Traveller: Jump, Acceleration, and Sizes

 

Through the years the sizes and jump capabilities of Traveller ships have changed, and I feel a lot was lost or just ignored along the way in pursuit of universal design systems that were more percentage and math based than design based.

Classic Traveller

With just Book 2 Starships , the largest jump-6 and 6G ship was 2,000 tons. At 3,000 tons the best you could do is jump-4 and 4G. At 4,000 tons, jump-3 and 3G. At 5,000 tons we can only manage jump-2 and 2G. And this is putting the largest engine possible in the ship. And there were no ships above 5,000 tons.

That is how we started playing the game, and that is all we thought existed in the universe. No ships were larger than 5,000 tons. If a planet went to war, it had to be close to send in larger 5,000 ton battleships, or they made due with a number of lighter ships in a task force.

This was different than Star Wars or Star Trek (it was the early 80's at the time), and frankly, it was cool. We never knew about High Guard, so yeah, we were in for a huge surprise. This was a universe built around the physics that smaller ships mattered, and that was it. It felt sort of like the wooden sailing ships of old, there is a point where they can only get so big before they either get too heavy to sail, or structural issues with wood start appearing and the ship is too heavy to hold itself together. Here, the limits of technology can only do so much and an entire galaxy has to deal with building and exploring with vessels under 5,000 tons.

To go fast, you went small. Large cargo ships were these jump-2 haulers that needed to carry 2,000 tons of fuel and engines and could at best haul about 2,000 tons of cargo for only 2 parsecs. A military ship of that size could only do jump-2 and 2G, so you did not see them everywhere.

Small ships were where it is at. And the players' ship had a chance.

When High Guard came in, 50,000 ton battleships could do jump-6 and 6G acceleration. The formulas were math based, and there were no limits built into the game. We lost interest in the game and went to Star Frontiers, which did have that "larger ships are slower" assumption.

Also, the first edition of the open gaming Cephus Engine has the classic Traveller 5,000 ton jump-2 and 2G limit built in as well.

Mongoose Traveller 1E

The maximum ship size has dropped to 2,000 tons with jump-4 and 4G being the limit of the game's ships. This is actually a bit of a downgrade from classic Traveller in both size and performance. The ships have gotten lighter and a little slower. The engine table still exists, and performance is tied to those standard engines. The M1E version of High Guard goes percentage and allows maximum performance for all ships, so you can have the 50,000 ton 6G jump-6 hotrods (and have little space for other stuff, but it is possible).

Mongoose Traveller 2E

This gets rid of the performance limits based on size and goes to a straight percentage to a limit of 2,000 tons. With High Guard this tonnage limit can go into the hundreds of thousands. All ships can do jump-6 and 6G, provided they pay the tonnage and fuel costs.

The newer Cephus Deluxe also does away with the table of engines and drives, and goes straight percentage for everything as well.

The old size and engine limits are gone, and this was a huge part of the attraction of the original Traveller game for us. Even though High Guard existed it could be ignored, and that base game felt like how we remembered it. With everything so math- and percentage-based, designing ships doesn't feel like working inside tight size and speed limitations anymore, and everything becomes possible. When everything is possible, nothing is interesting.

There Were Physics Here...

The concept of there is some sort of hard-science limit to how heavy a ship could move and jump based on tonnage in the older editions, and without High Guard. There was a sweet spot for ship size and performance based on role in the middle. Not all ships needed jump drives, if a system had a lot of planets you could have a militia with ships without jump drives defending the world and performing space patrol duties in-system only.

But there was a size limit in the original game, basic game only, that sort of continued into later editions before it was dropped. Without High Guard, Traveller was a different game. It was a game we liked better because the ships were not so open-ended. Smaller ships meant something. Often times, they were all a system had to get the job done.

Knight Hawks & Star Frontiers

Only Star Frontiers' Knight Hawks brought this back with G-acceleration of larger ships being slower, and that was fun for us. Small ships meant something again. You could not outrun star fighters in a freighter, they were going to catch you depending on the time, fuel, and distance between the sides. The slow-lumbering capital ships could be out flew and outrun, but they were dangerous up close. Swarms of faster fighters could weaken a larger ship, but it was very dangerous and they had to get close. Assault scouts were the ultimate adventure ships, and could become the subjects of legends. The on-map hex combat game was very fun.

Most importantly, that feeling of space physics was back, not in jumps but at least on the combat map. We would have loved the jump-game to be factored in, but we made up our own rules for that. As a result, we stuck with that game for decades and enjoyed the ride, and Traveller was kind of left in the dust between the stars.

Mail Room: FrontierSpace

Back in the day, Star Frontiers was our game. My brother and I played that since it came out, and ran an epic campaign that lasted decades. What we loved about it is the game setup a sci-fi sandbox and let you go crazy with all sorts of adventures, starship battles, and exploration all across the universe where a small starship and crew could make a difference.

Contrast this with Star Trek and Star Wars, which can feel like the only way you can make a difference in the galaxy is with a giant battleship and fleet of capital ships. Yes, there is always the small smuggler ships and Edge of the Empire went a long way to restoring the small ships matter feeling, but every movie that comes out works against you in it puts into your mind that bigger and better is the only way to affect change in the galaxy.

Small Ships = Adventure!

This is also why I like capping the size of ships in Traveller to the original tonnage limits in book two to the 5,000 ton maximum, and the best drive performance you could get out of those "battleships" is only 1 or 2 G acceleration and jump 1 or 2 as well. Got a star 4 hexes away? Sorry, not going to encounter any ships larger than 3,000 tons there, and that ship would be loaded with Z drives. Small ships could frequently outrun larger ones, and you never got these 50,000 ton 6G acceleration battleship hot rods like we had in High Guard (that could also have jump 6). The game became Janes All the World's Navies at that point and a lot was lost.

