ACKS II vs. C&C Remaster

I don't like horse-racing Kickstarters, but halfway through the Castes & Crusades Remaster Kickstarter (which I am on), they are about a third of the ACKS II ending amount. I love C&C, and it is the best AD&D-like game and 3.5 clone out there. I also hope they have a strong finish! I am rooting for Troll Lord since all of their books are A+ in quality.

If you aren't participating in the C&C Kickstarter, consider supporting it. Every publisher outside of the monopolies needs our support.

Yet, I can't help but ponder the potential of a non-OGL Castes & Crusades compared to ACKS II. The lack of excitement for the C & C remaster may stem from people already having what they need with the current books. The OGL and SRD elements are readily available, allowing players to seamlessly replace any version of D&D with this game. In its current form, it's a game that just works.

The original Castes & Crusades will always hold a special place as a masterpiece. However, I'm filled with anticipation for the remaster. Games often evolve and improve once the SRD and OGL are removed, allowing designers to fully express their vision without these constraints. I believe the remaster can potentially take Castes & Crusades to new heights.

I hope it gets there.

But this feels different than the ACKS II Kickstarter. We knew we were getting something new. We were throwing off the chains of oppression. ACKS II broke all sorts of records. There was excitement about throwing out the SRD and OGL. We were getting something new.

Part of what held back the original ACKS was that it was too similar to any B/X game on the shelf and could be easily replaced by Old School Essentials or Labyrinth Lord. Why do we need another B/X version? The other games have more players and a better foothold in the market for adventures and add-on books. Why play ACKS?

ACKS II provides a compelling answer to the question of its necessity. It discards the mundane, immersion-breaking elements and focuses on the heart of the game - the official ACKS II world. This laser-like focus on the game's theme and setting results in a concentrated experience rich with monsters, treasures, and spells that bring the world to life.

You can't walk through a dungeon with ESP potions, wands of secret door and trap detection, and "safe" your way through an adventure with the same old tripe tactics. You must use your mind, not SRD garbage, to safely work through a dungeon.

We are losing a generic B/X game and getting a game built to play in a compelling and fascinating world.

Where C&C's remaster feels like we are losing or replacing things, ACKS II feels like we are getting something entirely new.

ACKS II, Preview PDFs

 I really like the ACKS II rules, and I have been following the Kickstarter and have the art-free PDFs to read. They removed all OGL content from the game, and the game is better for it. D&D has enshrined certain immersion-breaking tropes into the genre, and I noticed all ESP is gone from the game. Displacer cloaks, invisibility 10' radius, and detect secret doors are gone. Wizard eye and spell storing (spell and item) are gone. Wands of detecting secret doors and traps are gone.

A few ability scores have been renamed; intelligence is now intellect. Wisdom is now willpower. Clerics are now crusaders. The race-as-class entries are thematic and tighter-tied to the world.

One of the most exciting aspects of the changes is the removal of problematic, game-breaking spells and magic items. This shift requires players to engage in more strategic dungeon-crawling, relying less on spells and magic items and more on their own wit and skill.

If you make the SRD a golden idol over fun gameplay, you will inherit all of its flaws and weaken your game. If you approach fantasy gaming with a "completist" attitude, where you must have everything, you will bring broken things into your game and hurt the player experience.

Another improvement here is tightening the official world to the rules and eliminating the assumption of a generic world. I have enough generic B/X systems, and seeing something different is refreshing.

Of all my B/X games, this one looks like my "last one standing" after I put many in storage.

ACKS 2 = $333,010 Raised!

Congratulations to the ACKS 2 team for raising $333,010 by the final day of the Kickstarter!

We are seeing B/X-style games break free of the OGL and CC and discover their worlds, magic, and monsters - which is a great thing. Too many OGL games are content to rewrite B/X, BECMI, 1e, 2e, and so on. They are forever mired in the same old monsters, magic, classes, and feelings - and they will always be compared to D&D.

None of them will ever live up.

OGL and CC games support D&D's position as the market leader.

Without the OGL or CC, there is nothing to compare games to, and they can be free and do their own thing. If they are numerically compatible, all the better, and you can pull in what you want - but you do not have to or need to.

A year ago, things would always stay the same until January 2023 came along, and Wall Street and their goons came knocking. All of a sudden, the true face was revealed. Nobody could rely on goodwill anymore.

Game after game, they started dumping the OGL.

Some went to the CC, which is cool, but those concepts are uncopyrightable rules anyway; only the CC requires you to kiss the ring.

