I like Castles & Crusades, and I have settled on this as my primary fantasy game. I went through a few OSR games to settle here, starting at Labyrinth Lord, moving on to Old School Essentials, struggling with Pathfinder 2e, loving Dungeon Crawl Classics, revisiting Pathfinder 1e, loving Swords & Wizardry, loving Savage Pathfinder, and then settling on C&C.
I did not want too much gonzo Appendix N since some games lean into that heavily. I love the science-fantasy genre, but I want a game that hits that fantasy sweet spot of the fantasy novels from the 1980-2000 period, where there is no technology, space travel, wild anime-inspired races, planar living, classic fantasy background centric, and the entire world can be grounded and relatable.
If I want Appendix N, Dungeon Crawl Classics is the king.
Savage Pathfinder is a very cool game and one I hope to be playing more. I just don't have time for it now and had to shelve the game for a while to focus on my current projects. It is a very cinematic romp through the classic Pathfinder world. It delivers on the promises all that classic Pathfinder art makes of an action-packed, swords-and-sorcery world filled with fantastic locations and terrifying monsters.
Swords & Wizardry would be my game if I didn't have Castles & Crusades. It is perfectly AD&D-lite, and it preserves fundamental mechanics like magic resistance. The one thing Swords & Wizardry has - through the excellent Frog Gods Games site - is adventures that are 100% OSR compatible and some of the best classic dungeons and settings you can find in the OSR right now. All of these Swords & Wizardry adventures are my Greyhawk replacement world, easily compatible with C&C, and they realize the Greyhawk dream of a world filled with dangerous dungeons literally everywhere, ancient histories of forgotten empires, savage cults, kingdoms in turmoil, and ancient demonic evil rising up from deep below.
Lost Lands and the adventures within are a true treasure to the OSR.
And Swords & Wizardry is one of the best OSR games out there that remains faithful to the original rules and eliminates many problems introduced in later editions. You don't need 4d6 and drop the lowest stat-flation character generation; you can roll 3d6 down the line and be just fine. I initially did not like this game because of the lesser importance of ability scores, but now I see it as a liberating and pure OSR experience. This is D&D before the hardcore character optimizers got to the game, and all you have left is the "the player matters more" style of old-school play.
But Castles & Crusades is a masterpiece. No wonder the core rules have not changed since 2004; they do not need to. All the legacy cruft has been thrown away; lists of saving throw numbers, skill lists, proficiencies, skill points, thief skills, racks of extra numbers, feats, and the character sheets are wonderfully simple. The character sheet is even easier to maintain than Old School Essentials. You have your ability scores and roll against them, and everything from skills, class abilities, and saves are handled the same way.
The game feels like classic AD&D, without all of the chart references. You play from your character sheet and never need to open a book during play. Where a game like Old School Essentials spends a lot of time and energy on ensuring you can find the correct chart at the right time, C&C does away with almost all of the charts.
Simplification is the best organization.
If you ever feel your character sheet is a complicated mess, you have too many numbers to write down, long skill lists make your eyes water, multiple saves against strange effects make no sense, and your character becomes a horrid complicate mess beyond level 8, then Castles & Crusades is for you. And the characters level up and get new abilities up to maximum level. There is always something cool coming up next, and characters remain playable and enjoyable past level 10 - and level 20.
With C&C, the characters play remarkably like an OSR game. I really can't see that much of a difference. You have a full save and skill system "baked in" to the six ability scores you can use at any time. Need an STR check; the system has you covered. Need a mage to read runes? The system does that. Need to swimming skill check? Want a CHR roll? Diplomacy skill roll? Poison save? Spell save? Lockpicking roll? Tracking roll? The system does all that, too, from the base six ability scores.
Want to play the game more like OSR? Ignore most uses for the Siege Engine, use the OSR ruling GM system, and just use it for saving throws. Want it to play more like a modern game? Use the Siege Engine to replace skill lists and make social skill rolls with CHR. Or do a mix, make rulings as you see fit, and call for ability rolls if they are absolutely needed.
And numerically, the game is compatible with every OSR and classic AD&D, AD&D 2e, and D&D adventure with very few changes. My characters can adventure through classic AD&D adventures, Keep on the Borderlands, Labyrinth Lord's Barrowmaze, Swords & Wizardry's Rappan Athuk, and any other adventures I can find - new or old. It is like owning a "classic game emulator" and having it be compatible with dozens of game cartridges and systems, and being able to play everything and anything anytime you want.
The OSR is like that already, but C&C does them all, and the game rids itself of needless character sheet confusion and tax-form style number tracking that changes at every level. One reviewer said C&C added the Siege Engine and said an OSR-style game doesn't need this "extra system," and dismissed the game entirely. When you fully understand all the game throws out - the Siege Engine is a genius system to replace every legacy bolted-on system they taped to D&D and AD&D to make the system work.
C&C is a clean, modern, simplified design that embraces the best of the OSR.
There is no uncertainty or upcoming rules update to endlessly watch Youtube pundits opine upon for clicks and ad money. I don't like falling into the trap of the Youtube "5E is popular thus, this is all we talk about" sort of consumerist mentality. They will talk endlessly until the new edition is released, and nothing will change. Instead of spending more money on upcoming rules updates, waiting for whatever Wizards has already decided, and worrying about how the game is changing, I can just play.
And I do not have to worry about the rules.
This is the beauty of the OSR and games that embrace that design theory. C&C is compatible with the revolution in thinking and how games are made, away from centralized corporate control that tells you something will be in the next edition or not, to a more independent creator and small producer economy where everyone gets to produce and consume. The games are evergreen and work together well.
And there are so many free options in the OSR, so money is not a barrier to play. Some systems are printed at cost, with books that cost under the price of a sandwich or cup of coffee.
And in the OSR, everyone is free to clone, write new games, use other games, or pick the one they love the most. If a game goes out of print or loses favor, someone will likely clone it and keep it going. It is an open-source movement but for tabletop RPGs. No one can "own" the movement or gatekeep; the OSR is for everyone.
If C&C does not do it for me one day or somehow "goes away" and someone doesn't clone it, dozens of other OSR games can step right in, and all my adventures still work. There is no versioning, re-buying, wasted money, forced upgrades, or feeling left out.
The books I have don't need to be thrown out, reprinted, or updated just because a few things change in the core rules. The OSR is arguably more environmentally friendly than systems that print new editions every 10 years and invalidate libraries of books. Shipping, production, printing, toxic chemicals, air pollution, paper production, and production costs all add up - especially for games that ship millions of books a year and go thru Amazon.
Someone with a 20-year-old C&C rulebook could walk up to my table and be able to play by the rules. Same with Labyrinth Lord, S&W, or any other OSR game.
That is an evergreen game.
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