Why Fight Wizards? Play ACKS.

I watched the latest kerfuffle with Wizards' D&D marketing and laughed. Companies do things to "fire troublesome fans," which is what they do. They dump the old and try to advertise to the people they want as their customers. Ideally, this is a part of a strategic plan, not just the employees "running the ship." You get these sick and dying companies, and they start to go "off the rails," and the employees are scrambling to try to save their jobs and trying to "be too popular," and you get this sort of mess.

But then another part of me says, "Who cares?"

Why are we trying to "fight to keep the old D&D alive" when we have better? We have people making the games who see them as "old school style" as we do, and in some cases, they are even better games.

We still have community-supported first-edition games! We don't have to buy PoD copies of the first edition (which are filled with scanning errors), and we can support games and communities that allow us to publish our first-edition adventures, settings, and rules expansions. OSRIC 2.2 and the upcoming 3.0 are two great first-edition games.

Adventures Dark and Deep is another fantastic game, expanding the first edition and giving us more toys. We do not need to "support 5E" or even care "what Wizards does" other than to laugh at them. Not at them, trying to turn D&D into a storytelling FATE-style lifestyle game, but at how incompetent they are at capturing the original core essence of the game we love. I am all for including others at my table, but they come here to play classic D&D and not experience more of the same pastel rainbows and unicorns life they already have.

The Wizards team does not understand the game and is out of touch.

But why fight a company that is that lost? We have better. I started with the first edition because that is the popular exit point for 5E and the classic game people seek. And this is not "bringing modernity" to the first edition; this is playing that same game that started all of this—to have that experience, to play the game the same exact way it was played in the 1980s.

ACKS is a game that is clearly better than current-day D&D, first edition, and most anything else on the market. Why am I wasting energy fighting a billion-dollar out-of-touch marketing team when I could be playing something cool? They want to make the game they think they can sell. Let them fail.

ACKS is more D&D than D&D.

The dream is alive here. The story of a character going from nothing to king, savior, or tyrant is here, supported, and the rules work exceptionally well. In D&D, what is your story? Become an overpowered and bored 20th-level superhero, mirroring the downfall of every superhero franchise in Hollywood, desperately trying to reinvent and reboot itself to stay relevant.

D&D is the story of a downfall, of a naive newcomer to becoming an overpowered and bored demigod.

Someone who never changes and becomes more dependent on their powers than the world around them. This one fact is the fatal flaw of every superhero story ever written. This is the "failing empire" plot, and it is embodied in every character in D&D, from levels one to the empire's end at 20.

I have this strange feeling in D&D that the franchise is more important than my character. In D&D, you can't change the world and campaign setting since it is a McSetting and a McUniverse, and it is a fast food franchise model that always must return to normal for the next group to wander through Playland and slide into the ball pit. This always bothered me about the direction D&D 4 took with baking in the campaign setting and universe model, and making the planes more critical than my campaign world.

ACKS gives you the tools to change the universe. The entire point of the game is to "wreck the campaign setting" and make it yours. The characters will shape the world, for good or ill, and change the direction, fiction, and history. You aren't forced to "play alongside" the Baludur's Gate 3 cast and have them be unkillable and insufferable GMNPCs, which the Forgotten Realms is notorious for. You will never be Elminster, the Harpers, the RPG characters, or anyone as crucial to the franchise. You will play alongside Ronald and his Happy Meal friends.

We have better.

We have a game that prioritizes you—not the IP, copyrighted content, marketing team, or characters—but you. The setting can change; shaping and crafting the future is yours. You and your story come first. Yes, you can do all this in D&D, but the game is becoming more about "playing with the Hasbro toys" than using your imagination.

The tools are here. I have used many applications and software that give me a third-rate experience, but they are popular, so I use them. Whenever I am forced to upgrade my software to something that works better, I wonder why it took me so long to make the jump, and I feel stupid. ACKS gives me the campaign and world tools I would have been sorry I did not use earlier.

Again, who cares about D&D and what they do?

We have something clearly better here.

Why Not ACKS?

Why not play an easier game?

Well, the statement is a bit deceptive, since ACKS is a simple game. Just because the books are filled with domain management rules does not mean the "core game loop" is huge. There is no real difference between ACKS and B/X when you are playing at the table.

Can't we play Old School Essentials and have the same game, just with fewer pages? While OSE does a "5E replacement" perfectly and gives you tons of character options that mirror that game (Tieflings, Dragonborn, etc.), ACKS is a better game if you want greater detail inside your character. OSE characters can feel "too basic" without an add-on, such as Into the Wild, and the basic fighter is a bit plain and uninteresting without a few optional rules printed in fanzines.

