Castles & Crusades Classic hack

[CARLcarl]

Hello everybody.

I wanted to share an edited C&C quick start document I put together to provide a game experience closer to classic fantasy "boxed set" games.

This only has C&C info from the quickstart but should work well with monsters & treasures or any C&C module.

I'm very curious for any feedback on the document. All the art used is used with permission as it was provided to the OSR community.

Here is the document link.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5v2nE ... hPNGs/view

Thanks for reading and thank you for any thoughts.

[Traveller]

Feedback on the rules: It's a quickstart so by its nature it's incomplete. Especially the spells. The one-line descriptions of the spell's effects really do not adequately cover what the spell can do, but for a quickstart it's enough.

Feedback on the art: Simply releasing artwork to the OSR community doesn't automatically grant permission to use that artwork. If you genuinely have permission to use Larry Elmore's work - or anyone else's work for that matter - you need to note that you have such permission prominently in the book. If the artwork is OGL-compliant, you need to note that as well.

OGL Compliance: Obviously, as a fan edit this thing isn't even close to OGL compliant. Any additions you make, such as the elf class, need to have their OGL status mentioned somewhere. If it's open game content, you need to tell the reader that.

General feedback: The general layout is utilitarian, but you have a major problem in that the book, as laid out, is unprintable. In terms of appearance, it's easily seen that this is a fan edit. The margins are virtually non-existent while the columns are spaced too far apart. Paragraphs should be right-justified, and in places you have way too much white space. Tables should be centered in the column, or set up so the column text wraps around the table. Page numbers on a document this small are optional, but I would have erred on the side of caution here and put them in.

Final thoughts: You put in a lot of effort to make it look good, and such effort shouldn't go unacknowledged. However, correcting the issues I mention in general feedback will make it a far more polished product. At the same time, you're not providing much that is new, except the elf and dwarf classes. A document with just those classes and their abilities would be far more usable since they wouldn't be encumbered with rules that people may already have.

[CARLcarl]

Thank you so much for the detailed responses. It's extremely helpful.

Feedback on the rules: It's a quickstart so by its nature it's incomplete. Especially the spells. The one-line descriptions of the spell's effects really do not adequately cover what the spell can do, but for a quickstart it's enough.

I think full spell descriptions would be very helpful but I didn't want to include anything that wasn't either my own creation or already in the quickstart.

Feedback on the art: Simply releasing artwork to the OSR community doesn't automatically grant permission to use that artwork. If you genuinely have permission to use Larry Elmore's work - or anyone else's work for that matter - you need to note that you have such permission prominently in the book. If the artwork is OGL-compliant, you need to note that as well.

Sorry that was not explained better. The art comes from three sources and is credited on the first page. One is a Larry Elmore clip art collection he has since released into the OSR for use. The second was a free RPGNOW art download and is credited as requested. The third is from an excellent webcomic whose author gave me permission to use his art and he is credited as requested.

OGL Compliance: Obviously, as a fan edit this thing isn't even close to OGL compliant. Any additions you make, such as the elf class, need to have their OGL status mentioned somewhere. If it's open game content, you need to tell the reader that.

That is interesting. I had no idea and just kept the OGL licence on their as Troll Lord had it.

General feedback: The general layout is utilitarian, but you have a major problem in that the book, as laid out, is unprintable. In terms of appearance, it's easily seen that this is a fan edit. The margins are virtually non-existent while the columns are spaced too far apart. Paragraphs should be right-justified, and in places you have way too much white space. Tables should be centered in the column, or set up so the column text wraps around the table. Page numbers on a document this small are optional, but I would have erred on the side of caution here and put them in.

Extremely helpful information. I will update the document soon with many of these changes though the white space probably won't change much as I don't want the document to become expensive to print. I actually think it's more art heavy then needed now. As far as utilitarian that's a personal design preference. I dislike busy books.

Final thoughts: You put in a lot of effort to make it look good, and such effort shouldn't go unacknowledged. However, correcting the issues I mention in general feedback will make it a far more polished product. At the same time, you're not providing much that is new, except the elf and dwarf classes. A document with just those classes and their abilities would be far more usable since they wouldn't be encumbered with rules that people may already have.

There are quite a few changes to the other classes. Mostly the Rogue. As well as some spell changes and other small rules changes throughout. I don't think making a dwarf, elf and halfling class for regular c&c without fundamental changes to the other classes would work. Without other changes it would essentially be a halfling fighter, dwarf fighter and elf class and a half fighter mage probably with the other classes just running as humans.


Again thank you so much for your input and I'll let you know when the document has been updated.

