Second Edition or ACKS?

A strong, themed world, with classic classes? Races designed to fit the worldbuilding? The challenge of low-level play? Simple rules that don't fight you? Classes designed to enhance roleplay and not overdo it on personal power gain.

I have a game like that. It does the First and Second Editions better than the originals, but it is strongly themed around sword-and-sandals gameplay. The Second Edition has nostalgia and feels for me. The First Edition is a solid base. Everything is compatible and works, and I am not chasing games or trying to buy myself out of a broken game and spending money to make it enjoyable again.

ACKS is the game I see for Gold & Glory, but it offers much more, including mid- and endgame. Like FG&G, it is a solid package, through and through.

Everything I have in the Second Edition with For Gold and Glory, ACKS delivers more of, in a high-quality package, without a day-old and damaged Forgotten Realms world. There is everything I would want and need here, including the classic gameplay. ACKS does a better job at delivering "the full experience" than anything in the first or second edition, since it supports a complete mid- and endgame.

Yes, starting off in OSRIC or FG&G will be about the same as ACKS. You are a nobody, walking around a vast world, and fighting to get a few coins to upgrade gear and find a nice, safe place to sleep at night. You get those first levels, train, and improve your abilities. The level one to three run is about the same in any of these games.

With ACKS, at the third or fourth level, things begin to change. You start unlocking class powers, which are like D&D 5E's subclass powers, but inspired by the old school abilities unique to each class. You unlock proficiencies, your character begins to change, and you prepare for a mid-game where you will start seeing the world in a new way.

You will begin to consider your legacy and future.

Will you conquer land and start a domain? Will you build a wizard's tower and dungeon for magical research? Will you start a trading company and begin to establish trading routes? Will you start a thief's guild? Will you unite the barbarian tribes of the north? Will you retake ancient elven lands and spread the elven kin's power and dominion? Will you dig deeper and forge a dwarven kingdom in the grand mountains? Will you build temples and spread your god's influence and religion? Will you establish a monastery and a new order of fighting monks devoted to wisdom and physical perfection? Will you make a sanctuary and train paladins to smite chaos and bring justice to the land?

You can do all that in ACKS. The endgame exists.

In the First and Second Editions? You find higher-level dungeons. In the Second Edition, your stories become "more epic" and are worth "more XP" since you are fighting "tougher monsters." In essence, 1E and 2E never change, and you are just doing "the same things, just higher level." The comparison to a video game is apt, since you are just "fighting to get more power" by the end. D&D is a very consumerist game, actively discouraging you from thinking about legacies, changing the world, or endgames. Like an MMO, they need to keep you "in the power grind" and "chasing the next thing" without "touching our unchangeable sandbox world."

While the starting points are the same, in ACKS, your view of the world and your legacy change. There will be a moment in every game where a character needs to answer the question, "Why am I here?"

If they survive, they can begin to answer that question through their actions.

Yes, I know what I said about piling on abilities as you level, and I still like Second Edition for its simplicity. ACKS borrows some from modern designs, and each class unlocks powers as you level. It does not overdo it, and there are only a handful, so the game gets a pass over modern designs that pile on a dozen or more powers in the mid-levels.

OSRIC, For Gold & Glory, Adventures Dark & Deep, and ACKS feel rock-solid to me. Any one of them is a great time. OSRIC is rock-solid First Edition fun. I like FG&G for its presentation, second-edition improvements, and streamlining. I like ACKS because it is a complete game, full of worldbuilding and flavor, with the endgame built into the experience, and everything serves that goal. Where FG&G falls short, such as in the endgame, ACKS delivers and is built to handle those types of games.

Off the Shelf: ACKS

I moved my premium ACKS books to my most-played shelf, alongside Adventures Dark & Deep, OSE, and 3.5E. This has replaced 5E, and in a way, I don't really care about "losing 5E's builds" or characters. I really don't care that much for a system that forces me to visit online sites to create characters for my games. My data and my character sheets are mine, not yours.

It is more "cloud service BS" that all my creative work with characters, histories, backgrounds, adventures, campaigns, and images will eventually get fed into AI. I have a choice, and I say no, I am sorry, I do not consent, and thank you for nothing. If 5E needs to die, it is because of the game's cloud service requirements. It sounds terrible, but I hope all of the 5E live service sites fail, since it will save the hobby.

Sorry, I don't need websites and live services to play these role-playing games. All of this profit motive will kill the hobby and turn it into a scammer and corporate-buzzword-filled mobile game nightmare. Buy credits and special currencies now to advance to the next level! Remember to buy a few more special character boosts! Get those Forgotten Realms Dragon Coins now!

Let D&D die if this is what D&D is going to become.

I will play other games and walk away from the mess. In a way, it feels like walking away from Windows and using Linux. I own my game, my data, my characters, and my imagination again. I am not being forced to buy subscription services. I have freedom. The politics and people guilting you into playing this game or that are gone, just because the "platform buy-in" fandoms are no more. Sunk costs create platform activism, which in turn creates toxicity.

The people running the game also feel your sunk costs into the platform will force you to defend anything they put into the game or marketing material, no matter how inane, nonsensical, or silly. Putting wheelchairs in the game has nothing to do with representation; it has everything to do with forcing you to bend the knee to their control. You have to defend it; it is in the book. This sets you up nicely for the next step, which will affect your wallet, and you will be forced to defend that, too.

I can't ethically defend Wizards any more than I can ethically defend Microsoft.

And if a Linux distro "sells out," I keep my data and migrate to a more ethical distribution. I have choices in this world. With D&D and Windows, I don't. Even your characters are locked down and tied to a website. You don't own them or the campaigns you put in these tools, and read the fine print before your data gets fed into an AI model.

With Linux, I own my computer and my data. I choose to opt in to tracking and online ads. Nobody is going to scan my personal files and report the contents back to advertisers.

With PDFs and character sheets I run by hand, I own my games. I don't need to pay anyone to play it. I don't need live services to play with my friends.

ACKS is a good game. This is an alternate-universe D&D where the entire world exists in a cinematic reality. This is not the silly D&D multiverse with the 1001 silly food-coloring-hued marshmallow shapes representing fantasy races that are all the same anyway; ACKS is a human-based game and reality (with dwarves and elves), but with diversity properly represented through cultures and skin tones.

ACKS gets diversity right.

ACKS feels serious, with a weight and drama that the game brings to the table. This is still your bog-standard B/X-style task and combat resolution system, so there is not much mechanically new here. This is still class, levels, AC, hit points, Vancian magic, weapon damages, combat, and X+ throws. Many systems, such as encumbrance, are simplified. We have fantastic multiple race-as-class options that add to the lore and culture.

And ACKS works efficiently with anything B/X, so all my OSE books work perfectly. Even classes and characters from other systems can port in and play alongside ACKS characters. Monsters are compatible. Adventures work as-written, and all the monster stats work fine.

But more than compatibility, ACKS is high drama. This is a sort of "fall of the Roman Empire" type of game, but with a fictional empire and a fantastical setting. The sky is the limit in this game. I can conquer land, raise armies, and become a king. I can have heirs and have the next generation go out to be their own adventurers.

