Positive: I like the real AD&D vibe that the rules and presentation of the material give. It does "feel" like the AD&D 3rd edition that TSR might have produced rather than the road WOTC went down. I like that classes resemble their AD&D counterparts. I think the rules as a whole are streamlined and coherent, and support a more modern play style (by which I mean a reduction in reliance on tables and different subsystems).

Negative: I think the SIEGE engine as a concept is really intriguing and maybe quite good for streamlined play. HOWEVER, I dislike the emphasis on attributes rather than class for "Primes"— to me, a Thief should have a Prime in anything Thief-background related, not just Dexterity- related. I have read at least a hundred threads on this argument, and understand the reasoning, but just don't agree with it. But as a task resolution system, the SIEGE Primes and Non-Primes is a great and easy to use concept.

Quote from: GamerforHire on October 03, 2023, 01:17:18 PM
Negative: I think the SIEGE engine as a concept is really intriguing and maybe quite good for streamlined play. HOWEVER, I dislike the emphasis on attributes rather than class for "Primes"— to me, a Thief should have a Prime in anything Thief-background related, not just Dexterity- related.

I both agree and disagree.  I actually don't like the idea of a class automatically having compentency in ALL class related tasks. I would prefer that each class have a spread of abilities based on the the different attributes and then your Primes making you better at some of them than others, allowing you to essentially create different sub classes.   

That being said, I generally love C&C and it has become my go-to system when I play D&D style games these days. 

I'm surprised at all the positive comments about C&C. I found that it lacked the quirkiness of AD&D but also lacked the flexibility of third edition. Sort of the worst of both worlds.

The SIEGE skill system is particularly frustrating. In 3e, the player rolls the die, adds the skill value from his character sheet and tells me the number. I just check that number against the target number for that particular skill check. It's fast and easy. With SIEGE, as the DM I need to either know which skills are Prime for each character or I need to tell the player any modifier to the roll. It's just a slower way to do it. And it doesn't match with to-hit vs ascending AC which work the same way as skills in 3e.

It's become my favorite D&D style game, mostly for the reasons mentioned above, but I'll get a bit more specific, while also noting a few negatives.

Positives

1.  It does play like a faster version of AD&D and the Siege Engine is very flexible and easy to grasp.  This includes monsters simply using HD for BtH and that serving as the basic level for DCs for spells and effects.  This does, however, as others have noted, make it scale differently than classic D&D since high level foes facing other high level foes essentially equal each other out.  On the plus side, one could say this is more realistic in that since things are tied to caster level, even the low level spells could be far more powerful when cast by a higher level caster (as in harder to resist in addition to more damaging).

2.  It is super easy to convert stuff from most editions of D&D (except maybe 4th) to C&C.  You can pretty much do it on the fly.  This opens up tons of potential adventures & supplements, including from pretty much anything in the OSR.  It's also super easy to house rule pretty much anything in.  The Castle Keeper's Guide (CKG) has a ton of cool optional rules covering nearly every aspect of the game.

3.  There are enough character class options & tons of spells & equipment, especially if you grab some of the supplemental books.  The classes are pretty close to AD&D but they make a few tweaks to classes & races that I like.  Examples include: spell-casting or non-casting options for bards, rangers & paladins; different abilities for Half-elves who favor Elven or Human parentage (cribbed from Tolkien); auto spell-casting for gnomes; d10 hit dice for monks; a much better system for multi-classing than in AD&D.  They have favored classes for the various races, but you could allow the lame free for all that characterizes later editions if that's your thing.

4.  Technically you can play with just the PHB and Monsters & Treasure.  Troll Lord Games has usually made the PHB free as a pdf on their website.

5.  The Troll Lords are great guys.  Veterans, patriots, super-responsive, and keep politics out of it.  You can tell that they just love gaming, classic fantasy literature, and the other good things in life.

