Castles and Crusades

[Necron 99]

A recent interview with Steve, talking about a variety of things, but mostly TLG and C&C related. (long, over an hour) Makes for good background chatter while working on other stuff.

[Deil the Yin]

Ole Chenault there is really pushing my favourable outlook of C&C by recently referring- in both written form and vlog, to the Lochaber Axe as a "Lochbar" axe...

I think he even says it in this video, but it might have been a "TikTok" about his Tricks of the Trade which they do on Twitch as well as an email blog. Good thing he's got such good general gaming advice...

Och, crivens.

[Ancalagon]

Ole Chenault there is really pushing my favourable outlook of C&C by recently referring- in both written form and vlog, to the Lochaber Axe as a "Lochbar" axe...

I think he even says it in this video, but it might have been a "TikTok" about his Tricks of the Trade which they do on Twitch as well as an email blog. Good thing he's got such good general gaming advice...

Och, crivens.

The Trolls are from Arkansas. In 2020 Arkansas raked 38th out of 50 states in pre-K through 12th grade education and 41st of 50 in higher education. :wink:

[Necron 99]

Legion of Myth on YT, are fans of C&C; I really enjoy their channel and the guys have put out a few videos detailing different aspects of the game/system. Not going to post links to all of the episodes, but here's one that wraps up the Player's Guide chat and delves into the CKG a bit. Other episodes focus on the classes, races, and magic within the game.

[Necron 99]

Was reading through the site and ran across this blog post from Steve on The Troll's Den. There are some cool pics that Steve posted of he and his group from back in the 80s playing AD&D.

Link: HERE

Unintended Consequences: How the AD&D Screens Fueled Castles & Crusades

Let me start by saying that I did not create nor design Castles & Crusades and the mechanic that powers it, the Siege Engine. That honor belongs to Mac Golden (one of my oldest and most trusted friends, the number of times Mac has picked me up in strange places is a testament to his patience with me) and Davis Chenault (my brother, who I have had many a strange and unexpected encounter with over the years). They created the Siege Engine.

That said, a significant part of my gaming philosophy went into Castles & Crusades. And that philosophy is in now small part tied to the way I learned to game, gamed and evolved as a game master behind the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Screens.

In the early days of TLG’s history, after Mac had stepped down as CEO and Davis had returned from his archeological digs, we were all watching the d20 market implode. Some prepared for it better than others. And though the stark nature of that collapse caught the three of us a little off guard, we were not completely flat-footed. Warnings from more experienced friends of ours had already set us on the road of creating our own RPG, though as it turned out, much too late to avoid a year’s financial pain and suffering – though that is another story.

Aside from the financial concerns looming from the soon to be all too real d20 collapse, three key elements drove the motivation that eventually gave us the Siege Engine. First up, was Mac and Davis’ desire to create a role-playing game. Both designed games from the very outset of TLG’s history and they enjoyed collaborating. It didn’t hurt that they were neighbors and after they put their various children to bed would sit on each other’s porches and pass the time in game design. The second motivating factor was to find a place for Gary Gygax to land his Castle Zagyg creations. I had talked to him a great deal about this, directions to take using the OGL and after exploring many options, he opted to leave it to us, he just wanted oversite to make sure we did not make something that would wreck his legendary dungeon. The third factor lay with me. As we were discussing d20 and what TLG’s future held, Davis posed a question to me: “You find d20 hard to sell for whatever reason. What can you sell? What kind of game do you want to sell?” I remember this exchange well. We stood in the midst of the office where Todd’s, mine, and Davis’ desks all collided with the very tiny mail room (in those days it was a one-office roadshow). My response was quick and to the point, and I’m paraphrasing all this as it was back in 2002 or 2003. “It has to use the OGL and it has to be simple. Rules light. Like AD&D. Like my AD&D games. Simple. Then I can get behind it.” That was it. I don’t remember any more discussion about what type of game. I’m sure he said “Done” or some such as Davis really doesn’t discuss things unless he really cares about it, and he doesn’t care about a lot. And rules light or rules heavy, he didn’t care. But the upshot was, the game must be simple. Like I played AD&D.

I’m not going to dive into the discussion that fueled so many battles of the Edition Wars, and argue whether AD&D was/and/or/is a simple game or not. There are mountains of rules to the game, and yes, of course, you can keep and discard what you like, but the fact is there are mountains of rules. For me, the riddle becomes, why did I, so very early on in my gaming history adopt a rules-light approach to the game?

And it was very early on. I started playing in 1976 but was running a regular table by 1980/81. And even in those woebegone days, I wasn’t using many rules.

There are many reasons for this. The fact that I hate to read rules is probably the main one. I love reading. I read all the time, right now I’m re-reading the Mountains of Madness by Lovecraft and The UFO Experience A Scientific Inquiry by J. Allen Hynek (Hynek was the astronomer who the Air Force hired in 1948 to work on studying the UFO phenomena for Projects Sign, Grudge and Blue Book, fascinating stuff). But what I cannot stand to read, are rules. I might, if I’m lucky, very lucky, make it a few sentences into a paragraph before my mind checks out and wanders around whatever mental corridor it finds less tedious… which is just about every corridor one can imagine from watching cardboard discolor in the sun to Fury Road. Though there are other reasons for my love of rules-light games, a more recent revelation caught me a bit off guard. The AD&D Screens.

We are running a Kickstarter on the latest version of the C&C Screens and I got to thinking about them last night and that led me down the nostalgic road of all the many games I played and ran in AD&D and that got me to thinking about the screens I used so much back in those long-ago days. It occurred to me, that those AD&D screens, the 4 and 2-panel screens I used, spoiled me on using the AD&D DMG. They were an almost perfect presentation of the bare-knuckled rules that made up the core of that game. I didn’t actually need the DMG.

