What are the advantages and disadvantages of playing Adventurer Conqueror King instead of the Rules Cyclopedia?

I ask because I already have the RC (pod), but just started looking at maybe purchasing ACK.

Oh; I see that Pundit did a review:
http://therpgpundit.blogspot.com/2013/11/rpgpundit-reviews-adventurer-conqueror.html?m=1

I'm assuming you know about ACKS 2?

ACKS has much more options for PCs than the RC, if that's what you're looking for - especially feats (talents).

The RC reaches higher levels and is potentially much more "epic" if that's what you're looking for - especially spells and becoming immortal.

Overall, if I were to play a game RAW, I might choose ACKS over the RC.

ACKS 2 is looking very good, but all these games are, maybe, too crunchy for my tastes (I've been playing my own B/X-inspired RPG).

EDIT: the review you linked mentions "So if there's one criticism that you could make of the way they handled the one thing ACKS is really excellent at, its that the rules don't easily allow for various degrees of commitment.  A guy like me, who might want some simple but sensible rules to manage the basic details of a stronghold but doesn't want to go with the full blown book-keeping package won't really get his needs met.  Its hardcore or bust." - I think this is spot on and I hope ACKS2 fixes that with some free quickstarter.

RC/BECMI is a lot easier of a read and pretty rules light, especially if you go through the box set progression. But it was a game that was sort of designed as they went rather than thinking deeply about the various systems. ACKS has a lot more deep thought put into each of the systems. There's a system for designing dungeons based on the gold value of the dungeon, systems for class, spell, etc design. A more well thought out system for running domains and war. Higher level spells are more well thought out as is magic item creating, including how undead and golems are made. It's a rule system that takes the tropes of D&D and works to create logical rules for them. But it also creates a RPG that's pretty heavy on the crunch.

ACKS 2, along with other recent OSR offerings(Dolmenwood) have sort of used the OGL controversy as an excuse to go back and re-design the game a bit more from the ground up. As a start they're working to de-OGL the content, but while they're doing that they're also cleaning up a lot of rules, adding more flavor, etc. ACKS 2 I'm expecting to still be pretty crunchy, though hopefully you can more easily ignore the crunch and just enjoy the more balanced systems.

Between ACKS 1 and RC, I'd tend towards RC. It's a classic that's easy to house rule/find house rules for the rough spots and you can just ignore many rules. ACKS 1 has good rules, but they're over several books and I feel like the game was a mix of good ideas/rough ideas tossed into a decade of creating supplement books. ACKS 2 could really clean that up and be a winner, but we won't know until it comes out.

I'd also highly recommend Dolmenwood. It's OSE, which is early levels RC, but cleaned up some with a heavy Christian/fairy tale setting vibe. Though it is limited to 15 levels of play and doesn't touch on domain level stuff.

Another option is Dark Dungeons; IIRC, is is a free, streamlined version of the RC.

Yeah...I backed the Dolmenwood Kickstarter, and was pretty excited about it, even making characters with the tax deductions, but, for some reason, after the recent campaign book drop, I'm feeling a little bit of buyer's remorse, and started looking to see what else is out there.

Rules Cyclopedia pros: more levels, old school flavor, weapon masteries power up the fighter and associated classes in a way B/X needed.

Rules Cyclopedia cons: I don't know how you'll see all those levels without time skips, a 20 year campaign, or massive Monty Haulism. The thief in particular got his already arguably weak abilities spread thin over more levels, and now sucks even more compared to the rest of the party.  Weapon masteries could and should be just level based class abilities instead of being locked behind a proficiency system where your fighter can no longer pick up any weapon like Conan. (This last would be the easiest thing in the world to houserule, but I've never heard of an RC DM who does it that way.)

ACKS pros: original 1-14 level range is enough to cover tomb robbers to domain rulers. Fighter bonus damage + cleave powers up fighters and associated classes in a way B/X needed. Thieves get something as well, rather than left behind. Mages' spell repertoire approximates memorization but more flexible in a way that lets less powerful spells get used more often. Integrated economics and domain rules if you need them, but you don't have to use them. There's a new edition coming out, and from what I can see it's got value added after experience learned. Backing the kickstarter (36 hours left) gets you art-free pdfs if you want to avoid buying the legacy edition right before the new one hits.

ACKS cons: a subsystem for (almost) everything makes you tempted to look it up instead of just ruling or rolling a die and moving on. Feats/skills chapter looks to me to be structurally optional and could be dispensed with for a rules-liter game, but isn't called out as such and many players will expect to use it if you bill your campaign as ACKS. Best campaign I ran in ACKS was with the newest players; "worst" (still good, but least best) campaign for me in ACKS the players knew the rules the best, and I felt half the party was playing the rulebook but not the game world. If I run old school D&D again I might just prevaricate about the game I'm running, say it's B/X with houserules, and run ACKS behind the screen. There's a new edition coming out, and the kickstarter isn't actually cheap if you want the full set of books in print.

Quote from: Eric Diaz on November 21, 2023, 10:51:24 AM
... the review you linked mentions "So if there's one criticism that you could make of the way they handled the one thing ACKS is really excellent at, its that the rules don't easily allow for various degrees of commitment.  A guy like me, who might want some simple but sensible rules to manage the basic details of a stronghold but doesn't want to go with the full blown book-keeping package won't really get his needs met.  Its hardcore or bust." - I think this is spot on and I hope ACKS2 fixes that with some free quickstarter.