Yes, Star Frontiers (with Knight Hawks) had battleships, but there were very few of them in the galaxy. You could outrun larger ships in a small ship. You had to watch for starfighters. The low-level starship game felt really good. Everything else came from that model of starship reality, and the planetary ground game was a direct result. How planetary militias worked. The exploration game. How ships got hired for jobs. What ships got sent to investigate mysteries and respond to emergencies. A small team in a smaller ship could make a difference.

If an outpost in a far away star suddenly goes silent, sending a small adventure class ship to investigate was the first choice. In a universe with modern space navies, the planetary government is likely to send a destroyer out there with a few hundred troops, with escorts, and your scale gets messed up. There is no reason for smaller ships and those classic one-party adventures.

If a sci-fi system does not balance ship size, speeds, and jump distances it gets boring quickly for me because the universe will go to the biggest ships with the biggest fleets. The small-scale sci-fi adventure I love is lost.

FrontierSpace

So I got FrontierSpace in the mail last holiday season, and I am just starting to give it a look. This uses the same d00 system that is instantly familiar to players of Star Frontiers, Gangbusters, or Top Secret - but the system is very different and has a cool action economy where you can attempt as many actions during a turn as you want, it is just the one after the first gets a -20 multi-action modifier, and that modifier sticks around, accumulates, and becomes your penalty to your defenses.

Lose initiative and want to make two resistance rolls to dodge attacks before you get to act? The first is at +0, the next is at -20, and your turn starts with a -40 action modifier for your first action, a -60 on your second, and so on. This creates a sense of tactical play over the turn and benefits high skill levels tremendously. It also creates a betting game where you can push your turn hard and try to slip in one more action or attack, and possibly pay the price later. The multi-action penalty resets on each combat turn, so you begin again at zero.

Otherwise, the system and mechanics are very similar to the d100 games we love. Simple, fast, and fun.

Standardized Ships

FrontierSpace comes with a list of standardized ships, and from what I can see, no ship design rules. One could say Knight Hawks also had standardized ship designs, but they had a design system that worked for civilian ships (the military ships were allowed to break the rules). I would have liked a complete design system, but that isn't a deal breaker.

Ships have standardized ranges and fuel consumptions, anywhere from 0.5 to 3 LY per day, one fuel is used for each LY traveled, and fuel tanks are from 20-80 units. There is no benefit for smaller ships, and the larger ships appear to be faster in inter-star travel with longer ranges. I prefer smaller ships being faster with longer ranges, but the ships look well-designed and built for adventuring. Not what I like, but not a deal-breaker again.

A Better Star Frontiers?

From everything else I read, the game feels very complete with more options than the original game in gear, skills, weapons, robots, vehicles, and development options. I am liking what I see a lot, and this looks like a more modern game that is well supported that I would support over the legacy game (even though I love that game).

I prefer to support the indie and newer games over the legacy ones, since people are making a living off of these games and efforts, the community can often develop new material for them, and there is a lot of potential for fan creations and support. With legacy games often you just buy the game for nostalgia and there is not new content being made, so there isn't a future in the game where the community can join in and produce new material.

The races are like the Star Frontiers ones, with a few being very similar. Nothing is stopping you from taking the classics Star Frontier races and using those, or playing the classic Frontier setting with these rules. You do get a few cool new ones, and robots as an option. You could use all the races together, this is sci-fi, so most anything can be dropped in and work.

The original Star Frontiers has some weaknesses, like the very low unarmed damage, and the high ability scores and skills feeling uninteresting as you can't do much more with a high score other than get automatic hits. At least here you can push extra actions and resistance rolls, so high scores can really work for you in FrontierSpace. The game here is much stronger than the original.

New Ships?

You could also use Knight Hawks ships here too, but the ship combat balance would definitely be affected by the multi-action system in FrontierSpace. It may come out better, overpowered, or worse. Same thing with dropping in Traveller ships, you get turns where you are firing three or four attacks with some of these ship weapons that were only designed for one attack a turn and things I bet can get very deadly quick. Still, if you allow pilots to dodge attacks with resistance rolls everything may balance out, but this is a "try it and see" thing.

I mention this because my first idea when I saw this game was to use Classic Traveller starships instead of the ones here to get the space game feel I like. The ships in Mongoose Traveller are a bit different, and tend to be more High Guard with percentage design rules than the classic table based ones. So this would be a Traveller-like map and star travel experience with a modernized set of Star Frontiers rules driving the action.

It may work.

Or I may put my hacking and modding urges aside and play with the ships they give me. This would probably be a better idea because if I am new at the game I need to understand the original system balance.

But I do like hacking and modding games.

More Soon!

I am excited about this game, and I got the other games in the series as well that use the same system for fantasy and spy games. This feels like the perfect game for d100 play, modern, supported, exciting, with an action economy that burns up high skill and ability levels quickly for some awesome action at the table.

I need to play a few games and check this out for sure. Who knows, maybe a replay of the classic Volturnus series with a new engine under the hood? Sounds like a great time.

Adventurer Conqueror King System (ACKS)

Another AD&D inspired game is the great Adventurer Conqueror King System, or ACKS for short. This game feels like AD&D went off in a direction more along the lines of Sid Meier's Civilization and rebalanced the entire game for end game kingdom building, mass battles, and realm management.

This is the 4X meets B/X game I dreamed of.

It holds up the late-game promise made in almost every version of D&D from first through second, third felt a bit weaker, and then in 4th and 5th they dropped the whole "let's be a king thing" and kept adventurers as adventurers all the way to maximum level. I really feel once they dropped the promise of becoming the ruler of the land that D&D lost something vital to its core.