And given the "game play loop" in OSE and ACKS is identical, I will go for the game with the greater level of depth each time. Unless I have players wanting those 5E race options and that D&D 4E style world, ACKS II will be the more in-depth game with the better and more satisfying characters (without GURPS in the discussion, and if the players wants a d20 game).

In ACKS, you get the "real fighter." The game does not go overboard with layers of extra detail, but you get the best to-hit, cleave, and a flat damage bonus that goes up as you level. All characters gain proficiencies, and this skill system defines the game just like a feat system did in 3.5E. There is a chart laying out which ones you get on which level in each class, and also, each character gets four "training slots" available with extra study.

ACKS does have class design, and is race-as-class, so if you really wanted that Dragonborn or Tiefling you could develop a custom class in ACKS for them. It is not that hard. They have special ability lists for custom race-as-class options pages long in the Judges Journal.

Without having to add Into the Wild, the Carcass Crawler zines, or any other optional rules to the game - you have a solid core system that does not need tweaking and modification. In fact, ACKS II is the second edition of a game that has been play tested for over 10 years, so the rules are solid and work extremely well - in everything from characters to domain management. ACKS II is just about as solid of a game you can buy, with nothing else needed, no list of special mods, and you are not explaining your custom hacks to your game to anyone.

You are not buying third-party fixes or Kickstarter domain-play rules that weren't tested and shipped broken. This game is tested and works, and you don't need to keep spending money to constantly repair the game like you do in 5E. Playing basic OSE is fine, but if you want better character depth and classes with some meat on the bones, and you do not want to mod the game, ACKS is by far the better choice.

If I were playing with more casual players, and "small books" were a requirement? Sure, I would choose OSE or Shadowdark for such a group, we need to play to the audience. I am not forcing a game the size of encyclopedias on a casual gaming group unless they were really into it.

For a years-long game that goes into domain management? ACKS will deliver the better experience for an epic-scale campaign, and you won't need to keep spending money to fix the game or add options along the way. As a "complete and well-tested" game, ACKS will beat out every other B/X-based competitor.

ACKS YouTube List Added!

I added a list gadget to the sidebar for ACKS focused YouTube channels, so we can visit them regularly and support ACKS creators in the community. Anything we can do to get awareness to our creators is a good thing.

YouTube: Is my favorite RPG too complex?

One of the best videos on ACKS is out recently, and it touches an issue which I wrestle with. Is ACKS II too intimidating? Do people bounce off the game and never return, fleeing back into the cave for easier systems, such as Swords & Wizardry and Old School Essentials?

I bounced off and this does not seem like thoughts in isolation.

But please, this is an ACKS II YouTuber! Let's watch this video, like and subscribe, and support our content creators! We need to lift up those who give us great content, so the best way is to watch and support the people who spend the time to make things for the game we love. 

At its core, ACKS is like any other B/X system. All the core components are in place, and the underlying "game engine" is no different than what we are used to. This game plays exactly like OSE, how could people bounce off?

I am betting this is the expectations we put on ourselves. We want to be instant experts, rapidly proficient, and "get our fix" within the first five minutes of opening a book. We put these expectations that "if we own the book, we are an expert" and the is the fallacy of "bought knowledge."

If all you are doing is playing ACKS II with basic characters, fighting orcs in a dungeon, and grabbing bags of gold, then we are playing the game just fine. There is no need to go into the local ruler's tax structures, kingdom influence, random seasonal events, influence factors, trading caravan rules, naval combat, stronghold construction, and all the other rules in the book.

Those rules are there is we want to explore them, but the game is fine without them.

If all we want to do is play "Keep on the Borderlands" with ACKS II, there we go - it works and we are just fine. But what about all those other rules we aren't using! We aren't playing the game right!

Here is another secret.

The "extra rules" in ACKS II are the game's future-proofing. These dominion, trading, stronghold, kingdom management, and other rules for every subject are there to save you money on an endless stream of grifter Kickstarter projects that poisoned the well of games like 5E, and are doing it for Shadowdark.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/autarch/before-all-others 

Except, of course, for the Autarch ones! Those are cool and we always jump on the premium levels, since we support what we love. Click on that link above since we need that Elven book! Get notified on launch, and then you can actually play a game where elves conquer land, grow their civilization, and build their own dominion. Elves in ACKS II don't always need to be "dying and in decline."

It is your choice, to be honest. 