The game sets out to deliver on the original D&D promise of the dominion endgame. It provides a complete kingdom simulator, like the tabletop game, but as a fantasy version of Twilight Imperium. There has never been a fantasy game this ambitious and full of fun, and while many OSR games stop when you leave the dungeon, this goes all the way.

The original 5E designers betrayed the spirit of the game by writing henchmen and dominion rules out of the game, and set us up for the terrible mobile-phone-game place we are in today. Many like to tout that as an achievement, but there are plenty of downsides to 5E that we are now stuck with.

ACKS delivers.

It may take three massive tomes to do so, but the game delivers on its promises.

This feels like the Sparticus series, gritty and dirty, realistic and brutal. I caught an episode of this on Netflix, and went out and bought the physical media since this one (and the Rome series) are keepers. This is not your cosplay, no helmets, Tiefling and Dragonborn, floofy American anime adventure series, like most D&D culture is these days. This is gritty, dirty, violent, and honest.

And I like the classic three races of humanity, dwarves, and elves. This is the perfect mix: not so many that no one can relate to each other, or so few that everyone at the table is talking in an animal voice. We throw out all the silly marshmallow shapes that don't mean anything anyway and let people roleplay cultures that feel more grounded and real. One newer game has "punk rock time travellers" as a race option. Unless that is from some anime I haven't seen yet, I have no clue what that is even doing in fantasy, nor can I relate to it in any meaningful way outside of Cyberpunk.

This strange cosplay culture around D&D, where it is more about Victorian dress up with plastic swords, face paint, and Tiefling horns, has gotten stale and tired. The entire modern-day look and feel of D&D is a parody of the hobby, where the Steampunk cosplayers ended up, and it shows in the game's art, which tries to sell it as a lifestyle.

I'm wearing plate mail! Look at this metal shoulder pad! It is as bad as the chain-mail bikini, minus the beauty of the human figure in an artistic sense, replaced by Hot Topic fantasy clothing. I like the classic Boris Vallejo art. The new D&D art sucks and looks like face-forward, unable to draw in perspective or from behind, AI-seeded work stitched together and painted over in Photoshop.

But, ACKS is a nice game. Yes, there is some AI art in here, too, and you can't really get away from it these days. But the tone and style are far better than the D&D alternative that frankly looks like every other game these days. At least ACKS sticks to a "Fallen Rome meets Conan" sort of style of gritty fantasy art, and it is a good thing.

And the ACKS world model is simple. The Fallen Rome part sets you up to be the hero. The ancient world, being a land of evil magic, serpentmen, demons, and twisted Conan-like cults, is what the world will fall into again.

Unless you act. The call to be a hero is there.

As I sunset 5E as the 2014-2024 game, I know it had a good run. But what it is today is not how it started, and the game has been going downhill since Tasha's. The rampant powergaming and overpowered builds, the bleh classes, and the new OP ones, it's all just an MMO these days, when MMOs give me more enjoyment and fun. I would rather play World of Warcraft than 5E, even without the "ability to tell stories together," since that is not 5E's focus anymore. WoW does the power build and gaming fun better.

For solo play, I want more than 5E, and I like story, setting, and a promise of something beyond powergaming with zero exploration, social, or dominion gaming. ACKS gives me the full package and delivers on the promise.

ACKS is a modern classic.

The Case for ADAD

With Old School Essentials and Swords & Wizardry, why do I need Adventures Dark and Deep?

ADAD is a huge game. This is the ultimate version of the first edition, and it does not even belong in the same class as OSE or S&W. This is a big book game, with everything you would ever want in it, looking through a detailed, stat-heavy, and complete first-edition lens. It is so comprehensive and massive that there is only one game it could compete with.

ACKS II. 

ACKS II is a game just as large, just as ambitious, just as complete, and just as compelling as ADAD. Both are in the heavyweight division of gaming, and these two massive games can slug it out for tabletop dominance. Where ACKS II is the Bronze Age powerhouse of savage lands and the wickedness of chaos tearing apart civilization, ADAD is classic first-edition gaming at its best.

ADAD is gearing up in town, wandering through the woods and avoiding deadly encounters, and prying open the lost tomb's sealed entrance to delve inside. It is the slow grind, every bonus matters, count the coins of encumbrance, and full-bore first edition game, plus so much more. The game expands our knowledge, with page after page of what could have been. And it reflects the future, some, while keeping its boots firmly planted in the golden era of roleplaying.

ACKS II is the tale of conquering kingdoms. Zero to hero, or diabolical villain. Savage lands, conquering cities, raising armies, and rebuilding civilization. It is equal parts brutal, beautiful, notorious, and glorious, with iconic heroes and vicious creatures of myth and legend.

So, why ADAD? Isn't the rules-light S&W close enough?

ADAD features classic monsters, classic presentation, and tons of additional content inspired by years of research and inspiration. This is the big "what if" first edition got a proper second edition, but it was done by the original creator. Of course, it isn't; the game began as a speculative work, but it has evolved into a solid, well-presented, historical document and excellent role-playing game. And then, the game evolved into its own thing, no longer a fantasy "second edition" but a distinct game in its own right. We offer new classes, including magic, monsters, and races, as well as various other options. We have a skill system. We have so much more than the original books, and it would take years to explore them all.

And really, we have the best of everything in this game.

Not to mention a wealth of excellent add-on books and adventures from the same creator. If you like the classic "stuff" and that retro crunch, this will be a new favorite game. The Swords of Cthulhu book is not to be missed, and can feed an entire campaign's worth of action fighting against elder gods as first-edition heroes.

Both games are similar in that they limit character race and background options. ACKS II offers a diverse selection of humans, while AD&D offers the classic races, plus a small number of new ones to try. If you don't want a bunch of silly talking dragons, half-demons, and other modern distractions, both of these games will challenge you to be diverse in a smaller set of choices. The more I limit race choices to the classics, the better the diversity of people represented at my table becomes. ACKS II is a master class in incorporating setting-specific, heroic, and noble backgrounds from diverse cultures into the setting, yet they are all humans. ADAD is the classics, plus a few new ones.

ADAD feels like the real thing, plus everything that could have been. It is like AD&D 2nd Edition never happened, and the world kept moving on with the original first-edition game. The game hasn't been streamlined; there is no THAC0. We write down our to-hit numbers on our character sheet by AC numbers, and all our stats have these wonderful secondary modifiers.

Grappling hooks have their own chart, which determines different percentage rolls based on the object they are trying to grab onto. Additionally, some results have a chance to slip off after a random amount of time passes. That is wonderful, first-edition, pedantic, nerd-delighting, wonderful nuance and detail. This is why I play this game. If something can happen, it has a chart somewhere. If it doesn't? I will create one that generates a set of fun, random results.

ADAD is about every last detail, minor modifier, and rolling on a chart for something, somewhere, for almost anything.

It is like Dungeon Crawl Classics in a way, only the charts are not wild and gonzo results, but all manner of great and terrible things that can happen to normal people. If there was ever a game that required a percentage chart for pulling potion bottles open with your teeth, this game would have it, or you would need to create one.

For any not-by-the-rules action, you could always roll 1d100 and interpret the result as a disaster (1), a miracle (100), or a combination of both, with failure and success being the intermediate outcomes (2-99). Modify up or down based on the ability score or situation, if needed.

Want to read an ancient text? Make that 1d100 roll.

