I'm a vagabond, a wanderer of tabletop gaming. From my early forays in Palladium Fantasy and hideously houseruled 1st Edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons games to my appreciation of Risus, Two-Fisted Tales, Epic Roleplaying, Rolemaster, Traveller, Rifts, and everything in-between, I have played and ran a tremendously large number of roleplaying games.

I've tried Troll Lord Games' Castles & Crusades before, had my Castle Keeper Screen signed by Gary Gygax himself in 2007. And though the sessions and demos I ran were fun, there was always something else to try. And several projects in 2008 also ensured my free time to dedicate to any single game was severely lacking.

But in now coming back to it, and in loving both the exciting modern products out there and the original and homages to an earlier time in gaming, I have found Castles & Crusades to be so much of what I've been looking for. Very few times (I can count them on one hand) has a game purely "clicked" for me. As in I got it--I got the feel, the system, the direction. And that's what happened when I took my C&C Players Handbook in hand (and screen) once more. What did it? I don't know--a desired refinement of how I run my games, an re-examination for what I want out of my hobby, whatever. But I did want to share just a little of why I am so absolutely, genuinely, enthusiastically pleased with Castles & Crusades:

Bridging A Gap: I have friends who were weaned on the older editions of D&D, and those who have played nothing but 3rd Edition. Castles & Crusades allows me to sell elements of both those experiences, giving us a common meeting ground and a larger player base from which to draw. Its familiar to veterans, and easily picked up by novices.

Time: Plain and simple. Look, I have a wife, 2 kids and 1 on the way, and a lot more responsibility than Young Zack ever did. C&C's system, the SIEGE Engine, is so simple that it usually takes all of 3-5 minutes for gamers to get the gist of it. I want to be able to use all the resources I've built up over the years, run a game that encourages active, fast, inspiring GM (CK) rulings, not pace-killing rules lookup. I want low prep time, employing notes and material I already have. I'm ready to get back to the basics, and get down to gaming in a faster and leaner fashion.

A Place To Build Upon: Castles & Crusades is a framework. It isn't a toolbox so much as a sturdy workbench. This is seriously one of the most easily-houseruled games I have ever seen. You want skills, feats, some new magic system? Want to use THAC0? Have some insane d20 rule you plug into every game you play? Castles & Crusades not only allows you to plug those items in, its modularity will make it easy to do so. We are talking compatibility not only with the various prior editions and the d20 crowd, but efforts like Basic Fantasy, Labyrinth Lord, Mazes & Minotaurs, Fight On!, True 20, Paizo's and Adventure Games Publishing's docket of releases, and more. Hey, I have something from Iron Gauntlets I might throw in there. Or I can do nothing, and be just fine that way. There's just too much goodness out there that I may wish to look to for inspiration, and Castles & Crusades promises the integration of that goodness, easy-like. It's a baseline for it all.

A Style I Want: I don't want hours spent on hair-splitting character builds. I don't want reams of special powers for each player. I don't want skills and rigid, multiple modifiers to get in the way of player initiative and creativity. I want me as a GM (CK) and my players to remember when we made rulings, not remained bogged down in rules. This ties into time constraints, but I want a fast-play, unified mechanic. I want the standard tropes and hallmarks of our shared hobby heritage there, unwarped. I want strong character archetypes. I want player backgrounds to matter in the course of play. I want so much of what has made the Old School Renaissance of gaming so inspiring to me and others. Of course, many of these lie at the feet of each Game Master/Castle Keeper, and can happen in any game. But its still good to have an RPG that's on your side about it.

I've never been a one-game, one-system guy. There are too many great games out there I want to run--Epic, Rifts, Traveller, we aren't through yet. One day, I will again get to run In Harm's Way. And Castles & Crusades is ok with that. I know its there, willing to undertake any sort of tweaks or mods I might find in my travels. But I do know what game I'm coming home to for now. Castles & Crusades is my choice going forward to take advantage of the Old School Renaissance (heck, its my staging area for it), to keep that link going to a wider pool of players, and to maximize the time I have for quality, generation-spanning fun. That's why I'm on board with Castles & Crusades as my fantasy D&D cousin of choice. And together I see us, my friends, and eventually perhaps our kids having great adventures...

