Just started my journey down this rabbit hole. I had researched in the past, but just a couple of days ago I received my physical copy of the new printing of Castle Zagyg - Yggsburgh Campaign setting. And have the PDF of the Players handbook. I started gaming in general with AD&D in 1979 and agree that this is a nice in-between of AD&D and 5th Ed. D&D. 👍
Eric, I appreciate hearing from another old guy like myself! I’d love to hear your thoughts on Zagyg Yggsburgh. I have been loving plowing through the mountains of text and imagining Gygax giving his blessing on the different sections during the creative process. Jeff Talanian from North Wind did a lot of writing for it as well, and it is really clear the influence that Gary had on his writing style. Thanks for watching and sharing!
@@booksbricksandboards783 I read Gary's forward, and found it very interesting, recently learning that so many names in D&D history are just the creators names spelled backwards. I'm constantly reading names backwards now, already seeing things in this, but I have much more to read. Also the way he writes his forward and the way C&C is written I think you can easily just open Gary's other TSR published stuff and just plug in where you want.
100%. In the book, Empire of Imagination, they did something similar, making E. Gary Gygax, Sir Egary and Don Kaye, Sir Kaydon. I like the idea of homages in names. Another common place to find names from early material is actually names and places found in the Old Testament. Several have been plucked from there.
As a huge fan of dungeon crawling, I have found fast combat is an essential aspect of crawling and C&C works well for this style of play. C&C is one of my preferred systems and it has delivered many hours of fun for our group.
Fred, thanks for chiming in… I had a full C&C campaign in the 1st edition era of Forgotten Realms queued up when that group collapsed. I was thinking along the same lines as what you are saying. I wanted a fast system that didn’t get bloated with munchkin antics and piles upon piles of HP, and I wanted something that would easily utilize the plethora of 1e D&D material I had. Seems like my hunch was correct, just lost the group before I could get it rolling. I allowed a player to run a game after our campaign ended, but before our C&C game started, and we lost half our players during the interim. He was fairly new to DM’ing and strugggled to keep players engaged and to set expectations of timeframes. So I had to jettison the experiment to make sure to keep everyone left engaged, which meant running PF2 which they were already fond of…. In a different world, my current PF2 game that is just now ending would have been my C&C game right now!
This is some excellent information. You explain the books and their content very well. I also like how you rolled up the character straight up, no rerolls for abilities. Pretty good character roll up, except of starting the game in a financial hole, but I've been there before. Cool video, many thanks.
Very interesting review. I'm looking into various OSR books, and most of them are too deadly/negative play for my taste (and I did play basic D&D in 1991 and 1e AD&D, hated it then too). C&C looks like a great mix, something like 1.5e or 2.5e, but not a revamp like 3.x was.
C&C is for me, a great system to run an old school game for newer players. I like Old School Essentials (Classic) for that purpose as well, but C&C gives some additional flair that feels like I remember AD&D feeling as a kid. The fact I can play it with existing TSR material (monsters and modules) with very little conversion is a huge plus for me. It takes the best parts of 3rd edition and gives them an AD&D veneer. Thanks for watching. (Also, you can probably still find older editions of C&C very cheap online, and they have changed very little of merit in the different printings)
TLG gave a free pdf of the 10th edition Players Handbook where the OGL has been, happily, removed. So, there are new rules. TLG somewhat pissed me off by sending a free 10th edition pdf and no schedules on prints or any about other books (Monsters and Castle Keeper).
I believe the Trolls are a pretty small staff still… they, as a result, sometimes have some strange schedules as compared to other publishers. Love their stuff though. Good guys as well.
I think one the smartest things the Trolls did was to make the options truly optional by putting them in CKG, and not the PHB. How many players will see something they like, and whine piteously if it does not fit into the CK's world?
