The Castles & Crusades Color Edition (new printing) Kickstarter has had me one both sides of the fence recently. I mean, I have so many copies (and so many editions) of the C&C Player's Handbook with typos galore in each edition, that I am loath to support yet another printing without some sort of editorial guarantee that it will at the very least set a new low waterline for typos and gaffes for The Trolls. As an aside, the Kickstarter has hit enough stretch goals to include color copies of Monsters & Treasure, the Castle Keeper's Guide and a whole slew of goodies.
On the other side of the fence, Castles & Crusades was may gateway drug not only to the OSR, but also my return to gaming. I have a soft spot for The Trolls, as they really seem to enjoy and respect the hobby - and the vast majority of the adventures published by Troll Lord Games have been really solid.
So yeah, solidly on the fence on this one. That being said, the $99 entry point on the Kickstarter is chuck full of value, especially for those that haven't checked out Castles & Crusades yet.
You get:
Player's Handbook - print copy in color and a PDF copy
Monsters & Treasure -print copy in color and a PDF copy
Castle Keeper's Guide - print copy in color and a PDF Copy
Character Reference Sheets
5 adventure modules (signed by the authors)
Jim Wards Elemental Magic
Jim Wards Solar Magic
A complete set of Castles & Crusades dice (10)
A custom flash drive
Arms and Armor Resource Guide
C&C poster
Levels 1, 2 and 3 of the megadungeon Aufstrag
A printed index guide
A dice cup
A slip sleeve for the 3 core books
That's a lot of loot for your cash, and that's not counting further stretch goals. This is just where the Kickstarter is now - there are still 30 hours to go.
Yeah. I am supporting at that 99 bucks level. I have no C&C stuff, so I guess that's good for me.
ReplyDeleteOn another totally different topic: Tenkar, you live in NYC right? Can you recommend any RPG stores there? I am going to visit NY in august and I am looking for cool places to look for loot! :D Thanks!
Erik, At the very least you should throw in a buck and then get the Castles & Crusades Tankard. This is Tenkar's Tavern and the more mugs, drinking horns, etc. is always a good thing.
ReplyDeleteThe Trolls appear to be making significant efforts to improve the editing. Knowing them, I wouldn't expect perfection. However, besides incorporating errata supplied by hard core fans on their forum, they've brought in an additional editor to comb through the texts for issues. That sounds like a pretty reasonable approach to me.
ReplyDeleteI was also on the fence about this Kickstarter due to many of the things Erik mentions in his post. When the campaign began, I was prepping a game of Dungeon Crawl Classics. Compared to DCC, C&C does not seem to have a very high standard of quality.
ReplyDeleteBut as the campaign gained momentum, it made be give C&C another look. Although the editing, layout and some of the art leaves much to be desired, it's still a very solid game at its core. It's especially good for anyone who wants to create or hack their own content, whereas creating your own content (classes, spells, patrons) for DCC requires some seriously heavy lifting.
I'm backing this one. I don't own any C&C currently and I want some in part because I hear it's easier for young kids to play and my kids are future gamers whether they like it or not. :).
ReplyDeletePlus, it seems like an incredible deal at this point with all the stretch goals.