C&C is not just for old school gaming!

[Dragonhelm]

(I posted this on EN World, but thought I'd get reactions here as well. Just trying to get a variety of views.)

I have to say that I really enjoy the C&C system for a number of reasons. Simple mechanics, hearkens back to the days of AD&D, and so on and so forth. We've heard them all before.

C&C is adaptable to any D&D system. This is one of the main selling points of C&C, yet I feel that despite this being said, it's always equated to adapting AD&D. While I applaud that, it seems to me that C&C is useful enough that it need not be just for old school gaming.

I feel like we're missing some of C&C's potential. Yes, it's a wonderful system for old school gaming, but why can't it also be a wonderful system for new school gaming? After all, we see several threads where someone is asking how to simplify d20, or how someone is looking for a rules-light alternative. Well, C&C's a good option.

Let's take it a step beyond and look at settings. Many people talk about using C&C for old school settings. Why, though, would you limit C&C to just the old school settings? Why not use C&C for an Eberron game, or maybe Spelljammer. What about Kalamar or Dragonstar?

Point is, I think the focus on old school gaming with C&C doesn't really represent the entirety of the system. At its heart, it is an old school system with a rules-light d20 type of mechanic. Yet it's the best of all editions. So why not use it with the materials from all editions of the game?

I'd like to hear more thoughts about this issue, and how C&C could be promoted not only as an old school system, but a rules-light new school system.

Thanks!
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Trampas Whiteman
---DragonHelm--->
Dragonlance Nexus

[Omote]

Well the C&C core mechanic is easy to make universal. C&C as is, is an attribute-based rules set based around the SEIGE mechanic. It is clear that much more then traditional fantasy can utilized with this premise.

Even if the system was classless in some way, the attribute/Seige system will/can work the same.

For example, you could have a future based game that resembles C&C with classes tailored for a sci-fi genre. Easy, but it would take some effort to create your own.

Of course there has been some talk for quite a while referring to TLG's mythical "future-style" RPG. Don't plan on seeing that any time in the near future, but from what I have heard it would use the basic seige mechanic, or a close derivative.

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

FPQ
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Duke Omote Landwehr, Holy Order of the FPQ ~ Prince of the Castles & Crusades Society

[Tank]

C&C is certainly mutable enough to handle cutting edge-style campaigns that use the latest WoTC supplements. My example:

I am still toying with the idea of converting my D&D 3.5 campaign, which is a homebrew with several Eberron-esque elements including firearms, airships, and warforged. With a little houseruling of Mr. Gygax's CZ dual-class system, I think recreating most new-fangled multi-classed D&D PC's would be easy enough. The "Colin Sez" pdf also has rules for a sorcerer and slightly more monstrous characters.

Some challenges I would have to tackle if I converted this setting:

1. Creating a warforged race for C&C. This has probably already been done, and if it hasn't it would take about five minutes.

2. One of my PC's was reincarnated as a troglodyte, so I'd have to work out a trog PC race as well. I can't imagine it being to hard. Just look up the Trog entry in M&T, slap together a stench ability, deepvision, and a racial hide skill, and I'm done. To mesh easily with standard C&C races, I'd ignore entirely the concepts of racial hitdice and level adjustment. Those are just too complicated anyway.

3. The artificer class. Hm. I think given the relative difficulty of creating magical items in C&C, this class would have to go. (And I say good riddance!)

4. Firearms. SIEGE checks for reloading and quickdrawing. If any information about starSIEGE comes out, this could be even easier.

5. I use the taint mechanic from Heroes of Horror, and I would port it without modification. Corruption and Depravity will affect attribute checks in the places they effect skill checks.

Anyway, my point is that C&C is so open to house ruling that practically any campaign is easily portable. Before I found C&C, I was toying with the idea of a d20 future campaign set in the Elysium Nebula. Given what I now know about the openness of the SIEGE engine, I think I'll wait for a starSIEGE sourcebook to run that one.

The only problem I have with switching to C&C is a certain rules-canny player who has sunk a lot of dinero into WotC's pockets.

I'll win him over soon enough.

[serleran]

Quote:
Even if the system was classless in some way

That's easy. I've got three ways of handling it, and still keeping it "rules lite."

Now, that said, the simplest way to handle a race from another setting is to go the route of racial classes. Go basic. Literally. Provide an option for being something different, like maybe there are robot wizards (yeah, whatever, that's a concept that defies the very premise of the magic system, so you'd have to rewrite that, too -- even sorcerers are barred from using armor) and change the XP for taking that option... basically a "new race."

What complicates the issue is trying to graft the whole rules system from the other game, rather than actually convert it, or mutating it to suit the C&C way. Most of a setting is fluff/filler... so, why can't it be used without any changes?

[Omote]

serleran wrote:
Most of a setting is fluff/filler... so, why can't it be used without any changes?

This is true, but most players like to play with the mechanical aspects of rules in situations like this. Rules have a "measurable" effect on a game, and specifics like rules can be judged more easily from a mechanic or playable standpoint.

That's the reason many people try to fully convert rules from one game to another.

