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View Full Version : Is it broken?



Jeebs
June 20th, 2012, 17:22
I have been biding my time buying a license. I knee that an upgrade was close at hand. Is castles and crusades broken? If so, will it be repaired, or should I look elsewhere? I don't want to dump money into something no longer supported.

dr_venture
June 20th, 2012, 18:52
C&C is not broken at all - it's fairly robust and you can definitely run games & campaigns. The issues I've been bringing up have more to do with keeping the C&C ruleset up to speed with the other changes that are occurring in other rulesets as FG changes over time. Honestly, on one hand I'm interested in having new functionality added to the C&C ruleset, but on the other hand, I don't want to give you the wrong impression that somehow the C&C ruleset is not very usable or has problems. It's more a matter that there are features that I'm anxious for, and grumbling out loud in hopes that someone who has the ability to grease the wheel will be moved to do so.

It's a bit complicated to explain: the original developers of FG put a great deal of the power for developing game functionality into the individual rulesets (like 4e, C&C, etc.) as opposed to the FG application itself. This is a bit of a double-edged sword: on the positive side, the user community and developers have a great deal of power to add cool functionality to individual rulesets. On the negative side, because much of the functionality that is added to the rulesets is *not* in the FG program, it becomes harder for the Smiteworks guys to add global functionalities to FG because the rulesets are all implemented in different ways by different people.

The Smiteworks guys, who I believe purchased this product from a different set of developers, are aware of this and are grappling with the best way to move forward, but It just is what it is at this point. I don't think it's an easy issue to tackle even under the best of circumstances.

As for C&C, we had a great developer working hard to not only keep the ruleset up to date, but to also add new features. Unfortunately he just disappeared about a year ago. So we currently have a very usable ruleset that many of us are using regularly, but until we get a developer on the ruleset, we're probably not going to see a lot of updates to it.

That bums me out, as there are couple of niggling bug fixes that would be nice to fix, and there are some functionalities that other rulesets have that would be extremely useful to add to C&C. That said, the Smiteworks guys definitely have their hearts in the right place and are good guys - I think we'll get our updates and such at some point, but they are juggling a lot of priorities with limited resources.

One of the new features added to FG in the latest release that I *can* make use of is the ability to host 1 player who doesn't have a license yet. If you want to check out a bit of C&C, let me know. I'd be happy to spend an hour or two and show you the basics of how it works and plays in FG, at least from a player's perspective.

Jeebs
June 20th, 2012, 20:31
Thank you for that. I am glad that it functions. I was worried that the upgrade would break it. I personally have never played my entire life. I am 45 years old and have read dnd werewolf/vampire rpg books all my life. Wanting to play but never able to find anyone interested. The older I get, the harder it gets. My 21 year old daughter however, is interested. I figured one on one may not be great fun, and I really wouldn't get to "play", but that's ok. I would still have fun.

Being an over the road truck driver, and she is a single mom, our time is limited anyhow. Pathfinder seemed to have the most interesting feel to it. I liked how the classes were set up in it the most. Too many rules for me though. It seemed to me that the newer dnd style games were made for number crunchers and was just so highly saturated with rules that it would take the fun out of roleplaying.

My daughter actually became interested several years back and for the reasons above (version 3.5 was just coming out), I looked for something simpler. I found out about castles and crusades acateer change and purchased the 2nd edition phb and monsters and treasure. Life took a turn and I had to make a career change. My son, who is a Marine in Okinawa plays and dm's 3.5 regularly. It got me interested again and I wanted to find out about playing online. That's what brought me here. Sure, he could dm the game for us, and being players, we wouldn't have to learn nearly as much, but out bedtime is his wakeup time. Which brought me back to c&c.

I like the automation of fantasy grounds. I need things to be as easy as possible. I regularly work 10-12 hours a day and learning macros (for another vtt) and setting up encounters would be too demanding. I am glad that fantasy grounds still works. It has modules for c&c and is kinda the perfect choice for my daughter and I. Yeah, I would have to tweak the encounters for one player (assuming that's possible), but that's ok. If not, I will figure something out.

I just took advantage of the 5th edition kickstarter. In August my daughter and I will both have a new copy of the phb, and I am going to give my son the PDF. (Maybe he will bite). I am going to get the ckg sometime, but that's the least of my concerns. I will use 1st edition dmg for now.

Thank you for responding, it eased my mind. Sorry for the long winded story.

dr_venture
June 21st, 2012, 03:03
I've used FG to coordinate a C&C game between long-time friends scattered to the winds (I'm 47)... one of which is serving in the US army in Vietnam right now. The time zones are a problem, though, but when we can arrange it, FG works quite well! Now you just have to settle on a ruleset.