The reason why you adventure.

Why Fight?

There is this assumption in the older games that you are fighting evil, solving problems, and helping the place where you live. You are making the world a better place with every epic quest. The natural progression for this game is to become the person in charge of a part of the world. To be the king or queen. To build a better society and corner of the world how you would want it to be. To fight the threats that come for your people, the ones you care about, and the corner of the world you build.

The older games had that nod in them, at 9th level you can build a stronghold and attract followers - and that was it. The AD&D Dungeon Master's Guide had castle construction rules. The pieces were there, but no edition of the game felt like it really put it all together.

ACKS does. This is very much like a game of Sid Meier's Civilization with a B/X flavor, and you get to play that high-level game of building kingdoms after your adventures set you up for greater glory. You start much like any B/X game does, but where this game goes - and could go - could change the history of the world in more ways that a one-shot story module could ever dream of doing.

You get to write that history.

And that answers the question.

Kingdom Management in D&D

I can see the seeds for getting rid of kingdom management being planted in 3rd Edition. When Wizards came in, they wanted D&D to be more like Magic: The Gathering, and characters were put together almost like deck builds with leveling, multiclassing, the feats you chose, the gear you got to buff your builds, and lots of OP and sub-optimal paths built into the game. There is a leadership feat that allowed you to attract "cohort" NPC followers, but nothing much in the way of construction and domain management. The last time was saw those rules were in the old TSR 2nd Ed Birthright setting.

And then 4th Edition came out, and making the world a better place was dropped. The game went almost completely a "powers as cards" based design. You went to the planes! You adventured in the outer realms! You fought the gods! Please move on from your starting kingdom like this was some MMO and the old zones suck and aren't worth your time please!

I feel they kept this "adventure all the way to max level" assumption for the 5th Edition of the rules, and I am sure there are some "kingdom building" adventures that are more a series of linked scenarios. But the game feels like that void of kingdom building is still missing. The 5e DMG has all this information on travelling between planes, running adventures, and mapping, but nothing about kingdom building.

It has been a weak spot in D&D for a while now, and only the Kingmaker adventure path (and one of the 1e Pathfinder expansion books) covered this topic at all from the big two publishers, but it felt like a sideshow at best. I am sure there are third party guides, but this is not how the game is presented in the core books.

ACKS Lore

Something I like about ACKS is it keeps a consistent myth and lore.

Certain classes are one race only, such as the dwarf machinist or elven nightblade. This is true to the spirit of B/X where they had demi-human classes, but puts some variety and specialties in the demi-humans in order to give them flavorful class options of their own. In B/X, for the most part unless the game allows race-class options, and elf is an elf. Here, elves have a few special choices that no other kin can take.

It crafts its own world, and it also has class design in a companion book, so the flexibility for you to come up with new demi-human classes, demi-humans themselves, and backgrounds for your own game world is very cool. Let us say I added dark elves to a world and came up with six unique demi-human character classes for them. All of a sudden my world is much richer and those dark elves very flavorful and unique. Nothing is stopping you from doing that with goblins, trolls, mer-folk, fairies, or any other specialized kin you want to add to your world.

You don't really plane and world hop by end-game, because the focus stays on the world you grew up in and eventually (if you make it happen) rule over. I like that narrow focus, and the world you started on stays important and does not become an "old MMO zone that is too low level to have fun in."

The world you fight for and the people there stay important.

Very B/X

ACKS sticks close to B/X retaining the specific saving throws, hit dice, and a different (but easier) way of attack rolls and AC. A lot can be freely interchanged and pulled in from any B/X material you own, and this is sort of a rebuild of a B/X rules set that remains backward compatible but diverges at key points to simplify play and also rebalance the game for high-level kingdom management play.

I could see using a lot of my existing B/X adventures and books with this system just find, drop in Barrowmaze and we are good to go, and a lot is directly rules-compatible. With Castles & Crusades you need to drop in their monsters and do a few other things differently with saves and ability rolls, but ACKS sticks closer to B/X and maintains a lower-level of compatibility with a few changes here and there (mainly AC and attack rolls).

Oh, and you get XP from both monsters AND gold. Very nice. This encourages smart play and not just hack and slash combat gaming. Why risk fighting the owlbear when you could just sneak a thief in and grab that 700 GP ruby? Smart plans equal profits and experience.

An AD&D Feel

The game has that AD&D feeling I like. Lots of rules sections with suggestions, ways to handle things, and coverage of important topics. This is one of those games I would say tries to be an AD&D replacement, but without gaining all the complexity of that game. It is very much a simple B/X game at heart, only the game has a lot of new things to try and depth as you explore its options.

My other AD&D replacement game is Castles & Crusades. Where C&C is more a modern set of rules that emulates AD&D, this is more a B/X game that rebuilds AD&D from the ground up and with the goal of the endgame 4X strategy: battles, building, exploration, and management.

If you like the adventure to max-level sort of world and plane-hopping adventure that is more 3E to 5E style, Castles and Crusades is your game. If you want a 4X style D&D game, ACKS is the way to go.

Monsters

The monster list feels a little light to me, and there are no extra-planar monsters like demons or devils. But hey, I have books full of B/X monsters, demons, devils, Lovecraftian beasts, and all sorts of monsters that can be dropped right in and with one AC conversion (9 minus the base-9 Labyrinth Lord style AC) - ready to go. Monster base attack rolls are based of monster hit dice, so B/X has all you need stat wise for ACKS compatibility and the conversions are trivial. Damage, saves, and attacks are as written.

