Product– Castles & Crusades Reforged Player Guide

System- Castles & Crusades Reforged

Producer– Troll Lord Games

Price– FREE here https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ckg/castles-and-crusades-reforged   

TL; DR– The C&C I love from before just better at it.  97% 

Basics– Are you ready to OSR?!  Castles and Crusades Reforged is the newest version of the C&C rpg.  Let’s break it down and get to our thoughts

Base mechanics- The basics are D20+ bonuses + ability modifier.  You know this, and like most of you, I love this too.

Siege System-Where this version of D20 separates itself from all others is the Siege system.  In this system, a character gets two to three primary abilities.  When a character tries to do something, you roll as above and add your level to the check in place of the bonus.  The interesting part is what DC the character is trying to hit.  If the check is something in the primary attribute’s area, then the DC is 12 plus a difficulty check from 0 to 10.  If the thing being done is not within a primary attribute for the character, then the check is 18 plus the difficulty from 0-10.  Easy and quick enough.

Actions- Combat is just like you’d expect.  Move, attack, don’t die. Character rounds are based on initiative.

Ok, that’s the basics, let’s discuss.

Mechanics or Crunch–  Do you like DnD 3.5 and and the OSR?  If yes, then you will love this.  It’s the same basics we got from the previous edition of the game, but with better explanation.  My one thing I really wanted but didn’t get is at-will powers so wizards and casters can do something magical when they don’t have phenomenal power at low levels.  Also, I miss feats.  This game is not rules heavy.  The rules exist, but it’s less crunch than 3.5 DnD was at the end, and I miss that amount of character customization in this game. 4.5/5

Theme or Fluff– Do you like serious OSR?  Then you will like this.  This is not the gonzo fantasy of DCC.  This is more old school 70s/80s fantasy themes.  You have the standard fantasy stuff for a standard fantasy world.  And as someone who loved the C & C world before, I love what’s here.  5 /5

Execution– Honestly, this is the biggest glow up for the Reforged Kickstarter.  Honestly, how DnD got past the first edition with the strange layout of materials is beyond me.  The last version was fun, but the layout and explanation of the game was kind of messy.  Here it is much nicer and easier to understand.  Solid layout makes this book so much easier to read and use.  This book even levels all the way to 20! 5/5

Summary– So the simple question to ask yourself if you want this book is – Do you want serious DCC?  I love DCC.  Simple rules are fun and OSR is a fun game to play when you don’t want to spend 10 hours building a character and math that involves light calculus.  I love DCC, but it is NOT a serious game.  Fun yes, but gonzo fun.  This is more old school Lord of the Rings gaming with 3.5 base mechanics.  I would like a few more modern touches, but then again, if they do that then they may betray their core OSR design.  It’s not enough to keep me away, and for the price of free it’s worth it to check out for the Kickstarter!  97%