If I did not have the energy to "drill down" into this level of detail, Swords & Wizardry is a great alternative, with far fewer charts and modifiers floating around on random pages. It depends on your tolerance for charts and modifiers, and ADAD may either be the perfect game for you or a nightmare. The rules state that you can ignore most details, and the specifics are provided if needed.

ADAD is clearly a "superfan" game, just like GURPS. If you are devoted enough and love the system, no amount of complexity and detail is too significant. Otherwise, even if you are half-interested, go for a more rules-light game, such as C&C, S&W, or OSE.

If you can be a nerd about that grappling hook table, then ADAD is clearly your game.

ACKS II is complex in a different way. As you level up and your game scales to dominion management, you start to delve into the more complicated areas of the game. The lower-level games in ACKS II are more akin to a B/X-style set of game rules in terms of complexity, making it easy and straightforward to dungeon crawl without needing extensive rule references.

ADAD keeps you in the weeds from day one. A few too many coins of encumbrance could kill you.

While ACKS II went its own way with dominion-style gaming and that savage, classic, myth and legend feeling, ADAD goes back to the hobby's roots and gives us a wealth of new toys for our toybox. ADAD is like if 5E and AD&D had a collision, and AD&D came out on top.

But both games are giant, huge-book heavy hitters. There are games in the "superheavyweight class" of tabletop gaming, and these games are for some people, and not for others. Both are excellent games, and each has its place.

Kickstarter: Before All Others, The Cyclopedia of Elven Civilization (ACKS II)

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/autarch/before-all-others/

The prelaunch campaign for the Elven book for ACKS II is now live, so you'll be notified when it launches. These are great sourcebooks, so sign up to be one of the first to know and jump in.

Mail Room: ACKS II

ACKS II is the Final Boss of the OSR. 

It does in three books of a thousand total pages what 5E does in three shelves of books. I have never seen anything like this game. The tomes are weighty and substantial. The page stock is thick and luxurious. There are rules for everything, from scrounging coppers to buy torches, to staging a naval invasion after a fleet battle, and laying siege to the evil lands of the beast-men armies with your allies. After you knocked everything down, you rebuild, create new cities, and establish taxes and defenses. The game takes you from listening at a dungeon door all the way up to a full-blown game of Civilization in a fantasy setting.

The art is glorious.

The setting grips me like the epic myths of old.

The classes and systems are so well thought out that they put many games to shame.

There is no OGL or SRD content!

The setting is superior to any I have ever seen: a Bronze Age, falling empire, marked by strife and chaos, where land is taken and made your own. It is a world of lost ruins, savage battles, and ancient sorcery. It screams at you to be a hero or become a villain, as the game makes no moral judgment for you.

This is your path to walk.

This is not cosplay Renaissance, planar hopping, Hot Topic meets steampunk, dyed Supercuts hairstyles, anthropomorphic animal masks, funny voices, devil-in-appearance only, gunslingers and goblins, clockwork androids, or modern theater gaming, where nobody wears helmets. The game is more diverse than D&D because it invests in its setting and presents a rich tapestry of cultures and peoples. You don't lose anything by cutting out all the modern cartoon flash; you gain more by getting a game that asks you to put yourself in the world with your people.

I am glad they threw out the OGL and SRD content, as it takes this game from "oh, another OSR set of rules to play not-D&D with" to its own thing. And the game rises like a phoenix from the ashes. It is a game for mature minds, without slipping into the salacious or tawdry, like an epic drama meant to make us reflect and take seriously. This is the good stuff.

I have had a friend mistake the deluxe, leather-bound game books for a set of encyclopedias or a bible set.

No, that is a game.

What sort of game is it?

This is a sandbox game, where the story comes from what you do, not narrative tools, pools of meta-currencies, or random drama dice. The story is you living or dying, the struggles of watching a friend perish, the glory of finding a roomful of gold, and the parties you throw in remembrance of those who passed along on this hero's path you all walk along. This is growing into a mighty hero, kicking in the doors of a fort of beast-men slavers, and freeing the town they hold under chain and terror. And this town of grateful souls heals, rebuilds, and becomes the heart of your dominion.

That is your story.

You don't need toys or tokens to tell it.

You need bravery, determination, wits, timing, and luck.

Your heart needs to beat like the drums of destiny.

It is a game that is equal in weight to Adventures Dark and Deep, a game I consider to be a definitive classic Greyhawk experience, but it comes along and does more with more. Where Greyhawk is content to be first-edition plus more, ACKS II is the game we were promised by the first edition but never truly got.

You start off as a lowly, first-level hero, crawling in a dark hole in the ground, and can die in an instant.

You end up playing a 4X game, building cities, clearing the land with your armies, forging alliances and getting backstabbed, and conquering the world.

Then, you birth heirs, and start all over again.

Mail Room: ACKS 2 (PDFs)

It was nice knowing you, OSE, Shadowdark, 5E, Pathfinder, and many others...

All kidding aside, I got my ACKS II PDFs today. What a fantastic set of books. To cap off the size of this thing:

• Revised Rulebook: 550 pages
• Judge's Journal: 486 pages
• Monstrous Manual: 438 pages
• Judge's Screen Inserts: 24 pages
• Compatibility Guide: 12 pages
• Character Sheet: 5 pages

There are 1,515 pages in total. If you missed out on the Kickstarter (which pulled in a respectable 300K+), you will want this game if you are into old-school gaming. The layout, art, design, and organization are all incredible.

The art looks like it was ripped out of a 1990s comic book or Conan graphic novel; there is page after page of outstanding works, and the book is not ashamed to show the beauty in the physical form, both male and female. If the 2024 D&D art turns your stomach, forget that edition ever happened and pick up this game. There is no Wall Street corporate shame or social media pandering here.

And frankly, that is a freaking breath of fresh air. Thank you. I will always support you if this is your vision of your world and game. I am an adult; I can watch an R-rated Conan movie, and if your game shows no fear, I shall be there. I spent too long in this world to have someone else tell me what I can see and say or to be forced to buy fantasy games with garbage art.

We don't have forever in this world. Why are you letting people tell you what to enjoy? Every day you let someone else define your life is one more day lost in your existence.

Oh, they are coming out with a treasure book, too? Backed. It is in the sidebar. There is a deal to get the full game plus the new book. If you want in, now is the time.

There is no more OGL in this book; it has been stabbed through the heart and tossed into the bottomless ocean where it belongs. The game is better for it, too. The OGL and the SRD have been a fake yardstick that all games have been held up against for years, and it only served to say, "Your game is inferior to D&D." Without the OGL shackles, game creators are free to express their world and their games how they want to. Creators are now free to shape their own games and worlds.

There is a new standard-bearer in the OSR, unafraid and broken free.

ACKS II, Preview PDFs

I really like the ACKS II rules, and I have been following the Kickstarter and have the art-free PDFs to read. They removed all OGL content from the game, and the game is better for it. D&D has enshrined certain immersion-breaking tropes into the genre, and I noticed all ESP is gone from the game. Displacer cloaks, invisibility 10' radius, and detect secret doors are gone. Wizard eye and spell storing (spell and item) are gone. Wands of detecting secret doors and traps are gone.

A few ability scores have been renamed; intelligence is now intellect. Wisdom is now willpower. Clerics are now crusaders. The race-as-class entries are thematic and tighter-tied to the world.