I like the Siege engine a lot. Very play friendly, strikes a great balance between 3.5 and OSR. But I hate, HATE, how the books are written and laid out. Troll Lord buries rules text within fluff text. The most egregious example is the Barbarian's Primeval Instincts where the rules and the fluff contradict each other in the same section, and being extremely wobbly and unclear on when it applies, and to what it actually applies. Troll Lord desperately need to hire an editor who needs to completely relayout the entire PHB and DMG. The game system is so usable in play, but the books are very unusable at the table. I think Troll Lord wanted to emulate the purple prose of Gygax far too much, without regard to how it affects their GAME. Amazing Adventures is marginally better, but in my opinion the Siege engine is excellent, but the actual books are awful. Just use the the Siege engines ideas with another game that is better presented.
Nick, I like hearing your take as you seem to have used the system at the table more than I have. I know that compared to their earliest printings, the layout and editing now is vastly improved, but Necrotic Gnome it is not. Perhaps I am more forgiving here because I like the Gygaxian prose nod. It does remind me of the 1e books. Quick question for you, in your experience, do you like the SIEGE rolls as are (12/18) or do you think a closer set makes more sense (12/15)? I have seen a lot of discussion about this and it is even mentioned in one of the CKG optional rules I believe. 18 seems pretty rough for some classes, such as the Assassin with abilities using 4 different attributes. Then again, can’t be great at everything. I will play as written, but curious on your thoughts.
@@booksbricksandboards783 I like the gap. 12 is a fairly easy roll at level 1, even with no stat modifiers you have a 50% chance to succeed. 18 is tough, but doable, again with no stat adjustments you have a 25% chance, so half what you have with a primary attribute. We did use the primary/secondary/tertiary rule but honestly I don't think it changed things very much, most characters were quite good at one or two things, and not very at the rest and that's fine. I think people look at those numbers and forget you add your level to the roll, which at character creation is +1, not +0. The 12 TN becomes almost trivial in just a few levels as well, and if you want to use the advanced leveling rules you'll probably need to entirely retool the TNs. As to the prose, I have no issue with them existing, it's when they mix rules in with fluff that I can't abide. It isn't 1977 anymore, there is so much knowledge to draw on that obfuscating your rules within your prose is just inexcusable these days. C&C is hardly the only system I judge in this regard. You can have both, but for the love of all things separate your rules from your fluff, and make sure they don't contradict one another! Otherwise it makes using the books as rules references during the game an absolute chore.
Interesting take. Again thanks for the perspective. Not sure why, but I felt like the rules were very easily grokked, and didn’t have an issue with the areas you are talking about. I felt like it flowed pretty well, but it is again probably my AD&D brain taking over. Thanks for watching!
I gave in and tried 5e finally, about 3 years ago… a guy in my group was all about 5e. I found it to be far too worried about making everyone “feel” equal, and far less interested in giving us good tools to play an interesting game. The death saves were too generous, the players essentially started out as super heroes, and the game seemed to largely lack consequences or provide stakes for the decisions. The guy in the group that was so invested in 5e dropped out of the group 3/4 of the way through the campaign, and we didn’t even bother finishing because no one was into the game mechanics. Definitely not my game. I will say, if I HAD to play 5e again, it would only be the 3 core rulebooks… it was a game that I felt got progressively worse with each release.
@@booksbricksandboards783 "The guy in the group that was so invested in 5e dropped out of the group 3/4 of the way through the campaign" This, right here, is the true D&D 5e experience.
The people at Troll Lord Games are also good eggs.
Agreed!
Just started my journey down this rabbit hole. I had researched in the past, but just a couple of days ago I received my physical copy of the new printing of Castle Zagyg - Yggsburgh Campaign setting. And have the PDF of the Players handbook. I started gaming in general with AD&D in 1979 and agree that this is a nice in-between of AD&D and 5th Ed. D&D. 👍
Eric, I appreciate hearing from another old guy like myself! I’d love to hear your thoughts on Zagyg Yggsburgh. I have been loving plowing through the mountains of text and imagining Gygax giving his blessing on the different sections during the creative process. Jeff Talanian from North Wind did a lot of writing for it as well, and it is really clear the influence that Gary had on his writing style. Thanks for watching and sharing!
