Adventurer Conqueror King System

Why ACKS?

This is one of those questions that has yet to really have an answer. I have other awesome B/X and OSR games that just beg to be played, such as:

• Castles & Crusades
• Labyrinth Lord
• Old School Essentials
• Dungeon Crawl Classics
• Swords & Wizardry

Castles & Crusades has to be my favorite from this list, it is a throwback game that has simplified out all the tables and charts, and you can play straight from an index card. To me, C&C is my 5E and PF2 replacement; it scales to high levels, does everything from AD&D to 5E, and has that higher-powered epic fantasy feeling. It is more straightforward than both those games too. C&C feels like that "mainstream fantasy" genre, so thus it takes on that same Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms, Eberron, and Mystara feeling.

This is the same as Dungeon Crawl Classics; this game has a particular flavor and feeling. This is Appendix N, gonzo wild deadly insane you have never seen this before, total craziness. This game has wild swings of power, on the level of Savage Worlds, and also instant death and campaigns that are inspired by 1970's drug trip purple planets through TV-like devices that are portals to other worlds.

Old School Essentials, Swords & Wizardry, and Labyrinth Lord have a B/X and AD&D mashed generic feeling; they are clay that does anything but without imparting any specific flavor to the campaign. They are a lot like GURPS in a fantasy gaming sense, generic fantasy rules that can do it all - but they do not give you much to work with in terms of a specific world or setting.

So we have the mainstream fantasy, gonzo fantasy, and generic fantasy genres covered.

ACKS is a kingdom-building game at its heart and very similar to Labyrinth Lord and AD&D in feeling and genealogy. The game is built for three tiers of play, the adventure level, the conqueror level, and the dominion level. Tweaks are made to the spells to prevent them from wrecking mass battles, serving as technology replacements (continual light streetlights), or giving magic too much power (armies of charmed followers). The game feels like a great fantasy 4X game with evolving play.

Any of these other games could do that with a few tweaks.

So again, why ACKS?

Flavor

My first answer would be flavor. You get a lot of cool stuff in ACKS that you don't get in other games. There are specialized classes unique to each race, and this is like having a "Wakandan Spearfighter" class in a Marvel RPG that only Wakandans can take. It makes all the races in the game special and unique and stands out as the only way you can play some classes. Elves don't have the "fighter, mage, thief, cleric" choices - those are human classes. An ancestry looks at the world and does things differently, which is flavorful and fantastic.

And I am a bit tired of the infinite combination RPGs out there; sure, you can be anything - but does any of it really mean much? Do those "race + class" combinations tell us anything about the world, or are game designers giving up on writing unique settings and letting anybody do anything - you figure it out.

Elven paladin, drow paladin, lizardman paladin, halfling paladin, fairy paladin, dwarf paladin, goblin paladin, gnoll paladin, ghost paladin, undead paladin, shadow paladin, vampire paladin, demon paladin,  machine-forged paladin, bugbear paladin, orc paladin, kobold paladin, succubus paladin, and it just feels like an overloaded buffet plate after a while and two things happen:

• Paladins become generic and bland.
• Cultures lose anything unique and special.

Some of those combinations are cool and special, but that does not mean they can "never happen." Just when they do, they will be unique and one-of-a-kind things. Players can still choose these and work with the referee to play them, but for the rest of the world, there will likely never be a kobold paladin ever again.

That makes players feel special.

That also frees up referees to allow this creativity in their games.

The gaming group owns the game. Not a company. Not people on the Internet. Not what a virtual tabletop supports. Not a popular opinion. And not what people on YouTube say and feel.

Players and referees are the ultimate game designers.

That is an old-school mantra.

If humans are the only race that can be paladins, that does not "close the door" on other races having unique "divine warrior" classes. ACKS has a class design system, so create the unholy knight class for the demons, and you now have a fantastic race-specific class with powers that are not paladin powers, and the class design adds to the ancestry and culture of the demon-folk in the game. Races with "divine fighters" will do things differently depending on their outlook and faith, and some may not even believe in the "divine warrior" thing at all - preferring to do things differently.

Also, any chance of creating conflict with the paladin class is gone once anyone can be one. You may say in your world, elves feel humans are too busy "spreading faith by the sword" and do not want to associate with violent divine warriors or see that as a "human" thing.

Also, some peoples see things differently. Maybe the fae sees "paladins" as "mage clerics" and combine divine and arcane magic without the heavy armor and sword-swinging holy smite throwing armored nuts.

