How Much Game Do You Need?

Recently, I had to flee my home and stay in a hotel for a few days after a minor disaster. So, I had to take a game on the road. I grabbed the first game I could see, one sitting on a shelf the contractors threw there when they had to move my hall shelves. This one was completely a random "grab it off the shelf" moment, since everything was all over the place, and I needed to head out fast.

That game was Sword of Cepheus, Second Edition. This fit in my iPad Mini travel bag, I grabbed a handful of d6 dice, and I was all set and good to go. This was a choice on a whim, and, in part, the workers in the house made it for me. They left it face-up, alone, on a shelf shoved in my bedroom; they had to move there to get it out of the way.

So, it is fate that decided this for me, just like the roll of a die. I accepted the result and grabbed the book. This was my choice, one of possibly many, but in a way, the book called to me and said, "Grab the sword and accept the quest which first presents itself."

Whoever put that book there for me made a karmic choice for my future, and since it sounded fun, I went with it. Life is about adventure, and there are moments when you do not understand why something happens or how it happened, but you go with it, take that path, and see where it leads.

My small tote bag doesn't even fit an average 10-inch tablet; it is made for smaller devices and holds a digest-sized book (like Shadowdark) nicely. I could have grabbed Shadowdark, but I like the d6 games better for travel, since who wants to carry around a ton of special dice? Six-siders work; they are easy to replace at any supermarket or pharmacy, and they are the universal die.

As I was sitting in the hotel, the thought occurred to me, if my house burned down and I lost all my games, would I be happy with just this? And then I knew, I would. If I lost it all, this game would be good enough for me, and that is a freedom I neer knew I could come to terms with, and a liberation from the massive libraries and shelves full of books this hobbhy foists upon you, constantly screaming, "more is more!" and "you need hundreds of pounds of books to enjoy a game!"

It is all lies.

It is all consumerist garbage.

And it is all designed to part you from as much money as these exploitative gaming companies can manage. In a way, your average pen-and-paper role-playing game company is no different than a mobile game company, though the model is designed to be a little slower and a lot heavier. If they are selling you a library, they are selling you a lie.

These small, indie, community-focused games? They are closer to the true spirit of the hobby: throw-a-book-in-a-bag games that offer the same "depth" and "expressive options" as a game a hundred times its size and weight. Traveller has sort of lost its way with that massive, three-shelf library, and the digest-sized Cepheus games remain closer to that spirit of freedom and portability.

Why do I need to tie my life down with thousands of pounds of books? I am just burying my decades of roleplaying under a mountain of paper and lies. Giant gaming libraries are the dirt we throw on the coffin of our hobby, and they do nothing for me other than to appease some "collector's bug" I have inside my brain.

Collecting is not playing.

Owning more is not enjoying more; it is often the inverse.

Owning more means being more unhappy and playing less.

If I were to add one more game to this, it would likely be the OGL-free FTL Nomad for science fiction (and anything modern) gaming. I would need a slightly larger bag for this, but it would fit into my mobile life much better. I could do fantasy gaming with FTL Nomad, but SoC2 has so many wonderful tables and a Conan-like feeling that I cannot pass that game up.

FTL Nomad covers the rest, and while it doesn't do the 2d6 attributes, if I ever wanted a more traditional 2d6 science fiction game, Cepehus Light (my Car Wars RPG) fits in the bag, too, and is digest-sized. FTL Nomad does more genres and has a nice collection of thin expansion books, so I am getting far more with less.

I have a slightly deeper tote on order, with a 5" depth rather than my current bag's 2.5". While I like the slim bag, I will try the deeper one to see if it is a bit more comfortable for gaming on the go, plus my little notebooks, pencils, erasers, dice, and other gaming bits and bobs. The idea of finally freeing myself from a few thousand pounds of worthless gaming fat and overload is extremely appealing to me.

A few dice that give me a touch of randomness, but not so much that I am deciding which die to use. The polyhedral dice are distractions, and very few of them are statistically different enough to make a real difference. The only difference between a d4, d6, d8, d10, and d12 is a one-point average shift between each die, and nothing a one-point modifier could simulate. Maximums and minimums are nothing compared to the average result you expect over a thousand rolls.

I don't need the polyhedral dice, nor the games that use them.

This is an extra requirement, and another chain tying me to an already worthless and bloated library.

There is a certain magic to carrying every world, game, and universe in a small bag and taking it wherever you go. I have the freedom to point to a destination, attraction, or event and say, "Let's go," and take it all with me. Every world, character, campaign, and idea is in a tiny bag that I can toss over my shoulder and travel with.

All I need are a few six-sided dice.

And my imagination.

And I am finally free of a pile of paper that only serves as a weight to bury my dreams and experiences under. Digital is not the answer. PDFs are not the future.

A simple book that works without an Internet connection or electricity.

The basic die that I can find anywhere.

And freedom.

Off the Shelf: Dungeon Crawl Classics

This is my fourth "off the shelf" article for Dungeon Crawl Classics. I write one of these articles every time a game returns to my "gaming shrine" and most-played shelves. I had DCC in the garage twice over the last four years, grew disillusioned with the game for a while, put it away, and then realized the games I felt would replace it failed me and never were as fun as this one.

One reason is that some on the OSR YouTube channels don't like DCC much, and they are entitled to their opinions. Sorry, DCC is worthy as Shadowdark is. And even Goodman Games says, "DCC does not equal OSR," and that break is good for everyone. This is a beloved game, a throwback tribute rock band to the 1970s and 1980s era of role-playing, when the game cared more about fun, and everyone could play.

The OSR and DCC are different things.

The OSR is the actual game we played in the 1970s and 80s, and there is an open question of whether today's players can understand how it was played back then, amid the mess of other games and sources we brought in. They are a faithful recreation of the rules, often without the context of the time they were played in. People who never played in the era will wonder what the fuss is all about and return to 5E.

A big problem in the OSR is being excellent while replicating rules, but terrible at providing context.

DCC captures the feeling of those times, and how a modern set of rules (3.5E-derived) could recreate that moment and feeling. DCC is more of an "early-age role-playing simulator" that pulls in external influences into the experience, like listening to Asia and Styx at Shakey's Pizza Parlor while Pac-Man and Defender arcade cabinets buzz in the background. Then someone has a story about their game, and something insane and cool happens (that, by the rules, could never happen since it is clearly not in the rules), and you are all in awe of the coolness that is this game.

A player in 1980 at that pizza parlor is saying, "Your character turned into a demon?! Wow!"

A player in 2026 is flipping through the original rules, "Nowhere in the rules does it say that this could happen. Were they even playing the OSR correctly?"

