ACKS 2 Development

AI Art by @nightcafestudio

I have been following the development of ACKS II on the Patreon page, and I like what I am seeing a lot. This feels like a B/X style game keeping true to the core concepts, but tossing out the OGL and the tired old tropes of the past and doing something new. The game feels cut-free, and the original source material and inspiration shine through.

It is developing into this unique, flavorful, Middle Ages meets B/X style game of its own.

A lot of games 'copy Conan' or 'copy John Carter' and I have dozens of settings and games on my shelf that feel like uninspired 'Clonean the Samearian' style settings. ACKS, and even more so, ACKS 2, are different. This is pure Middle Ages goodness; none of this pseudo-Renaissance modern-world as fantasy BS that we have been force-fed the last few years.

You know, these fantasy settings where everyone walks around with modern attitudes and dress, in a Renaissance world minus the colonialism and slavery that made that era so affluent and progressive in the first place.

One wonderful part about ACKS is the answer to the question, what are your sourcebooks for adventures? The answer is simple: real books about history. I don't need to buy pretentious modules you only buy for the two subclass options and four feats so you can build overpowered game characters. My adventure stories come from actual events that actually happened. And I am learning as I play, not living in some Disney version of the Renaissance.

The quality of the game and experience isn't this 'several photocopies down the line' of some adventure written in the 1970s that copied something in a book, that got changed several times over seven editions of the game, and finally made it to you in some strange 'processed food' version of idea that comes off like a meal made out of dehydrated food in a cardboard box.

The original authors of the fantasy novels in the 1950s and '60s read history and based their fantasy books on this source material. We have much better access to books like this today, so nothing stops you from going straight to the source and getting inspired here. If you are getting inspired by your typical adventure modules from games like 5E, you are not getting anything nutritious for your brain.

Either go straight to history or the original adventure books in Appendix N and go straight to the source. Even if the history books you read today are highly political in their bias - and you can recognize that - you will still be getting better information and inspiration than Keep on the Borderlands.

Stick to first (history) or second-generation (Appendix N) sources; your games will mean so much more to you than the corporate filler we get these days.

AI Art by @nightcafestudio

Granted, the ACKS version is more fantasy-world than actual history, but replace one particularly nasty or violent side of a conflict with orcs or beast-men, and you have an adventure. Flavor a political conflict with magic, and you are there. Make a wealthy lord a dragon with a domain and brutal mercenaries in his service, and there you go. Corrupt a monastery with a secret sect of evil magic instead of corruption, and the story works.

And you are using your imagination, and applying history to your game.

The low-level play? Not that much different than B/X. The pieces you play with are not generic; they are these specific elements of Middle Ages history that feel a lot more honest and real than your typical fantasy game. I love generic fantasy like Old School Essentials or Swords & Wizardry, but these can feel too generic like they are simulating playing a game with the serial numbers filed off.

And yes, I know the next two images of my library are more Renaissance-themed, but they highlight a few important points. One, we are being lied to that the Renaissance was a progressive era and fantasy games use a sanitized version of this time. Two, even Renaissance settings can have amazing conflicts, adventures, and motivations. Considering this is where the Middle Ages ended up (post-plague), the forces that made this era the mess it was were rooted in a Middle Ages ACKS-style setting.

Colonialism, the corrupt church, the global order, monetary systems, slavery for capital, knowledge only for the wealthy, the media, and the nation-state were forces that had their roots planted in the Middle Ages. You can start these plots and stories here in an infant form and have them seem like the 'dark forces' rising through the world. By the Renaissance it was too late, they had already taken over the world and created the one we live in today.

Teach yourself the history you were denied in school.

What am I doing? What type of story am I telling?

What does this all mean, really?

What means more? Coming back to town with 100gp and a +1 mace, or retelling the story of a prince denied his rule and banished to a hostile land? Something that really happened in history, but you are retelling that story, and yours may have a different outcome. Are you dealing with a generic 'fantasy temple' or a corrupt institutionalized religion full of debauchery and corruption? Is there a crusade against evil that is constantly recruiting and raising funds in this land? What land are they fighting in? Are there corrupt slavers in this world sanctioned by the king because the resources they give the kingdom keep the royals in power?

At what price is your soul worth?

Would you fight them?

Just simple questions like this pulled from just the covers of history books are so much more interesting than anything put out by today's game companies, often off fifth or sixth-generation sources, so far down the line they are barely meaningful and understandable. Once you open the books, you discover so much more it makes mainstream games look like consumerist garbage in comparison.

Why are there goblins in this cave?

Is the answer they are just there for you to kill and take their treasure?

Do you even care why?