Some Negatives

1.  Their editing is bad and they really show no desire to ever improve it.  They ignore offers to help or even outright corrections when you post them after they circulate manuscripts.  You'll always find a ton of typos and grammatical errors in everything they put out.  This even extends to their announcements & social media posts.  This means that their books, while generally well-made, often feel less polished than they should.

2.  Additionally, the artwork is really hit and miss.  Some is great; some is terrible; a lot is just meh.  They've tried to go color more recently, but the results have been mixed.  I think average art looks better in black & white.

3.  The writing is also uneven.  Sometimes it's fun and evocative.  Other times it's like the ramblings of the Rick Moranis character in "Ghostbusters."  This is particularly true of the Aihrdhe products.

4.  The official adventures vary widely in quality.  Some authors you know to always avoid, but others are hit and miss.  The same goes for their supplements, like the Adventurers Backpack.  A combination of great and worthless material.  But I guess that's true of most games.

5.  Although it's easy to learn, the Siege Engine can be wonky.  It scales different than classic D&D.  And it's not always completely obvious what attribute applies for certain saves for spells.  The more you use it, the easier it gets.

Overall, however, I like the game a lot.  It requires the fewest house rules for me which makes it our current default game of choice.

Honest opinion:

I own it. I've read it. I could never sell my players on it unless I forced the issue. I "kinda" am intrigued by it. BUT... it makes me think "Why run this when I should just do what I've always wanted to do and make my own 10-lvel d20 fantasy heartbreaker version of 1e/2e?

It's a game that is effectively an artifact on my bookshelf as a reference of "something of interest". Would I run it? Only if my group said "We REALLY wanna play some 2e!" And even then it would be up against 2e itself, and it *might* make the cut. But more likely they would say "Let's play Fantasycraft." But that would only happen if the moon fell from the sky.

My unfiltered opinion is the same as any other OSR game.

I like the idea of OSR. I like that it exists. I don't really want to play it.

It sits in a weird spot for me, where my interest is more as a tourist than someone seriously considering running it. 

I typically enjoy those kind of streamline design efforts, and can appreciate something more or less hitting its design intent.  OTOH, the design intent they chose doesn't match what I want.  I wouldn't use 3E as a starting place, and if I did it wouldn't be to simplify it.  I don't care for monster attacks/defense/saves scaling with characters.  The siege mechanic seems to use the complexity budget in a strange way.  I don't doubt it makes the game less complex in some ways, but not where I would have picked.

Bottom line, I'm nowhere near the intended audience to run it.  I'd probably enjoy playing it with a GM that was enthusiastic about it.

The Troll Lord folks seem like really good guys.  Much respect to them.  I own a few Castles & Crusades books, but I'm not sure if I'll ever run it.  I'm generally into lighter, more streamlined games these days, and the C&C books are just way too verbose for my tastes to use at the table.  Shadowdark seems to do what C&C does, but in a much more streamlined presentation.  Shadowdark's use of ability checks and DCs is also much more intuitive to me than the SIEGE Engine.   

I would happily play in a Castles & Crusades game, but for running a D&D-like d20 roll high fantasy game, it wouldn't be my first choice.

Quote from: hedgehobbit on October 03, 2023, 02:12:09 PM
I'm surprised at all the positive comments about C&C. I found that it lacked the quirkiness of AD&D but also lacked the flexibility of third edition. Sort of the worst of both worlds.

Like AD&D, C&C is NOT a skills based game like 3.x.  The goal was to create a real 3rd edition D&D,  modern engine and the "quirkiness removed . WotC's game was not a 3rd edition of D&D but a different animal altogether. 

Quote from: Scooter on October 02, 2023, 09:21:53 PM

Quote from: SmallMountaineer on October 02, 2023, 08:10:03 PM
I wanted to like this game badly but it didn't land for my table. The game seems to lean heavily into the need for class diversity to accomplish basic, "everyday" roleplaying session actions, and it feels so stretched with a party of fewer than four.

Exactly like AD&D.  Which was the design intention.