One of the most exciting aspects of the changes is the removal of problematic, game-breaking spells and magic items. This shift requires players to engage in more strategic dungeon-crawling, relying less on spells and magic items and more on their own wit and skill.

If you make the SRD a golden idol over fun gameplay, you will inherit all of its flaws and weaken your game. If you approach fantasy gaming with a "completist" attitude, where you must have everything, you will bring broken things into your game and hurt the player experience.

Another improvement here is tightening the official world to the rules and eliminating the assumption of a generic world. I have enough generic B/X systems, and seeing something different is refreshing.

Of all my B/X games, this one looks like my "last one standing" after I put many in storage.

ACKS 2 = $333,010

Congratulations to the ACKS 2 team for raising $333,010 by the final day of the Kickstarter!

We are seeing B/X-style games break free of the OGL and CC and discover their worlds, magic, and monsters - which is a great thing. Too many OGL games are content to rewrite B/X, BECMI, 1e, 2e, and so on. They are forever mired in the same old monsters, magic, classes, and feelings - and they will always be compared to D&D.

None of them will ever live up.

OGL and CC games support D&D's position as the market leader.

Without the OGL or CC, there is nothing to compare games to, and they can be free and do their own thing. If they are numerically compatible, all the better, and you can pull in what you want - but you do not have to or need to.

A year ago, things would always stay the same until January 2023 came along, and Wall Street and their goons came knocking. All of a sudden, the true face was revealed. Nobody could rely on goodwill anymore.

Game after game, they started dumping the OGL.

Some went to the CC, which is cool, but those concepts are uncopyrightable rules anyway; only the CC requires you to kiss the ring.

Those who never kiss the ring are free to determine their own destiny.

This is where we are with ACKS 2, realm building, classic adventure, and domain management all in one classy package.

Congratulations again, and I am more than pleased I am a backer.

ACK 2 Kickstarter: Last 24 Hours!

 

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/autarch/adventurer-conqueror-king-system-imperial-imprint-acks-ii

The ACKS 2 Kickstarter is in its final 24 hours! Wow, they did a fantastic job with over $319,000 raised, making this a bigger Kickstarter than the OSE: Advanced Fantasy. Congratulations to their team, and I am looking forward to this one!

My takeaways? There is a demand for domain-level play. There is also a strong demand for non-OGL and non-CC fantasy gaming outside of the influence of Wizards and their tangled web of licenses and 'we will pull this and that' shenanigans. There is also a desire to move away from 5E for many, or at least those who 'bought 5E once' and will stick with that while looking for something new.

To a lesser degree, there is a demand for non-planar gaming focused on one world and conflict, where the plot can't multiverse-sidestep into abstract and silly places - multiverse fatigue is here, and I don't see that improving. There is also a demand for games focused on the Middle Ages (world-building) rather than the oversaturated pseudo-Renaissance (nation-building, all but modern).

There are also fans of the old TSR Birthright setting wanting that 'Game of Thrones' style drama without all the superhero immortality and plane-hopping of 5E. I doubt 5E could do Birthright justice since the setting relies on aging, mortality, limited powers, and a closed sandbox.

ACKS 2 sits at the intersection of those demand lines. This is a strong niche to be in since this is the same place that the Crusader Kings videogame series resides in, so there is a strong cross-market interest. The spells and rules of ACKS are tailored to the domain management game, so it has a leg up on even a third-party 5E implementation of domain management. How is domain management critical in 5E if you are living gods with plane-traveling powers at level 20? What does it even matter?

So this is your last chance to jump in and participate in something fun. I have always liked ACKS as my 'serious B/X' that fulfills the BECMI domain management promise, and I look forward to the books coming next year!

And the PDFs coming very soon...

ACKS 2 Kickstarter Update

 

The ACKS 2 Kickstarter has reached $292,438 with 12 days to go, surpassing the Old School Essentials: Advanced Fantasy Kickstarter. This feels like it will break 300K by the final days, and congratulations to this team. They are nowhere near Shadowdark, but this is still a fantastic achievement for the game and its fans.

These days, ACKS 2 will look like my serious B/X style game of choice and replace 5E and Pathfinder 1 and 2 for me. I have Dungeon Crawl Classics for gonzo fantasy. For everything else, Cypher System will be it.

I am not buying a thousand dollars of books for a game again. People who still play 5E and these wannabe live-service games will be the ones to blame for the ever-increasing cost of the hobby. Even if someone owns all the books and never gives another penny to Wizards, they will force other people - new players - to buy the game and get into the walled garden. Even if you get your books used, for free, or any other way - you force the people you play with to buy in - and it is selfish to tell yourself, 'Well, at least I am not giving them money' - you are forcing others to do it for you.

The only way out is divestment.

Find other games; there are plenty, and they all have fantastic communities.

Find a game with everything you need in one book - or boxed set, and make that your game.

The more money you spend on a game, and the more you force others to spend, the more part of the problem with the hobby you become. The players are the reason these companies can charge 80 dollars for a book with a monthly cost tied in. Not the company. Don't let it be you.

So congratulations to the ACKS team for a new high water mark in B/X alternatives, and ones that break free of both the OGL and the CC and do something new and independent. ACKS is different; it has no ties to the Wizards licensing schemes. It is B/X breaking free from the broken record we have been in with B/X for the last 10+ years, where people pick a specific version from a moment and try to rewrite it.

2023 was the year we learned depending on Wall Street's charity was unsustainable.

It is time we find games that give us the freedom to say no to them.

Otherwise, we will be a part of the problem. And people can't whine or complain about playing other games, saying, "I don't want to learn anything else" or the lame "won't be able to find a game" - since they will be forcing others to pay up for those in the ivory towers. Also, ignore the rabble-rousers, using silly reasons and politics to keep people in the Wall Street games.

All lies.

All distractions.

Support games that break free of control. Others will likely come up soon, even if you don't like ACKS, you will have great choices (and do right now). Pick one, and join the community early.

Do you want to be a part of why the hobby's costs are increasing?

I can't.

ACKS 2 Kickstarter: Day 3

With over $250,000 raised, 1400 backers supporting the project, and 27 days left, this is a fantastic start to the ACKS 2 Kickstarter. This is already on the high-end of the OSR Kickstarters and positioning ACKS 2 as a significant player in the OSR space.

And this is a non-OGL and non-CC game, finally free of any chains to nebulous licenses and companies seriously lacking in ethics. There is a market in the OSR outside the OGL, CC, and even 5E. Years ago, that would be unthinkable, and non-OGL games in the OSR would be dismissed.

We are entering a new era of OSR games that are more the creator's vision of a world, magic, and monsters than the B/X view of those things. This is huge. We will see games maintain backward compatibility yet push forward with new ideas and worlds.

This is the fruit of the OGL scandal coming to bear; no longer will the SRD define fantasy gaming. For the longest time, the SRD served as the 'fantasy yardstick' by which many games were measured. If Wizards had left it alone, the SRD could have been the measuring stick permanently and kept D&D on the mountain's peak. Now, designers are thinking outside the SRD box, and gamers are looking for new ideas and worlds.

The ACKS 2 Kickstarter highlights the new market we are in, and the success of this Kickstarter will wake people up.

The game has changed.