Recently, I was pleased to be able to review a couple of products for Small Niche Games. Today's review is of Tavern Menus: Fantasy Food and Drink, which is a short (8-page) pdf consisting of 6 different menus suitable for use in a fantasy inn/tavern sort of backdrop.

If you are anything at all like me, sometimes you get stuck on what's being served when your players' characters stop over at an inn for the night. Tavern Menus solves that problem, as each of the 6 menus are unique, with bills of fare ranging from the high-end to the bottom of the ladder (dining at the The Dead Boar, anyone?).

The visual design is nicely done, with the relative quality of dining establishment clearly evident. Prices are not included, since I believe the author recognizes each game is going to have its own cost ratio, but suggested prices are given a brief introduction elsewhere in the document.

It'd be nice to have a fill pdf where you could enter and customize the name of the establishment, but really, that's the only gripe I have with this product. It does exactly what it sets out to do, and at $2.99, is a great bargain for adding a bit more immersive flavor to your session.

A short review for a short product, but hey, what do you want? My players were wowed by this product, had a lot of fun picking out their orders (though thankfully not to distraction), and I feel like Tavern Menus fulfilled its side of the deal. I'll happily recommend it to anyone looking for the same sort of experience/prop.

Roma Imperious is brought into the True20 fold with this excellent conversion by HinterWelt. For those that enjoyed the original flavor of Roma Imperious, Roma True20 maintains that while adding in the simplicity and elegance of True 20. Roles and feats are exhaustively addressed, and appear to be an excellent port of HinterWelt's character ideas in this extension of an Eternal, long-lasting Roman Empire. Some folks might find the magic system feels to be a bit of an add-on and perhaps not as streamlined as it could be, but all in all, this is a very good entry, and hopefully a prophet for more great settings finding True20 to be a fantastic conversion basis. An all-around excellent offering.

I was pleased with this--a great sampler of crisp, clean work you can routinely expect from SKG.

Does a pretty good job of going through some of the scenarios a meteor strike might bring to a fantasy campaign. From the cataclysmic to the much less so, this book had some original ideas, and was one of the better free downloads that's been offered on this site (at least, it was free at the time of this review). I'd say if you're looking for some ideas for a world-changing event a bit out of the ordinary, this is a nice pickup; even if you aren't running d20, much can still be gleaned from it.

This is a review of the lite, not full version. I really enjoyed T20, before which I would not have guessed that d20 in any form would be able to bring that "Traveller Vibe" to life very well. I wish the T20 Lite had a bit more beef in it, especially perhaps in showing just 1 or 2 more careers and a bit more on ships, but there is enough here to get started. The actual T20 full version seems to be a very complete game, and I'm quite happy with it.

FtA! will doubtless be deemed a "Fantasy Heartbreaker" by many, but this is a book that doesn't apologize for, but rather embraces, its old-school roots. It manages to bring together a lot of elements that seem to be solid design concepts from the history of gaming and cobbles them together to make a cohesive, fairly smooth whole.

The game shares enough in common with D&D that it should be an easy pick-up for players of that game; however, character creation is simplified, as are the overall rules, to provide a rules-light RPG for dungeon crawling, adventuring, etc., without worrying about extensive or timely character generation or having to wait on the research of rules lawyers. The game also bears some resemblance to games like NetHack and ADOM.

Instead of Feats, FtA! uses stunting, which is the use of character skills in combat and other situations to pull off impressive moves, improbable shots, and generally encourage combat to be more creative and descriptive. This simple idea turns out to add a lot of fun and enjoyment to the game, and is one of the biggest selling points, and succeeds where I've seen a lot of more complex ideas fail.