But we will not need much else to play this game, and it "comes out of the box" future proof and complete. However, we do not need to use all those rules, or even all the "how to play" rules in the Judges Journal. We don't! Stop hamstringing yourself and running back into that cave!

Those rules are there for later, just like algebra and calculus are there for later in mathematics. And like math, not every problem is geometry, so put away the protractor when all you are trying to do is tell an adventure story of beating up orcs and goblins.

Stop. Being. A. Perfectionist.

You don't need to master the game to play it. In fact, going in with that expectation will lead to self-defeat. You will never master the game since you will get intimidated, disappointed, and give up early. Don't be like the 90% of college majors who give up before they ever achieve their dream.

Be one of the 10% who stick it out and find true happiness as mastery comes after months, or even years, of study and effort. The journey shall be well worth it at the end. 

So pick up that copy of B1 In Search of the Unknown and get your heroic, vaguely Mediterranean, suntanned butts in there! I will give you a "free pass" to ignore 90% of the ACKS II rules, and just use the characters, combat, equipment, and magic chapters! In fact, 90% of those chapters you will just skim and maybe use later. Just roll up some level one characters and go.

Most of pages 100-200 are lists of gear, spells, and skills. This is just "find what you need and go" so this is not "actual page count needed to understand the game." Pages 263-314 for the Adventures  chapter is what you want to focus on, and the best parts are 263-271 for dungeon delves, and 288-309 for combat. So, the core of the game that "makes it like B/X" are thirty easily understood pages, and since this is "just like B/X" those will go quick, and you already know most of this stuff.

In fact, print these delve and combat pages out, staple them together, and toss that to your players.

Just play with chapters one through six in the Revised Rulebook. This is your "basic set" and the rest of the book is dominions, voyages, and mass combat. For B1, we don't need any of that! Sorry, that is all fluff and "saving you money on Kickstarter" stuff.

Most of the combat stats can be used as is. Even the old descending AC values in B1 can be converted easily (as per the System Compatibility Guide):

• BX, BECMI, LL, LOTFP, or OSE: AC = 9 – Original AC

Do we want to pull in the intimidating Judges Journal into the mix? All you need to learn is the three pages of dungeon delving rules on pages 35-37. Three pages out of nearly 500! The wilderness rules that come right after this are mostly encounter tables, but also save those for our "expert set" and for B1, we will not need them. If you find magic treasure, maybe flip to the magic item chapter. The rest of the Judges Journal? Guess what, "saving you money on Kickstarter" stuff again.

The Monstrous Manual? Flip to a page and use a monster in it. I doubt you will need more than a dozen monsters here, if even that since most you will just use "as is" from B1 directly.

It is easy to see those huge books on the shelf and feel like you should reach for Old School Essentials instead. ACKS II is so comprehensive and complete that it looks far more complex than it really is.

But flip through the tables of contents of the books, and ask yourself, "What do I really need to play?"

Most of the book is a catalog of choices of classes, skills, magic, and gear.

Very few pages are "actual rules" for "basic adventuring."

A good 70% of the books are domain management, and not needed for the basic game. 10% are wilderness and voyage rules, and can be considered "expert" rules. About 20% of the pages are all you need to play, and most of those are just "lists to pick from." That last 5% of the game? Uh, those are rules pulled from B/X. You already know those.

 

Understand the classes, combat rules, and turn structure to exploration. Those are your "Ten Commandments" of playing ACKS II. And yes, that is my Bible. Gamers of Faith should be proud of their beliefs and not hide them, and that book sits on my shelf right beside ACKS II (and GURPS). The Bible is the best "rule book" ever written.

And those few sections of ACKS II are all you need.

When you are done the adventure, then you can start taking over the land in B1 that "Rogahn and Zelligar" built this dungeon of madness on, and take on those "barbarians of the north" that those two fell to. Basic D&D, AD&D, OSE, S&W, Shadowdark, and all these other "flee back to the cave" games don't give you the rules you need to play "the rest of this adventure" but ACKS II does.

And ACKS II saves you a lifetime of random Kickstarter money since it comes with "batteries included."

Don't settle for second-best.

Play ACKS. 

ACKS II vs. Runequest

Oh yeah, here we go. This is going to be a good one. We are putting the two best early-era fantasy games head-to-head today.

ACKS II and Runequest are both set in a period of time before what is commonly associated with D&D. As D&D has been published over the years, it has slowly crept forward in time, from the Middle Ages, to the Renaissance, and now we are seeing a Victorian era feeling in the 2024 edition of the rules. The 2024 books are filled with Steampunk, Victorian, and magi-punk sorts of art where everyone wears fancy outfits, nobody wears a helmet, and style is king over survival.