While DCC is not the OSR, DCC is the context of the OSR.

Castles & Crusades is similar; while it is not AD&D 2E, it is an AD&D 1E/2E simulator in a modern rules framework. It captures the feeling while not being the thing it is inspired by, opting for a modern play experience. Call them throwback games, but they capture the experience rather than replicating the rules. If all you want is "how it plays" without "all the confusing tables and junk," then DCC will sing for you.

DCC is worthy, fun, imaginative, and it displays on my selves incredibly well.

This is the time I grew up with in gaming; if not the original game, it captures the feeling well enough.

Take me back to that pizza parlor and let me live in that moment again.

BackerKit: Castles & Crusades Adventurers Spellbook Reforged

https://www.backerkit.com/c/projects/troll-lord-games/castles-crusades-adventurers-spellbook-reforged

Troll Lord Games launched the reforged, OGL-free Adventurers Spellbook today. This is another winner, and I look forward to it. Check it out if C&C is your thing!

GURPS, Castles & Crusades, and Dungeon Crawl Classics

My seven shelves in my room are my gaming shrines.

5E just left the room for my storage shelves, and it is likely heading into the garage this week. I can't support a game where my characters finally get interesting, only to have the character sheets be dozens of pages long. Sorry, I can't support that. I don't have the time, and I don't play digitally. 

I am left with my three best games.

GURPS is my toolkit, the best character creation system in gaming history. Forget what game designers "think" I should have in a class build, I am just going to pick it myself. After you are fluent in GURPS, there are a lot of games you don't need, and you begin to see the held-back character options that these game companies pull on the community as another way to drain your wallet on a slow drip.

You are the game designer. And the idiots in these companies that tell you they know better can pound sand. You can do it better here, and they give you the tools. I don't need Kickstarters to sell the parts of the game they left out, or the things I need to build great characters; none of the modern grift is needed.

If you don't like GURPS, Champions, and Hero System are nearly the same thing. Buy a robust, useful, and buildable point-buy system and stop being taken for a ride by modern game designers. You are smart enough to do it all yourself, and you frankly should stop wasting your time.

Even with character creation programs, my character sheets are typically a page-and-a-half long. That isn't too long. For a game with enough depth to enthrall me and give me complete control of my character designs, GURPS works better than any 5E alternative.

Another reason I love GURPS is that I have eight crates of Pathfinder pawns. The hex-based combat system in GURPS is amazing, and I have mega-hex tiles from The Fantasy Trip to play on. This is my miniatures and figure-based gaming these days. I play a variant, GURPS Dungeon Fantasy version of Pathfinder 1e (original Golarion), with low magic and brutally realistic characters, and I have fun here. Am I creating my own stats for monsters? Yes, but I don't care, and I can always convert the BX monsters to GURPS and be close enough.

GURPS-Finder, original 3.5E Golarion is the way to go. This is the best version of the world as I remember and began to love it, before it was ruined by retcons, the removal of savagery for boring, modern, pedestrian writing, and the fear of upsetting others ingrained into the world.

My pawn storage will fill the space 5E vacates on my upstairs storage shelves. 5E went the way of Pathfinder 2. I don't have a group to manage complexity, so I can't play the game, and it would be too much work to slog through it myself.

And if I don't feel like doing it all myself? Castles & Crusades beat out all my OSR games with a system that is so straightforward and easy, it does fantasy gaming in the blink of an eye, and remains compatible with all the best of my OSR adventures. Yes, the designers are in control here, but the design is so good that it was the last game Gary Gygax played in, and it has stood the test of time for 20+ years. Great things don't need to be constantly rewritten and rereleased.

All the silly charts and tables in OSR and 5E are gone. The save system is the ability score system, and those scores mean something. Everything else is so streamlined that the game puts your characters and the story first, not artificial builds ot systems for VTTs. You are not buying the game a few times on different VTT platforms just to have the privilege of designing characters.

C&C also has an amazing pulp game called Amazing Adventures, which feels like a d20 version of Savage Worlds, and covers modern, pulp,m or science fiction settings just as effortlessly. The game has a lot of tools it can bring to the table, and this could be your only game, and you would not need to touch anything else.

C&C is the best OSR game in a sea of pretenders, designers trying to outdo each other, and crowdfunding chaff. You don't need much else once you have tasted the best.

Oh, Dungeon Crawl Classics takes a lot of heat in the OSR community, but those of us who know, oh, we know. Frankly, I don't care about the company's policy of including everybody, who cares? Everyone can play together, and should.

I love the game because it embodies the spirit of playing it as we did in the 1980s. It embraces the nerd culture, the outcasts, the gamers in the smoke-filled van with the neon felt paintings, and the whole end of the hippie counterculture that ended up in fantasy gaming. D&D has become corporate and soulless, while DCC's soul is what keeps the game's heart beating strongly.

If D&D lost its soul, DCC cut it out, took it, and owns it.

And the designs here are fun to play with. This is designed for fun at conventions and around the table, where D&D can turn into a game of Advanced Squad Leader, with deciding what to do during a turn. DCC designs each class with resources, special dice, and fun things to contribute to party-based play. The dice are amazing, quirky, cool, and fun. The emergent play and random tables are a shot of unpredictability in a hobby where D&D can feel like a long slog, feeling more like Warhammer 40K than a fantasy game where players play imaginary characters.

Strange and hilarious things can happen in DCC.

In D&D, I rarely have anything cool happen other than killing things with the same boring, predictable, the party wins outcome. D&D is boring in comparison. I would rather be heavy metal swords & sorcery than I would some overdesigned character build with a character sheet longer than my arm.

There is no shame in DCC, you can have bare-chested barbarians and chainmail bikinis here, and no one will tsk-tsk and judge you. Orcs, goblins, and kobolds are evil here and worship demons (which are also evil and not character options). Werewolves are lycanthropes and insane killers on the full moon, and not character options. Modern games with this demon, noble monster, and animorphic influences bore me, and the worldbuilding is not great. Tieflings are the demon-blooded spawn of Satan. Frankly, we are sick of it all and just want a game that embraces the Gen-X spirit and tosses out all the tail-tucking and pretentious BS rampant in gaming these days.

These are the games that have endured multiple rounds of purges and reorganization.

These will be the games I carry forward, and most of the rest, save for a few exceptions, can go to Goodwill.

Pinball Crawl Classics: Last 9 Days!

https://www.backerkit.com/c/projects/goodman-games/old-school-adventures-1

We are closing in on the final days of the Pinball Crawl Classics campaign for Backerkit, so now is the time to jump in and make a pledge. This is one of the more original projects in the old-school space, and it has me excited.

