You can rewrite B/X all you want, tack on random charts until the book goes over 1,000 pages, or try to patch 5E for another ten years - there is still no getting any better than Castles & Crusades.
But for a B/X, advanced, or any other OSR-style game? Do I need Old School Essentials, Dragonslayer, Labyrinth Lord, or Swords & Wizardry? Not really. Some of them are very nice, but when playing classic adventures (and new ones), you can't beat C&C.
I tried switching to 5E, but it failed horribly. I had boxed up C&C and tried to adopt 5E without other games on my shelves to compete, and 5E crashed and burned. I ran an entire 5E campaign and got bored with the invincible superheroes with too many powers who never die.
I realized that even Open 5E won't fix 5E's problems. Level Up A5E, base 5E, or even ToV - I get bored around level six. The characters get too filled with junk that designers thought was cool. I get to class, ancestry, background, and subclass abilities I don't want or need. 5E characters are junk drawers. Bloated, huge, messy collections of random junk that get worse over time.
I still like GURPS for my detailed, blow-by-blow realism system. GURPS and a fantasy world are excellent; I cannot get enough of this highly immersive, realistic, fantastic simulation. This game is more suited for single-character solo play, and the most I would ever run here are two or three. The characters are detailed and have incredible depth; I only need one or two to run a campaign.
GURPS is a fantastic solo game. Every point I spend matters, every second of time matters, and every choice could be life-or-death. I choose the areas to improve, pick my disadvantages, and live with them. My design is very tight and focused. I make hard choices between combat, social, story, and exploration skills. The experience feels real.
I don't get that from 5E.
When you realize that any 5E designer can add any power, change any rule, create new subsystems, give bonus actions, and do whatever they want in a subclass, race, or background pick, you will see the game's fatal flaw. The game needs standardized systems that designers must adhere to and balance against.
The game didn't start this way, but this design could have been more solid. It allowed future designers to add anything they wanted, exploit players for expansions, and sink the game under its weight. The core engine is solid, but the class, subclass, and skill systems are where most of the problems start. When they had to invent tool proficiencies to cover up the fact the game did not have a complete skill system, that was when the curtain was opened.
5E is a run-on sentence of game design. I have add-on books that made it up as they went along. A lot of the game and third-party content feels like this: Give this class a new power here, tack this new subsystem onto a subclass there. Tool proficiencies are an excellent example of creeping complexity. They don't create a complete set of rules with total skill and task lists; they give you a corkboard to tack rules and systems you need to support as you level.
Many games have a flat complexity level as your character gains experience. 5E rockets up in complexity, so hard players get choice paralysis every combat turn. At level six, even I was sitting there, staring at my sheet, feeling dumb, trying to piece together a worthwhile turn.
I began to miss the GURPS combat turn—one second, one action. You do one thing, even ready a two-handed weapon if you don't have the ST to wield it. It is good stuff. You feel like you are there.
C&C starts like 5E, with ability scores and a resolution mechanic. The classes have iconic powers; you can gain abilities at any level. But it stops there. You don't subclass and constantly jump classes, you don't collect skills, and your character sheet isn't a massive 4-page document.
But C&C can be tweaked to play like anything from 0e to 5E. If you give max hit points at first and minimum average rolled past that and offer a 5E-like feat every 2 levels - you have 5E's power level in C&C without all the complexity. Give 5E's ability score modifiers, and you will begin not to notice a difference.
Play rules-as-written and stick to the original ability score mods? Don't use the optional feat system? You have B/X.
The characters can be played from a 4x6 index card. There are no silly things like saving throw tables, thief skills, a messy skill system, or a 1-30 DC system for ability score checks. We have one universal mechanic that works the same way for everything. If your class level applies to the action, it does. The target number is whether the ability score is primary or secondary.
Full stop. There is so little complexity to this game it puts many rules and light games to shame, yet it is still a full-featured fantasy game.
What I love about playing C&C is that it feels like playing AD&D. The power level can be tweaked from 0e to 5E. Plenty of optional rules exist, and the game is simple enough to make your own. Good is good, and evil is evil. There is a full set of classic monsters, demons, and gods. The multiclassing options beat the tar out of 5E or any other OSR game.
Adventures? Troll Lord sells many amazing ones, and any OSR, B/X, or advanced adventure just works. Barrowmaze? Arden Vul? Tomb of Horrors? Keep on the Borderlands? Rappan Athuk? The Mystara Gazeteers?
Yes to all of the above.
Adventure compatibility is one of the reasons I am dumping all of 5E. If I want to play any of these with my own adventuring parties on my 4x6 cards, it will need to be C&C. Forget 5E; I am not resorting to PDF character sheets or printing out 4-page character sheets at every level; it is a waste of paper, time, and toner. I leveled my thief to level two in C&C, added some hit points, and wrote down a new ability. I am done. With 5E, I am printing pages of rules.
I understand why Gary Gygax finished his gaming career playing C&C. It removes all the mess over the years and keeps the best parts. You can just play and not worry about referencing endless books, tables, charts, percentage tables, x-in-6 skills, or any of this other mechanical cruft and garbage the zeitgeist has enshrined over the years as canon. Junk is junk; throw it out! Some parts of the original edition games were mistakes; we treat them as genius rules and concepts.
C&C is the king of tabletop games, at least for me.
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