Well, since The Pundit is talking about authentic medieval rpgs I thought I'd start a thread on the grand daddy of them all, Chivalry and Sorcery.
Oh well, anyhow, I'm known for my love of baroque and bizarre systems and I'm a big fan of knights and castles and such like. I won't deny that C&S somewhat inspired The Arcane Confabulation. So, are there any C&S fans around here? Did anyone get second edition? I always wanted it but that big, fat box was $35. I've heard the saurians supplement was pretty good. Did anyone use their "award winning" miniatures rules? Bireme and Galley?
I'd like to hear about it.
o/ - Ran alot of Chivalry & Sorcery here. Played in a couple of other campaigns at about the same time. Picked up the
Redbook in 1979, followed by the
Chivalry & Sorcery Sourcebook. Character creation was highly complex 8.5/10 and took an excruciating amount of time, however produced an uber-realistic character complete with a highly detailed background. It was very Eurocentric, and Feudalistic, and there were extremely detailed rules on combat, skills use, and owning/managing acastle, tower, estate, or manor. This made it very attractive as an rpg especially from about 1980 on as AD&D began really deviating from the original intent of D&D, and TSR released a series of increasingly bizarre rulings concerning combat in play which didn't simulate real melee combat well. We suspected the AD&D magic was similarly skewed and looked to C&S to provide a much more believable medieval fantasy setting with more complete and balanced combat and magic rules. Ran games until about 1983 or so...
The detailed and descriptive critical hit tables were great! The family background inheritance & wealth generator was great, and the jousting and mounted combat rules were simply amazing in both detail and speediness in play (once the Jousting rules were learned). There was a lot to like about C&S back when TSR was just beginning to get that reputation as "They Sue Regularly" in regards to other game designers as well as their fans.
C&S also used an innovative acetate hexgrid that could be overlaid on any hand drawn or printed map to regulate outdoor movement in the game.
My friend Rodney had
Saurians and
Bireme & Galley, so he used them for his game worlds. I didn't have much exposure to either except when a Saurian army attacked our fortified manor and lands in one of the more memorable campaigns of his game. The
Saurians were very deadly foes! Also I did generate a couple types of war galleys for my C&S games.
My other friend John had the
Arden Campaign setting and the
Destrier book (Because he liked the talking horses, LoL!)
That kind of how we got more out of our gaming budgets back in the day, Each person in our group would get a copy of core rules for a game, and then pick up different adventure modules or supplements which we would share, and even from time-to-time photocopy out of, cherry picking the best of the game rules and ideas for our games that was really a mashup of several rules and supplements sets.
I used the C&S Jousting rules for my D&D games as well. Once learned, it was ridiculously simple and fast to use in-play.
Also used these rules for a Tolkien campaign at least once.
Anyone can get C&S 4 core rules for free now, downloadable from the druvethrurpg website courtesy of
Britannia Game Designs.
http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/142316/Chivalry--Sorcery-4th-Edition?affiliate_id=622563Britannia Game Designshttps://www.facebook.com/pg/Brittannia-Game-Designs-Ltd-222021604475526/about/?ref=page_internal