Quote from: Omega;1119982Back on topic. Such as it was.

What was the point of this new edition? Why not just reprint the original?

Basically money, as per usual. I don't see a lot of rule changes, but sometimes reading the pdf gives me headaches, so I can't say for sure what rules got changed.

Well damn.

Remember, if you want a Medieval Authentic RPG that looks at the medieval world through the eyes of the people that lived it, instead of through the eyes of 2020 Seattle hipster-socialists, you can always buy Lion & Dragon!

Hi there all,

I am a HUGE fan of C&S early editions but 3rd, 4th and it seems now 5th is a waste of time? I have played and GM'd 2nd edition since it first came out in 1983 and still GM it every Friday night to this day.

I am confused by all this drama about SJW's and all the rest. Can someone please let me know clearly what this is all about? Sorry if I sound ignorant but I love C&S and mastered it and it seems there is a cloud hanging over the newer version these days. I want to know what has happened?

PS Yeas I am old school, I am from GenX and I say what I mean and mean what I say. I personally don't give a flying (you know what) about political correctness and all that woke crap - I do not hold back as a GM and will roleplay any situation with no forethought to anyone's sensitivities and even my younger Millennial players love my brash no holds bared style of GM'ing.

Forodin

Quote from: Forodin on April 09, 2022, 12:20:54 PM
I am confused by all this drama about SJW's and all the rest. Can someone please let me know clearly what this is all about? Sorry if I sound ignorant but I love C&S and mastered it and it seems there is a cloud hanging over the newer version these days. I want to know what has happened?

As undramatically as possible, the publishers of the 5th edition of C&S have added a fair bit of text throughout the "fluff" of the game that goes on about the difference between mediaeval and modern social sensibilities, both in complimentary (Mediaeval Europe had a broader cross-cultural and multi-ethnic exposure than assumed) and critical ways (they were more prone to group prejudices and persecution, often violently so). Look in this thread for the post about "A persecuting society" to get the idea.

If you really love the game for its own sake the Woke stuff is ignoreable. Myself I don't like to give money to people who can't keep politics I don't like out of their game.

If you're going to write Medieval Fantasy Clone Number 5487, you need a better premise than, "We thought diversity and racism hasn't been covered before."

I've literally got 20+ fantasy RPG PDFs in my phone right now, some of which are very straightforward about being proactive about rare sexual orientations & non-traditional relationships. 

Does your game do something more than 6 ability characteristics and using a fixed armor class for defense during a sword fight?   No?  Then have fun.   I've got  plenty else to keep me busy for a while. 

Quote from: Stephen Tannhauser on April 09, 2022, 01:13:02 PM

Quote from: Forodin on April 09, 2022, 12:20:54 PM
I am confused by all this drama about SJW's and all the rest. Can someone please let me know clearly what this is all about? Sorry if I sound ignorant but I love C&S and mastered it and it seems there is a cloud hanging over the newer version these days. I want to know what has happened?

As undramatically as possible, the publishers of the 5th edition of C&S have added a fair bit of text throughout the "fluff" of the game that goes on about the difference between mediaeval and modern social sensibilities, both in complimentary (Mediaeval Europe had a broader cross-cultural and multi-ethnic exposure than assumed) and critical ways (they were more prone to group prejudices and persecution, often violently so). Look in this thread for the post about "A persecuting society" to get the idea.

If you really love the game for its own sake the Woke stuff is ignoreable. Myself I don't like to give money to people who can't keep politics I don't like out of their game.

Pretty much this and the sames been going on and on and on about any game set before 2010. Though now looks like they are digging up the goalposts in prep for the 2030 wave of this mental disease.

Pulp era 1920 and Victorian era settings have this in their openers more and more and more. Warnings about how WACIST EVERYONE was back then and how THIS game will really real solve all the problems! HONEST!

Rinse repeat ad nausium.

Quote from: Forodin on April 09, 2022, 12:20:54 PMI have played and GM'd 2nd edition since it first came out in 1983 and still GM it every Friday night to this day.

