What makes C&C better...

[StealthSuitStanley]

That's not a question. That is the beginning of a statement that ends with a short story...
I'm a trainer who travels all over the country holding seminars on...nevermind...that's not important.

When I travel, I like to visit local game stores in the evenings to try to get involved in a few games. Tonight, I went to Valhalla Games in Columbia MO.

A great store by the way with an excellent selection and plenty of space for gaming. Great tables for wargames and space for card and RPGs also...

While I was there waiting for someone, anyone, willing to play any game with me, I observed some people playing 3.x. Or should I say reading 3.x books, rolling dice, and adding numbers on their fingers and toes.

I don't ever remember it being like that, but I played 2nd ed. then quit when they stole my money with the Players Option books that were superceded 3 months later by 3rd ed...but I digress.

It was ridiculous! The GM would make a few simple statements, move a model on the map then the players (5 in all) would spend 15 minutes or more researching in their books what their options were, explain each ability to the other players, who always had a response about what was a better choice. Eventually, one of them would ask the GM a question. To which he would go digging through his pile of reference books to give an answer (that could have as easily been adjucated with dice or his whim).

I literally stood in awe at the amount of time they were fishing through their books! I figured they must be playing characters that are high level because of all the different skills and such they kept talking about. Then I realized they must have not played the characters from 1st level, but started mid-level, thus their unfamiliarity with the rules for their character's abilities.

So I asked "what level are you playing"?

I'm a Druid 1, Fighter 1

I'm a Thief 3

I'm a Wizard 2

I'm a Ranger 1 Cleric 1

I'm a Barbarian 2

...

I had to leave the room so as not to hurt their feelings by laughing!

I'm so glad C&C is around.
_________________
later

SSS

----------------------------

"Size matters not."

-Yoda, Jedi Master

[Treebore]

Yeah, I always wonder how the ones who claim their 3E games go fast get it to do so.

I am glad for C&C as well.

[The One and All]

I too seen this more often than not at my local gaming store.. but funny enough, it always seems to be kids playing.. avg 15-18 yrs old. My thinking is that their perception of an RP game is way different from all of us here...

I guess playing all those MMO online, you start to think that this is RP, and that simply moving miniatures on a battlemap and rolling dices is what table top gaming is all about.

I dmed many many 3.0 and 3.5 games, and we never used our books like that.. In fact, compare to C&C only our battle were longer, cause of all the rolling and sometimes rules checking. But that has to do with the fact that even though we were playing 3ed, I always kinda Cked instead of DM. I made a lot of Dc on the fly, adjusting them as I saw fit, etc and etc.

So when I discovered C&C (BTW Thanks Moriarty!), it just made sense.

[Omote]

the Highlevel 3rd edition mechanic has made me "freak out" a few times. I've never been such an angry gamer in my life as playing the v3.X game. For years I was longing for a better version of the 3.X game, a simpler, more RPGing experience, while retaining the base 3rd edtion mechanic (I freely admit, I love the idea of the 3rd edition game, just not the execution at all). That's when I stumbled on to the Troll Lords from the Dragon's Foot MBs like 3.5 years ago. Everything I was looking for in a fantasy RPG was found with what would become Castles & Crusades. Since then, even though I still play the dreaded 3.X game, C&C has been my game of choice.

...................................................Omote

FPQ
_________________
> Omote's Advanced C&C stuff <
Duke Omote Landwehr, Holy Order of the FPQ ~ Prince of the Castles & Crusades Society

[joewolz]

I'm in roughly the same boat as Omote, but I met the Troll's themselves at Egyptian Campaign (which is coming up in a few weeks! YAY).

My friend Josh and I have always found d20 slightly too complex for what it does, and Josh pointed to the C&C PHB and said, "Dude, it's only 20 bucks."

So I got it, and haven't looked back. There's still some rule checking when we play (mostly figuring out how a spell will react to something) but nowhere near as much as we had in d20.