Simplicity

While C&C is a more straightforward game, ACKS feels more traditional, with the saving throw tables and other B/X staples. Compared to 5E and Pathfinder 2, it is way more simple in design and approach and, like Swords & Wizardry, leaves how tasks and challenges should be resolved up to the group.

Note, if you follow the proficiency rules, typically, the referee will set a target number, such as 11+, 15+, or 18+, and the character will roll to meet or beat it, possibly adding an attribute modifier. This is the "task resolution pattern" set in that part of the rules and feels like the "most ACKS way" to me, but nowhere in the rules does it say you have to do things this way. 

 Another point about ACKS is level is not added to the roll for task resolution, like it is in C&C (sometimes), and selecting a proficiency twice (or more) is how to add +4 to the roll (each time).

One issue I had with C&C early on was how it forced me to pick primary and secondary attributes, and the system forced me to always feel half or more of my ability scores could have been better. The difference between a primary and a secondary is six points (30% better chance of success), and I felt the system felt a bit too punitive to characters without a DEX primary that wanted to jump pits. I was forced to set a lot of "negative" difficulties to compensate. Yes, C&C unifies all saves and skill rolls under one system, but a few things happen:

• The system feels too simplified.
• The referee loses the ability to set target numbers and only chooses modifiers.
• Classes at higher levels feel similar in capability and lack specialization.
• The question always becomes, "Does my level add to the roll?"

With ACKS, you are back in B/X where you decide the target number, can set it once for everyone (11+ to jump the pit), and then roll and add DEX modifiers as needed - or if a class were acrobatic or had that training, give them a bonus. I can also judge the degree of failure better; failing by a few points may allow a "second chance" roll. It also allows me to award situational bonuses easier; wearing boots of speed on the pit jump would give a +4. I control the target number and challenge, which lets me tweak the difficulty constantly.

I like setting target numbers for the challenge, which is a critical difference between ACKS and C&C.

With other B/X-style games, you typically "roll under" an ability score on a d20 and apply situational modifiers. Again, the referee does not control the target number with "roll under," making high ability scores too strong and low ones too weak. Setting a target number and applying an ability score modifier is fairer to the middle-range scores and applies a "bell curve" to the success chance as you get higher and lower. This also lessens the inflationary pressure on always having high ability scores.

Jumping that 11+ pit with a DEX of 18? Roll an 8+ (65% chance of success instead of 90%).

Jumping it with a DEX of 3? Roll a 14+ (35% chance of success instead of 15%).

Setting

ACKS is set in the Middle Ages. A lot of B/X games assume the "comes later" Renaissance. The technology level of the Renaissance feels too high for fantasy, and the themes of that age are nations and colonial exploration. ACKS assumes a "Conan-like" past of empires that used evil magic, and civilization may not make it - that is up to the players and the kingdoms they build.

In fact, the Middle Ages is all about this - rebuilding after the fall of the Roman Empire. There are lots of lost cities, temples, shrines, and other construction all over the place - and much of the land has fallen to the wilderness or banditry. This is a better setting for a "kingdom builder" game since, by the Renaissance, all the land had been taken, and the rise of nation-states was happening. The Renaissance ended with the Enlightenment and Industrial Revolution, and the world was being explored and conquered.

In the default ACKS setting, the Auran Empire is still a powerful force - but in decline and collapse. This is the "Roman Empire" style faction in the setting. It is a sort of more Conan-style world mixed with low fantasy with an Eastern flair.

A lot of the legacy D&D settings feel over-settled. Mystara feels like modern-age Europe with borders on borders and even sea borders. Greyhawk and the Realms have a little more open space, but still, they feel settled and static since these settings felt written to host adventures and not as kingdom-building spaces.

But I like the concept of "the old empire was evil and corrupt." Then a collapse happens, and we start as civilization begins to explore and spread again. We only have a collection of beginning towns and cities and a loose alliance or adversaries with lots of political infighting.

The default setting is a bit more political and happens during the collapse of civilization, so this is sort of like the "during the apocalypse" genre of storytelling. ACKS can also do a long-after "coming out of the Dark Ages" game well, which feels like an exciting genre to explore.

There are no real nations, or if they are, they are corrupt and in decline. The rulers are small-minded, just keeping what they have together. The evil kingdoms are numerous and out there, waiting for a new domain to reach its borders and the wars to start. When the current characters set up their domains, new characters can begin and play in an evolving world. Characters can have heirs and children, and those could be characters in a 20-year-after game, with the map changed and new things going on in a familiar world the players built.

This is a 4X game with B/X rules, and I love that.