When we get something new and different, licensing IP outside of gaming to bring in those ideas into our world, and this is a perfect combination of arcade culture mixed with gaming.

We don't see much "new blood" in gaming, and we typically end up with self-insert vanity projects that are some "author statement" for the writer trying to bandwagon people onto, "I am right, my critics are wrong." Nobody wants to make players play through your self-insert NPC's "quest of personal fulfillment" with the players on the sidelines doing all the heavy lifting.

Nobody cares about your utopian setting, Tasha, or any of these other self-inserts or idealistic snowglobe societies.

Let the players be the heroes!

This is their story.

Not the DM's. Not the adventure writer's.

We are back in the 1990s with TSR's "bestselling novel adventures" that railroad you through a story, only this time, we are being railroaded through some writer's personal beliefs and the times they were wronged on Twitter. This is the difference between the Tomb of Horrors and the newer D&D adventures. One is a classic, and the others are soon-to-be-dated fan fiction.

But this project excites me, and is a shot in the arm for gaming.

We are getting new ideas and new inspirations. The writers create a fun little world or reality, and it is up to you to navigate through it, with your story being what drives you forward. The pinball machine, and the story behind it, is just the backdrop to your greatness.

This stuff is cool.

It kicks butt.

Worthy.

5E and Me

I still play low-level 5E, but I feel my desire to keep playing starts to fade around level 6 to 8. The build is fun; the unlocks are fun, but the complexity isn't. I play mostly solo, so building characters is fun, but level after level, the characters just die for me under the weight of complexity and too many options.

The higher level my characters get, the better the choice of options gets, but the less fun they are to play.

And the worse they become at playing as a group, when playing solo.

I play solo; I don't have three other people to manage this complexity. Pathfinder 2 failed for me for the same reason. I can't be a "class expert" in everything. With a game like GURPS, the characters are all the same, slightly different, so I can manage a few of them in a group. With these games that require a few dozen pages for a higher-level character sheet, the capacity for my head to wrap around everything goes away.

5E, any version of it except something simple like Shadowdark, is a terrible game for me.

It is tough coming to terms with that, but it is what it is. It is a game I want to have fun with, but because of how it developed and the design it brings to the table, it slowly becomes increasingly difficult for one person to solo. Above thenth level, running a party of four would be a lot of work. I could do it, but I would not enjoy it. Some probably do this and enjoy it; I don't doubt that if you are a fan of something that big, you could probably do it.

But I am not that big a fan of 5E as I am of other games, and those games are an order of magnitude simpler than 5E. So the entire effort is less worth it for me, and I don't get much out of it.

I have games with emergent gameplay, amazingly detailed character builds that are easy, and some so easy they play off 4x6" index cards at any level. I have better games I am interested in, all the way up to high-level play. And I don't have too much time for games that take that much effort. While I could play on a VTT, my heart is on the tabletop. I don't like the digital world. I like rolling dice by hand.

At low levels, 5E is fine.

At higher levels, it all starts to break apart.

Today? I'm Frustrated at 5E

My faith in 5E was shaken recently by a level 14 character sheet. The sheet was 16 pages long. Now, I don't normally play via a VTT; I like playing on a tabletop with minis, pencil, and paper.

There is no way in hell I am flipping through 16 pages during a turn to figure out what my character is going to do. I imagined running four of them solo, and my brain melted. There is no way to play 5E except on a VTT with "digital content support," and I am sorry, I am not being forced to do that anymore.

The terrible design of 5E forces those who do not pay for a VTT out of the game by level 8 or so. Instead of "pay to win," the 5E game is designed to "pay to play."

Low levels? Fine, that is the free tutorial and demo. High levels? You'd better pay up, or the game will kill you with complexity.

I still like 5E, but it feels hopeless. I will be forced to play it "as a solo computer game" on a VTT, and I have MMOs that compete with that.

D&D is sadly becoming a game written only for VTTs or streamers. Sorry, tabletop and miniatures gamers. You have been written out of the game when they dropped the dungeon exploration rules and turned the game into "Dungeon Boss Battles, the RPG."

I sound bitter, but I am. I am sorry. But seeing a 16-page character sheet generated pissed me off, and there is no way I am printing that out and wasting that much paper. Nor am I playing via PDF.

Dungeon Crawl Classics? My level 10 character is still on a single side of a sheet of paper. Castles & Crusades? The same thing, a single-sided character sheet for a level 24 character. Old School Essentials or Swords & Wizardry? The same thing. One-sided character sheets, yet still near-infinite depth.

Wizards of the Coast will write rules and rules and rules, and those will bleed over onto your character sheet, and you will be expected to support them.

It is not impossible to design a game that plays off one side of a character sheet for the entire experience.

And the emergent play of DCC proves it is never boring to do that, either.

I am more frustrated than angry, though. But 5E is now on my secondary game shelves. I love Tales of the Valiant, but the length of the character sheet, digital support, and double-purchase requirements make it hard for one person to support and play. Even GURPS is easier for me at this point.

I feel like I loved 5E, but the game walked away from me for the VTTs and streamers.

I don't know how to square that up without packing the game up and putting it in storage again.

Video: JAGGERTIME #1 PROTEST PURCHASE

"Put some metal sword and sorcery in your life. You'll be better for it."

I love this guy, and the DCC community is stepping up to discuss the "should DCC be simplified?" feeling that some have. There is some NSFW language here, but I love this; that is what gives us Gen-X gamers texture, spice, and grit.

What I love about this video is the "less is more" versus "more is more" comparison. Not sure what that is? Watch the video all the way through, like, and subscribe. This guy is cool.

This comparison nails it.

Winner.

Castles & Crusades Players Handbook – Collector’s Pack

https://trolllord.com/product/castles-crusades-players-handbook-collectors-pack/

Oh, this is beautiful. Troll Lord Games is coming out with a Castles & Crusades Players Handbook – Collector’s Pack, with a new cover and the 11th Edition printing. Nothing has changed, which is wonderful, but we are getting a new cover!

There are some other nice things in here, such as a coffee mug, canvas printing, a mouse pad, stickers, and a few other goodies to be revealed. The preorder is up now!

The best dungeon-crawling game just got better.

GURPS is Beating 5E for Me Now

While I love 5E and Tales of the Valiant is a strong implementation of the system, for the types of stories I tell, GURPS wins hands down. The 5E character sheets get too long, they are too much, and I find myself flipping through over a dozen pages of information (every turn) just to run a character effectively.

With GURPS, my character sheet is a single, double-sided character sheet. If I am going onto a third page, that is a complicated character. Rarely do I need four sides of a sheet of paper. And 90% of the information I need is on the first page of that sheet.