I would be a little careful here, since the monster list feels light for a reason. I am betting what we get can establish a great B/X world, but the endgame should be more kingdom management than fighting 28 HD city-eating monsters at high level.

The true end-game monsters are the other kingdoms and how you interact - or conquer - them. That said, if you wanted high level monsters and a great variety, pull them in from B/X. Since the rules are compatible, you are good to go.

Where it Differs

ACKS rebalances the spells and classes for high-level kingdom management play. Fireballs have a reduction in blast radius as not to make them battle-ending spells. Fighters get buffed damage so a single fighter can stand on the battlefield and be the hero-unit of a tactical wargame. All of the classes are supposed to be tweaked to make them play better in that endgame kingdom management and mass battle game.

This makes sense, and it is something any serious game designer does when they are tasked with taking a tabletop game and making it do something it was never intended to do. You see this in D&D videogames, and it is nice to see this logic and design care applied to the mass battle game. Why design a great tactical game and leave some spells broken and over- or under-powered just because "that is how they were originally?" Change them to make the entire game work better together. This is game design, and game design is great.

Other things were changed to simplify things, The AC and attack roll system is essentially THAC0, but AC zero is no armor, and AC adds to the base attack roll as it goes up, making the target harder to hit. Simple and not THAC0, and honestly, the way THAC0 should have been.

Hex Crack

Mix ACKS with a hexcrawl generation tool? Pure hex-crack. Not only you are living the hex-crawl dream of exploring and adventuring around an infinite procedurally generated world, but you can go back and conquer the entire thing when you reach high level, settle it, vanquish evil kingdoms (or be an evil one), and build your own world.

Yeah, pretty much the 4X meets B/X dream game I always wanted.

It is like pen-and-paper Civ 6 swords-and-sorcery.

Getting bored of random stuff? Drop Barrowmaze or any other B/X adventure in a hex. Drop in an established city setting. Take Keep on the Borderlands or the Isle of Dread and drop those somewhere in the world. The original Tomb of Horrors. The Slave Lords series. Take pre-gen NPCs and add those in too if you need personalities to fill the gaps. B/X monsters! Put an evil kingdom down where it would be fun, or change a roll here and there to make it happen. The world is yours, and no one says you have to 100% stick to the dice. If there is something fun you have for B/X or AD&D to drop in somewhere - use it!

Take those dark elf classes and start your dark elf civilization somewhere on the map and play that way. Play as dwarves. Play as trolls with troll classes. Lizardfolk. Fae. Play as a non-leveling monster, such as a dragon and explore the world as you age and grow in power to build your horde. Like the great Microprose game Master of Magic, don't limit yourself to just one race or kin. Play multiple main characters of different kins and backgrounds and find one you fall in love with and run with that.

Why not do this with B/X?

Well, the thrill of going back and settling the lands, building grand cities, mining and farming, establishing trade routes, exploring, sailing the seas, building forts and castles, raising armies, negotiating with new found cities and civilizations, and destroying your enemies is reason enough for me. Oh, and yes there is an assumed lineage game to all this, so you can produce heirs, retire your heroes, and keep the fun going across hundreds or thousands of years of play. Not only are you building a world, you are writing the history of it.

Need an excuse why? The universe is destroyed and scattered to an infinite number of fractured realities. No one knows why. The impenetrable magic fog (like Forbidden Lands) is lifting and it is time to see what's out there. Want to make things better? Start your civilization, let it rise and fall, and keep creating new heroes to explore the frontiers and have fresh adventures. Let the old heroes rule and become powerful leaders. Or play evil characters for a while and tear it all down.

And when you have done it all, start a new world and do it again.

I know there is a pre-established setting for ACKS and it is a great one, but as you can probably tell, I love my random world Civilization games like an addiction.

ACKS and C&C

ACKS and C&C are both great games, both AD&D-like, and I could see myself playing either of them depending on my mood. What ACKS has is the kingdom end game delivered in spades, the infinite possibilities of hex crawls, legacy gaming, and a simple game built on a solid B/X base. I can see ACKS being my B/X game of choice.

What C&C has is the familiar later edition D&D plane-hopping, adventure to max level, fantasy superhero style experience. The rules are modernized but everything else is trivial to port in. C&C can be flavored with different mythical eras and cultures. I can see C&C being my Pathfinder 2 or D&D 5 replacement.

Both have that familiar AD&D feeling, so both are cool.

Where ACKS shines is in telling the long-term story of a world and its people, the one that comes with the game, or one you create yourself.

Castles & Crusades

 

This game took me by surprise. This is like if AD&D never became AD&D 2nd Edition, the old school feeling was kept, but the rules were modernized to a unified and simple system like a D&D 5E. What I find amazing is the game "feels" like a modernized AD&D, and not something more modern like a 3.5E, 4E, or 5E with the exponential curve in hit points and damage.

I wish I would have discovered this game sooner. My brother and I would have had a lot of fun with it, and we would have solved the "what happens after D&D 4th Edition" cliff our game fell off of and never recovered from. This would have been the game that replaced everything.

What Do You Get?

We have roll-high AC, unified ability saves, and the classic spells, classes, and monsters all in a package with modern, slick presentation, great artwork, and that perfect old-school feeling without some of the legacy cruft of the older rules. There is a primary and secondary ability system that takes care of skills, saving throw bonuses, and proficiencies. I like a system with ability-based saves, and I find a system with separate saves versus wands and spells (both are magic, if one is weaker give it a DRM) to be a little repetitive and I don't like to have all that record-keeping.

This game is in a cool genre of games that hits that AD&D sweet spot for me, such as Labyrinth Lord, Old School Essentials Advanced, Adventurer Conqueror King System, and Swords and Wizardry. I will leave Dungeon Crawl Classics out of this since that is something else entirely. Every cue is taken from an AD&D style of presentation and approach, like AD&D was the model starting point for the look and feel, but then the game was modernized and cleaned up a great deal.