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

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

[serleran]

Of course rules have an impact, they are what define the game in the first place. However, that's not what I'm talking about. For example, in Eberron, being a warforged is supposed to be rare... so, you simply relegate them to the realms of NPCs, and use them anyway you want, which is supposed to be, according to the fluff of the setting, not all the time; the problem is assuming that everything in the setting has to be converted, when it can just be treated like fluff... yeah, there are electro-trains and flying dinosaurs. No rules to include them.

You should only convert things which are useful, for what you are using. If it happens to be everything... perhaps what you really ought to do is retool the game system you want to use, and not the other way around. C&C is easy to add things to, so just drop in feats, PrCs, and whatever else. Graft the universal XP chart (an unwise decision, really) and off you go.

I guess I just have no problem doing conversions...

[Treebore]

Here is how you convert any 3E book to C&C pretty easily.

3E is the customizable version of C&C. The player picks and build their character up to 10th or 20th level. This means they pick the feats and skills they want all the way up to "X" level (decided by the CK) and those are the class powers/skills of their particular customized class.

Then use the xp progression from the C&C class that most closely resembles the customized class built by the player. Easy in most cases. Fighter=fighter, Ranger=ranger, mage=mage, etc...

Still use the stat bonuses of C&C, still use the SIEGE engine and Primes of C&C.

Converting races. Cut all 3E racial modifiers in half rounded down. Keep all other powers/abilities. Cut the bonuses from racial powers/abilities in half as well. Also rounded down. Pretty much done. Maybe an additional tweak or 3, but each race can be done and written down in about 5 minutes or less. Less than 3 once you get going and feel comfortable with it.

Monsters: Feats become monster abilities. Skills do too. Get rid of what you don't like. Replace with things you do like. Custom build your monster.

Classed monsters remain classes monsters, or become classed if that is what you want to have.

These are good general rules to get you most of the way to "converted" from 3E to C&C. The biggest thing is just making the decisions. Plus fine tune with some tweaks here and there.

Basically, I find it very easy to do, since I now know how to do it in the general sense. Then I decide specifics as I write it up.

In fact, its so "simple" I can look at a 3E character class or monster and convert it in my head and jot down the specifics in my campaign note book. For an example, I don't write down any of the bonus'. I know they are all cut in half and rounded down. So that is what I mentally do every time I look at that class/race/monsters numerical bonuses, except those derived directly from stats. Those go by C&C's stat rules.

Then I decide Primes, following the M&T as best as I can, when it suits what I want. Primes for cusomized classes are determined by race and the dominant "focus" of the players customized concept.

Plus I write down the book and page number of where the class/creature is ( I now call them templates, since that is what they are to me), and I am all set and can refer back to it whenever I need/want to.

Of course if I ever lose my campaign notebook I am going to be very upset.

This is what I have been doing when I use 3E stuff. Hope it makes enough sense to someone to be useful.

[Maliki]

IMHO only the feel of C&C is old school, lower powered, strong archtype PCs, control firmly in the hands of the CK. The siege engine is cutting edge game mechanics.

I have no problem using any edition of D&D with C&C and I have used everything from BD&D, 1E, 2E, and 3E. (3E needs a little more adjustment, with the power creep and all the templates and such.)
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Never throw rocks at a man with a Vorpal Sword!

[Zudrak]

Maliki wrote:
IMHO only the feel of C&C is old school, lower powered, strong archtype PCs, control firmly in the hands of the CK. The siege engine is cutting edge game mechanics.

I have no problem using any edition of D&D with C&C and I have used everything from BD&D, 1E, 2E, and 3E. (3E needs a little more adjustment, with the power creep and all the templates and such.)

The post harlot speaks the truth. I have done the same. 3/3.5E takes a bigger shoehorn to fit in, but it's not like trying to get Lego and Mega Blocks together.
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AD&D, Amish Dungeons & Dragons.

"Galstaff, ye are in a cornfield, when a moustachioed man approaches. What say ye?"

"I shun him."

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"Knowledge, logic, reason, and common sense serve better than a dozen rule books."

-- E. Gary Gygax

[Maliki]

Zudrak wrote:
The post harlot speaks the truth. I have done the same. 3/3.5E takes a bigger shoehorn to fit in, but it's not like trying to get Lego and Mega Blocks together.

Even here I can't outrun my reputation.
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Never throw rocks at a man with a Vorpal Sword!

[Col_Pladoh]

All I can say is:

What fo you mean, "just" ?!

Gary

[Zudrak]

Maliki wrote:
Even here I can't outrun my reputation.

Heh. I like running jokes. With things as strenuous as they are IRL right now, I find humor helps soothe the emotions. Thanks for letting me get that out of my system.
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AD&D, Amish Dungeons & Dragons.

"Galstaff, ye are in a cornfield, when a moustachioed man approaches. What say ye?"

"I shun him."

-----

"Knowledge, logic, reason, and common sense serve better than a dozen rule books."

-- E. Gary Gygax

[Nifelhein]

I for one purchased it to play games without any old school thing in mind, other than a fantasy D&D-like game that was simple at heart and good at the table.

3.X did not deliver me the first part, making preparations harder than work, and well, I only work because I get paid, I won't be paid to Gm, so i dropped it.

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"We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men; and among those fibers, as sympathetic threads, our actions run as causes, and they come back to us as effects." - Attributed to Herman Melville.

[gideon_thorne]

To put it succinctly, C&C is what you make it.
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Peter Bradley