I ended up ignoring vast amounts of rules when I DMed anyway, I left it up to the players to know what the hell their feats did.
_________________
-JFC Wolz

HISTORIAN

[erc1971]

StealthSuitStanley wrote:
That's not a question. That is the beginning of a statement that ends with a short story...
I'm a trainer who travels all over the country holding seminars on...nevermind...that's not important.

When I travel, I like to visit local game stores in the evenings to try to get involved in a few games. Tonight, I went to Valhalla Games in Columbia MO.

A great store by the way with an excellent selection and plenty of space for gaming. Great tables for wargames and space for card and RPGs also...

While I was there waiting for someone, anyone, willing to play any game with me, I observed some people playing 3.x. Or should I say reading 3.x books, rolling dice, and adding numbers on their fingers and toes.

I don't ever remember it being like that, but I played 2nd ed. then quit when they stole my money with the Players Option books that were superceded 3 months later by 3rd ed...but I digress.

It was ridiculous! The GM would make a few simple statements, move a model on the map then the players (5 in all) would spend 15 minutes or more researching in their books what their options were, explain each ability to the other players, who always had a response about what was a better choice. Eventually, one of them would ask the GM a question. To which he would go digging through his pile of reference books to give an answer (that could have as easily been adjucated with dice or his whim).

I literally stood in awe at the amount of time they were fishing through their books! I figured they must be playing characters that are high level because of all the different skills and such they kept talking about. Then I realized they must have not played the characters from 1st level, but started mid-level, thus their unfamiliarity with the rules for their character's abilities.

So I asked "what level are you playing"?

I'm a Druid 1, Fighter 1

I'm a Thief 3

I'm a Wizard 2

I'm a Ranger 1 Cleric 1

I'm a Barbarian 2

...

I had to leave the room so as not to hurt their feelings by laughing!

I'm so glad C&C is around.

I stopped playing D&D when it became like this. We spent literally half the gaming session in books and arguing over rules, as the D&D books contridicted themselves all over the place, so there was no clear ruling on many things.

D&D actually caused the group break up. I still game with 2 of the guys, and one of them is now involved in my new group, in which we have 2 different C&C games going.

In several months of gaming, we look at the book for spells, that is it. I think once I took a peek to refresh my memory on a rule. We actually play the game now, not spend all out time flipping through the books.

Life is so much better now.

Eric

[Nelzie]

erc1971 wrote:
I stopped playing D&D when it became like this. We spent literally half the gaming session in books and arguing over rules, as the D&D books contridicted themselves all over the place, so there was no clear ruling on many things.

D&D actually caused the group break up. I still game with 2 of the guys, and one of them is now involved in my new group, in which we have 2 different C&C games going.

In several months of gaming, we look at the book for spells, that is it. I think once I took a peek to refresh my memory on a rule. We actually play the game now, not spend all out time flipping through the books.

Life is so much better now.

Eric

To this, I can only say, "You're welcome." Since I am the one that turned Eric onto C&C.

I completely agree with the sentiments in this thread.

I was "born" to RPGs back with the old BECMI D&D Boxed sets. The simple rules provided hours of entertainment, until I "graduated" up to AD&D2e and then a veritable smorgasborg of other complex game systems and a few light ones. Since just before D&D3.0 came out, I was finding myself unable to "do" Fantasy, as the rulesets I had were to heavy or way to lite for the tastes of those I could game with.

There simply wasn't enough time in the day to work up characters, complex plots and keep everything "in tune" with the 2nd Edition, AD&D Rules. So, I settled on running Star Wars, SciFi and more or less "modern" games using WEG's d6 rules.

Then I heard of C&C. Took a look and my true love of building my fantasy world has come back to me in ways that I simply thought was gone. C&C is my muse and the results are growing into a fairly healthy and I understand an enjoyable campaign.