The melee combat rules, where upon the total attack for both sides in combat is added up, and then damage is parceled out by the GM according to common sense, if players have positioned themselves in the thick of combat, or even what works best for cinematics, is another big selling point, and flowed very well in actual play. Groups really need to work together, as "lone wolf" tactics and stupidity can quickly be the death knell of the unwise character.

The magic system is basic, easy to use, and uses an increasing difficulty per conditions, fatigue,and spell failure to limit magic-users.

Monsters are fun, easy to keep track of, and delightfully old-school. Charts in the back you can roll on for magic items and to create dungeons step-by-step add to the fun feel of the game. Charts through the book for things like spell failure, background, etc., often seem a bit random, and add to that delightful, old school feel without making the game clunky. In fact, this game would likely be further enhanced with a book of charts just like these.

For a game the author hopes to one day target novice gamers in South America, FtA! needs some help in terms of presentation before that happens. I'd have liked to seen a bit better flow and layout for the character generation parts, for sure. I was a happy to see a full index, which helped matters, though. The art is typical of Flying Mice products, which you either like or don't.

For a pick-up, rules-light fantasy game, you could do far worse than FtA! There are enough good ideas in here to make this game worth the price of admission.

An interesting mix of Fuzion, d20, and perhaps a hint of GURPS, F20 is a handy, robust little system that should handle a variety of duties quite well.<br><br> <b>LIKED</b>: Easy to learn rules, plenty of character-building options.<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: The magic system seems a little tacked-on to me, but it is workable.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Excellent<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Very Satisfied<br>

A nice work to have on hand for making your PC's tavern experience a little more concrete and thought-out. Nice mapwork.

Browser interface is handy, as is the inclusion of each floorplan as a separate file.<br><br> <b>LIKED</b>: Good quality maps for a useful subject appearing in almost every fantasy game.<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: Addition of a pdf file might be nice (but not stricly necessary).<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Very Good<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>

Excellent product. Plenty of different floorplans to choose from--I almost felt like I was buying a house for my PCs. Browser interface is handy, as is the inclusion of each floorplan as a separate file.<br><br> <b>LIKED</b>: Very nice maps--good quality<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: A pdf version might be nice (but isn't necessary).<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Very Good<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>

Generally, when one purchases a work called Masterwork Maps, one would expect the maps to be prominent. Most of this is filled up with d20 stat blocks, and only one of the maps of the tower is anything approximating a full page. I wished to use printouts of these for my players, but the other maps just arent' big enough to allow this.<br><br> <b>LIKED</b>: The maps, although far too small are well-done.<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: Not enough map for the money. The maps included are small on the page, and not nearly as prominently or independently displayed as I had hoped. I am very disappointed with this purchase.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Disappointing<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Disappointed<br>

Another excellent entry for an excellent space RPG.<br><br> <b>LIKED</b>: A nice mix of gimmicks and weapons for HardNova ][. Definitely worth your $1.<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: I always like to see more races, but I can always go to pig's site for that. So nothing, really.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Excellent<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Very Satisfied<br>

Lotta maps, lotta maps. The effort on a few them looks like very amateur campaign cartogrpaher work, but you can't beat that price. Plenty here for your money.<br><br> <b>LIKED</b>: The price, and the wide range of maps available.<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: Every map wasn't exactly a work of art, but for the price, it's still a great bargain.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Acceptable<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>

Well done maps, very thorough. You get a wide variety of maps for your money.<br><br> <b>LIKED</b>: I enjoyed the fact that each was avaiable as an indivudal file, as well as accesible through a browser window.<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: I could take or leave the html interface design--could use a little work.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Very Good<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>

Excellent work! The script on the pdf allowing you to add and remove map elements and overlays is a wonderful tool. This is one of the best bargains I've found ar rpgnow, and I can't wait to use it as a location in my game! Sign me up for the other Customizable Battlegrounds!<br><br> <b>LIKED</b>: The ability to modify the pdf map, adding and subtracting lights, rubble, and other futures with the click of the mouse. High quality artwork doesn't begin to describe this map.<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: The fact that there aren't 3 dozen more in this series for me to buy!<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Excellent<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Very Satisfied<br>