ACKS 2 Kickstarter: Day One

Wow. I am happy to see the ACKS 2 Kickstarter doing so well. On the first day, they raised over $200,000 and got over 1,100 supporters. They blew away that first-day goal, and this campaign looks to be entering the phase where the initial level of interest is causing an outside buzz. Some drives do moderately well, and it feels like an 'oh, that's nice' feeling to the campaign.

This one is raising eyebrows, and people are jumping in just because they see so many excited. There is a level of success you can achieve where you start to draw in interest from people who would not ordinarily jump in, and I saw this last happen with Shadowdark. I hope this does just as well, and even half as well would be mind-blowing.

A few observations:

The demand for non-OGL and non-CC fantasy that has no connection to Wizards is surprisingly strong. This is the first significant 'walk away' B/X compatible game. We have had other games like Dragonsbane and Forbidden Lands, but they are a few steps removed from the B/X core style of play. Some games, like the new Swords & Wizardry, are Creative Commons games and still have that lineage. This is the first major 'walk away' B/X style of game, and it does feel like Shadowdark in a way that appeals to a large core of disaffected fantasy gamers looking for something new.

The demand for high-level play other than 'bigger numbers' and 'planar challenges' is an untapped market. There is an actual demand here for domain management, mass battles, and kingdom building. The "4X style of B/X" is a chronically underserved market. 5E, as designed, is too focused on personal power and that "MMO power curve" for expansion books supporting kingdom management to be effective - since the personal power curve outshines any kingdom management dongle books. When domain management is built into the player power curve - that is a design people take notice of. You must grab land and people to do well at high levels, and power will not just be given to you by the rules.

You must take it.

5E is moving towards this mobile-game model of granting power, giving you a free bastion at level 5, like some sort of MMO player housing, and you wonder where it comes from? Who gave you this? What if I don't want it? Did I even ask for one? The game gave it to you. It is not a part of your story or a world. It is a dialog box that pops up, giving you an 'in-game' award, and when you think about it, all of 5E is based on this design. Nothing earned, everything given.

ACKS is the opposite, assuming a player is engaged with the world. If a borderlands region is being ruled by a collection of terrible, cruel rulers - it is up to you to take the lead and change things. Or not. Still, that collection of towns, population, dense forests, and lost dwarven mines could be the core of a solid and powerful kingdom - given the proper mind to shape it.

That mind comes from the player.

And after poking around in dungeons, you begin to fight the cruel mercenaries these thugs use to keep control of these towns. You begin freeing the towns from tyranny. You begin setting up a government and building your realm. You can choose any policy, should you want to pay for it - free college or healthcare for your people? Universal basic income? Overtaxed monarchy? Colonialist power? Evil kingdom or good? Warmonger or peacemaker? The game does not tell you what politics to have. All of this is your choice; just be able to pay for it in terms of gold and blood.

And if there are kingdoms out there you disagree with, like that colonialist slave-owning kingdom next door - they become the next target. Again, the game does not tell you what politics to have, so whatever you believe or think would be fun to try to make work, you can try to make it happen. If there are certain government types you do not like - make them the bad guys.

You can play high-level games without running a domain, but having a domain makes high-level play much easier and faster to advance in. You get to play with all sorts of cool things, like magical research. If an evil dungeon appears, handle it yourself, or put a 10,000gp bounty on clearing it from your treasury and watch the adventurers rush in.

Congratulations on the spectacular start of ACKS 2, and I hope this rises to extraordinary new heights. We need a solid non-OGL B/X alternative game, and this one is getting a lot of interest and excitement. If you are in the campaign, help spread the word! Talk about the campaign, and let's get the word out there about this eye-opening start!

ACKS 2 Kickstarter Live!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/autarch/adventurer-conqueror-king-system-imperial-imprint-acks-ii

The ACKS 2 Kickstarter is live! They have an early-bird special for backers today, so if you are interested or want to support this, now is the time.

I like this game; it is finally breaking away from the OGL and doing its own thing. The OGL mess is turning out to be great for creators who break away and decide to write from their hearts and realize the dreams for their world that do not involve other people's IP.

This is one of the first major B/X games to make the break, and this version is leaning heavily into the middle and end games into conquering and domain management. This is one of the first B/X games that do a campaign like Crusader Kings III, letting you go from zero to the ruler and manage mass battles worldwide - and take part on the battlefield as a hero unit.

To see a B/X game break these chains (and maintain compatibility) and do its own thing turns a new page for the OSR. Finally, a game that promises (and delivers) more than just 'high-level adventures' with more math and three-digit numbers.

And sorry, One D&D - giving us a 'bastion' as some sort of 'MMO player housing' you automatically get at the 5th level is just lame. I would prefer to clear the surrounding area, pay for construction and staffing, and have that stronghold become the capital of a new nation. And I want rules to support kingdom building and management to the maximum level - and for my hero to take part in battles.

I don't want a freebie gimmie (likely used to sell you VTT cosmetics); I want full rules and support to live that dream. The fact that a company that makes billions of dollars won't even touch domain management (even as an add-on), but a small OGL-free Kickstarter game can, is telling.

Demand more from your fantasy gaming.

Very excited about this!

ACKS 2: Kickstarter on October 24

There exist B/X-inspired games that are not supposed to be B/X replacements but expressions of a unique world and sandbox to play in. ACKS is one of those games. I would put the excellent Hyperborea in the same category.

One of the issues of ACKS 1.0 was that it felt too much like a B/X clone, and it put it in a category of games where people could criticize it for being a 'house-ruled version of B/X.' Used as a B/X replacement, yes, that is fair to an extent, and there are better 'pure B/X' implementations out there to play with - but if purity is your yardstick, nothing else but the original B/X and BECMI books from Wizards will do.

You are cutting off many of the community and people's improvements by that measure and limiting indie publishing support.

ACKS 2.0 is launching its Kickstarter on October 24; from what I see, this will be amazing. The OGL has been removed, and the game leans heavily into supporting its take on a Middle Ages 'Fall of a Roman-like evil empire' world. The old empire was a Conan-like evil god dark empire, and it fell, leaving the people of the world to fight against the ancient evil, build new kingdoms, and rediscover the land.

ACKS 1.0 felt like a B/X clone. ACKS 2 keeps enough B/X to be familiar, but it isn't a B/X clone anymore. This is amazing since the classes, spells, and 'stuff' you get with the game are laser-focused on the world and its experience. This is an example of a game removing the OGL and SRD classics and improving the game dramatically.

The OGL, B/X, and SRD can be a crutch, a yardstick you can never live up to, and all it does is compare your game to 5E and make your game seem like a hopeless clone that will never compare. This is like unfairly putting all science fiction on a 'Star Wars scale' that puts Star Wars as the gold standard all sci-fi should live up to, denigrating anything original as 'not Star Wars.' 

Sorry, Dune, you only rate a 62 on the Star Wars scale. I can make a YouTube channel from that concept and farm clicks, which would be peak 2023, and make me hate myself. Alien, 34, what were you thinking? Be more Star Wars next time!

But ACKS 2 feels like a new game.

A specific example is clerics. In the old game, we had a cleric, paladin, and priestess - sort of your typical collection of B/X and AD&D classes - and clerics did not get spells at level one, which was sort of a B/X trope that set expectations.