@@booksbricksandboards783 I read Gary's forward, and found it very interesting, recently learning that so many names in D&D history are just the creators names spelled backwards. I'm constantly reading names backwards now, already seeing things in this, but I have much more to read. Also the way he writes his forward and the way C&C is written I think you can easily just open Gary's other TSR published stuff and just plug in where you want.
100%. In the book, Empire of Imagination, they did something similar, making E. Gary Gygax, Sir Egary and Don Kaye, Sir Kaydon. I like the idea of homages in names. Another common place to find names from early material is actually names and places found in the Old Testament. Several have been plucked from there.
Is there a link for your additional videos on Castles and Crusades?
As a huge fan of dungeon crawling, I have found fast combat is an essential aspect of crawling and C&C works well for this style of play. C&C is one of my preferred systems and it has delivered many hours of fun for our group.
Fred, thanks for chiming in… I had a full C&C campaign in the 1st edition era of Forgotten Realms queued up when that group collapsed. I was thinking along the same lines as what you are saying. I wanted a fast system that didn’t get bloated with munchkin antics and piles upon piles of HP, and I wanted something that would easily utilize the plethora of 1e D&D material I had. Seems like my hunch was correct, just lost the group before I could get it rolling. I allowed a player to run a game after our campaign ended, but before our C&C game started, and we lost half our players during the interim. He was fairly new to DM’ing and strugggled to keep players engaged and to set expectations of timeframes. So I had to jettison the experiment to make sure to keep everyone left engaged, which meant running PF2 which they were already fond of…. In a different world, my current PF2 game that is just now ending would have been my C&C game right now!
Thank you for that in-depth analysis. I have owned the 3 core books since 3011 and have been dying to try this game out.
Glad you enjoyed it, C&C is worth a try
3011? You must be using a time machine!
Of course I used a Time Machine! Spoilers: the rules haven’t changed much in 1000 years and the older books are completely compatible.
This is some excellent information. You explain the books and their content very well. I also like how you rolled up the character straight up, no rerolls for abilities. Pretty good character roll up, except of starting the game in a financial hole, but I've been there before. Cool video, many thanks.
Thanks Q! I’ve certainly ended up with a lot worse rolls.
Thanks for the video on C&C, Justin. I hope you get better soon!
Thanks Not Tim. I really feel a lot better, just have to cut out a lot of random coughing so that I don’t blow out any of your ear drums!
Very interesting review. I'm looking into various OSR books, and most of them are too deadly/negative play for my taste (and I did play basic D&D in 1991 and 1e AD&D, hated it then too). C&C looks like a great mix, something like 1.5e or 2.5e, but not a revamp like 3.x was.
C&C is for me, a great system to run an old school game for newer players. I like Old School Essentials (Classic) for that purpose as well, but C&C gives some additional flair that feels like I remember AD&D feeling as a kid. The fact I can play it with existing TSR material (monsters and modules) with very little conversion is a huge plus for me. It takes the best parts of 3rd edition and gives them an AD&D veneer. Thanks for watching. (Also, you can probably still find older editions of C&C very cheap online, and they have changed very little of merit in the different printings)
I’m definitely looking forwards to this project, now if only they’d do another print run of the Starship Warden…
The Trolls are pretty good about getting older works back out there, so I’d say it at least has a chance!
TLG gave a free pdf of the 10th edition Players Handbook where the OGL has been, happily, removed. So, there are new rules. TLG somewhat pissed me off by sending a free 10th edition pdf and no schedules on prints or any about other books (Monsters and Castle Keeper).
I believe the Trolls are a pretty small staff still… they, as a result, sometimes have some strange schedules as compared to other publishers. Love their stuff though. Good guys as well.
