ACKS definitely suffers from the nuanced nature of its benefits. I recently argued with a poster who claimed it was really no different than “Companion D&D (minus the mass combat rules) and the trade system was ripped straight from the GAZ series”…now, aside from the fact that this isn’t even true, it would still be a worthwhile game even if it were true; those are all products that have been out of print for 25 years or so, and some of them (the Gazetteers) were never that popular when they were out. But, if you’ve been around the hobby for thirty-odd years, and then skimmed the book, you could easily be left thinking this. I have argued on other fora with posters (Grognards, frankly) who insisted or suggested, based on this sort of read-through, that it was simply a B/X retro-clone. It’s really not. It’s neither of these things. It’s a “neo-clone”: something new that builds off the framework of B/X and BECMI.
The elegance of the game itself is a large part of what attracted me. I feel it is the most elegant and coherent RPG I’ve played, and I find that stunning when I consider its origin is D&D (a game I love, but that is a long way from “elegant” or “coherent”). It has incorporated reworked versions of many of the best B/X or BECMI houserules I have ever seen, and then gone further with simple additions like Cleave. That’s a great example, actually. It’s a tiny rule in the combat section, but the impact it has on the game, particularly by mid-levels, is huge. It’s the kind of thing that most people cannot grasp on a read-through; they have to play the game to get it.
Another gem that I didn’t even expect to like was the semi-Vancian spellcasting. I really disliked the Sorcerer in 3E, but, somehow, ACKS manages a middle-ground with enough utility and flexibility to mitigate the “problems” with playing a low-level Mage, while still maintaining the strategic resource aspect and tactical application of spells.
The integrated economics and how - it - just - works. But how do you sell “Economics!” as sexy when it comes to the game? I really have no idea. You either like that kind of thing, or you have no problem with infinite Cantrips (Just kidding! Sort of…).
The Racial Classes, and I can hear the Grognards laughing, but a separate suite of Racial Classes for each race has more flavour than any other D&D variant I’ve played. Beats some special skills and an ability score adjustment six ways from Sunday. It also neatly solves the rampant issues with multi- and dual-classing.
The Proficiency system, which adds just enough mechanical differentiation to a character to appease new-school players that don’t want every Fighter to be the same, but is still light enough to avoid the CharOp dreaded by old-school players. It’s really only the hard-core Grognards (not that there’s anything wrong with that) that dislike any kind of widgets, usually because of the time it adds to character creation (neatly solved by Templates).
Alex said: 1. Do you find the rules in ACKS, PC and D@W to be equally ambiguous or is one more than the others? ACKS was written first with some prior retro-clones. Conversely, PC was written from scratch, and D@W was written from scratch with wargaming in mind. Is it apparent?
Yes, it’s apparent, as far as I can tell. The writing is increasingly clear. Mind you, I haven’t delved as deeply into the PC, as of yet (Classes and Templates, mostly), and I’ve barely used D@W, so perhaps it’s more that I’ve spent less time puzzling out the later mechanics.
Alex said: 2. What are some examples of rules that are not placed correctly for reference purposes?
This is tough to answer. The overall way the ACKS core book is arranged requires flipping around, but I’m not sure there is any way to get everything together, as some things would have to be in multiple places. Frankly, this is what a really good index is for, and ACKS has a pretty decent one. The above cited example about Healing could’ve been solved in about 30 seconds by checking the index (Healing, pg. 105).
Jard said: 1) Each seems to get better at more explicit language, but I know recently there was some confusion with regards to the effect of losing conscripts and militia, and I read that section several times, but it wasn’t until someone was trying to actually utilize it that I realized there was ambiguity. I have to imagine detecting something like that is even harder for the person who wrote it.
It’s funny…as I proofread something like D@W, I am actively trying to understand the intent of the rules, just as if I was intending to play it, in order to make sure the writing supports the intent. I double-check my understanding by trying to calculate the examples. But you can understand a rule like this, and still easily miss the greater ramifications (similar to Grognards reading Cleave, actually). I spent ages reading and re-reading these sections while proofreading, but haven’t actually used most of D@W in play, yet. This is probably the area where boxed notes on “design intent” or “author’s intentions” can go a long way towards avoiding interpretation problems. However, no system is going to be perfect, or perfectly understandable. That’s what a Judge’s judgement, or an online forum, is for.
Jard said: 2) the best example I can think of off the top of my head is going on a wilderness adventure:
Your example had me laughing; it’s so true! And yet, I’ve found this relatively straightforward in play, and I think that comes back to years of playing B/X and BECMI, with the procedures somewhat engrained. Once you get the hang of the ACKS equivalents (and get a good Judges screen for a lot of it), it goes much smoother.
Staticispunk said: eah, I love ACKS, and if I were to make one criticism it definitely wouldn’t be anything to do with it being “just” a retroclone, but rather would have to do with the organization and emphasis on “natural language” rather than clarity and concision in the core rulebook. The writing is often super evocative but particularly with class abilities I would have preferred them to stand out from the text in a clearer way. Things like how normal characters open doors, search for traps, etc. being fairly hidden such that I missed them entirely were a problem too.
I vastly prefer natural language, as it keeps the mechanics rooted in the game world. Precise game-speak starts down the path of considering mechanics in a mechanical vacuum, completely divorced from in-world considerations (see 4E, and, to a lesser extent, 3E). From plenty of experience, this doesn’t really do anything to cure ambiguity, it just moves where the ambiguity sits. It also has the side effect of divorcing rulings from in-game or setting logic. That way lies tripping oozes.
Alex said: Nevertheless, I think ACKS Core has considerable room for improvement without adopting an entirely different writing style. ACKS was written as a mash-up of my campaign notes mixed with LL and Basic Fantasy, both themselves based on the D20 SRD mixed with Moldvay/Cook. As a result the language is a mix of natural language in places, 3.5-esque rules in others, and weirdly parsed sentences designed to not be phrased in the (clear, natural) syntax of B/X. If I were to do a revised edition I would certainly work to clear up a lot of the most painful ambiguities and stylistic choices.
I’ve wanted to try and do a read-through of ACKS with an eye to editing for clarity, particularly now that I have experience with it (unlike while I was working on D@W). But it’s time-consuming, and with no prospect of a 2nd edition any time soon (not that there should be, necessarily), and I just haven’t committed the time. Would you be interested in this for the purposes of updating the .pdf?
Alex said: For those of you who have read Domains at War, I am curious as to whether you find the writing there substantially more or less ambiguous and/or natural than ACKS. I personally think it is much better written than ACKS.
It is generally much clearer. It’s slightly less natural, I’d say, but to an inconsequential degree (it is, in part, a wargame after all).
Alex said: As far as Chapter 8, I almost left it out of D@W entirely, but I ultimately felt that it would be an incomplete product without it.
I am so glad you put it in. I’m really looking forward to using it in the future, and I agree that D@W would’ve felt incomplete as an RPG aid without it.
koewn said: ACKS Ch 2 → Player’s Companion
ACKS Ch 5 → Player’s Companion
ACKS Ch 6 → Lairs & Encounters
ACKS Ch 7 → D@W:C, Player’s Companion
ACKS Ch 8 → Lairs & Encounters
ACKS Ch 10 → D@W:C
I love this idea, but I’d like Lairs & Encounters to cover all sorts of encounters, including, for example, what a Thief-type class runs into when creating a syndicate, or what a Mage might deal with, or a Cleric, etc., which would be Ch 7.