In ACKS 2, cleric and paladin have been combined into a crusader class, and this covers your mace or sword-swinging holy warrior and combat healer. The cloth-armored priestess stays but gets more magical abilities and more spells, and this feels like the priest class out of World of Warcraft compared to the paladin.

Crusaders get a spell at level one, and priestesses get two.

What was once a muddled collection of B/X classes that relied on the old 'this is a B/X world' tropes is now focused on a specific world, culture, and experience. In fact, each class comes with templates that feel like 5E subclasses, and these are built to support the world's flavor and story. Crusaders can be hermits, prophets, mendicants, proselytizers, priests, undead slayers, exorcists, and templars. Priestesses can be anchorites, oracles, chantresses, canonesses, mendicants, beatifics, missionaries, and lightbringers. These 'subclasses' are smartly executed through proficiency choices - like a combination of feats and skills.

And just the names of these templates are so flavorful I want to start looking up definitions and figuring out what type of world needs them and their roles. B/X doesn't do that for me; I am a 'cleric.'

And there is a merchant-style 'venturer' class, too, so if all you want to do is hustle local markets, run trade caravans, and build a fleet of trading ships while hiring thieves to wreck your competition - the game has your back. And there are many templates for this class, too! B/X doesn't do that; the OGL and SRD assumptions hold us back even if you bolt on a trading game to the rules. Someone will dismiss the idea and go back to being the shapeshifting druid.

Instead of going into this game asking, "What B/X class am I going to play?" 

I ask, "What classes does this world have, and how do they interact with the world and story?"

If you say your game and world are modeled after B/X, people's brains turn off and fall back on old tropes and assumptions. They cease caring about 'your world' and all they care about is 'B/X optimization and roles.' You lost them at that point; please play Old School Essentials or 5E. There is more there for you, and you will be happier.

I created a party of adventurers in ACKS 1.0, and then I started reading the rules for the upcoming 2.0 and wondered what the changes might be. I then realized my party of ACKS 1.0 adventurers was modeled from B/X assumptions, and they felt like B/X transplants in an ACKS-themed world.

I wanted characters who felt like they belonged to this new and exciting world.

ACKS 2 gives me them.

I am looking forward to ACKS 2 as my 'serious B/X' implementation, but even more so as a window into a unique world and experience cut free from the limitations of the old SRD and OGL.

ACKS II: Open License, No More OGL

https://arbiterofworlds.substack.com/p/the-perfidious-treachery-of-wotc

Good news from Autarch with ACKS II, from the above blog.

Therefore, the only choice is to abandon the OGL entirely. Going forward, Autarch will no longer produce material under the Open Game License. We will be launching our upcoming Adventurer Conqueror King System: Imperial Imprint (ACKS II) in May without any WOTC SRD material. We will put in place a new license - a truly open license — that will make the core rules of ACKS II available to every other OSR developer in the space. And all of our future products, on DriveThruRPG, Kickstarter, Patreon, and elsewhere, will be released to be compatible with ACKS II or Ascendant, not with anything owned or touched by WOTC.

A gutsy and incredible move. I am on board. It is time to come together under the banner of freedom, choice, and the support of diverse and inclusive gaming communities. Of all beliefs, ways of life, and choices of the game they play.

And let us build new worlds from the ashes of the old.

Adventurer Conqueror King System: Imperial Imprint

Some cool OSR news, the "Rules Cyclopedia" for ACKS is Kickstartering this summer as a 496-page compilation. This will be called the Adventurer Conqueror King System: Imperial Imprint, or ACKS II.

From the Facebook page:

I’m delighted to officially announce our next book for ACKS. Adventurer Conqueror King System: Imperial Imprint, or ACKS II, will be a 496-page compendium that updates and revises the rules for character creation, classes, equipment, proficiencies, adventures, campaigns, and warfare into one epic volume. It’s more than Like By This Axe, it will be available in our standard hardcover format as well as an exclusive leatherbound edition. There will be other books in the Imperial Imprint series as well, including a Judge’s handbook and creature compendium.

ACKS II is not just a new compilation of existing material published previously. It has many new features and improvements, both to the design and the layout. It corrects many longstanding complaints about the presentation of the rules, and subtly improves the game in ways that build on my 12 years of experience since first drafting it. However, ACKS II is not a “new edition” of ACKS, not in the sense that Wizards of the Coast has made new editions of D&D. It is almost entirely backwards-compatible with everything that has already been published. Lairs & Encounters, Heroic Fantasy Handbook, and all of our other amazing sourcebooks will be usable with, at most, a few pages of updates - less than the typical GM’s house rules. If ACKS was similar to Moldvay/Cook Basic/Expert, ACKS II is most similar to D&D Rules Cyclopedia. You will not be playing a different game, just a better version of the game you already love.

ACKS II has been quietly playtested by an able group of ACKS experts for the last two years and already stands at 426 pages of text. It will Kickstart in summer 2023, probably around Independence Day. There’ll be more updates on ACKS II in the days and weeks ahead, with examples of the new class formats, proficiencies, and more.

I like this game, it is a fun OSR alternative focused on a Middle Ages world and plays like a B/X combined with a 4X generational kingdom management game. Not everything has to be "one B/X game to rule them all" and seeing the community creating new games and editions is always a great thing.

Hak on ACKS

I am doing a sister blog for ACKS over here and focusing on that game in that space. If I play a game or want to dive in deeper, it is likely better I have one place focused on the games I want to write about.

https://hakonacks.blogspot.com/

ACKS is a really cool game, and also an incredible toolset for other games for domain management and a lot of other cool subsystems and ideas built into this system. It is a very flavorful and exciting system, different than most B/X variations, and since it is not a generic B/X implementation, it has a lot of great ideas and evolutions of the rules into a great system.

ACKS: Neo-Clone or Fantasy Sandbox?

I heard the term "neo-clone" used when people talked about Adventurer Conqueror King System (ACKS), and a neo-clone is a game that uses the framework of B/X to create a new experience - and one not afraid to deviate from B/X compatibility to deliver gameplay improvements. You see this in games like Stars Without Number, Mork Borg, Dungeon Crawl Classics, White Star, and a bunch of other great B/X style games that start with what we are familiar with (B/X style rules) and then go their own way.

The retro-clones are games that stick to rules compatibility first. Even if an obvious choice exists to improve gameplay, they do not take it since compatibility with older materials is more important than new experiences or gameplay improvements. Swords & Wizardry, Old School Essentials, White Box, For Gold & Glory, and a bunch of other games fall into this category.

Labyrinth Lord is sort of a particular case; it is a retro-clone since it is backward compatible, but the "system" it emulates is a mix of D&D and AD&D books back when players assumed everything was roughly compatible. We all just hacked it to work together. The game still feels more retro-clone than neo-clone, though the system it emulates did not officially exist other than "this is what we all did back then." The game is based on B/X assumptions and makes a mix of content work well together.

The Castles & Crusades game feels like another system spiritually close to Labyrinth Lord. The system it emulates is AD&D, using a D&D 3-style framework. C&C is compatible with almost everything, but the experience feels like AD&D without much of the crunch and detail. The only other game that does this is Basic Fantasy, which is a recreation of the older B/X games through a D&D 3-style lens. I love these games since they are essentially the "best of" a specific edition but with gameplay improvements.