I'm sure the cobbler tastes right, I just don't think I like the recipe. Nothing against it though, and I hope the Troll Lords make off like bandits republishing Gygax's work!

I am posting this without a ton of contemplation, but as noted above I like the basic idea of the universal task resolution system that the SIEGE engine offers, just that I don't like the tie to attributes. Reading others' comments, I wonder about a heartbreaker variant where I combine C&C basically RAW, but substituting class or "background" for attributes in determining Primes. Get the "backgrounds" from any number of OSR games such as Barbarians of Lemuria, Into the Unknown, or even 5e D&D itself. Maybe combine this with the C&C variant rule of having Primes, secondary tests, and tertiary tests, with Class, Background, and "everything else" being the three categories.

Don't be too harsh. I am just brainstorming with a gin and tonic in one hand ...

  The typos hurt, man. That and the adventures can be really hit or miss in the "neat! almost inspired!" to "boiler plate, are you even trying?" range. And SIEGE engine feels a little tacked on instead of robust playthroughed.  But it's like that happy golden retriever who isn't too bright and has a favorite stinky blanket it brings everywhere, but otherwise is always trying to please.  I know, I know, not the best explanation, but that's what it feels like to me.

Quote from: GamerforHire on October 04, 2023, 07:52:45 PM
I am posting this without a ton of contemplation, but as noted above I like the basic idea of the universal task resolution system that the SIEGE engine offers, just that I don't like the tie to attributes. Reading others' comments, I wonder about a heartbreaker variant where I combine C&C basically RAW, but substituting class or "background" for attributes in determining Primes. Get the "backgrounds" from any number of OSR games such as Barbarians of Lemuria, Into the Unknown, or even 5e D&D itself. Maybe combine this with the C&C variant rule of having Primes, secondary tests, and tertiary tests, with Class, Background, and "everything else" being the three categories.

Don't be too harsh. I am just brainstorming with a gin and tonic in one hand ...

A couple things about primes that I don't think have come up yet.  First, even if you use RAW, where class determines one of your primes, you get to select the other(s).  This allows for a fair degree of customization within classes since these choices can have significant in game effects.  So if you want a martial cleric, make your other primes Str & Con, or Str & Dex.  If you want that spiritual leader, make your other primes Cha & Int.  Plus, some people actually make their lower attributes their primes.  You can have a fighter with 9 Str as a prime and 17 Cha as non-prime.  So your base CL for Str will be 12, but now for Cha it's 16 instead of 18.  As you level up, this gets more significant.

Finally, because of how saves are distributed fairly equally amongst the stats, there are no real dump stats in C&C.  Charisma, for example, which was always our dump stat back in the B/X and 1e days, is used for death, charm, and fear attacks, and for Clerics' turning.  So it's not easily discarded.

After reading the replies, I'm just gonna say this: in ACTUAL PLAY, C&C is basically AD&D. It totally is. It might not look like it is given a reading of the rules, but that's how it plays at the table.

Yeah, there are issues, just like every other game in existence. The only way to fix that, honestly, is to write your own game exactly how you want it. And I'm sure most of us have at one time or another...I wrote a fantasy heartbreaker based on BIO-E from TMNT when I was in junior high. Was it any good? No idea, but I liked it. That said, sometimes you just want to play some Gygaxian Greyhawk, and C&C gives that to you without some of the more opaque parts of AD&D.

SIEGE engine "needs work", primes don't always "work out right", saves (for me) are less than ideal, etc., etc., etc. But when we're playing, it works fine. And sometimes fine is all you really want when you're drinking with your buddies and beating the fuck out of orcs in lost tombs.

Quote from: Brad on October 05, 2023, 11:54:22 AM
After reading the replies, I'm just gonna say this: in ACTUAL PLAY, C&C is basically AD&D. It totally is. It might not look like it is given a reading of the rules, but that's how it plays at the table.

Yes, I think they hit their design goal with that.  Not surprised as Gary had a hand in its design as a "3rd Edition"