This feels like a game 5E players could drop right into and find a lot to like, but old school players could jump onboard and have a great time and get that classic feeling. It truly is a great middle-ground game between more modern games and the OSR.

OSR?

Is it still OSR? Well, it wants to be. I laughed when I wrote that, but it is true. It has the OSR heart while still being a more modern design, which is cool. A lot of the newer games are doing this, taking a classic feeling and streamlining the rules for ease-of-use. Could you play OSR modules with this? I feel you could, a lot of the lower-level character rules stuff is different, but as you get to monsters, treasure, and combat things start to feel more compatible. Use the same monsters, the same B/X damages, convert the saves to the ability ones, the new stats, and play.

This feels like one of those NES or SNES emulators that plays those classic games perfectly, but underneath is an entirely modern and new engine driving the action. No it is not a classic console, but it gets the job done and offers some improvements (you are not swapping cartridges, the pins never corrode, and the batteries never run out on your saves). So in a way, it is an AD&D emulator that delivers a modern play experience with a lot of needed improvements.

Improvements Made

Old School Essentials did a little of this "cleaning and improving" in their Advanced Edition (the new classes especially), but they still remained rules-compatible with B/X. They offered new classes and takes on the classic AD&D material and branched out where things could be made to feel and play better. So it is not unheard of, and is in fact something B/X creators are starting to do. Instead of being so tied to the old ways, where can we tweak and make new things to make the game play better? While this doesn't maintain rules-compatibility with B/X, it doesn't really matter since a unified engine is driving things underneath and it all feels the same and once you drop in monsters you are playing.

The "product improved" content I feel does a lot to make the OSR into "its own thing" and not as dependent on the legacy material. It is a very positive development and I love it when OSR publishers say "it plays better this way" and make those changes, and have their game go its own way on that solid base. It is a market becoming mature and defining itself as something different.

C&C goes a little farther than B/X and unifies the underlying mechanics, with something more like 5E, and yes I know C&C came out in 2004 with this mechanic and 5E used a similar one many years later, but hey, the great ideas always rise to the top. It is honestly a good thing, since a lot of 5E players will feel at home here and the long-time C&C players will just nod and smile. We are all gamers and we want the best.

Does the unified mechanics take away from the OSR feeling? Only if that is what is important to you. If you need the B/X way of doing things, play Old School Essentials or one of the other great B/X games. Then the question becomes, do they add anything or are they just different for being different?

I like them because they do away with the traditional limited use saving throw tables, and allow you to roll versus charisma for reaction checks, constitution for sickness, strength to break free of entanglement, dexterity to grab onto a ledge, and anything else you can imagine an ability score doing. That feels like Tunnels and Trolls to me, and I loved the save versus ability system there and how simple it made adjudicating actions.

For me, used to running Star Frontiers, Gangbusters, or Top Secret and other games where you directly check ability scores for everything and anything that comes up, with a primary/secondary ability system to simulate skills and feats, it feels right at home and an improvement over B/X. Yes, I can always "roll under" an ability in B/X to check, but this makes those same checks your skills and saves all in one, so it feels unified and streamlined. Strong characters can break free easier from entanglement and paralysis, and so on.

The Way We Played

The game is very aware of the way it used to be. They have supplemental books covering demons, and the settings and gods of many classic pantheons (Greek, Egyptian, Norse, and more). You could play a Germanic or Norse campaign, Egyptians or Greek, or mix them all together. That is what we used to do back when we had the PHB, DMG, MM, and Deities & Demigods - all the cultures and pantheons were in the B/X world of Mystara and they fit perfectly.

They have a world called Airhde that is every bit as detailed and well laid out as the classic settings of Greyhawk, Mystara, or Faerun. They have adventures written for the world to take you through it. The depth of everything to explore beyond the basic books is astounding.

It is a game I feel could have replaced our D&D 4th Edition game and kept going without running out of steam or running into the balance issues we had and overpowered splat books that took away a lot from the game. And the end of 4th Edition with the Essentials line changing everything again was a mess and took all of our original love for the first three books and crushed it. It also feels like a game that could recreate our original run with D&D and AD&D and do it justice.

This is one I am collecting and enjoying, and I wish I would have discovered it sooner.

More soon.

Starfinder: My Experience

I am sad to say my experiment with Starfinder fell through and I boxed up the game. The complexity of characters as they leveled grew, the special powers, options, pets and spells multiplied, and I found the characters for playing solo turned into a record-keeping tax that dragged down play. I am done with Starfinder, but still like the game and concepts.

For a group where the record-keeping is distributed across several people? Probably manageable a lot better than one person. Not all games are created equal, especially for solo play. Some games on the market are designed to be "party games" where they intentionally raise the complexity of characters where each player needs to be a specialist in a class build, manage the rules knowledge and record-keeping, and bring that expertise to the table for the group. For one person to manage with several multi-page character sheets? Really a tall order when you consider one person playing multiple classes and managing all that complexity themselves.

The beginner boxes for both this and Pathfinder 2? Great fun! Still recommended. Going deeper? I would only do this if you and friends are investing and committed to a game. For one person to manage it feels like a lot. Certain games are designed for more than one person, and everyone at the table can be a specialist in one small area and shine. These games naturally do better in more social and group situations.

Things I Liked & Didn't

Were there things I liked? Sure. The class builds and abilities were interesting. There was a lot of cool gear. The strong against/weak against elemental game with monsters was fun. The free-wheeling universe felt huge. The game does d20 "Guardians of the Galaxy" style sci-fi well and captures the feeling. The races and classes were fun and iconic, and had lots of cool options.