As with the feats chapter in particular, I feel like this point is partly wrong, or at least over-blown, but I say that in full awareness that more people take the game that way, some of its fans included. But part of the draw of the economics engine and the domain rulership rules for me was that you can pull a number out at any stage and it should work backwards and forwards. So there's nothing like that 3e-ism where you could theoretically buy a ladder, break it up into firewood, and turn a profit. I like having someone else do that work behind the scenes for me, so I can use their price lists without ever having to hit the brakes and try to relate the price of a castle or a spell library to the campaign I'm running, I know the numbers are already integrated.

But, again, there's something in the presentation and the games' own fan base that makes that not at all apparent. And I can't tell yet whether or not making the modularity apparent and accessible is even a design goal in 2e, or if the designer is about to drill down even more.

You can't really lose with either, but I think it's largely about goals and preferences.  ACKS is newer and has tons of detailed supplements, but the RC plugs into tons of older stuff and is a bit easier to use with old stuff if only because of the armor class/throw issue.  At one point I bought a bunch of the ACKS stuff, but it was mostly just to add the extra classes to my OSE game.  After a few months of that, it just got to be too much and was going against the reason we were playing OSE, which was to streamline our experience.  I eventually flipped all my ACKS stuff.  If Autarch just published a class book, I might buy that, but I don't care much for the proficiencies and all the other sub-systems.  I still have my original RC from when it first came out and if we decide we want a long, epic campaign, I'll just use that. 

I also really prefer everything in one book.  With Autarch going with 3 massive volumes for the new edition (and still having lots of material one can only get from 1e supplements), it was a pretty easy pass for me.  After several years of grabbing all kinds of OSR games that overlap in various ways, I'm finally finding myself able to pass on things that duplicate what I already have and know. 

ACKS has a default setting which, in my opinion, is a bit hard to filter out if you don't like it. It feels like Sword & Sorcery in a not-Roman Empire of the not-Mediterranean world. I sort of like it, but you might have something else in mind.

Quote from: Vidgrip on November 22, 2023, 11:16:26 AM
ACKS has a default setting which, in my opinion, is a bit hard to filter out if you don't like it. It feels like Sword & Sorcery in a not-Roman Empire of the not-Mediterranean world. I sort of like it, but you might have something else in mind.

Yeah; I agree.  I find the setting cool, but neither myself nor my players want to bother learning all the lore for it.  The one setting I fully integrated into my campaign was Hyperborea, which was super easy because I just bolted it on as the North Pole area.  That had the added bonus of allowing me to selectively introduce the new monsters, magic items, and classes from that setting to my existing one, which has been a blast.

I think one of the biggest reasons, at least on my end, is that everything you need to run the original D&D modules is in the RC. There's no flipping through different books, or trying to translate different gaming terms, etc. If you read B5 Horror on the Hill and need the stats for an Ogre, you can find it right there in the RC. Going to something like ACKS means there might not always be a 1:1 translation, but honestly that goes for just about any game system you can find. It's usually not a lot of effort to do it.

The other advantage I'll say is that RC comes with the Known World (Mystara) as a immediately usable setting. So if you decide to get GAZ1 Grand Duchy of Karameikos, you can start using it immediately. Plus the RC has the basic Known World information in it. The Known World was designed with the BECMI/Basic version of the rules in mind, so it's literally crafted for that ruleset. Again, conversion isn't that difficult it's just that you may not be able to use the information 1:1.

This is coming from someone who also owns the RC print on demand, but has only looked into ACKS, so take this advice with that in mind.

I ran several adventures for other systems in ACKS by converting on the fly. At root it's a B/X clone, just with more added than a faithful retro-clone. So monsters and HD are especially easy, AC is the thing that needs converted (but you'll get used to that if you do choose it), and PC classes are in the middle, you just have to remember to give fighters and mages their respective benefits.

I really do like ACKS, if my first post didn't recommend it positively I'll do that now. But I'm also coming from a standpoint of being willing to houserule it this time around, and I did have the one group (out of 3) that heard ACKS and all ran out and got the books then started quoting them to me. Depending on your group you might choose RC just to make it clear whose game it was.

A third option though is run RC, and still get some use out of ACKS for GM tools. The class builder and spell builder in the Player's Companion (which I've always thought was slightly misnamed, should have been GM's Option) were built by reverse engineering B/X classes and spells, and should be of interest to any GM running anything out of the Basic Family.

Oh, also - whatever you run, check out Eyrie of the Dread Eye for a good mid/high level adventure. Statted for ACKS but I feel it gets overlooked by GMs who could profit from running it if they're overestimating conversion difficulty.

Quote from: Vidgrip on November 22, 2023, 11:16:26 AM
ACKS has a default setting which, in my opinion, is a bit hard to filter out if you don't like it. It feels like Sword & Sorcery in a not-Roman Empire of the not-Mediterranean world. I sort of like it, but you might have something else in mind.

This was not my experience. I thought it did vanilla or medieval D&D very well. I also restricted some of the Player's Companion classes while adding a few of my own from the builder, so I guess if you've gone full open book I could see it.