To this, I can only, "Thank you, thank you and thank you, Troll Lord Games."
_________________
Earned the following:

50 Useless Trivia Points from Serleran

[Jyrdan Fairblade]

I had a similar moment at a local coffeehouse that I hang out at.

I was sitting in back, writing and drinking a hot chocolate when I noticed this group to my left with 3e screens set up and dice a'rolling. In 30 - 45 minutes, they had yet to finish a single encounter. In the old days, combat with the BBEG would last that long, at the very most.

I kept hearing them rolling to stabilize when I left. I'm guessing that the battle wasn't going well.

[Omote]

Jyrdan Fairblade wrote:
I had a similar moment at a local coffeehouse that I hang out at.

I was sitting in back, writing and drinking a hot chocolate when I noticed this group to my left with 3e screens set up and dice a'rolling. In 30 - 45 minutes, they had yet to finish a single encounter. In the old days, combat with the BBEG would last that long, at the very most.

I kept hearing them rolling to stabilize when I left. I'm guessing that the battle wasn't going well.

Just to add my 2 coppers to the ledger of bad 3E encounter experiences, I play v3.5 a lot (I know shame on me). Anyways, in our group we had a battle against a high-level BBEG who was a spellcaster, 8 giants and about 8 more "blow" guys. The party consists of 8 players. This battle took appoximately 6 hours 15 minutes to complete. There was no "break" in th action excpet to look up rules, argue about rules, interpret multiple sources of contradicting rules, etc. What a total waste of time. I nearly cracked at the gaming table. 17 enemies took 6+ hours to play. FRACK! It even makes me angry months later.

........................................Omote

FPQ
_________________
> Omote's Advanced C&C stuff <
Duke Omote Landwehr, Holy Order of the FPQ ~ Prince of the Castles & Crusades Society

[joewolz]

Omote wrote:
I nearly cracked at the gaming table. 17 enemies took 6+ hours to play. FRACK! It even makes me angry months later.

........................................Omote

FPQ

Dude. That's horrifying.

Even when running d20, if a battle broke 45 minutes I would fudge the end so it was under an hour. When combat takes more than an hour to resolve like less than a minute of game time...I stop playing that game.

In fact, it's part of the reason I never, ever, ran characters higher than 7th level in d20 EVER, and rarely went above 4th level.

The game's just too complicated when you include anything beyond the main three books.
_________________
-JFC Wolz

HISTORIAN

[Omote]

joewolz wrote:
The game's just too complicated when you include anything beyond the main three books.

You jus' ain't whistlin' dixie. Yeah, all of aour characters are 20-22 level. Such a pain, such a bore and such a chore. However, some times I'm left with few options if I want to "roleplay."

Joe, I'm coming over to play in your games from now on.
...............................................Omote

FPQ
_________________
> Omote's Advanced C&C stuff <
Duke Omote Landwehr, Holy Order of the FPQ ~ Prince of the Castles & Crusades Society

[sieg]

Here's one I ran into. I was at Talon Comics here in Denton while a 3.5 RPGA game was going on and I heard the following:

Player: "Ok, I go to the window and look outside. What do I see?"

DM: "You can't. You haven't gotten to the boxed text yet."

...IMO, that says it all.
_________________
Always remember, as a first principle of all D&D: playing BtB is not now, never was and never will be old school.- Tim Kask, Dragonsfoot

[joewolz]

joewolz wrote:
Joe, I'm coming over to play in your games from now on.
...............................................Omote

FPQ

You're always welcome at my table when you're in Southern Illinois. Same goes for most around here.

I'm currently running Queen of the Spiders...with C&C.
_________________
-JFC Wolz

HISTORIAN

[Dragonhelm]

It's funny, because I've actually played AD&D games that ran like some of these 3e games you mention. Granted, the DM was very much into the rules and placed "realism" over simplicity. This is the game that taught me that there should be some reasonable sense of game balance, though I still place actual role-playing over game balance any day of the week.