No wonder 5E player turns are 30 minutes long for some; they are reading a short story just to process their turn. Shadowdark shines in comparison. Why does 5E have such huge character sheets? Do a PDF printout from the Shard Tabletop of your sheet and count the pages, especially for characters above 10th level. Multiclass characters are worse. Subclass features can have special rules that are found nowhere else in the book.

With GURPS, all of the rules are in the books. Your character sheet only contains choices and the numeric values that affect them.

I used to feel GURPS characters were the complicated ones. Now I am not so sure.

With 5E, all of the rules are on your character sheets, and it reads like a rulebook. I own games with shorter page counts than some 5E character sheets.

The multiclass problem hits me hard in 5E, especially when a character changes their lifepath mid-arc. A scout (ranger), who later becomes a knight (paladin)? I am leveling up as a ranger, then need to swap, and I am overall weaker than a paladin who started at first level, but has some ranger utility? I have overlapping choices? I will never get my 20th-level ability?

With GURPS, it is no problem, just start training in the new areas and organically grow. Whatever you spend your character points on is what you get. Want an "ultimate paladin ability?" Go design it with a superpower, and be the only one in the world with it.

It is near-impossible to fit my ideas into a rigid class-and-level system. Multiclassing makes things worse.

Digital Only and Partnered Releases

The trend of "digital only" DLC for D&D sucks. Now, we are expected to buy our games from only one storefront and never have a physical copy? Not even a PDF that will last beyond the life of D&D Beyond? When the website shuts down, is it over? Like D&D 4's errata and online character creation tools, gone forever?

The partnered content, too, does not feel great. Are we getting no hardcovers from now on? Have we moved into a "no announcements, DLC only" model of releases? Are these D&D Beyond-only releases, too, without PDFs?

The game has taken a turn for the worse. Even if I were still giving them a chance, I would be very unhappy about the state of affairs. Yet D&D YouTube pretends "this is fine," and there isn't much alarm there as they pray the golden goose doesn't die anytime soon. It is a tough position to be put in, and you pray another game takes off in popularity and sustains your viewership.

Even criticizing the current state of affairs will breed negativity and force viewers away.

If I want to play 5E, I have Tales of the Valiant or Level Up A5E. I have books, PDFs, crowdfunding campaigns, and everything the "market leader" isn't giving me. Ten-year-old books still work with the Open 5E version of the system, and newer stuff works, too. ToV offers greater compatibility, seamlessly working with existing classes and subclasses.

Since I adopted ToV as my "long-term support" 5E, I have been happy with the system and support.

All my Wizards D&D books are in the garage. Even the monster manuals and campaign books.

I am just happier where I am.

FTL Nomad Thoughts

What a cool game.

FTL Nomad is sort of an evolution of the "2d6 space game," but rules-light, built for speed, and licensed under CC BY 4.0. The entire system forgoes ability scores in favor of a skill-plus-talent system. You also get a character archetype, which is like a class that gives you a special bonus.

The game uses a single target number of 8, and a unique XD6 dicing system, where advantage and disadvantage dice cancel each other out, and if you are in the negative, you roll whatever is left and take the two lowest, and if you are in the positive, you roll whatever is left and take the two highest. Skill level is added to the end result.

For example, a net -2D difficulty on a 2d6 skill roll means you roll 4d6 and take the two lowest dice. A net +3D difficulty means you roll 5d6 dice and take the two highest dice.

Damage can also gain advantage or disadvantage, and while it is capped by the number of damage dice, taking the highest or lowest still counts.

The system is fast, elegant, stays out of the way, and preserves a single target number. Many 2d6 games have a target number for each difficulty level, but here it always stays 8. Difficulty adds or subtracts dice. Some report this is an excellent storytelling and roleplaying system that stays out of the way.

The game has seven skills (but optional rules in the first expansion can expand that list to 14 or 20), but the basic game stays simple and focused.

The game features starship combat, aliens, robots, world creation, encounters, creatures, vehicle combat, and everything else you need in a science-fiction game. The rules for each are simple and straightforward, built for speedy, consistent, rules-light fun.

Where traditional 2d6 games follow the attributes plus skills system, this dares to do something different, and it works incredibly well. It does not get bogged down in attributes that mean little in play or exist only to modify rolls when very high or very low.

Do You Have the Skill for That?

One of the defining differences between Castles & Crusades and most other games is the lack of a skill system, though an optional one is available. The game eliminates the referee question, “Do you have a skill for that?”

This streamlines play to a degree I don’t think many designers appreciate. The system works on assumed knowledge. If the roll is skill-like and “something your class should know or do,” then add your level to the roll. If not, don’t. You could disallow the roll or penalize it. The system is elegant and simple.

Skill-based games have this “do you have the skill for that” question on almost every roll, inserting an extra referee question and player character sheet check in every die roll in the game. It gets cumbersome and tiring, and some games go to a pedantic level of depth for every action, requiring skill rolls for searching, spotting, and bifurcating every sense and type of searching into a separate skill.

How do you get “trained in seeing something” anyway? While yes, there is honing your perceptual abilities, it goes way too far into levels of depth that should just be covered by a simple ability score roll, if needed at all, and the game should move on. If a player guesses the correct place and thing to search, no roll is even needed.

Some games force unnecessary dice rolls, and they suffer for it.

Some games go to such a deep level of simulation detail that they suffer for it.

Castles & Crusades does a beautiful job of erasing the need for skills. Is this a skill check that your class should know something about? Great, add your level to the check, and you may get a bonus. Is it outside your character’s realm of knowledge? No level is added, and there could be a penalty on it if the roll is even allowed.

Add Conan: The Hyborian Age to the Hot List

Wow, interest in Castles & Crusades and the new Conan game from Monolith is super-hot right now. Hits on all my C&C and Conan articles are exploding.

They are great games, I am not really surprised, but wow, we are at six times the average traffic right now.

Like DCC, C&C has a cult following hungry for news and content, and the Conan game does as well.

Castles & Crusades is Hot Now

My hits are way up for Castles & Crusades articles. I suppose this game is not "really" in the OSR, and many are using it as a replacement for 5E. I can see why, it is quick, simple, does the "D&D thing" and does not require much in the way of computerized support.

I am beginning to feel that if your game requires an application to design characters, then you are no longer a pen-and-paper role-playing game. You are a wannabe computer game that lacks application code and a GUI. If you had the budget to make a computer game, that is where you would be; instead, you load the complexity of designing software onto other companies or the community.

Sunk costs can do amazing things, like get the community to write application software for you for free.