[Omote]

Keep it up Carlcarl. I was following your work on this project over at DF, and really like it. Thanks! It might become my new C&C convention rules set.

~O

[CARLcarl]

Keep it up Carlcarl. I was following your work on this project over at DF, and really like it. Thanks! It might become my new C&C convention rules set.

~O

Awesome, I'll be running it at North Texas RPG Con.

[Traveller]

You can pull spell information from the PHB if you wish and use them in the book. As far as I know they are all open game content. As to the art, you want to post the links where you downloaded the material from, in addition to explicitly mentioning that permission was granted. You don't mention on the first page that permission was granted. Also, keep in mind that the terms and conditions by which the artwork is used may be incompatible with the OGL, in which case you have to declare them as product identity.

In hindsight, the discussion about complying with the OGL isn't relevant. It's impossible for you to comply with the OGL unless you remove all the references to the SIEGE engine and other associated marks. Thus, you're not allowed to use the OGL at all. It's because of the OGL I noted that your additions and changes would be better off in a document of their own, so you can assert the kind of control over the use of the work that you may want to have. As it stands right now, no one can use what you've added, mainly because it's intertwined with both OGC and product identity.

Utilitarian is not a bad thing, and if you check the links in my signature you can see for yourself how well utilitarian works. The point being that you need to change the margins, add page numbers, and right justify the text in order to provide a clean look. When I refer to white space, I'm referring mostly to the one page with the fighter and wizard classes. Sorry, but you need something at the bottom of that page. Of course, I presume that once the margins are fixed some of that white space will disappear.

[CARLcarl]

You can pull spell information from the PHB if you wish and use them in the book. As far as I know they are all open game content. As to the art, you want to post the links where you downloaded the material from, in addition to explicitly mentioning that permission was granted. You don't mention on the first page that permission was granted. Also, keep in mind that the terms and conditions by which the artwork is used may be incompatible with the OGL, in which case you have to declare them as product identity.

In hindsight, the discussion about complying with the OGL isn't relevant. It's impossible for you to comply with the OGL unless you remove all the references to the SIEGE engine and other associated marks. Thus, you're not allowed to use the OGL at all. It's because of the OGL I noted that your additions and changes would be better off in a document of their own, so you can assert the kind of control over the use of the work that you may want to have. As it stands right now, no one can use what you've added, mainly because it's intertwined with both OGC and product identity.

Utilitarian is not a bad thing, and if you check the links in my signature you can see for yourself how well utilitarian works. The point being that you need to change the margins, add page numbers, and right justify the text in order to provide a clean look. When I refer to white space, I'm referring mostly to the one page with the fighter and wizard classes. Sorry, but you need something at the bottom of that page. Of course, I presume that once the margins are fixed some of that white space will disappear.

I'm clearly not familiar enough with the OGL. I'll need to do some reading.

I had actually placed an image under the fighter but removed it to keep the flow of the class list consistent.

I didn't get an error in word with my margins but different printers might I suppose. I assumed since word didn't have an issue with my margins it would be fine.

[Captain_K]

If this thing gets the OK by the Trolls and Traveller.. you might look to Tree and I to "publish" and help edit and join the works in the KofC or Domesday..

Get it legal and keep at it, its work, but worth it, Captain_K

[Traveller]

@Captain_K: I really don't want to be seen as the bad guy here, because I'm all for doing whatever it takes to expand the game. But the OGL can cause problems if not applied correctly. Case in point is one of my documents I made years ago, which converted Rolemaster critical hits to C&C. I put it under the OGL, and I got dinged by Iron Crown Enterprises. In my case the solution Iron Crown and I came up with was to simply not use the OGL and apply proper copyright notices for Rolemaster and HARP.

I simply don't want to see CARLcarl run into that same problem. Thus, his best course of action would be to talk to the Trolls.

@CARLcarl: Word generating a warning about margins depends upon the printer in question. In my case, the HP printer I have here would generate an error when trying to print your document, while Adobe Acrobat would happily print it without a care in the world. As to the fighter, I understand why you did it, but I'd put the piece of art back. That much white space distracts.

[CARLcarl]

I don't want Carl to run into any problems either

I did reach out to the trolls via Facebook before starting this project and have sent them the link tp the document. They know about it and said it was fine to share.

I have been busy and haven't had a chance to update the document but I will fix the margins when I do.

[Captain_K]

I took everything to suggestions on the rules to avoid problems. After my two Domesday publications, I totally agree.

[CARLcarl]

What would you suggest for printer margins? I did some googling and most often saw .25 listed as the narrowest safe margin and that's what I'm currently using.