Jeebs
June 21st, 2012, 03:16
It will be Castles & Crusades. It is the most intuitive for me and my daughter. The players handbook is really straightforward. It also, by reading it, seems like it would be the most fun. Maybe if my daughter enjoys it, she will get a friend or two to try it out. Fantasy Grounds also seems to be the best of the big two. I'm glad you let me know about one person being able to play without a license. That's a huge bonus!

damned
June 21st, 2012, 13:50
i played early d&d versions in my early teens but then didnt play anything for many many years (more than 20). bought many different rpgs over the years and have read some, thumbed thru others and occasioanally wipe the dust from even more!
18 months ago i started looking for a way to play real rpgs online and this framework absolutely stood out for me as having a good community, good support, good product etc. i have this feeling that when ppl spend their own money on something they are more likely to commit to it - so the fact the product actually cost money was a plus to me... (but then i bought an ultimate license to assist in finding players!)
i grabbed the c&c ruleset because it was the most complete old school ruleset available. there are partially complete rulesets for 1e, 2e, becmi, osric and probably a few others. c&c is a complete ruleset.
i only started to buy the real books after getting the fg2 stuff (i now have about 9 c&c books and am also waiting on phb5 to arrive).
what do i like about c&c? i dont have time to learn books and books of rules and variations and effects and feats etc etc. i reckon i know about 10 rules and i just wing the rest using the siege checks and a few house rolls. fg2 probably knows way more about c&c than i do and does all the number crunching for me.
i posted a few bugs for c&c and the new 2.9 release and JPG (one of the owners) jumped straight on it. while thre may not be any new development of c&c features at this time - the ruleset is a solid and well eatured ruleset and the company is committed to supporting the current ruleset. and it turned out that the bugs didnt exist - i hadnt activated those features!
i think i rambled on a bit - basically i just wanted to say dont worry about c&c not being supported - it is supported - its just not being actively improved upon.

Jeebs
June 21st, 2012, 17:12
Yea, maybe I was a little overly concerned. I hope to get things off the ground here soon.

I have played a lot of computer roleplaying games and had my addiction to everquest back in its glory days. I role played my dwarven character all the time. I want to do the real thing because crpg's, as fun as they are, feel constrained to me. I might not get to actually "play" running a solo game for my daughter but that's ok. Maybe my son can start running something when he gets back in the states.

Thanks for all the info you two. I am assuming there is just a few that run castles & crusades here. It kind of surprises me. I thought it to be a bit more popular than it is.

Trenloe
June 21st, 2012, 19:55
I like the automation of fantasy grounds. I need things to be as easy as possible. I regularly work 10-12 hours a day and learning macros (for another vtt) and setting up encounters would be too demanding. I am glad that fantasy grounds still works. It has modules for c&c and is kinda the perfect choice for my daughter and I. Yeah, I would have to tweak the encounters for one player (assuming that's possible), but that's ok. If not, I will figure something out.
Have a look in the store for items published by "Expeditious Retreat Press" - OK, they're for 3.5E, but there are a lot of 1-on-1 adventures that are specifically created for 1 GM and 1 player. Perhaps substituting in C&C creatures might be a bit easier than taking a C&C party orientated adventure and making it more appropriate for 1 player...

I've just tried loading one of these adventures into the C&C ruleset (you need to make a slight modification to the adventure module file to allow it to be seen as a C&C compatible module) and the story, maps and encounter entries come through fine - just the NPCs need to be changed to C&C compatible creatures/characters.

damned
June 22nd, 2012, 01:08
there are probably 20 rulesets that are getting played. i think the big 4 are 3.5E, Pathfinder, 4E and Savage Worlds. then everyone is playing their own favourites, baic role playing, rolemaster classic, gurps, osric, ad&d, iron heroes, merp, cthulu, castles&crusades, warhammer, new world of darkness, runequest, d20, shadowrun.. the list just goes on and on! i think it is both a strength and a weakness. so much choice gives you everything you might want EXCEPT a big pool of players - the playing pool is so fragmented as a result.
there are a handful of active castles games going on.
good luck. you can drop in on my game if you are fre saturday mornings....

ddavison
June 22nd, 2012, 01:18
C&C does have a lot of modules and is very playable in its current form. We would like to bring up ahead so that it keeps pace with the 3.5E/Pathfinder, 4E and other rulesets though. As Trenloe mentions, the Expeditious Retreat Press modules have a bunch of 1 on 1 encounters for a single GM and a single player. These are very well done and would work with the 3.5E ruleset which is built in, so it wouldn't cost you anything other than the module to try one out.

One clarification to something that was said earlier. While you can host a game for another player without a license, you can't save your progress. This is a "demo only" mode to entice someone to buy a license and join your game and not a substitute for a license on a long-term basis. It's possible you could play exclusively that way, but I suspect the lack of a save feature would make it untenable.

Jeebs
June 22nd, 2012, 01:31
Very good then. I am glad to see that all is well with castles and crusades. Fantasy grounds looks to be top knotch and am looking forward to getting things going. You all have been very helpful in clarifying everything. Thank you!

damned
June 22nd, 2012, 02:37
one more thing to point out about c&c ruleset is that every player who wants access to the phb in game needs their own c&c ruleset license ($10). they dont need it to play but to access it in game you do need your own copy. nothing to stop the castle keep dragging spells in to players sheets etc to get them started. players can also use ohysical or pdf phb for reference too. i point that out because it is different to a many other rulesets.