Those who never kiss the ring are free to determine their own destiny.

This is where we are with ACKS 2, realm building, classic adventure, and domain management all in one classy package.

Congratulations again, and I am more than pleased I am a backer.

ACKS 2 Kickstarter: Final 24 Hours!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/autarch/adventurer-conqueror-king-system-imperial-imprint-acks-ii

The ACKS 2 Kickstarter is in its final 24 hours! Wow, they did a fantastic job with over $319,000 raised, making this a bigger Kickstarter than the OSE: Advanced Fantasy. Congratulations to their team, and I am looking forward to this one!

My takeaways? There is a demand for domain-level play. There is also a strong demand for non-OGL and non-CC fantasy gaming outside of the influence of Wizards and their tangled web of licenses and 'we will pull this and that' shenanigans. There is also a desire to move away from 5E for many, or at least those who 'bought 5E once' and will stick with that while looking for something new.

To a lesser degree, there is a demand for non-planar gaming focused on one world and conflict, where the plot can't multiverse-sidestep into abstract and silly places - multiverse fatigue is here, and I don't see that improving. There is also a demand for games focused on the Middle Ages (world-building) rather than the oversaturated pseudo-Renaissance (nation-building, all but modern).

There are also fans of the old TSR Birthright setting wanting that 'Game of Thrones' style drama without all the superhero immortality and plane-hopping of 5E. I doubt 5E could do Birthright justice since the setting relies on aging, mortality, limited powers, and a closed sandbox.

ACKS 2 sits at the intersection of those demand lines. This is a strong niche to be in since this is the same place that the Crusader Kings videogame series resides in, so there is a strong cross-market interest. The spells and rules of ACKS are tailored to the domain management game, so it has a leg up on even a third-party 5E implementation of domain management. How is domain management critical in 5E if you are living gods with plane-traveling powers at level 20? What does it even matter?

So this is your last chance to jump in and participate in something fun. I have always liked ACKS as my 'serious B/X' that fulfills the BECMI domain management promise, and I look forward to the books coming next year!

And the PDFs coming very soon...

ACKS 2 Kickstarter: Day 3

With over $250,000 raised, 1400 backers supporting the project, and 27 days left, this is a fantastic start to the ACKS 2 Kickstarter. This is already on the high-end of the OSR Kickstarters and positioning ACKS 2 as a significant player in the OSR space.

And this is a non-OGL and non-CC game, finally free of any chains to nebulous licenses and companies seriously lacking in ethics. There is a market in the OSR outside the OGL, CC, and even 5E. Years ago, that would be unthinkable, and non-OGL games in the OSR would be dismissed.

We are entering a new era of OSR games that are more the creator's vision of a world, magic, and monsters than the B/X view of those things. This is huge. We will see games maintain backward compatibility yet push forward with new ideas and worlds.

This is the fruit of the OGL scandal coming to bear; no longer will the SRD define fantasy gaming. For the longest time, the SRD served as the 'fantasy yardstick' by which many games were measured. If Wizards had left it alone, the SRD could have been the measuring stick permanently and kept D&D on the mountain's peak. Now, designers are thinking outside the SRD box, and gamers are looking for new ideas and worlds.

The ACKS 2 Kickstarter highlights the new market we are in, and the success of this Kickstarter will wake people up.

The game has changed.

ACKS 2: Version One Buyer's Guide

There was some great information about what ACKS 1 books posted by Autarch in the Kickstarter comments about compatibility with ACKS 2, and it is worth sharing here:

Player's Companion is fully incorporated into ACKS II with the exception of the Elf and Dwarf classes. The Dwarf classes are already in By This Axe, and the Elf classes will come in the elf book.

Domains at War Campaigns is fully incorporated into ACKS II, but Domains at War Battles is not.

Lairs & Encounters monster mechanics are incorporated into ACKS II, but the comprehensive lair listings and maps are not.

Heroic Fantasy Handbook is partially incorporated, with Fate Points, Heroic Codes, Heroic Funerals, and various combat rules. However, ceremonial magic, eldritch spells, and spellsinging are not included. These will appear in the upcoming "Chuck Dixon's Conan" sourcebook.

Barbarian Conquerors is not incorporated, nor is Aryx's Almanac of Unusual Magic.

The Axioms articles on Strongholds, Mercantile Ventures, and Thieves are incorporated, as is some of the information on Beastmen (which is revised and expanded). The Axiom articles on stocking the wilderness and running abstract dungeons and wilderness are fully incorporated.