ACKS II is more of a Late Antiquity game (350 AD), happening in a temporal-framework set at the end of the Roman Empire as the world slips into the Dark Ages.

Runequest happens earlier, in the Bronze Age (3300-1200 BC), in a world a thousand or so years before the ACKS II world's general technology level and historical model.

D&D? Here is where it gets complicated. We need to go by the availability of plate mail, which is about 1200 AD, far later than even ACKS II. This is the High Middle Ages, or about 1000 to 1300 AD. This transitions into the Renaissance, and then the Modern Era. During the Reinsurance, that is the "Age of Discovery" and the beginning of colonialism.

If I were to peg D&D editions to eras? B/X would be Late Middle Ages. AD&D 2nd Edition would be Early Renaissance. D&D 3.5 would be Renaissance. D&D 4E and 5E would be Early Modern Era (with magic supplanting technology). The new "Steampunk Era" of 2024 D&D and Pathfinder 2E is more Victorian in look and feeling. You can push things an era forward or backward, but some of the concepts are firmly rooted in one era or another, especially the concept of universities outside of religious training.

Granted, all of the above is a highly simplified breakdown, and there are better experts than I on this, but this is a more simplified gamer-oriented view of the timeline. Where ACKS II is more "Fall of the Roman Empire" inspired, Runequest is more "Greek Myths and Legends" inspired.

In ACKS II, not every character has magic, and we begin to see the formation of the standard tropes of fantasy, like the fighter class, the rogue, and so on. Magic is beginning to become specialized and rare. This sort of reflects a world where the art of magic is beginning to become a lost art, only available to the few, and on a historical decline. This sort of mirrors the Tolkien themes of elves, dwarfs, and magic leaving the world. That isn't a strong theme in ACKS II, but magic is not everyday, and there aren't elves and dwarfs everywhere. We can also trace the downfall of traditional magic and sorcery to organized religion and the Crusades wiping it out.

Plus ACKS II is more Late Roman Empire than any other game. All that fun stuff you see in the movie Gladiator? Yeah, you get all that with ACKS II. This game is all that and more. These two games are not the same thing.

In Runequest, every character has minor magic, an era where magic is not as specialized and powerful (unless you specialize in it), and the use of it is more commonplace. It isn't "fireball and lightning bolt" level artillery, but starting fires and mending minor wounds is common. It would be like if Star Wars had an "Early Jedi Era" where everyone knew minor Force powers and it was a part of everyone's lives, and nobody felt it was strange.

You don't need to develop a lot of technology, like how to start fires, since there are people that can "just do that with their fingers." You are getting into a speculative world here, where you need technology for some things (writing, wheels, inclined planes, construction, food storage and preservation), but not for others (medicine, repair, spirit communication, item enhancement, the telescope).

Also, this mirrors the common themes of antiquity, where it is generally assumed that "magic was more common in the early ages" and "we lost the ability to call upon it" in our lives. Where every village had a grandma shaman who knew the old ways and taught them to the children. Everyone has a little magic in them, and this was a more wondrous and connected age of spirits, the afterlife, shamanism, nature, and the flows of magic upon the world.

Runequest's "end days" would be in the fall of the Greek and Egyptian civilizations, but that feels like a long ways off and we are in the golden age of the civilization. With ACKS II, we are in the fall of the empire, and things are already going sideways. There is a stronger "call to action" in ACKS II and much more political intrigue, along with the collapse of local authority with beast-men banging on the gates. You have the crumbling empire and a senate trying to backstab each other and survive. You have the characters forging their own future and taking land for themselves.

In Runequest, your stories are smaller, like heroic tales, haunted sites, warring tribes, preparing for a festival, and often survival stories. We have rampaging monster stories, mysteries, thieves, farmers with problems, rampaging trolls, and the Lunar Empire are easy bad guys to use as the heavies. The Epic of Gilgamesh is a great example of a Runequest story, sort of "the myth and tales" of a hero or small band of them, wandering the land and doing great deeds. The focus in Runequest is smaller and more personal, and a quest to smith a great weapon could be an entire adventure arc.

Runequest is a lot like Minecraft in a way, where you are building your own gear, finding things to buy what you can't craft, and exploring a wild and untamed land where civilization has not reached every place on the map, and many places are lost to time and forgotten. This is why some critique Runequest harshly as a "basket weaving game," but hey, if you had to go kill a dinosaur to get those rare colored reeds, bash some trolls to get the turquoise for the beads, and crafted baskets that were worth a lot of coins, it was all worth it in the end and you have a big sack of wealth to live nicely on. Bonus points if you enchant the baskets to slow food spoilage. I can see that story happening in some "deep crafting" Minecraft mods, too, and there are parallels there between the games that some get really into.