The leveled weapons felt like they were borrowed from MMO games, and the explanation of how these works felt nonsensical. The weapons exist but they are somehow harder to obtain by low level characters? Not use, but obtain. Magic is way overpowered at low levels and the way to go, and I suspect as you level magic becomes more of a necessity. If you ignore casters and just want 1d4 damage space blasters you have an abnormally difficult time with encounters (and you are paying out the nose for weapons that never do enough damage).

The ship construction and upgrades all being free was a huge negative. I ended up assuming a quasi-socialist patron system (which is what the modules tend to push) for all factions with starships where they essentially upgrade your starship for free as you level. Ships cost zero money, they are frequently given to you (but you can only have one), and they did not feel special.

Even if your ship is destroyed you will find or get handwaved a new one by an adventure path pretty soon, because the game requires you to have an adventure-assigned starship to have fun. Ship combat was okay but lacked the fun and charm of other games I have played in this genre.

We had a situation where the characters were physically poor with less than 4,000cr to their names and they now had a starship to take care of. My party wanted to take cargo runs, which would not pay for anything ship-related and money is only really useful in the game for buying personal combat upgrades. It feels like you can unbalance the personal combat game through too much money. Melee options were good and did more damage than ranged.

Do not get this game if you are expecting a Traveller experience. This is clearly more of a story and adventure focused game with a "credits as GP" sort of power-up experience than it is hard sci-fi. For some, that is exactly what they want from a sci-fi game and Starfinder is a good choice.

Some Races are "Legacy Conversions"

This is Pathfinder in space; but the elves, dwarves, and other fantasy races/heritages you would expect to see (and that would be cool) are shoved to the back of the book and feel like an embarrassment to the setting. I wanted them in the front and to see them hidden away as "optional content" like that made me feel sad and disappointed in the game's design and direction. I mean, we have monsters and magic here! Where are my space elves? The space drow? Dwarf mining planets? The space gnomes!

And having them as options means you will rarely seem them in adventure paths and the official setting, which makes the entire product less appealing to me. The cool art they give as examples only makes it hurt worse, since that is all we are going to get. Yeah, I house-ruled them in, but having me make them show up and be artificially important and not in the main setting felt like a referee insert and not something organic and built into the setting.

For a game that is supposed to be all about inclusion and extending the Pathfinder universe, this entire situation feels like a huge miss to me. What I wanted to see in the game, like a different take on space-elves, space dwarves, and other fantasy races in space (like back when Warhammer 40K was cool) for a freaking Pathfinder game of all things, was lost.

Those darn goblins are all over the place in these adventures. Where are the other fantasy races?

What Next? Story Based Sci-Fi

So I am probably replacing this all with a easier to play space game. Why? I can keep all the rules in my head and focus on the story. As I get older the rules become less important and the story gets more important. All that rules stuff is nice and it works well when it is clicking and running smoothly, this feat gives me a +2 flanking bonus when this happens, and so on, but it takes a lot of work to learn and keep running. Is it worth more to me than a good story?

I don't think so. Finding time to learn versus going with something familiar that I know is an easy choice for me to make. So what are my options? Something simple, likely B/X, and with a solid foundation of space economics and adventure.

White Star

Starfinder is in that special genre known as "Guardians of the Galaxy" sci-fi. You know the genre, zany heroes, talking animals, alien brutes, 80's music, and freewheeling adventure. One of the best B/X games that also does this well is the great White Star: Galaxy Edition, and I could go and drop anything I liked about Starfinder in here and have B/X and the best of both worlds.

But I am not really looking for this type of a game. I am a little tired of the zany space adventure genre. Granted, it is a cool game and I could pare this down to fit, but the classes feel more like they fit in GotG than a more serious and grounded sci-fi game.

For those looking for a B/X Starfinder replacement based on Swords & Wizardry, this is your game. Highly recommended, and they have a setting book that goes with this. I am still excited about this as my "salvaging Starfinder content" game, but not now.

And I could have my space elves and space dwarves here by just dropping them in from Swords & Wizardry White Box. Or any other monster. It just works and I have what I want.

Stars Without Number

An easy choice. In fact, currently my favorite B/X Traveller replacement. I could reskin this to do Star Trek or Star Wars easily. This is one I want to go with, but I want a story and angle to go with the experience. I may look for a few adventures for this to get started. I feel that beginning hook is the thing keeping me from diving in, otherwise this is a cool toolkit that I don't know how I want to start with. I know, just jump in!

The starship weapons I would rename and make a little more generic (as I did in the other post). Right now they feel different for the sake of being different, and I like the simpler "laser cannon" and "laser battery" sort of starship weapons, like out of Car Wars or Star Frontiers, than I do ship weapons with "what is this again?" type names, like a diflux rapid flexinacator.

Traveller (2022)

Another obvious choice. This isn't B/X, but I know the rules well. The universe is familiar. The ships are iconic. This one I could jump right into. The only thing holding me back is I like strong character advancement in my games, that sort of leveling up and getting new powers every so often. There are some alternate XP and advancement systems in the rules companion I would need to look into.

If you are into "space truckers" and the traditional pay-for-your-play starship upgrade and purchasing experience, this is the way to go. A solid game that was recently updated, attractive, and the rules just work well. The game scales from small ships to large very well.

The universe is a classic, with ready-to-play factions and roles. You can extend the game however you like, or play in your own setting. The art in the 2022 version is cleaned up and the presentation is better.

Cepheus Engine

As a Traveller alternative and if I wanted to go more open content, there is always Cepheus Engine. They recently updated the rules and I have that as well. This game includes things outside the Traveller mold, like blasters and other generic sci-fi gear, so if you are more looking for a Traveller set of rules not tied to the Third Imperium, this is a solid choice.