Sidenote: As I typed that last statement a certain irony struck me, something only Mac, Todd, Chris, Mark, and Charlie would understand. About the only reason I ever opened the AD&D DMG was to look at the hand-to-hand combat rules.

When you prop up the AD&D screens, important player info marked the outside along with some fantastic art by Dave Trampier (I think) but a host of tables and more tables lined the insides. All the tables you needed to run a game of AD&D were right there. And it was deceptively light. There were attack tables for the classes. Attack tables for the monsters. Saving throws. A few other things that escape my memory now. Some psionics on the smaller screens. But that was pretty much it. That was the game in a nutshell. I could set those screens up, drop some dice, a pencil, and Monster Manual behind them and play for countless hours. I would rarely crack the DMG and the player material was up to the players. I played using those screens. Everything I needed was right there. If it weren’t I could make it up. And did.

That had to feed the fires that burn in me every time I shout about the “Tyranny of Rules.” (What does it say before the gates of Aufstrag, Hell, “The Yoke Shall Set you Free). Those screens, those 4 panels (as I rarely set up the smaller 2-panel screen) undoubtedly helped solidify patterns in my gaming philosophy. They had to. What math I needed, what combatants need to hit one another, was right there. The saving throws too. Everything else, I either had to look it up and read a bunch or just make it up on the fly. I began making it up on the fly. It was easier than reading.

These rules, the few that I made, eventually settled into the game as house rules.

Another Side note: These rules were so rare, that we never wrote them down. Things like a natural 20 inflicts maximum damage plus a d4, just became part of the oral history of the table. But what is really cool, to this day, when playing, if some archaic ruling has been forgotten we turn to Todd or Mac, who have more keen memories than the rest of us, and the oral history of the rule is recounted and we plunge on.

All this is to stay, that this philosophy of mine, which is a cornerstone of Castles & Crusades and the Siege Engine, this idea of rules-light and run it from the fly or the hip, was no doubt reinforced by a seemingly simple product that old TSR put out: the screens. Those screens reinforced patterns of behavior that became a lifelong philosophy.

I suppose that all this ruminating goes to tell us that the road we are on is often decided by roads we’ve traveled and all those chance encounters along the way.

Yet Another Sidenote: Mac prefers rules light as well, primarily I think, because of fast play. His philosophy and mine dovetailed nicely when they created the Siege Engine. Davis prefers more complex forms and rules when he designs as he prefers a more realistic outcome of events… play in his world of Inzae at your own risk.

Don't miss State of the Troll Blog Post or the How I Traveled 1600 miles for Cheeseburger.

[Ancalagon]

Looks like the Trolls are spitting out a new CKG screen: HERE

After much searching, most of it failed, Jason Vey (author of Amazing Adventures and other games by TLG and Nightshift), found us a printer for the Castles & Crusades CK Screens. This iteration will be slightly different that the last couple. It will move away from the heavy board that we have been using and return to a lighter board with UV coating on it. It will be very similar to the origanal C&C screens and those aware of them, the old AD&D screens.

Basically we were the first to put out heavy board screens. Everyone followed and now we are going back!

These will sport some of the old material, but a we think, be even more functional with the content. We've added things like like lodging costs, names, unarmed combat and made the movement rules much easier to digest.

TLG 80126 Interior Screens.jpg

TLG 80126 C&C Outer Screens.jpg

My new screen arrived today. A bit of a change up with the contents on the CK side. I'll have to give it a try at an in-person game st some point... but so far the landscape screen the Trolls released a few years ago is far-and-away my favorite for C&C.

[Necron 99]

A nice review and post for TLG and C&C in general.

TROLL LORD GAMES CONTINUES TO LEAVE A MARK

For over 20 years, a small game publisher based in Little Rock Arkansas has been making what has become one of the most well liked and respected RPGs on the market, Castles & Crusades.

They recently released their 8th printing (the TLG crew are quick to remind folks, one edition, many printings) of their bestselling C&C line of products, and with it, I was able to take a closer look at the game, how it has evolved over the various print runs and what might be next for the Trolls.

So let’s take a deeper dive into what makes Castles & Crusades such a fan favorite.

[Ancalagon]

Nice to see C&C getting some love on the webz. It really is a great system. It can be played as written and handle everything a group might want. The options in the CKG and add as much depth as tinkerers might want. Its flexibility is such that it can be house ruled to hell and back and still work just fine... I'm still working on house rules from time to time for eventual play test with the esteemed members of the 3Ps!

[Deil the Yin]

Sounds a lot like D&D~5e... :wink:

Nice to see C&C getting some love on the webz. It really is a great system. It can be played as written and handle everything a group might want. The options in the CKG and add as much depth as tinkerers might want. Its flexibility is such that it can be house ruled to hell and back and still work just fine... I'm still working on house rules from time to time for eventual play test with the esteemed members of the 3Ps!

[Necron 99]

I saw this posted to the C&C group on FB. A kickstarter starting April 5th, Swords and Chaos. Might be cool for Siege players, but for the general hobby players, I think Hyperborea is already established fairly well.

Swords & Chaos is a new tabletop roleplaying game designed by mad sorcerers and frenzied barbarians beyond the edge of the world. Inspired by the genre of sword & sorcery fantasy, and the writings of Karl E Wagner, Robert E Howard, and Charles Saunders, Swords & Chaos oozes with pulpy action and cosmic dread.

S&C features larger than life characters, unspeakable horrors, and a world of riches and wickedness set in an antediluvian age. Swords & Chaos' game mechanics are powered by a modified version of the SIEGE Engine. SIEGE is a d20 game mechanics system made by Troll Lord Games and found in all of their products such as the highly popular Castles & Crusades (of course you already know that), making Swords & Chaos largely compatible with TLG products.