Castles & Crusades needs none of that. I can create a character in 5 minutes on a piece of notebook paper. My group does not need a "session zero" since we are playing in about 15 minutes. Any game that needs a "session zero" where it takes 8 hours to design characters has a serious design flaw; it is offloading unneeded work onto the players.

Imagine Monopoly taking 8 hours of session prep.

You would get a subset of players who love to go into autistic detail, trying to justify why setting your firm's "bank interest rate" and "subprime mortgage exposure" are needed details for Advanced Monopoly, along with 200 other financial factors you need to calculate for your firm. Not to mention the need for a collection of character cards for your firm's personnel and their salaries, along with going through several hiring phases.

You need three hours to set up the city's economic status indicators and the city government, since that affects housing and building, too. Along with the country's broader economic context, the optional Wall Street expansion gives you an add-on board that lets you play the market, the Federal Reserve expansion board simulates the economy, and the Futures Market board simulates another part of the economy. By the time we get to the Big Oil and Auto Industry boards, we are left wondering why the focus on building houses on Baltic Avenue has been lost in the shuffle.

That reminds me of a certain game....

D&D has gotten too detailed and complicated. It rivals GURPS in complexity. With C&C, dungeon crawling is a game again that you can pick up and play. Without all that detail, subclass options, action types, and magical attacks, my characters feel more focused on "character and story" and less on "rules and builds."

No wonder hits are up for C&C.

You can play a dungeon game in a few hours, start to stop, and you don't need to be constantly sifting through rules. This is almost exactly like a 2d6 science fiction game, like Cepheus Engine. You can get started in 15 minutes, have characters good to go, and start playing in a future universe quickly and without endless rules reference.

These massive games have a shelf life of 7-10 years, and then they collapse and die under their own weight when people no longer have time for them. While they are hot, they are fun. When the bubble bursts, we are left with piles of books and cardboard pieces that people no longer have the time to play with. I still love my books and pieces, but a part of me knows the magic is gone and the era is over.

C&C has lasted so long because it is, at heart, a simple game.

Simple games endure much longer than these games designed to be an all-encompassing lifestyle.

Castles & Crusades: Speed of Play

I could play Old School Essentials, Shadowdark, Swords & Wizardry, OSRIC, Labyrinth Lord, and even Adventures Dark & Deep. I could play other swords & sorcery games such as Rolemaster, Palladium Fantasy, Dungeon Fantasy, Dragonbane, Dungeon Crawl Classics, Pathfinder 2, and many others.  I could play 5E with Level Up A5E or Tales of the Valiant.

None of them "get out of my way" and have the speed of play as Castles & Crusades. No saving throw charts, no tables of thief abilities, no pages-long class descriptions, no spell charts (though those are fun in DCC), and the game plays from a character sheet the size of an index card, and it is a pure "get in and go" game. Where DCC brings a lot of fun to the table, the emergent play and imagination of that game are a close second to C&C's speed and ease-of-play.

If you have an issue with the SIEGE Engine, just use the primary, secondary, and tertiary ability score system in the Castle Keeper's Guide. This way, you get a nice, smoothly stepped feel to your ability score target numbers (12, 15, and 18; instead of 12 and 18) and you have better chances of success in a few more areas, giving you more choice and rounding out your characters better.

For the longest time, I had this feeling my "pulp-adventure cleric" build in C&C, with primaries of WIS, CHR, and CON (target number 12), had to sacrifice DEX, INT, and STR to the terrible target number of 18, and they could not creep along edges or kick down a door. She felt helpless in ways I did not expect, and in a point-buy system like GURPS, these are the areas you would buy 2 or 4-point skills in "just to cover" and not be helpless.

With the tertiary system, I can set STR and DEX to a target of 15 as my secondaries, and leave INT at the worst tertiary target of 18. Now, she feels more capable, and while every target number is not a "best in class" 12, those times she has to jump a pit, balance, or force open a door feel better, and I have a chance of making it happen with those 15's, especially when level and ability score modifiers are factored in.

If you are doing pulp games, think about that three-tier ability score system seriously.

Yes, I could just throw a positive modifier on there, but I hate having to modify every roll. The unmodified rolls should feel achievable at level one, and as she levels up, the challenges can increase. It helps that C&C is such a moddable game, and the CK's Guide has so many excellent suggestions for turning the game into whatever you want.

I still like the build options in 5E, but it is a typical modern design. With today's game designers, they need to specifically lay out every choice clearly, like they were programming a computer game, and the machine expects clear rules on exactly what the option does, when it can be triggered, what happens when you have it activated, and every special effect and game change it produces. This leads to a horrendous overdesign of the entire system, where the game reads like a pen-and-paper computer game.

There are times when I am in the mood for that, and other times when I am not.

C&C is a 5E-like design with leveled unlock class powers, but it does not go into subclasses or choices within the class. For that level of customization, use the multiclass system. Also, if you need to "invent" a class power or ability, such as a bard's "ability to identify music," you would simply make a SIEGE engine roll. In 5E, you bet some designer would make a subclass around identifying music, and then all of a sudden, every other bard can't identify a song once that subclass is added to the game. The more you add to 5E, the worse it gets for everyone else.

The same thing happened in Pathfinder 1e when they introduced social feats, and you needed a special feat to negotiate the end of a war. That is "story stuff," and it does not belong in the rules, nor should it ever be in a character design. Before that feat was added, negotiation could be handled by anyone. After that, only those with the feat could negotiate the end of a conflict. It is an exaggeration, but the net effect was this absurd, rules-induced paradox.

It also shows the dangers of trusting modern game designers too much when they rely on the MMO model of balance and design. MMO designs never last and must constantly be refreshed and rebalanced. D&D will probably be refreshed every few years just because of this design model; it has to be, since all MMOs break and need constant rebalancing. It is not an evergreen game since modern MMO designs are tied to iterative rebalancing and refresh releases.

We are stuck with D&D [YEAR] forever now.

They will sell through 7 years of books and reboot the rules forever.

C&C has not changed since its original release more than 20 years ago. Classes have been added and optional rules released, but it hasn't changed all that much. The design is a solid compromise between D&D 2.0 and 3.0. It does not use MMO mechanics. It just works as a solid design.

Good things last the test of time.

Design: Older Gamers Do Not Have the Time

This video is from last year, but it relates to the Conan RPG I am interested in. Designer Matt John speaks with the official Conan the Barbarian channel about the game. Around 6:40, he says:

...I approach this as a 40-year-old gamer, I do not want a system that requires me to do a lot of homework because I'm busy and have a bunch of other things to do.