Really, if I were playing Third Imperium, I would just go Traveller. If I weren't and doing something different and wanted the 2d6 type system, I would go Cepheus and all the Third Imperium stuff does not need to be changed or removed.

More Coming

I have a few more games coming, but these are my top picks so far. I am avoiding the classics such as Star Frontiers and Space Opera, for now.

Mail Room: Adventurer Conquorer King System

 

Got an interesting package a few weeks ago, the ACKS system. This is a sort of OSR retro-clone that has the expected two lower levels of play with dungeoning, progressing into exploration, and then the game takes a hard left turn and goes fully into a Civilization (the PC game) style of kingdom management and creation. I am also reminded a little of the old Master of Magic style of game, or any of those "conquer, monsters, and magic" style of PC games on Steam.

It is a fascinating game and I haven't seen this done to the extent this game dives into the subject. There are a number of custom changes to the rules, spells, and classes to make them work better in mass battles. For instance fighters were rebalanced to make higher-level heroes a more potent force against small units. The fireball was dialed back some in blast radius to keep it from being a mass battle-ending spell. It is still useful, just not overly powerful in the context of having mages on the battlefield supporting medieval infantry.

There is a lot of cool and different kingdom management stuff in this game. Even if you use just the kingdom management parts with your favorite B/X or OSR rules set it is a cool read and makes you think about the higher level empire-building game. Where a lot of B/X games feel like they pay lip service to the "attracting followers and establishing strongholds" point of the game at high level, this one dives in and explores that part of the play experience.

I do feel the game, by the rules, is solid and is worth a play to see the changes they made to the rules and tweaks they made to make everything work. It is interesting to see high-level play and mass battles considered as part of the overall play experience, and see how that changes some of the traditional classes and spells we have grown so accustomed to doing X or Y and then no real testing or play with those on the epic kingdom level was done so they just kind of stayed how they were as "dungeon spells."

There is a lot of innovation in the OSR world and this is why limiting your experience to a reprinted official set of rules, the current OSR community favorite, or strictly following B/X (or one flavor of B/X) may keep you from having cool new experiences and perspectives on what old school gaming can be. Of course, I speak as someone who had played them all when they came out, and there are players who doesn't know the wonders of the older games, so I don't discourage that exploration at all.

It is always useful to think of B/X and OSR as Unix/Linux, and borrow, add to, use the best parts of, and jury rig to your heart's content. This is how gaming was in the old days, and we hacked games and made them our own out of several systems and built unique games and sets of Frankenrules that were fun, pulled in cool stuff from several systems, and were completely ours.

There are a lot of cool systems out there to explore, and they have a lot to offer. And in the OSR and B/X style world, a lot is cross compatible or borrowed from various parts of games to create a unique experience.

First Look: Castles & Crusades

Castles and Crusades started in 2004, back in the D&D 3.0 days. This is one of the first OSR games, though the mechanics are a more modernized system called the Siege Engine (similar to the D&D 3.x DC system, but this basically fixes DCs at 12 or 18, and gives the referee leeway on additional difficulty and which DRMs apply), and it retains the traditional AC combat system. It dispenses with the OSR saving throws, and the 3.x fort/ref/will saves, and uses ability-based saves instead. D&D 5 borrowed the concept of ability-based saves, so if you are coming from 5E you will recognize that right away.

It is funny how D&D 4 borrowed a lot from Iron Heroes and went in a different direction, and then the designers at Wizards course-corrected and made a game more like this. You can't and shouldn't really say "stole from" since that is a negative and encourages flaming and system wars, which are lame. All games are cool. Lots of games share mechanics. We don't flame Sorry because Monopoly also uses dice for movement. It is what it is. D&D 5 does things in a cool and different way. C&C did some things earlier.

The game sticks close to the AD&D core. It is kept very rules-light with lots of optional extras in the Castle Keepers Guide, including higher-level play and heroic characters. The classes are mechanically different, some play more OSR, while others play more modernized. All rolls are still handled by the game's core mechanics, so there are no "1-2 on a d6 skill rolls" or large percentage tables of thief abilities.

It features some legendary designers and is named after the legendary Castles and Crusades Society, the gaming society founded by Gary Gygax. The game definitely has pedigree and also some serious design credentials behind it.

What is This?

It is a unique and cool game that sits on the crossroads between OSR and D&D5. It can be played as a compromise game between OSR and 5E players, and everyone will find something they like. The game is deadly, but there is no "death at zero hp." The game has that AD&D old-school feel without all the complexity. There is no THAC0 or support for alternate AC systems, or compatibility notations such as AC 5 [14]. This is a roll-high system with unified mechanics.

This is not D&D 3.5 or Pathfinder 1e. The fiddly and complicated feat and interrupt-based mechanics, complex character builds, and weight of the system have been completely torn out. Though to be fair, if you want feats, they are reworked and presented as an optional advantage system in the referee's book. So now the game plays more like Pathfinder, and those players can come in and feel at home.

There is a little Tunnels and Trolls in here with those ability based skill rolls and saves. In T&T you make a 2nd level STR save, and in C&C you make a STR check at a DC of 12/18 with your ability score mod, optional level mod if your class helps, and a difficulty set by the referee. Every score matters and can be checked, saved against, or used in the game. The ability scores and classes replace skills, though there is an optional background skill system in the referee's book. This core-concept I love.

The art is gorgeous. The printing is great quality. The core books are full color pieces of art.

This game feels like the coolest thing to come out of the D&D 3.0 era, it cut its own path, stayed true to itself and fans, and has been doing its own thing ever since.