Wow!

What keeps you and your crew so excited about C&S all these decades?

And what's special about C&S 2nd edition?

Hi all,

ty for the explanation on the drama. I was never a fan of C&S 3rd or 4th editions because they went away from the core of what 1st and 2nd editions was all about. Dropping the blows system for AP points annoyed me among other things. I have to be honest here, I am many of my friends are old school, we take the piss out of each other so horrifically via insults, personal attacks and so on that most younger people would blush or run away screaming (I am sure there are plenty others here just like us). It is a term of endearment for us to insult each other and the more we do so the closer we are to each other which others outside the group might not understand. So for us "Political Correctness" in non-existent. No topic is off limits, no storyline is taboo, nothing is off the table at our games table. Our younger millennial players had to get used to this and now they find it refreshing and their own minds have changed to be more like us old farts. They abuse and insult each other with the best of us now. So for me I could not get into 4th edition C&S even though I have a good relationship with Steve Turner over there at C&S, I even had him as part of our C&S private group on FB for a long time and I tried to convince him to create 5th edition with a return to the core concepts of 1st and 2nd editions. He basically refused and the more I got to know him and his close circle the more I knew I did not like where 5th was heading. He even at times tried to pull me up over copyright issues because of the work I was doing over the decades for 2nd edition for my own group and telling me that publishing this work on FB was going against his copyright ownership etc. In the end I quietly removed him from the group, changed the name of the group and made it totally private so he could not find us and talk like that. He had no right as far as I was concerned to make even small threats to me for my own IP for a dead game that was over 35 years old at the time.

As for C&S 2nd edition and why we still play it is because for us it did what no other Fantasy RPG did back in the 1980's (as far as we knew), it had a plethora of rules for individual combat that was lacking from every other system we knew of. We did play AD&D back in 1980-83 and also basic and expert and loved them, we had countless sessions and enjoyed D&D so much. We also played Palladium and Stormbringer etc. But when we began to play C&S in 1983 our gaming world and experience changed literally over night. For example in AD&D you had to roll a D20 to hit based on your level and the AC of the foe. This meant at low level the chance to hit was often 20, 19-20 or 18-20 and players got frustrated with constant missing etc. With C&S your chance to hit was based on your level but even more so was based on your PCF (Personal combat Factor) which was formulated based on the weapon you used, several other attribute factors and your class etc. The end result was your actual "To Hit" number on a D20 which might be from 1-10 or 1-12 ETC. The enemies AC had no say in the matter. You just struck and if you rolled under the number on a D20 you hit. Also, if you rolled low enough you could score a critical hit of even a bash. If you hit the foe would roll dice to try to absorb as much of the hit as possible to reduce weapon damage to flesh. This is called the DAC (Damage Absorption Capacity) of the armour, the armour acted like real armour based on its strength (AC) and its ability to take a pounding.

On top of all of that each player had to keep track of their character's armour, which deteriorated as it was damaged. The more your armour absorbed the more it deteriorated until it could no longer protect you or was repaired at an armourers (which cost money). This made players have to keep money aside to repair armour. The more protection the armour gave you the more costly is is to repair. This created a great care in players to maintain their armour and constantly keep it maintained.

So much of C&S we found was superior to any other system at the time, the Clerical Rules we loved, the Magic rules as well and the encounter tables, Monster profiles and so much more. However, when 3rd edition came out a lot of what we loved started to change, and C&S was no longer what we felt was core and faithful to the original. C&S 2nd edition is a VERY complex system and is difficult to master and I dare say many groups discarded it quickly after the initial box opening. I almost felt that way myself back in 1983 but we started to make characters, played a simple version of the system and slowly and gradually added in more of the deeper more complex rules as we went over a period of maybe 2-3 years. By the mid 80's we had it running at full steam with all of the complexity it had to offer and never looked back. That I believe was how we saved the system from collecting dust and ignored. We took it slowly and added to it as we went.