I love my rules-heavy systems, but I honestly only have time for one of them these days. GURPS will win over Rolemaster, 5E, and all the others. While 5E is a simple game, it has so many books that it can feel rules-heavy. Castles & Crusades will kill my interest in 5E, since I can "pick up and play" without needing a dozen hardcovers and over a thousand pages of rules to run a campaign.

Savage Worlds, Castles & Crusades, and many other rules-light but experience-driven games fill an important niche in the hobby. While many people love the 2d20 Conan game, it wasn't as approachable or quick to pick up as he wanted. People who play need to be taught how to play, and GM'ing the game requires a lot of knowledge just to get started.

Savage Worlds is in this genre and does pulp adventure well. I played a Conan-style game with Savage Worlds before, and it was a fun time. The benefit of a Conan game is the art, background, monsters, and adventures tailored to the setting and rules. You are not seeing "Orcs" in Conan, for example, and generic games tend to pull in a lot of non-canon elements that take the experience away from a more authentic one.

An official Conan game from a publisher is also an easier sell to new players than "let's use this generic game you may have never heard of to play this thing you know." This is the "GURPS problem" that all generic games have. While those of us who love generic games can make them do anything, new players like themed experiences and seeing a design deliver on a promise rather than a generic design and someone's interpretation of making it fit a concept it really wasn't designed to simulate.

I love GURPS, but getting someone new to gaming to play "X using GURPS or Savage Worlds" is two jumps I need to make with them (plus a translation layer for me), rather than just "playing X." For people without time, that is more time needed to spend before playing.

For Conan, people need to be able to jump in and play. This needs to be a game you can play at open tables at conventions, like Index Card RPG or Easy d6. The character sheet tells you what you can do, and you can be told what to roll by the referee, and you never need to open a book to sit in on a game and play.

People who have seen the movies should be able to play the game easily.

This is not designed for the hardcore rules simulation and 30-book collection crowd; this is targeted at new players and those who watch the movies and read the books. That feels like a solid choice, especially when competing with D&D and other games. A heavyweight game is a tough sell these days, since you are asking your audience to give up other games to make time for this one.

D&D is going in the wrong direction by increasing the size of their books and providing too many options in the core rulebooks. You get into the danger of "writing for the experts" and "losing the casual audience" with any game or new edition. D&D 2024 is written for the expert 5E players, not for new 5E players. Tales of the Valiant is a better "teaching game" for 5E than even 2014 or 2024, since it was designed to appeal to new players and its core options focus on successful paths rather than niche role choices.

The industry is moving towards smaller, more focused, easier-to-learn, and faster-playing games. This is sort of like D&D before Wizards of the Coast got its hands on it and turned it into a rules-heavy monolith to lock people into digital platforms. The OSR is popular since it is simple and fast, and this version of Conan is clearly OSR-influenced.

The 2005-2015 era monolith of overly complex systems is slowly dying as the new generation lacks the reading and mathematical comprehension to understand them. This means Wizards D&D, Pathfinder, GURPS, 2d20, and many other systems are long overdue for a change. Look at the education numbers and tell me 500+ page D&D books are a good way to design a game for the next generation of players.

You can't get them to put down a phone, let alone read and comprehend 10% of a book like that.

I like the design theories behind the new Conan game, and the more I learn about it, the more excited I am getting about diving in and playing. This has not happened in a while, and the promise of a thematic, instant-play, brutal combat, and "fast and fun" Conan game excites me.

Conan RPGs

I was looking at Monolith's new Conan RPG, and the book and rules look nice. They went rules-light with this system, and I like that approach. Getting people to even try a new game outside of 5E is impossible these days, so you need to go rules-light, 5E-like, or OSR, or forget it.

The system is a "roll a die and add a number" system, not a d20 system, so it is very easy to learn. There is also a stunt die rolled alongside checks, like a Savage Worlds wild die. Monsters are engineered to be easy to handle, with minions mostly going down in one or two blows. Record-keeping is minimized.

For Conan, this feels right.

I liked the 2d20 game, but the system was too heavy for me for sword and sorcery. The Modiphius Conan game is a memory, the license is done, and the company moved on. The new game may be a better fit; just grab some dice, quickly create characters, and go. Do I need a rule system hundreds of pages long for Conan, with talent trees? Deep character builds, and tons of rules support? Not really.

I liked that this attempted to do so and commend them; and many still enjoy this system. The art is also amazing. It just did not feel like "what Conan means to me." When I play a savage swords game, the rules should not be something that takes months to learn.

The entire genre is based around "action now, talking later," as Conan would say.

But I do like the cover of the 2d20 version of the game the best. Conan and a Frazetta heroine are front and center. The new game's cover isn't bad, and it has an "adventuring party" vibe more than a solo hero feeling.

It sucks when companies lose licenses, and we lose the ability to collect and purchase books.

We have games in this genre that do it well, including the excellent Hyperborea. This is a spiritual successor to one of the best Conan games of all time, the 3.5E version of Conan, and it still rocks hard today. This has evolved into a wider, genre-inspired entry in the savage gaming sphere, mixing Conan-inspired elements with science fantasy, and it holds up well.

I will exclude the "wannabe" Conan games that are "close, but no cigar," which include a fighter or barbarian option, and focus more on the traditional kitchen-sink fantasy options that all games deliver. Sure, you have Conan art for the barbarian. Still, you are not a Conan game with all those parrot people, frog people, fox people, and other Richard Scary cozy character races tromping around in the default assumed setting.

DCC is a borderline Conan game, taking inspiration from it and delivering on the genre's tropes, but at times I feel it's more of a throwback tribute to late-70s and early-80s RPGs, mixed with satire of the hobby and era. It is a fun game, but calling it Conan at this point feels like a bit of a reach, given how much more it delivers. DCC started in the swords & sorcery genre but found its own identity beyond it.

GURPS Conan is a lot of fun; if you are into GURPS, this is worth checking out. I love the GURPS realistic combat system, and the characters are incredible to design and play with. This one is worth a mention, and you can still get the PDFs for this, along with a few solo adventures.

Tales of Aragosa is also a strong contender for a modern Conan-style game, and its rules, classes, and vibe fit the genre. This is 5E-like and a successor to Low Fantasy Gaming, and it delivers a great, savage sorcery and blood-spattered battles feeling. There is no science fantasy in here, and it is all just gritty, steel and sorcery, blood-spattered battles, and crawling into the dark bowels of the Earth to battle ancient evils sort of gaming.

Aragosa goes as far as to rename the classes to fit the mood. You aren't a cleric; you are a cultist. I love this thematic rebranding of the concepts and the way it marries the savage mood to the game's language. If you are not theming your game's writing to its genre, making the language fit the mood, what are you doing writing games?

