Castles and Crusades - The #1 Best Role-Playing Game Evar! TRIBUS

I like Go. The game Go. Not the word. As words go, I would prefer ‘left’ as in ‘I left.’ As games go, Go is one of the best games ever created. Go is so simple. It is so simple that many people find it boring. There is one piece, a stone. The stones are two colors. Each side chooses a color. The board is a grid. One places a piece on the intersection of the grid. The goal is to surround the other player's pieces. That simple. But so complex. Go is considered one of the most difficult games in existence to master. Magic the Gathering is second, from last I read anyway.

 

There are roughly 10³⁶⁰ possible moves in a typical game of Go. Chess has roughly 10¹²³ possible moves in a typical game. The decision tree in Go is vast, staggering really since the possible moves in a typical game outnumber the number of atoms in the observable universe. One simple rule creates a decision tree that is huge. Counterintuitively, many times the more complex the rules, the smaller the decision tree becomes. When designing Castle and Crusades, we went for simple with a massive decision tree.

How Simple is Simple?

The Siege Engine, the rule that runs Castles and Crusades, is really simple. When a character attempts to do something, the player rolls a d20. On an 18 or better the undertaking is a success. “That’s impossibly high! Too difficult! Out with that rule.” No! Every action the character takes is associated with an attribute. If the action is associated with a prime attribute, a +6 modifier is added. This is where the player makes their first choice on the decision tree. 

Chess has 20 possible opening moves. Go has 361 possible opening moves. Castles and Crusades has only one very important ‘opening move.’ When creating the character, the player has two or more prime attributes. One is designated by the class of the character; the other(s) are chosen by the player (humans choose two more and demi-human one more).  That changes the odds considerably. And, there are only five possible choices of attributes the player has when choosing extra primes.

Decisions, Decisions, Choices

Most of the initial decisions players make are not really decisions. The class and race are more meta-game choices similar to choosing which game to play rather than which move to make. Attributes are randomly determined. Starting gold is randomly determined. Class abilities are set. The one real big choice is which attribute is going to be a prime. Once that decision is made, the myriad number of choices the player makes through the course of play have a lot to do with that prime attribute selection. 

 

On to tinkering. My favorite thing of all. Consider, if you will, the simplicity of the Siege Engine. As a designer or a rule’s tinkerer, you have a myriad of choices before if you want to create your own rules. The entirety of the game can be played with the siege engine. One could use it for combat, damage, spell casting success, everything, if one were so inclined. Of course, we here at Troll Lord Games added a lot of fiddly bits to make a more complete set of rules for everyone but we worked out from that singular core rule.

One Rule to Guide Them and in the End Bind Them

Or something like that. It is my bent to make the simple more complicated, to overthink, and to, generally speaking, make things more difficult than they need have been. It is, for me, somewhat of an accomplishment that I actually managed to make something simple. The simplest rule EVAR! For a role-playing game.