With strict retro-clones, you need to be sold on the original experience. And once you are in a retro-clone, the experience is about the same in any of them - with a narrow range of differences in mechanics. Castles & Crusades is more of a retro-clone emulator that throws away dozens of tables, charts, and needless cruft and unifying mechanics under the ability score. Of all of them, this is the easiest to run; you do not need a book or referee's screen full of tables, and characters can play straight from index cards.

With ACKS, I keep coming back to this system. It survived being boxed up and put on storage shelves many times, and it keeps finding a way to my "most played" shelves, where I keep the best games and the ones I love reading. One factor helping this game is it is a neo-clone, and while it is like a B/X game - it is not a B/X game in playstyle. There is a focus on the three layers of play: adventurer, conqueror, and king.

This is like one of those great JRPGs where the game starts innocently enough, with you going to shops, buying heal potions and gear for your party, going to nearby dungeons, and grabbing loot. And then, at a critical moment, the entire game changes. You and your friends find yourselves in a middle of a war or uprising, and you become important. The mid-level game starts, and you are finding your place in the world. You begin changing the world. And at the highest levels, you are ruling a kingdom or the world.

D&D 5 and many retro-clones are based on the flawed "adventure until max level" grind. The reason many games stop at low to mid levels is because things are more of the same and uninteresting. So what that your damage doubles and the monster hit points also do? So your loot is now more powerful, but you need it anyway to keep up with the challenge rating? It all gets boring after a while.

Hence this is why you see a lot of monster and treasure books with challenges and rewards that scale to the maximum level of the game. You need higher number-value monsters to fight higher number-value heroes! It all feels like a mobile game after a while, where your level 878 fighter and level 799 wizard are taking on some monster in the high-hundred-number monster rating.

The stories are always better than the rules in these games. I don't doubt that. But the rules with the scaling numbers are often atrocious and unnecessary for fun and only exist to give you that mobile game progression hit.

With ACKS, you have that "first-level" character experience three times during your character's path - once at every play tier. Your character is a beginning adventurer. Then, your character is a beginning conqueror. And finally, your character is a beginning king. The game uses a simple B/X-style system as its design language, but it stops there. It adds a few systems the game needs to deliver on the experience (proficiencies), simplifies a few things (encumbrance), and provides a balance of familiar classes and new ones.

The paths of higher-level pay are also expanded, with rogues being able to establish a thieves' guild, warriors having armies, constructing domains, divine classes gathering power and establishing temples, and magical classes with experimentation, crafting new spells, and creating magic items. There is much to do at higher levels, reasons to spend gold, and many sandbox-style options for changing the world around you. And at the highest levels of play, you are running a kingdom, building settlements, and engaging in epic world-changing adventures of great importance.

The issue with a lot of retro-clones and even newer games is the "adventure to max level" assumption and providing little or no options for sandbox play. You get put in the adventurer box, and you can never escape from it. ACKS feels like a fantasy "Grand Theft Auto" where at the lower levels you are running around a sandbox doing minor missions, and then as you gain influence and notoriety - the nature of the sandbox changes, and you are taking over the map, destroying enemy strongholds, and getting involved in new things to do. At the highest levels, you work towards changing the world, or at least a part of it, and establishing a kingdom or other organization that becomes a part of the world's lore.

And you can play good or evil characters and work towards any goal without the "shackles of the adventurer" being put around your wrists. Your goals are very sandbox-driven. Do you want to be an evil worshipper of the fallen ancient gods, discovering power, uncovering secrets, gaining followers, and destroying good kingdoms? Go ahead. Again, the GTA model applies here, be paladins or bandits, generals or merchants, divine clerics or cultists, rulers or destroyers, and you are even free to join the bad guys' side and rule over orcs and beastmen.

The default assumption of "playing an adventurer" is a lot of games rob players of control and agency. The upgrade tracks and paths in many games make "farming the treasure, power, and spell lists" the entire game. Traditional dungeon games make you the servant of the rules. ACKS is a fantasy sandbox game, and your motivations for "why you are here" comes from you.

And you can start new characters and adventure in a changing world and still go back to your rulers and play high-level adventures of great importance every so often (or set tax rates, deal with bandits and rebellions, and do all that cool 4X stuff). It does not do "lip service" to domain management like some games that merely say "and you can" - it gives you the rules to do all that cool stuff.

And since it uses old-school sensibilities, if you want to change a rule, add a system, or make a ruling on the spot that "X happens," you don't break the game. Does it fit the moment and story? Then it happens. Fun is more important than making something fit into the rules.

It is rare to find a B/X style game that "does it all," but ACKS is that game.

Off the Shelf: Adventurer Conqueror King System

Adventurer Conqueror King System (ACKS) is one of those games I just keep coming back to. On the surface, it is a strange B/X retro-clone with many custom modifications to the classes and spells to make them work better with the game's 4X-style domain management game. This means re-learning is needed, and double-checking magic spells "you thought you knew" to ensure your interpretation matches the game.

But this is B/X, not a new game, so the differences are minor, and the amount of "getting used to" the game is way less than an entirely new set of rules.

The game is also more Middle-Ages than Renaissance, and that is a fantastic thing since you can pull in the conflict between the older "Conan Era" of the world with old magic and the barbaric ways versus the "New World" of the state - with religion providing the counterbalance and driving force to rebuild lost empires into nations and vanquish the evil magic of the ancestors - and they will not go quietly. I love this fight of the barbaric era versus nation-building, which is an excellent background for framing a dominion game.

So why play a variant B/X game?

Because it is one.

ACKS has your standard B/X classes, so you can feel right at home, but where it shines are in the incredible collection of specialty classes and specialized racial classes that make those cultures come alive. Many B/X games (and even 5E, C&C, and Pathfinder 2) do the race + class thing, where you pick a shape and put yourself in a cookie-cutter class mold. Every fighter is the same, but your shape is one of a selection.

ACKS gives the races in the game unique and exciting classes that let these ansecteries do things "their own way." How elves fight and use magic is different than how humans do it. Dwarves have entirely different skill sets and professions than humans. And there is a class design system that encourages you to do the same, take a race, create a custom class for that ancestry, and come up with a new and different "non-human" way of implementing class mechanics the way it should be for an entirely different culture.

5E and Pathfinder 2, and frankly, most of the B/X race + class games? You are an elf-shaped fighter. All fighters work the same, and some games may have class specializations, so you can be one of a few subtypes. Only the older "race as class" B/X games do things similar to ACKS, but ACKS takes the concept and advances it into many race-as-class options - and encourages you to run with it. Old School Essential Advanced Fantasy also does new race as class options, but they typically have "one race per race as class" selection, and ACKS gives you many of them.

I love the base "human fighter" being the "human way of fighting" and other races having their own unique way of doing things. Elves may mix war-dancing or magic into their fighting and not have the "elf being a human fighter" option - but that is cool. The culture has its own way of doing things, and the game respects that.

You have a progressive distaste for colonialism, yet D&D 5 says, "all races do things the same way as humans" with their race plus class options. Forcing other cultures - that may have unique identities - into one "Western-culture-approved" way of doing it - is a form of racial colonialism. Being a fighter is one thing, and all races better fit in this mold and conform.

Why not celebrate differences?