Also, you are not conquering land and building massive kingdoms in Runequest. You "can" in a story-sense, but if you like dominion building, ACKS II will be the better game for you.

Also, if I were to play a Roman or D&D-era game with the Chaosium rules, I would opt for the excellent Basic Roleplaying system, but you would have to do a little more work here to set that game up. This would remove the "everyone has magic" assumption of the earlier era, and allow you to simulate the "magic-less professions" a lot easier and keep that separation. With ACKS II, it is all done for you, and the system is d20 and easy to get into.

Both are amazing games! They are not the same thing, as some may think. Which one you prefer comes down to your preferences and what inspires you. If you like Gladiator and the Roman intrigue, go all-in on ACKS II. If you want the more personal stories of an earlier era where everyone has magic, Runequest will be your thing.

They are both fantastic games with unique focuses. Where D&D tends to try to be "everything for everyone" and do all things poorly, these two games do their focused areas perfectly.

I like the focused and themed games far better than the generalist. My stories here are far better and more meaningful to me. 

Before All Others Cover Reveal

The elven sourcebook for ACKS II got a cover reveal today, and check it out over here:

https://arbiterofworlds.substack.com/p/before-all-others-covers-revealed

There is also a wealth of great information in that post, including details about the livestream, the collector's cover, and much more - this is worth reading for fans and new fans alike!

ACKS II: System Compatibility Guide

I love these conversion guides that come with games, and ACKS II includes a great one.

"If you are arriving here by way of D&D Fifth Edition or Pathfinder, then this book may seem a strange and surreal tome, alien and perhaps even old-fashioned. As an OSR product, it emulates the design ethos of the golden age of role-playing games from 1974 – 1983." - ACKS II System Compatibility Guide, page 1.

ACKS II is an OSR game, and like any of the games, such as Labyrinth Lord, Old School Essentials, Swords & Wizardry, AD&D, ADAD, Castles & Crusades, or the ...Without Number games - they all play so well together.

One aspect of ACKS II that I love is that it flips the whole descending versus ascending AC argument on its head. The game uses descending AC, where an AC of 0 is excellent, and gives characters a target number to hit, such as a 14+ on a d20. Then, AC is simply added to the attack throw. A higher AC is easier to hit, such as an AC 7 target, which is a +7 to the roll.

ACKS II also clarified the language using a throw versus a check, which makes the game far easier to grasp and play.

"The throw mechanic puts the emphasis on the character, rather than the situation. A player understands that if he has “Listening 14+” in most circumstances his character can eavesdrop on a roll of 14-20. If there is a modifier to this chance, it’s transparent to the player: “A penalty of -4 to your roll due to the loud noise”. 

In contrast, systems such as 5E or Pathfinder, which use a fixed bonus against a variable difficulty, put the emphasis on the Judge’s decision as to the situation. In some games, the Judge is actually encouraged to calculate what chance he wants for success, and to then ‘customize’ the Difficulty accordingly (this is explicit in D&D 4E). 

These sort of accounting illusions are unnecessary in ACKS. Where we believed a task should be equally challenging for characters of varying level, we simply use a type of throw that doesn’t change with level (such as the proficiency throw to bash open doors)." 

- ACKS II System Compatibility Guide, page 1.

That explanation tells you all you need to know about ACKS II. The game isn't "grading on a curve" when it comes to high-level characters, and arbitrarily making all the locks in this castle DC 25 because there happens to be a higher-level adventure going on in here at the moment. Or else they would be too easy! Right? We can't have that.

I love how this example calls out D&D 4E for "massaging" the chance to succeed and "faking it" - well done. That game was so full of tricks and deceptions to make you feel more powerful than you actually were, such as the fireball spell, which was only valid as a "minion mop." That game was one of the largest shell games played in the hobby's history of D&D. In D&D 5E, they hid things a little better, but a lot did not change, especially getting weaker as you leveled, and fights still took forever.

A "Listening 14+" throw tells me precisely what my character can do, and gives me the odds right there. If the referee wishes to make it easier or more complicated, that is their decision.

That solid design ethos is baked into ACKS II, and the system will not let you down.

This game is not particularly challenging. The core concepts are the same as those of Old School Essentials and other games. To get started with ACKS II, begin by using the conversion guide and applying your existing OSR knowledge.