While Castles & Crusades is the fantasy game for me, nothing can touch the king, which would be the heavily modified and improved 1E clone, Adventures Dark & Deep. This is the premium edition of 1E, starting off as a "what if" game: "What if Gary Gygax had never been forced out of TSR, and 2nd Edition was a logical continuation of AD&D 1E?" Joseph Bloch did his best to answer that question, and a revised edition later emerged, becoming its own game while retaining those strong theoretical roots. Nevermind Castles & Crusades was the last game Gary Gygax was associated with, so the two games share that bond.
And nothing touches this game.
Do you want to play the best version of 1E, with all the fiddly 1E bits, like weapon speed and attack tables? This is your game. I like descending AC and the tables! There is a cryptic, runic, old-school feeling about writing your attack matrix down and cross-referencing it during play. This was the way we did it; this is the way you should be doing it. I don't care about "the same math" or "streamlining," and sometimes those take away from the experience.
What is your chance to hit AC 6?
14.
Ooooh!
There is a magic and feeling of mystery here that, once you know the math behind it, something is lost. If your "attack modifier" is +3, and the referee gives you a further +1, it is now +4, so what? If the AC is 18, you still need to roll a 14 or higher, but the magic feels somehow diminished.
With that 14, if the referee ever gives you a positive modifier for an attack, it feels more special. Even if the math is the same, a bulk "plus to attack" feels less special than "looking it up on a table" and "getting a further bonus." Why are we ruining the magic of the dice by factoring everything down to the lowest common denominator?
It sounds silly and stupid, but there is something to this. Back when we were kids, we didn't factor this in. We trusted the "kind wizard Gygax" and his "magic dice rocks." We trusted the methods by which his game could unlock worlds of adventure. Get the math majors and mobile game producers out of the hobby, and get the superstition and mysticism back into it.
And the monster book is amazing, the best-of-the-best 1E foes and creatures, all laid out in exacting detail and glory. Since this is a 1E game, you have complete OSRIC, Swords & Wizardry, and many other bestiaries to choose from. There are almost too many monsters to count in 1E books, and that is a wonderful thing. You get the best monsters here, and many you will recognize immediately from any edition of the game.
If I am supporting one edition of the game going forward, with the best books you can buy, this is the version to get. Sure, C&C and OSE are easier and more streamlined, but if I am playing 1E, I want all the fiddly bits and strange table references. I want weapon speed to matter. I want the RoF and all the modifiers in the weapon charts. I want the ability score modifiers, the level limits, and all the strange race-and-class combinations allowed.
Is it fair to allow a drow to be a paladin? Yes. Is it allowed? No, there isn't that hierarchy or tradition in the drow culture. Could they? Sure, as a special case, but that should be left for the referee to decide and the player to ask for.
Why are game designers making the "special case" the "every case"? Again, here we go with streamlining, optimization, changes to fairness, and the blandification of the game's "inbuilt" culture and assumptions: "everyone can be everything and all math is optimized." You are taking what should be the game's strangeness and mystery and allowing "all to be all," and now nothing really matters. Gnome barbarians? Orc bards? Dwarf wizards? Lawful good assassins? Any race and class combo to any level? Sure, why not? The absurd becomes the everyday.
The designers just took away all my "special player requests" and "allowed everything."
Gee, thanks.
I used to be able to do favors for players with really great ideas, but the designers took all that away to please imaginary people. In short, this is the number one problem in gaming right now. Trying to please everyone, yet pleasing nobody.
We also have a quick-start set of rules that covers about 70% of the game. Lite is an amazing value and worth having as a one-book reference guide to all the best options and lower-level powers, spells, and monsters in the game. You can start a campaign with this and run it through until the end, and never know you were playing with the lite rules until a few special cases come up, if they ever do.
The Lite rules are a near-complete game focusing on the lower levels (and the iconic choices), most of which many groups will never venture past. The only major missing piece is the optional skill system, which is easily ported in from the main book and not really needed for most play.
And the books go on and on with this game, not needing many, but each one is a winner. We have a Cthulhu mythos book, an expansion (Book of Fell Wisdom) on the way, an answer to Oriental Adventures, and a few more that are all amazing. These are all fully compatible with OSRIC and AD&D 1E (and 2E), so you get the best game ever created, with more.
If I want a rules-light AD&D-style game with modern improvements, I will play Castles & Crusades. If I want the best version of 1E ever imagined, Adventures Dark and Deep is a behemoth. For realistic fantasy gaming, Rolemaster is still my go-to game, but if the 1E "stuff" is what I want, then ADAD is the game to play.
If you are a mega-fan of 1E, this is the mega-game for 1E.
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