Castle Keepers Guide.

The castle keepers guide is out for castles and crusades. It is such a great book. The main sections of the book are character options, running a campaign, and how to use the siege engine to run the game you really want to run.

I really wish I had more time to do a full review of the CKG. One thing I can say is this is a great book and an example of the kind of great work being done by the trolls over at troll lord games.

The more I read over castles and crusades the more I love it. Its become more and more my go to system for fantasy. Its got an old school sensibility with new OGL inspired math. Making it cross compatible with most every thing else I think is good.

A sample of what you will find in the CKG: (From the troll lord website)

• Alternative methods of attribute generation
• The featured classes expanded to the 24th level
• Equipment: outfitting for a setting, saving throws, usage, costs
• Expansion on the Magic with components, spell costs, holy symbols, water, and more
• The NPC: how to run them, hire them, loyalty and more
• Monsters and Magic as NPCs
• The Crusade in the future: guns, canon and more
• The World Above: over view of outdoor campaigns
• The World Below: over view of underground campaigns
• The Characters, gaining levels, land and more treasure
• The Siege Engine, breaking it down for your table
• Character death. The end should not be the end

And so very much more . . . .

The CKG is the perfect expansion to everyone’s table.

% Skill system for OSR games.

This Idea kind came to me when thinking of a simple skill system for S&W or OSRIC. My Idea is to port over how percentile systems like basic roleplaying system or Rune Quest do skills. All skills start as 3, 5 or Cant be used unskilled. Most all unskilled skills start at 2 with the first skill point applied. 

Skill points are applied to the starting value of a skill. Then attribute bonuses are added to get the number needed to roll. For example Aurstin a ranger has the tracking skill. Being a ranger he starts with a base skill of 5. He has applied 4 of his starting skill points to tracking. Aurstin has a wisdom bonus of +1. So his total skill level is 5+4+1= 10. So on a roll of 10 or under Austin's skill check would be a success.

One of the reasons I really like this is because I use attribute checks for most on the fly rolls. This would unify most of my d20 mechanics for these systems.

The Only was to truly unify all d20 rolls is to use a form of descending Armor class with a roll under system. Interesting. Very interesting.