[Traveller]

0.5", although The Gray Book and Star Trek: Alpha Quadrant don't use that narrow a margin. The Gray Book for example uses 0.75" on all sides, while Star Trek: Alpha Quadrant, uses 0.65" on left and right, 0.75" on top, and 0.46" on bottom. 0.25" is fine if the document isn't intended to be printed, but at the same you must assume someone is going to print this out. 0.25" is too narrow because whomever prints it out won't have a place to drive staples and keep the printout readable.

[CARLcarl]

Awesome. Thanks.

[CARLcarl]

I've updated the book. Still some more work to do. I think instead of adding art under the fighter I will try to add more text to his abilities descriptions.

[Omote]

The latest revision looks good. Obviously some stuff to still work on, but I'm liking the latest revision even more. Thanks for all the hard work on this. Format this into a digest-sized rule book and you'll have all the boys come to the yard!

~O

[CARLcarl]

The latest revision looks good. Obviously some stuff to still work on, but I'm liking the latest revision even more. Thanks for all the hard work on this. Format this into a digest-sized rule book and you'll have all the boys come to the yard!

~O

Now we get to the real reason I started this project.

[Buttmonkey]

The latest revision looks good. Obviously some stuff to still work on, but I'm liking the latest revision even more. Thanks for all the hard work on this. Format this into a digest-sized rule book and you'll have all the boys come to the yard!

~O

Now we get to the real reason I started this project.

Please, please, please tell me you are going to release this under the title "C&C: Milkshake Edition".

[CARLcarl]

Castles & Kelis? Monsters & Milkshakes?

This is as much of a release as exists for this product. And it will exist as long as the trolls don't tell me to take it down.

[Traveller]

Feedback on the newest version.

Title Page: You need to create an entirely new title page that omits the OGL; as previously noted, you cannot use the OGL with this document. Copyright on Castles & Crusades Classic would be 2017, not 2007. In addition, your disclaimer in red should read as follows.

Castles & Crusades, C&C©, Castle Keeper, SIEGE Engine™, Troll Lord Games and all related marks and logos are solely owned by Troll Lord Games and are used here with permission. Castles & Crusades Classic is not endorsed by, sponsored by, nor affiliated with Troll Lord Games, and is a non-commercial fan-made role playing game intended for recreational use.

Portraits in the character classes section are provided courtesy of Larry Elmore and are used here with permission. Other art used throughout this book is provided courtesy of Internet user "Warriorneedsfood" from his web-based comic "The Keep on the Borderlands", and is used here with permission.

No commercial exhibition or distribution is permitted without the permission of Troll Lord Games, Larry Elmore, and "Warriorneedsfood".

I understand this book is still in progress, but your number one priority here is to remove the title page and replace it with one that does not use the OGL.

Body Text: The margins are far better this time around. You may want to play around with the placement of the page number a bit as the page number may be cut off if someone does print this. Adjusting the bottom margin may be able to fix this. There is also white space issues prevalent in the Spells section as well as the CK sections that seem to be a result of the changes made to the margins. Those will need to be fixed, because you can't leave page 16 3/4ths blank, with only an illustration in the upper left.

p2, column 2, The Six Attributes: The lack of white space between paragraphs is painfully evident. Instead of having the heading on one line and the description immediately following, have both heading and description on one line, separated by a colon. Then insert a blank line between paragraphs. The end result should look something like below.

STRENGTH: Strength description.

DEXTERITY: Dexterity description.

p3, column 2, Attribute Modifiers chart: I wasn't aware this was added to the PDF as a graphic. Create this table using Word's table creation functions so you can change the font and table style to be consistent with the rest of the book.

p3, Illustration: I've noticed this a few times in your original version of the booklet (and in mine for that matter). Don't always slap the illustration at the bottom of the page to fill up the column. You have the entire page to work with, and the illustration can appear anywhere. By not limiting yourself to the bottom of a column you actually make the entire document appear more lively.

p4: You already mentioned trying to add additional text for the Fighter, which should resolve the white space issues for that character. However, the wizard needs a little bit more as well to take up his white space.

Another issue noticed throughout the book is your tables. They are not centered in their columns. Worse, columns composed exclusively of numbers in each table are not centered beneath their headers. Columns with text are an exception in that they should be left justified in their column.

p5, Rogue: Same issue as on page 4. Also, the Trolls slipped in an apostrophe following the header "CANT". That needs to go.

p8: The columns are spaced too far apart here. If the equipment list weren't so short I'd recommend setting section breaks at the beginning and end of the tables and changing the number of columns to 3. It would resolve the wide spacing as well as remove the excess space following the last column in each. Any remaining white space could be fixed by resizing the existing illustration to fit the page width.

pp 10-16: The Spells header in column 1 does not line up with the top of the image in the second column, likely due to the margin resizing. Spell lists I would format as if they were tables, with alternating gray bars like what you find in the full PHB. The current setup is somewhat difficult to parse at a glance. Because of the margin resizing, you have too much white space between selected paragraphs, as the text moved onto the next page. You'll have to play around with resizing illustrations and taking out that white space to fix the layout.