I remember one time having a new player in a short-lived d20 Dragonlance game, and she was a rules lawyer. She ran tournament games for d20 quite often. At one point, a player was trying to whack a sleeping villain on the head to keep him knocked out. I would have just ruled a Fortitude save or a Con check. She looked up the rules on the coup de grace' (sp?), and it became a huge mathematical formula, only for a few negatives difference. Needless to say, I didn't play with her again.

I've tried d20 over the years, but I find myself getting frustrated in combat. I've had mostly bad experiences with attacks of opportunity. I was in a position once where if my psion actually manifested his powers, he'd have guys getting free shots on him. That's no fun! It just makes your character feel worthless to you.

I agree with the sentiment above. I like the concepts behind d20, but not the execution.

A friend of mine once taught me the KISS theory - Keep It Simple, Stupid. This has aided me throughout life, and I think should apply to RPGs as well. Games should be fun. They should have easy-to-learn rules.

I would sacrifice "realism" for a fun experience any day. These are fantasy adventures with fantastic elements. Realism is, by default, checked at the door. When I play, I do so for fun. Not for rules. There's enough rules in life. RPGs should provide a sense of escapism into the realm of the fantastic.
_________________
Trampas Whiteman
---DragonHelm--->
Dragonlance Nexus

[Rigon]

Dragonhelm wrote:
I would sacrifice "realism" for a fun experience any day. These are fantasy adventures with fantastic elements. Realism is, by default, checked at the door. When I play, I do so for fun. Not for rules. There's enough rules in life. RPGs should provide a sense of escapism into the realm of the fantastic.

Get outta my head!!!!!
R-
_________________
Rigon o' the Lakelands, Baron of The Castles & Crusades Society
The Book of the Mind

[Omote]

Rigon wrote:
Get outta my head!!!!!

"What word am I thinking right now... and it's not kitty."

.............................................Omote

FPQ
_________________
> Omote's Advanced C&C stuff <
Duke Omote Landwehr, Holy Order of the FPQ ~ Prince of the Castles & Crusades Society

[Rigon]

Omote wrote:
"What word am I thinking right now... and it's not kitty."

.............................................Omote

FPQ

But it is kitty!

R-
_________________
Rigon o' the Lakelands, Baron of The Castles & Crusades Society
The Book of the Mind

[anglefish]

Actually I had very fast fights back in the early days of 3.0. Hell, I didn't even have DMG or MM. I only used the PH and used my Castle Falkenstein books as reference my spell skill system.

It wasn't the system that eventually slowed me down, it was the players that replaced my orginal group at the game store.

The game store stable of gamers, that's been my real bane. I haven't been able to find a few players that can match my schedule, so I rely on going to a game store and basically play with who ever shows up.

Always a recipie for disaster, I say.

[acererak]

I am experience the horror of 3.5 as we speak. It is taking my party an hour just to set up as we read rulebooks and the ranger debates what feats he should take for his wolf. His friggin wolf!! The cleric is choosing from 90 million spells in 400 different books. This adventure should start by Christmas I'm sure! This is why I like C&C so much better.

[serleran]

I will readily admit that the very early days of third edition, back in like July of 2000, right after its release, before there was a DMG or MM, and SSS was releasing products faster than WotC, the game was fun... it was different, and it had that "neatness" to it, because it was new. However, it faded rather quickly for me, once I realized some things which I'd just ognored wanting to give the "new game" a try: it wasn't "new" at all, and all the "options" were about restriction. After that, I only played because that's what my group wanted to play... and I still wanted to see if the system could be salvaged from the depths of rules hell. See, normally, I throw out rules I don't like, but I wanted to give this one a chance to use everything.. and the session that involved one player bull rushing a demon from behind but invoking an AoO was it. The "logic" was just absurd, and I decided I would go back to throwing out rules I didn't like. Only problem was... that meant hacking d20 to basically nothing because everything is interwoven.

Then, the Trolls said they wanted a "rules light" game, and I said "sure, boyos... I'll help."