Gygax knew the art of language needed to match the art of the game.

Too many games deliver an AI-powered, business-language style that's quite boring, with everything sanitized and too clean. Even the word "barbarian" gets censored as "culturally insensitive," and we end up with role-playing games that sound like Microsoft wrote them for Fortune 500 companies using Copilot AI. If a game is supposed to inspire our imaginations and take us into new worlds, why are you writing this with business-neutral PowerPoint presentation language and boring the audience to sleep?

Today's games ship with evocative, beautiful art, but writing that bores me to tears.

Also, if you put the word Conan on your game, you'd better have some Frank Frazetta-like art on there and not censor it. Sorry, this is Conan. You don't get to deface greatness and insult a legend. Pay your dues and be brave; otherwise, cowards do not deserve to walk the field of battle with Conan.

I am following Monolith's new game and may check it out.

Crowdfunding Trio!

We have a trio of great crowdfunders today! First up is Pinball Crawl Classics from Goodman Games:

https://www.backerkit.com/c/projects/goodman-games/old-school-adventures-1

Next up is Night Hunters for 5E and Tales of the Valiant:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/deepmagic/night-hunters-gothic-horror-for-tov-and-5e-dandd

Adventures Dark and Deep Book of Fell Wisdom is a wonderful expansion for the premier 1E retro-clone.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/brwgames/adventures-dark-and-deep-book-of-fell-wisdom

I am onboard with all three. This is a good day for crowdfunding, bad for my wallet, but I am a fan, and they earned my support.

Castles & Crusades: Classes

While in the base Castles & Crusades Reforged book, there are 13 classes, in the Player Archive, there are a total of 36 classes (repeating the 13 base game ones, so 26 new ones), and in Amazing Adventures, there are 16 more (repeating only 2 of the ones found in the player archive).

This gives us a total of 50 character classes.

With these, we can multi-class (advance in two classes at the same time), for roughly 1,225 combinations (50 x 50, minus the disallowed same-class multiclasses, divided by two since the reverse combo is the same as the first).

We can also class-and-a-half, and this works both ways, so we get another 2,450 possibilities.

So we are talking about a total of 3,675 (very roughly) possible class combinations using both, for just two of the 50 total classes across the two games. Now, you can also triple-class (or more), and the number of combinations becomes truly insane. My numbers are just for two classes.

Just using the core C&C player's book, we have 78 multi-class possibilities, plus another 156, for a total of 234 combinations. What matters isn't the number of combinations, but how they combine and if the end result is worth putting together. Many of these combinations can describe characters with a wide variety of builds, and I can put together classes that synergize very nicely for many types of characters.

Want to be that fighter/wizard/rogue? Or an assassin/ranger? A bard/illusionist? A barbarian/cleric? Combine these with a race selection, and even in the base game, you have almost infinite possibilities. Combine these with custom races, and my mind spins with how many different character types are possible.

For example, I have a character for whom an illusionist/bard would be a good fit, but she is more of an illusionist than a bard. I would probably do a class-and-a-half illusionist/bard for her, saving the high-level bard powers for the "pure bard," but still giving her that element of music to her class, while focusing fully on illusions. This keeps her XP/level within reason, while still keeping that musical element to her illusions and class powers.

I get that class-dipping 5E is potentially more combinations, but there is something very fun about crafting a multi-class build in C&C and knowing how your powers will progress. But the overruling aspect of this is quality, not quantity. 5E classes tend to be more in-depth than a comparable C&C class, with OSR-style classes being the least in-depth.

The C&C classes hit the right amount of depth for me, and the SIEGE Engine covers the rest. If I need a new "class ability" for a bard, make a check for it and let it be. I don't need it written down in some subclass ability or buying an expansion for 70 dollars and not having it in my online character designer.

The "gardeteeer/powered" character from Amazing Adventures can cover a lot of ground. For a class that slowly mutates or gains powers, like a sci-fi mutant, demon, dragon, or angel that grows into powers, or another class that gains spell-like abilities as they level, this is perfect, and it multi-classes very well. Have a cleric that is slowly turning into an angelic valkyrie? Multi-class cleric/powered and slowly unlock powers. Make these unlocks a part of the story, and pick powers that fit the theme. By level 5, if you saved up enough power points, you could get their wings by buying a "fly" power.

C&C and its classes, combined with the multi-class system, especially if you know how to work the combinations and options, are far more expressive and powerful than your average OSR game or BX implementation. Amazing Adventures opens up a lot of flexibility and is a great addition to the system that covers many genres.

Poor Timing on My Part

The same day I pull my Castles & Crusades books out of the closet, the Tales of the Valiant Player's Guide 2 PDF drops to backers. It is like the 5E universe is trying to send me a message and pull me back into the fold. The timing is far too strange. I was just mentally getting prepared to bring C&C back to my shelves, and this drops?

It is silly to think this was intentional, but it just highlights my terrible timing in life.

I was thinking about C&C. I have a few shelves of BX, OSE, S&W, and OSRIC books, and I was looking to organize them. The reforged copies of C&C were always out, sitting on a spare storage shelf and waiting to go with the other books in my closet storage crates. I had C&C in those crates to give other games room to breathe, since C&C is a game that will end play for every other game around it. C&C is just that good.

Why did I pull C&C out?

I have an issue with games being so in-depth and complicated, and requiring character designers for complex characters, that I never play them. The choice comes down to: do I think about playing a game, or actually play one? Even Shadowdark requires a map, player markers, and a torch timer. GURPS needs a hex map and a detailed character build. 5E needs a VTT and web-based character sheets.

C&C needs a character sheet the size of an index card.

All the rest is theater of the mind.

If I am not playing any of these, if I choose a game where all I need is a few 4x6" cards and some dice, and I sit at a card table with a book or two at my side, then I can play. There is no book reference, no looking up charts, and no complicated collections of action types and abilities.

C&C is easier than Shadowdark, OSE, and many other rules-light games.

Yet it provides a complete 1E-like experience.

Castles & Crusades is a game that throws out every chart in the OSR. We begin with the ability score charts, one for each, with columns of esoteric modifiers and adjustments for bending bars and lifting gates, number of followers, system shock, maximum languages, hit die modifiers, and all the pedantic OSR ability score modifiers columns every game loves to include. C&C needs none of those charts.

The huge list of saving throws in OSR games, one for two types of magical implement, and all the other very specific categories? We need one chart per class, and leveled all the way up. Every time we add a class, we add a new saving throw chart. All of those are gone in C&C, replaced by a straightforward ability check system using the SIEGE Engine.