[CARLcarl]

I am really confused. I thought the OGL had to be included for anything that used wotc rules terms.

[CARLcarl]

Yikes... something happened to my formatting on my last quick edit. None of those white spaces were there after I adjusted the margins. I fixed something in the equipment section and it seems to have shifted the entire document downwards. I'll fix it soon.

[CARLcarl]

Document updated

[Traveller]

Ok...let me slow down a bit, because I did (unintentionally) mislead you.

You have permission from the Trolls to release this, so that means you're permitted to use their product identity. You are correct in that the OGL would then be required, since you are complying with its terms regarding product identity. However, this is a work in progress, thus at this moment you don't want to use the OGL. Not only that, the OGL in the quickstart is a cut-and-paste of the OGL used in the PHB from that time period. It's incorrectly written in that it refers to page numbers and chapters that don't exist in the quickstart. Your final release and ONLY your final release should use the OGL, which you would need to edit in order to remove the page and chapter references.

As for the replacement red text I provided upthread, even if you use the OGL you will still need to include the red text. You will also need to make sure the product identity section of the OGL is edited to include the illustrations, as those are all copyrighted, even if permission was granted to use them.

One last thing: when you do release the final version under the OGL, you need to specify what is and what isn't product identity for the material you add. In this case, the artwork is all product identity along with the SIEGE engine and all identifying marks from TLG. Are your racial classes going to be open game content?

[CARLcarl]

I don't see why not. But to be clear I am very dumb.

[Traveller]

Well, I'm no lawyer either, and I make mistakes. The reason why you don't want to put your work in progress under the OGL is due to the possibility of major revisions or changes suddenly being made from one moment to the next. For example, if you look at the 6th printing PHB you'd see five entries for the PHB in the Trolls' section 15 of the OGL. Each time they reprint, they add a line. If a rough draft had an OGL attached to it, every time you updated the file and released it to view you would have to add a line to the OGL. Thus you don't want to use the OGL while C&C Classic is being worked on and only want to use it on the finished product.

[CARLcarl]

Well looking back on my conversation with Troll Lord they requested the OGL stay present. So it will stay. I am not sure what I need to change to be OGL compliant but I will do some more reading on OGL as I would like to continue to make OSR products as I have enjoyed this one immensely.

[CARLcarl]

Document has been updated with more revisions suggested by Traveller. I have included your suggested text as large text on page 2 of the document. It's ugly but I certainly don't want anyone to see it and assume I am stealing art or distributing troll lords IP maliciously.

Thanks again Traveller and everyone else for any help and encouragement.

[Traveller]

Download the most recent version of Star Trek: Alpha Quadrant (link in my signature) and look at page IV. On that page is the list of items I declare as product identity in that book, along with a clear declaration of what is open game content. You'll see that I have mine sorted by chapters, though there is a section also noted by page numbers. The Trolls cut and paste their declarations of open game content and product identity from the PHB to the quickstart, and didn't edit the declaration of open game content to conform to the quickstart.

The quickstart's declaration of open game content contains things that are not included in the quickstart, such as "Affects of Encumbrance" [sic] and also contains page references to pages that don't exist. The bulk of the corrections in the declaration of open game content fall into simply removing page numbers and chapter references. References to items NOT in the quickstart would also have to be removed. At the same time, anything you have added that you wish to be open game content needs to be added to the declaration. For example, if your racial classes are intended to be open game content you need to state that.

Their product identity declaration is pretty solid, and it doesn't appear as if you'll have to change much there. Arguably, the only thing you would need to add is the title "Castles & Crusades Classic" to the list of PI. You wouldn't have to add anything about artwork, as artwork is already listed as being product identity. The disclaimers I recommended adding were to cover your ass, so some idiot out there doesn't come along and accuse you of theft for using Elmore's or the webcomic artist's work.

One last thing. I did say, once it was made clear you had permission, that you would need the OGL. I know I initially said it should be removed, and I'm sorry about that. I wasn't trying to contradict the advice you had already been given, but based my comments off my own experiences. The key difference that I should have factored in before mentioning removing the OGL was that the company I was dealing with doesn't use the OGL. Where you're soliciting public feedback I can also see why you'd want to keep the OGL on the copies that are "in progress".

[CARLcarl]

I ran this at North Texas RPG Con and it was a lot of fun.