely well suited to troupe play, if that's your thing. Moreso, even, than any version of actual D&D that I've played.

Awesome, thanks.

My go-to systems for that have always been B/X and 1e, but they're pretty clearly evolved systems (NTTAWWT).  A system that takes the evolved goodness and does a design pass on it would be pretty much my sweet spot for games.

I don't think 5e is *really* aimed at that, unfortunately.

Quote from: Old Geezer;760581The only thing I really didn't like was that you are supposed to come up with a "group name" for your group, like the "Invincible Brotherhood" or some such nonsense

Oh, I don't like that sort of thing either. In Earthdawn a group can have a collective identity to draw power from and part of that involves naming... our group picked 'The Rat Pack' (we live in Las Vegas) and try as I might I could not convince them that it was a crappy name.
I've generally never liked the adherence to The Group... I'd much prefer something more fluid, where I could have a small stable of characters to pull from... but hardly anyone seems to play that way.

It sounds like ACKS doesn't force it too hard though... that it's not a focus of the game.