I would say if you want to have the books that would be most useful to ACKS II, you'd want Domains at War: Battles, Lairs & Encounters, Capital on the Borderlands, Sinister Stone of Sakkara, Eyrie of the Dread, Ruins of Cyfindir, Sepulcher of the Sorceress Queen. If you need to run with eldritch magic ASAP, grab Heroic Fantasy, otherwise wait for the Conan book. You can definitely skip buying ACKS Core and ACKS Player's Companion and Domains at War: Campaigns.

Source: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/autarch/adventurer-conqueror-king-system-imperial-imprint-acks-ii/comments

This is a great buyer's guide for the new game and lets you focus on the books that would give you the best bang for the buck when getting started. The adventures, dwarf book, lair book, and tabletop wargame rules are the ones you can buy safely - and that makes sense.

ACKS 2: Kickstarter, Day One

 Wow. I am happy to see the ACKS 2 Kickstarter doing so well. On the first day, they raised over $200,000 and got over 1,100 supporters. They blew away that first-day goal, and this campaign looks to be entering the phase where the initial level of interest is causing an outside buzz. Some drives do moderately well, and it feels like an 'oh, that's nice' feeling to the campaign.

This one is raising eyebrows, and people are jumping in just because they see so many excited. There is a level of success you can achieve where you start to draw in interest from people who would not ordinarily jump in, and I saw this last happen with Shadowdark. I hope this does just as well, and even half as well would be mind-blowing.

A few observations:

The demand for non-OGL and non-CC fantasy that has no connection to Wizards is surprisingly strong. This is the first significant 'walk away' B/X compatible game. We have had other games like Dragonsbane and Forbidden Lands, but they are a few steps removed from the B/X core style of play. Some games, like the new Swords & Wizardry, are Creative Commons games and still have that lineage. This is the first major 'walk away' B/X style of game, and it does feel like Shadowdark in a way that appeals to a large core of disaffected fantasy gamers looking for something new.

The demand for high-level play other than 'bigger numbers' and 'planar challenges' is an untapped market. There is an actual demand here for domain management, mass battles, and kingdom building. The "4X style of B/X" is a chronically underserved market. 5E, as designed, is too focused on personal power and that "MMO power curve" for expansion books supporting kingdom management to be effective - since the personal power curve outshines any kingdom management dongle books. When domain management is built into the player power curve - that is a design people take notice of. You must grab land and people to do well at high levels, and power will not just be given to you by the rules.

You must take it.

5E is moving towards this mobile-game model of granting power, giving you a free bastion at level 5, like some sort of MMO player housing, and you wonder where it comes from? Who gave you this? What if I don't want it? Did I even ask for one? The game gave it to you. It is not a part of your story or a world. It is a dialog box that pops up, giving you an 'in-game' award, and when you think about it, all of 5E is based on this design. Nothing earned, everything given.

ACKS is the opposite, assuming a player is engaged with the world. If a borderlands region is being ruled by a collection of terrible, cruel rulers - it is up to you to take the lead and change things. Or not. Still, that collection of towns, population, dense forests, and lost dwarven mines could be the core of a solid and powerful kingdom - given the proper mind to shape it.

That mind comes from the player.

And after poking around in dungeons, you begin to fight the cruel mercenaries these thugs use to keep control of these towns. You begin freeing the towns from tyranny. You begin setting up a government and building your realm. You can choose any policy, should you want to pay for it - free college or healthcare for your people? Universal basic income? Overtaxed monarchy? Colonialist power? Evil kingdom or good? Warmonger or peacemaker? The game does not tell you what politics to have. All of this is your choice; just be able to pay for it in terms of gold and blood.

And if there are kingdoms out there you disagree with, like that colonialist slave-owning kingdom next door - they become the next target. Again, the game does not tell you what politics to have, so whatever you believe or think would be fun to try to make work, you can try to make it happen. If there are certain government types you do not like - make them the bad guys.

You can play high-level games without running a domain, but having a domain makes high-level play much easier and faster to advance in. You get to play with all sorts of cool things, like magical research. If an evil dungeon appears, handle it yourself, or put a 10,000gp bounty on clearing it from your treasury and watch the adventurers rush in.

Congratulations on the spectacular start of ACKS 2, and I hope this rises to extraordinary new heights. We need a solid non-OGL B/X alternative game, and this one is getting a lot of interest and excitement. If you are in the campaign, help spread the word! Talk about the campaign, and let's get the word out there about this eye-opening start!