B/X Compatibility?

This isn't B/X, but you can play B/X with it. A lot of B/X material is very compatible. If you had a module designed for another system, such as Barrowmaze, simply keep 90% of the content the same but use C&C monster statistics - or convert on the fly if need be. You can do the same with AD&D modules, or even 5E adventures if you want to.

If B/X is like the Linux/Unix of the OSR world, C&C is sort of like the Wine emulation layer that lets you play Windows games on Linux (if Wine existed in a perfect world, but to be fair it is getting really good). If there is something in another system you really like (D&D 5, Pathfinder 1/2, B/X, T&T, AD&D) you will find something similar here either as a core rule or option.

I have not seen a game that hits the middle-ground so solidly with a unified mechanic such as this one.

Old School Flavor

The game keeps the classic alignment system, and maintains the law-chaos and good-evil paradigms. It feels like a natural evolution of AD&D to me into the modern day, more so than D&D 3.5 or Labyrinth Lord (which feels like a B/X AD&D emulator). If you do not care for OSR mechanics but want the OSR feel and flavor, this works very well.

Also I feel like I could run an evil campaign like we used to do from time to time in AD&D and not have the game tell us we are playing it the wrong way. Those typically ended in Shakespearian tragedy as evil was finally punished, and the evil PCs fell one by one as the forces of good rallied (or bigger evil betrayed them). That is also cool. Those were fun games, sort of a puritanical lesson in "crime does not pay" like a gangster movie. You gotta have that tragic ending for an evil game because it is so satisfying and classic Hollywood.

If you want demons and devils, they are done very nicely in a separate book called "Tome of the Unclean." This keeps them out of the main game for people who don't want them, and devotes and entire book to them so they are done right. Again, this checks one of my boxes and does it in a very cool and flavor-filled sourcebook that adds to the fun.

...vs. Basic Fantasy?

The game is actually similar in spirit to Basic Fantasy. It is a rework and reengineering of AD&D to be more along that rule-light framework, where Basic Fantasy rewords B/X. If you play Basic Fantasy you will probably feel right at home once you realize the Siege Engine replaces the "leveled saves" of that game and a lot stays the same. Very highly compatible in terms of feeling and design.

...vs. Dungeon Crawl Classics?

Okay, this I feel is a Street Fighter moment. And this one is going to be a good fight where I root for both sides. The truth is they don't have to fight and these two games are both winners on my shelf and table.

The games are similar in that they take an OSR base and take it in a new direction without care for numerical compatibility and one-for-one rules replacement. Where DCC has more of a gonzo Heavy Metal feeling of wild and deadly fantasy, C&C has that classic AD&D feeling. I could see myself playing both at the same time and both qualify as top-shelf games currently.

DCC unifies the DC mechanic around a floating DC and variable dice sizes based on difficulty. Since there are two variables to manage (DC and die size) creating task difficulty can be a little difficult since both sides float. DCC also uses fort/ref/will saves. 

C&C fixes the DC at two values, puts a little yes/no variability into the allowed bonus in regards to class, adds the ability score modifier, and floats only one side - the challenge level (which raises the target number). One side floats so this is a faster and easier system to adjudicate. Also there are no additional recorded saves.

DCC allows for rolls that you can put a lot of "English" on with rules like spellburn, so wildly high rolls can happen even at low levels. C&C follows the more traditional feeling and balance to classes.

Where DCC replaced my complete Pathfinder 1e collection, I can see C&C becoming my OSR game of choice. It would replace many of my B/X games because it hits the same AD&D feeling while unifying the mechanics. Since I am not tied to the B/X mechanics, if a game hits the feeling with a simpler system and unified mechanics, I am there.

Both are incredible games and they share that "common starting point, but different direction" feeling. Honestly I love games that do this since I have enough B/X games as it is, and at this point I am looking for new and different things. Where C&C has the traditional feeling, DCC has that anything goes feeling. Both are very cool.

...vs. B/X?

If you care more about B/X compatibility, there are too many games out there to choose from. Old School Essentials, Labyrinth Lord, Swords & Wizardry, and many others. If you absolutely need B/X mechanics, play a B/X set of rules.

It is funny, I see a lot of people playing the original print on demand AD&D and B/X games that are officially released and foregoing the more modern alternatives. I love the old games, I own them and grew up with them, but at this point I want to support the indie creators who are innovating and reinventing the genre.

Also, with my current collection of B/X I have everything I need. The only thing I am looking forward to is the forthcoming Old School Essentials demons book they promised.

Also, most all of my B/X adventures and sourcebooks are usable with C&C, so I don't really lose anything and I can keep buying and investing in the indies that make non-rules B/X adventures and settings.

So really, the feelings of both B/X and C&C are the same, they just get there in different ways.

The In the Middle Everything Replacement

D&D 4's Nerrath? The original gray-box Forgotten Realms? Mystara? Your own world? Classic Greyhawk? Pathfinder's Golarion? I can see playing all of them in C&C with a few tweaks here and there. The game feels like what came before but modernizes and streamlines the mechanics.

They even have their own setting of Aihrde with looks like a fun and deep world to explore.

I rarely find games I instantly fall in love with and feel they are a classic, and this one has slipped under my radar for far too long. I ask myself, why did I dismiss this for so long? Maybe it was because I thought once I had B/X I had it all, or that newer games such as Pathfinder 2 were better because of the new and shiny factor. I simply didn't "need" a game that did things a different way than what I was used to, and I feared it would end up in a box.

This game does not feel that way.

It is one I wished me and my brother would have checked out sooner, because this is what we would have chose to settle down on and play for our main campaign. I really can't tell you how good that feels. This would have been the one.

More soon.