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Monday, October 24, 2016

Crypts and Things Remastered available in Print (Swords & Sorcery OSR / S&W Variant)



Crypts and Things Remastered is now available in Print. I have the hardcover (I backed the KS) and it is a thing of beauty. I'd review it but free time is short with some support work being done for the impending release of Swords & Wizardry Light (sooner than later, but not soon enough and yet too soon ;)

PDF is $13

Softcover with PDF is $26

Hardcover with PDF is $40
Crypts and Things (C&T) is a Swords and Sorcery Roleplaying game based upon the Old School Rules of the 70s/80s. It also draws upon the British fantasy games and game-books of that period to bring a distinctly dark and dangerous feel to the game.
It was originally released back in early 2012 and after a highly successful Kickstarter in 2015 it returns in a Remastered edition, with revised and expanded content and completely new art by David M. Wright. 
Contents 
Introduction : An overview of the book. 
The Scrolls of Wonder 
The Player's section of the game, which explains how to create and play the character who will be the player's alter ego in the game. 
-Creating a Character: Guidelines for creating the player's fictional alter-ego in the game.
-Character Classes: Nine character archetypes for players to choose from. Four Core (Barbarian, Fighter, Sorcerer, Thief) and five exotic (Beast Hybrid, Disciple, Elementalist, Lizard People and Serpent Man).
-Life Events: Quick background events tables which briefly detail the character's origin and what they did before adventuring.
-Spell Lists: Black, Grey and White Magic, plus Elemental Magic.
-How to Play: The game's simple and straightforward rules.
-The Continent of Terror: A brief overview of the game's included setting.
-What the Elder Told Me: Each of the eight human cultures of the setting detailed in ten questions and answers from a young adult to a respected elder about their worldview. 
The Book of Doom 
This is the referee's section of the book. 
-Secrets of the Continent of Terror: A deeper view of the setting for referee's, with adventure seeds and encounter tables.
-The Greater Others and their Works: Three of the terrifying Greater Others and their followers detailed for use in play.
-Snake Dance: A closer look at the society of the insidious Serpent Men.
-Scourges of the Dying World: Five evil nemeses to thwart and oppose the player characters.
-Ill Gotten Gains of Dark Desire: Treasure and perilous magic items.
-A Compendium of Fiends: Dark and deadly monsters to populate your adventures with.
-The Halls of Nizar-Thun: An introductory underground adventure.
-The Haunted Lands: An introductory wilderness adventure.
-Port Black Mire: A fearsome city detailed for urban adventures.
-Notes from the Abyss: A compilation of articles and resources to aid the referee.

4 comments:

  1. People really need to work out some better pricing mechanisms for those products. RPGNow/DTRPG wants me to pay $40 for the B&W hardcover of this, then add another $14 for shipping, all while I bought a 250-page, full-color, hardcover 5e campaign for $23, with an extra $5 for shipping.

    Basically I need to pay around 200% of the price of a full-color hardback, to get a B&W hardback. This is just not how that thing works. Heck, even the softcover of C&T costs more than the WOTC hardback.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Shipping for the C&T HC is 5 bucks and change if you choose media mail.

      Now, what online retailer (Amazon?) are you using and what is the suggested retail price?

      You do realize that WotC has economy of scale in its favor, as they print thousands of copies at a time and OBS is a Print on Demand retailer. You are literally comparing apples to oranges.

      Amazon (I'm going to assume Amazon) discounts books and gets a discount on shipping due to their huge volume of business. USPS delivers packages on Sundays because of Amazon.

      Princes of the Apocalypse comes in at 255 pages, with a suggested retail of $49.95 and an Amazon price of $30.49. Out of the Abyss ($31.92) and Curse of Strahd ($30.56) have the same page count.

      The ones around $23 come in at 96 pages or so.

      As for Crypts & Things, the 240+ pages include the rule system, setting and three adventures.

      The three core books each have a retail price of $50 for 5e. $150 total before Amazon discount. About $87 with Amazon discount.

      So, your game with rules and campaign is $110 (yes, page count for 5e would be huge in comparison, but that really isnt the point). C&T is playable in HC for $40 - and you get the PDF, which WotC DOES NOT OFFER for 5e.

      Just trying to explain the economics here. You will never see smaller RPGs on Amazon (BFRPG is an exception because they POD at cost on Amazon) because they don't have print runs, they are POD.

      Delete
    2. The cheapest shipping option I have for C&T HC on DTRPG is USD 14. There's another one that is more expensive, but 14 bucks is as low as it goes. I'm in Europe.

      As for the WOTC book, I bought Storm King's Thunder for $23 and an extra $5 shipping, from Amazon.

      Delete
  2. Thanks for the shoot out Erik, and glad you like the book :)

    ReplyDelete

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