The huge thief ability chart? Gone. The bard ability charts? Gone. At most, each class gets a level chart that tells us a few key pieces of information, and when different class abilities are granted. Otherwise, ability scores do the rest of the work. I can see why this was the last game Gary Gygax was involved in; it reduced the D&D concept into an easier, more accessible form.

You play from your character sheet with near-zero book reference.

Your ability scores matter.

5E is similar to C&C, since 5E borrowed the "one chart per class" concept of the game, and did the entire "leveled class abilities" thing. Where 5E stumbles is in its subclass design, which muddies the class's identity and fails to let strong multiclassing handle that level of customization. In contrast, C&C's classes were designed to be multiclass, not in a "pick a new class every level" sort of way, but rather you will always be a "fighter/wizard" at the game's start, building your XP chart, and slowly gaining the abilities of both classes. There are no "one-level dips" in C&C to steal a few class abilities to break another class with; essentially, the game design of 5E relies on exploits.

C&C has classic multiclassing as intended. It is a far better system than 5E's chaotic, idiotic level-dipping mess. I can be a "class and a half" illusionist-bard in C&C, and it means something. I chose that to start, and I will be that all the way.

In many ways, C&C is not an OSR game, but an entirely new one. It may share the math, combat, ability score, and other numbers of the OSR and remains compatible with the adventures there, but the rest of the game is brand-new and so different that what it throws out defines the game. Just the best parts, the character classes, spells, magic items, and monsters, are kept, and all the reference charts are thrown out. 5E would do well to copy C&C more and start throwing out huge sections of the rules, starting with the multitude of action types.

Many parts of 5E serve no good purpose other than to slow down gameplay and require constant rules reference, serving the game designer's hubris and need to force players into a book rather than into a live, immersive world and real-time decision loop. This is one of the flaws of Dungeon Crawl Classics; the game needs the core book's charts as training wheels to create an authentic old-school experience.

I love DCC, and the charts are the only way to communicate to today's players "what it all was about" back in the day. But for those of us who were there, we don't need the charts and find them limiting on our imaginations, which go far beyond what can be printed in these books.

5E is a different type of game. It is designed for competitive play and those who need rules to manage the insecurity of playing with complete strangers. Honestly, Pathfinder 2 does a better job providing rules frameworks for social play, and 5E is sort of a middling game that tries to be everything to everyone.

5E requires you to flip through the book for every action attempted, forcing you to check action types, see if different things combo, and taking you out of the game world and putting you in the rules world on almost every turn of play. Your mind is 10% in the dungeon and 90% living in a book outside the game. You could make the argument that 5E is not a role-playing game, but a 1970s wargame with roleplay elements. 5E is closer to Advanced Squad Leader than it is to Dungeons & Dragons.

In C&C? My character sheet is in front of me. A list of class abilities and spells is there for me to consider. I have my equipment and weapons. My ability scores are ready to use. That's it. I am "on the metal" with my decision tree. I do not need to open the book or check action types to figure out my next turn or plan of attack. The game doesn't have "infinite cantrips," so spells are rare and powerful.

What I have on my character sheet is it. No rulebook is going to save me or define my actions on a turn.

What I see is what I have.

Otherwise, I am immersed in the world and must pay attention.

If my druid casts entangling vegetation on a group of goblins, I may just rule as a C&C referee (Castle Keeper) that the encounter ends if the druid flees, and just "give them that." Single-use spells should be ruled more powerful and narratively impactful. That spell is once per day; give the incantation its due.

Spells in C&C and old-school games are magic.

In 5E? I need to sit there and make rolls to escape every turn, follow the rules to the letter, and play this out to "maximum rules coverage." I could make that old-school ruling in 5E, but by the letter of the rules, the game defaults to rules-based simulation more than to storytelling. Spells you can get back on a short rest, or fire off on every turn? Really, they don't mean as much anymore and have far less impact on the narrative.

Spells in 5E are powers.

Note the subtle difference there, as it means a lot.

The legacy of Wizards of the Coast and the influence of Magic: The Gathering on the D&D's design is clear. The experience is less a role-playing game and more one that relies heavily on rules and tournament-style play. Modern D&D is rules over immersion.

C&C is a game that tells you, get your nose out of the book, stop endlessly trying to cheat the game's rules, stay engaged, stay immersed in the world, and keep making in-character choices. Shadowdark is very similar, and this is why that game does so well. Players stay engaged and in character. Nobody is stuck in a book, finding a rule or chart. The referee and players can use their imaginations to create "the old school flavor and immersion." If something old-school and strange happens, it will be because of someone's imagination, the referee saying "that's cool, allowed," and not a random chart result.

The more a game expects you to stick your nose in a book, the less fun it is.

But some players will say, "But I like the extra rules!" To which I will say, "I don't care." C&C is rules-light, but it has enough rules to cover everything that it doesn't feel like a traditional rules-light game. Every rule, skill roll, saving throw, class ability, and situation is covered by the game's fallback system, the SIEGE Engine. It all comes back to your ability scores, making them matter again.

With the Player's Guide 2 drop, the book is sort of worthless to me until I have this on the Shard Tabletop, "so I can start using it." This is the world you get stuck in with 5E. A book isn't "real" unless you own a digital copy somewhere to use on a paid character designer. And you are forced to buy it twice. It is nice to read ahead and plan a few builds, but the book's arrival in PDF form is a non-event beyond reading material. I am so dependent on Shard that until I can "pay for it again there," the book is meaningless.

With 5E, it is always, "Did you pay for it twice?" No? Well, then, you can't use it.

We are so used to the rip-off that we can't see it anymore.

I like 5E, but the forced computerized character sheets are terrible. The 5E business model is exploitative and sucks, and it approaches insurance company levels of terrible. ToV is the best 5E clone out there, but still, there are moments when I wonder why I even bother. It is a good game, but the hobby is in a sad state. Still, I will likely buy this again on Shard, since I support them.

With C&C? No character designer needed. I can go back to my OGL books, pull in classes there, and use them, or combine them in multiclass builds. All my old books are perfectly usable, even with Reforged. People without Reforged can play in the same game; it is just a handful of name changes, and all the old books are 100% compatible. Reforged did a better job "cleaning the game" than Pathfinder 2 did with the Remaster, where parts of the world felt like they were lobotomized and entire races removed from the world.

Having the ToV Player's Guide 2 PDF is nice, but I really don't "have" it until I pay again somewhere. It is another "book of rules" which will slow down the game. The options are great, but the design is still inferior to a game designed to play "reference-free." Where 5E is the Blackberry with the physical keyboard and clunky design, C&C is still the iPhone with a minimalist design but high ease of use.

With C&C, all I need to do is own a book to use it.