I think one the smartest things the Trolls did was to make the options truly optional by putting them in CKG, and not the PHB. How many players will see something they like, and whine piteously if it does not fit into the CK's world?
That is true to the spirit of AD&D as well. So much was strictly DM’s knowledge only. As you said, they don’t miss it if they don’t know about it.
I like the Siege engine a lot. Very play friendly, strikes a great balance between 3.5 and OSR. But I hate, HATE, how the books are written and laid out. Troll Lord buries rules text within fluff text. The most egregious example is the Barbarian's Primeval Instincts where the rules and the fluff contradict each other in the same section, and being extremely wobbly and unclear on when it applies, and to what it actually applies. Troll Lord desperately need to hire an editor who needs to completely relayout the entire PHB and DMG. The game system is so usable in play, but the books are very unusable at the table. I think Troll Lord wanted to emulate the purple prose of Gygax far too much, without regard to how it affects their GAME. Amazing Adventures is marginally better, but in my opinion the Siege engine is excellent, but the actual books are awful. Just use the the Siege engines ideas with another game that is better presented.
Nick, I like hearing your take as you seem to have used the system at the table more than I have. I know that compared to their earliest printings, the layout and editing now is vastly improved, but Necrotic Gnome it is not. Perhaps I am more forgiving here because I like the Gygaxian prose nod. It does remind me of the 1e books. Quick question for you, in your experience, do you like the SIEGE rolls as are (12/18) or do you think a closer set makes more sense (12/15)? I have seen a lot of discussion about this and it is even mentioned in one of the CKG optional rules I believe. 18 seems pretty rough for some classes, such as the Assassin with abilities using 4 different attributes. Then again, can’t be great at everything. I will play as written, but curious on your thoughts.
@@booksbricksandboards783 I like the gap. 12 is a fairly easy roll at level 1, even with no stat modifiers you have a 50% chance to succeed. 18 is tough, but doable, again with no stat adjustments you have a 25% chance, so half what you have with a primary attribute. We did use the primary/secondary/tertiary rule but honestly I don't think it changed things very much, most characters were quite good at one or two things, and not very at the rest and that's fine. I think people look at those numbers and forget you add your level to the roll, which at character creation is +1, not +0. The 12 TN becomes almost trivial in just a few levels as well, and if you want to use the advanced leveling rules you'll probably need to entirely retool the TNs.
As to the prose, I have no issue with them existing, it's when they mix rules in with fluff that I can't abide. It isn't 1977 anymore, there is so much knowledge to draw on that obfuscating your rules within your prose is just inexcusable these days. C&C is hardly the only system I judge in this regard. You can have both, but for the love of all things separate your rules from your fluff, and make sure they don't contradict one another! Otherwise it makes using the books as rules references during the game an absolute chore.
Interesting take. Again thanks for the perspective. Not sure why, but I felt like the rules were very easily grokked, and didn’t have an issue with the areas you are talking about. I felt like it flowed pretty well, but it is again probably my AD&D brain taking over. Thanks for watching!
Castles and Crusades is true D&D. 5th is a woke imposter.
I gave in and tried 5e finally, about 3 years ago… a guy in my group was all about 5e. I found it to be far too worried about making everyone “feel” equal, and far less interested in giving us good tools to play an interesting game. The death saves were too generous, the players essentially started out as super heroes, and the game seemed to largely lack consequences or provide stakes for the decisions. The guy in the group that was so invested in 5e dropped out of the group 3/4 of the way through the campaign, and we didn’t even bother finishing because no one was into the game mechanics. Definitely not my game. I will say, if I HAD to play 5e again, it would only be the 3 core rulebooks… it was a game that I felt got progressively worse with each release.
@@booksbricksandboards783 "The guy in the group that was so invested in 5e dropped out of the group 3/4 of the way through the campaign"
This, right here, is the true D&D 5e experience.