It is hard to really explain the level of devotion and love we have for the game but I can tell you that over the past 39 years I have had probably 50 or more players sit at my table and play C&S with a smaller core of 8-12 players who are life long friends who are the core of the group. The players who have played in my C&S group over al that time are unanimous in saying that C&S 2nd edition is the most realistic combat simulation they have ever played because if the grittiness, fear and horror the system provides for combat. I have had players tell me the experience is like watching a gory fight scene in a fantasy or medieval movie with all the blood, hacking, bleeding, bashing, and exhaustion you see in those films. One player I remember even told me that he could almost feel every hit when he was struck, and what the pain might feel like but also the jubilation he felt when he triumphed over some tough foe that came close to killing him. This might sound a little dramatized but I can assure you I got this a lot from players, and still do. If I ever even contemplate wanting to GM a different system I get shouted down. This is how devoted they all are to C&S 2nd edition.         

My biggest issue with C&S 5th is due solely to my interactions with Andy Staples who is a cool-aid drinking far left activist.

Quote from: lordmalachdrim on April 10, 2022, 12:48:59 PM
My biggest issue with C&S 5th is due solely to my interactions with Andy Staples who is a cool-aid drinking far left activist.

Oh my God, yes! He'd climb his soapbox and go on and on about women doing great shit in history. I kept thinking - we know this, dude. Calm down. It was nonstop with him pointing out diversity.

The very same week I first encountered D&D back in 1981 a kid with a locker near mine had a copy of Chivalry & Sorcery. He told me it was like D&D but better.

I didn't see that game again until years later when I scored a copy on eBay (yeah, THAT much later!) and, well, it wasn't better than D&D. Far from it.

QuoteI was never a fan of C&S 3rd or 4th editions because they went away from the core of what 1st and 2nd editions was all about.

Were these differences purely mechanical, or were they changes in the style and atmosphere of the implied settings?

ETA: And what's your opinion of the "updated 1st edition" Red Book?

First edition was essentially a class and level game albeit a disorganized and quirky one.  It's been a few years since I had a copy but it was built around specific subsystems with modifiers for classes in the subsystems rather than gathered together in one place.

Third edition is the only one I played.  It's a percentile skill game where your class reduces the cost of certain skills.  It's better organized and clearer than first edition, I never got second edition so I can't really speak to it, my understanding is that it's a reorganized first edition that's got larger type.

First edition is incredibly densely packed.  It's got everything including miniatures battle rules crammed in there.  And you can play a balrog if you want because balrogs are totally medieval authentic   Really it's pretty much Ed Simbalist and Wilf Blakhaus putting their D&D house rules into a big red book.

But here's the thing about third edition, despite sharing characteristic names and a basic medieval ethos it's a completely different game more structured, more rigid, and probably "better" in many respects though the magic system lost a lot of flavor.  I left it for Rolemaster Standard System.  But first edition's charm is largely lost.  I didn't do fourth edition because I felt it came too soon after third.  And fifth, well, I'd rather have a copy of first at this point you know?

Quote from: Stephen Tannhauser on April 10, 2022, 11:22:39 PM

QuoteI was never a fan of C&S 3rd or 4th editions because they went away from the core of what 1st and 2nd editions was all about.

Were these differences purely mechanical, or were they changes in the style and atmosphere of the implied settings?

ETA: And what's your opinion of the "updated 1st edition" Red Book?

Many of the changes from 2nd edition to 3rd and so on were indeed mechanical but the essence of C&S was lost because many sections were left out or re-written. Black Magic was deleted. All references to Tolkien were also omitted (you can understand why), the original C&S combat blows system was deleted and replaced by an AP system which sucked. and many more changes were implemented. The result was that 3rd failed, 4th failed and now 5th is failing I believe. I am not saying that 1st and 2nd were great sellers, far from it, the level of complexity of these versions and the way they were written was not great. But neither was the original D&D system in any great and perfect format either in the late 70's. However, with 2nd edition much of the chaos of 1st edition was cleaned up, reformatted and typeset in a MUCH better format with many subtle tweaks that really helped the system, not replace it with different mechanics etc. If you played a basic version of 2nd edition first and then gradually added in more of the complex elements over time you could easily master the system but sadly many player groups did not do this. C&S 2nd edition failed because players did not like the complexity and did not try to ease their way into the system. I know this because I have spoken to many players since 1983 who explained this very issue to me over the years.