Why can't a race mix how they fight with magic, divine power, or even thievery? And that is how things are done in these lands. ACKS has dwarven machinists, craft priests, delvers - and a whole bunch of dwarven specialty B/X-style classes, and it makes me excited to play them. This inspires me to spin up a dwarven party of specialists and take them through B/X adventures - which is something many B/X games do not inspire me to do. Am I going to play a game with a generic dwarf-shaped fighter or a game with a dwarven fury or vault guard? I will pick the latter every time since that sounds cool.

I feel that many games are copying other games - because that is what people are used to. As a result, we get a lot of bland options with no discernible differences or class options. Background means little, and it is just a shape plus class choice.

Too Much OSR?

I have to admit, I have OSR games I bought and don't play. I heard a feeling that there are too many OSR games, and the market needs to be straightforward and provide information about choices. But then again, this is the OSR; it all works together anyway, so there really isn't a problem.

Are there too many OSR games? I don't know. I don't really feel there are, and I have a few favorites - but it is nice to have a choice and for everyone to pick their favorite games. With the 5E world, you have many players but little choice. With the OSR, you have infinite choices and fewer players. But honestly, with 5E you are playing fantasy most of the time.

I do see a lot of niche OSR projects on Kickstarter, and my interest in them has waned just a little. I have everything I need for OSR and games closely aligned with the movement. This is not because my interest in the OSR has lessened, I just have so many OSR games that fit my interests the new Kickstarters do not seem to offer much new - except art and various book formats.

But I am sorting through my collection and boxing up games I don't play. My current best of the best OSR games that have survived multiple shelf shufflings and boxings are as follows:

Swords & Wizardry

Most of my Swords & Wizardry material are adventures played with Castles & Crusades. The base game is still my go-to OSR game since it does all the right things:

• Magic resistance mechanics
• Awesome fighters
• Less reliance on ability score modifiers
• One saving throw number (genius)
• Meant to expand and improvise rules
• Feels like AD&D Lite

Now, Labyrinth Lord and Old School Essentials are in storage - although I love those games, Swords & Wizardry does it all, feels like classic 0E plus AD&D, and does the job cleanly. I still play C&C instead because that game is more straightforward still and has way more options for the time you invest.

Old School Essentials is an incredible game if you do straight B/X, and highly recommended. Parts of it, I feel, are a little too simplified for my liking and almost too bare-bones in the class implementations. The game has a wealth of options for character types; it is just inside those options I prefer a little more detail to the classes.

Labyrinth Lord is coming out with a 2nd edition (according to the creator and his Facebook page), and I am very excited about that. Until then, I will wait and see and spend the time with other games.

The single saving throw number in this game is a genius-level simplification. It eliminates the odd and arbitrary categories and allows classes and races to specialize in an area with just a modifier (save vs. poison at a +2). It can also be used as a back-door skill system, again with modifiers if you want. You can apply ability score modifiers to a save if needed. If I play B/X and AD & D style games, I want to record as little as possible on a character sheet.

Castles & Crusades

My D&D replacement game for all editions. Is it OSR? Not really, but it does OSR so well it belongs on this list. I spent 3 hours creating a 5E character when I could have spent 3 minutes creating a C&C character and the rest of the time playing an adventure. Seriously, there was a point where I felt I was wasting my time with complex systems that did not return enough fun for the time invested.

Best of all, C&C stays out of the way as much as you want. You can play this "5E style" and do a skill check for every situation, or ignore the Siege Engine and let player actions and referee judgments run the game without dice and do things "OSR style."

Or mix the two.

Mixing classes gives you hundreds of possible multi-class combinations and can express any character you have in your head easily.

This game replaces Labyrinth Lord and Old School Essentials for me as well since this game does all the classic dungeon action without the saving throw tables, thief percentage tables, undead turning tables, and other strange charts you need to write down on your character sheet.

Save versus wands? Not in this game. Honestly, that is a save versus spells with a bonus to the roll. Not everything in the B/X era is worth keeping around. In 40 years of gaming, my group has never needed to save versus wands, yet here I am writing down save categories for situations that do not cover 100% of the hazards in a dungeon and go too granular with a few cases when a broad stroke is needed.

Adventurer Conqueror King System (ACKS)

Wait! Is a game with the save versus wands on this list?

Yes.

This game has survived many reshelving attempts and even being boxed up twice. It delivers on the realm-management promise, which very few other games do. And when you take a deeper look, the game has some deliciously gonzo and crazy treats for mages. Building a dungeon to farm monsters from and, maybe, lure adventurers to their deaths? Check. Creating mutant monster-human or monster-monster races in genetic breeding experiments? Check. Creating golems to fight for your army or crush your enemies? Check. Create an evil thief guild? Check. Make your cleric convert a population to their god? Check.

You could run a Game of Thrones game here with no problem. Good or evil kingdom. Good or evil characters tearing down the opposite side or conquering the wilds and building a new kingdom.

The game is like Civilization VI combined with a B/X roleplaying game, and it rocks.

Dungeon Crawl Classics

I have a small shrine to this game in my gaming room. Yes, there are 3E-style saving throws, thief percentage tables, and all sorts of stuff to write down. Despite all the flaws, it is clearly an S-Tier game.

The game screams in the night for you to break all your preconceptions about fantasy. Fantasy these days is this "uni-genre" and a safe, non-controversial, all-ages, talking cartoon shapes, safe for Twitter, meant to win, bucket list checkbox, fantasy fulfillment game.

And it sucks. It is a gray blob of goo that could be anything. It recycles the same old gnolls, orcs, beholders, ogres, mind flayers, dragons, displacer beasts, gelatinous cubes, cute goblins, blah, blah, blah, same old tired monsters. The spell effects are the same. The classes are the same. Everything is so stereotyped the entire game is a parody of itself.

DCC breaks the perfect box of crayons and tells you that you are never getting them back.

And you end up having more fun without all the junk and "product identity" they tell you "you can't have fun without," and you realize that trademarked and copyrighted content sucks and removes your imagination.

Every DCC module breaks the mold, and they rarely - if ever - reuse monsters or use the "old standards." The bad guy this time? Um, evil hairless and skinless rabbits were reanimated by the gas from a meteorite. What do you think they could do? What special powers do they have? You don't know, and they are not in a monster manual. How about fighting them and finding out?

And at that moment, you feel alive; you don't know what is around the next corner, what this next room hold, what that item does, and the magic and excitement of why you play role-playing games - comes back to you instantly.

Patterns?

You may notice a pattern here in my picks. They are not straight B/X implementations. They all do something unique, are the best in ease-of-use (C&C), perfectly hit all the right notes (S&W), or do something no other games do (DCC & ACKS). I am way beyond the vanilla B/X game.

Swords & Wizardry is probably the closest to B/X on my list. It earned that spot for being the most like AD&D feeling while doing all the right things. The game also pares back out-of-control ability score modifiers and puts player decisions and roleplaying ahead of stats - a refreshing change of pace.

Castles & Crusades is so easy to use, and it makes running 20 characters solo a possibility. It tosses many charts and rules, and you can play this straight from the character sheet like the classic Star Frontiers game. Everything is right there; roll and play. No other B/X games do this, and they are all super reliant on charts and writing down many lists of numbers on character sheets.

ACKS is a 4X game disguised as a B/X game.

And DCC is pure rock and roll.