My belief is that 2nd edition is the REAL version of C&S, the first edition was haphazard, chaotic, confusing with VERY small font all crammed into ONE big red book. The ideas and rules were great as a reference source but to many players it failed to catch their attention as a complete system. 3rd edition was an attempt to modernise C&S back in the early 2000's but it too failed because of the reasons I outlined previously and players were not sold on its worth. 4th edition was an attempt to try to re-write 3rd edition into the same 3 book format as was 2nd edition to bring back some nostalgia for the 1983 2nd edition but it failed because they gutted it and it no longer felt like old school C&S, it was just a revamped split up version of 3rd. And we all know how 5th is going, or not going.

The great thing about 2nd edition is that it is still VERY old school, clunky, has holes, gritty, has demon summoning, Black Magic, Tolkien references all the way through it even down to the Necromancers and their pursuit of the Rings of Power etc. For obvious reasons this was all taken out of later versions to the detriment of the system. It is very hard to explain why it is so loved by my group over the years, I wish I could have all of you who are intrigued make characters and go through a session or two run by me to show you first hand why I believe it is such a good system. But I know you can indeed find PDF version of 2nd edition all over the internet (if you look hard enough) and try it for yourself. It is worth the effort and I can think of no other system that would provide such a realistic and gritty portrayal of individual combat. This was the part of the system that set it apart from AD&D at the time but many groups did not want that much realism in their combat and I di understand that. However, I know many AD&D players from that time who did make C&S characters and did play in my group who were amazed at the depth of the combat rules. The feedback comments I kept getting was; "I am glad you GM'd this system for me and explained the combat sequence and choreography of it because if I and my group tried to do this ourselves were would have given up, its way too complex". I had many of these players actually convert to C&S after playing a few sessions and their AD&D and Palladium groups faded away.

What makes it even better is that even though I played C&S in my own world, which was massive and very detailed eventually we switched to Harnworld as the setting. I loved this world and bought all the books back in the day and we switched to Harn by the late 80's early 90's. Harn is a gritty medieval world setting which suited C&S's gameplay style and we never looked back, still play there today every Friday night to this day. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyBgKarU5yg&t=5s
   

Quote from: thomden on April 10, 2022, 04:14:33 PM
The very same week I first encountered D&D back in 1981 a kid with a locker near mine had a copy of Chivalry & Sorcery. He told me it was like D&D but better.

I didn't see that game again until years later when I scored a copy on eBay (yeah, THAT much later!) and, well, it wasn't better than D&D. Far from it.

Sounds like you got a copy of the 1st edition, the RED book? Yeah that is the problem. Compared to other games back in the early 80's C&S might have looked great for many and many like me believed it was a better system (at the time). But I am the first to admit that C&S failed because it was far too complex, poorly typeset, clunky, and many other issues. AD&D had a much larger budget and backing, much easier to play and as we all know took off and never looked back. The guy who told you its like D&D only better would have believed what he said at the time and probably mastered its complexity like I did. There is only a small core of C&S players left in this world sadly but those core players have one thing in common, and that is a love for an old system that provided an experience they understood and enjoyed. Many players bought the system but disliked it, could not understand it or liked the more glossy coloured books of other systems rather than the drab black and white books of C&S. This all comes down to marketing, budget etc.

2nd edition was a MUCH better system than 1st to understand, comprehend and play.

Anyway, this is just my humble opinion, I am sure your reasons for not liking it would depend on what you desire in an RPG and your experiences etc.