Blue Castle Annotated

Purchased the first printing of this book in 2004, and 17 years later the revisions keep getting better. It helps that this is my preferred way to play old school dungeons & dragons style games. This version also has a classic cover homage to the original AD&D.

Probably plenty of other sites will list what is updates; my favorite parts are the extended character classes (to level 24), the gorgeous color art and the aforementioned cover. The game system and rules are basically unchanged - and that's a good thing.

Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 edition was released at about the same time Castles & Crusades was released in a boxed set. While 3.5 improved on 3rd edition (and D20), there was a significant demand at that time for "old school" rules, a return to the 1st edition Advanced D&D. This game (and this book) scratched that itch in the perfect way for me.

First and foremost, the game was very compatible with 1st edition - a system I'd invested in since the early 1980s. This allowed me to reuse adventures and ideas my friends and I had come up with, and many of TSR's classic adventures as well. Dungeon magazine, third party adventures like Judges Guild and Role Aids were all simple to drop into this system.

Where TSR missed out, this game improved. Wizards of the Coast introduced a simpler system for rolling and calculating, all addition. This is head and shoulders over the subtraction and chart lookups required for AD&D. Castles and Crusades used these mechanics from 3rd edition (and D20) to make the game simpler to play and teach.

C&C was also ahead of the curve. D&D 3rd edition used a simpler save system, which wasn't necessarily better. The SIEGE engine of Castles & Crusades combined the original AD&D saving throws with stat checks - and Wizards of the Coast would use this mechanic in 5th edition D&D.

Enough about the system - back to the book. In the original AD&D, much of the material was missing - either in the Dungeon Master's Guide in the form of look-up charts and references, or published later in Dragon Magazine or supplemental books like Unearthed Arcana. The C&C Players Handbook contains nearly everything needed to play - in fact, this game's version of the DMG came out much later. The rules, the game mechanics, and play tips are all here. The first few printings had some complaints and errata, but these are all corrected by this 8th printing.

Perhaps the best section of the book is "The Castle Keeper and the Game". This tips section could easily have been published in external form (see Sly Flourish and others). It describes working with the players, having fun with the game, and the reasons behind the SIEGE engine. This isn't "secret, DM-only" information - it is valuable to all players, but it is especially valuable to those who step up to adjudicate the game for their friends.

This book, and this book alone, is more than enough to play Castles & Crusades. For the Castle Keeper, the book Monsters and Treasure will provide information on both the players opponents and the rewards every character dreams about. Troll Lord has published several excellent adventures for this game system, and any of the classic AD&D challenges will also fit the bill. Highly recommended!

This is a fairly complete collection of game mastery advice, and unlike most game master's guides, completely unnecessary for play. But oh so worth it!

Castles & Crusades came out a few years after the D20 open game license came about. The team took that open reference and took a step back, making a game quite like 1978's Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. In that game, the Dungeon Master's Guide contained all the needed charts for combat, conditions and treasure - a required resource for game play. Castles & Crusades used the D20 model and encapsulated all that in the basic rules - no lookup charts required. In fact, for more than five years, Castles & Crusades consisted of only a player manual and the book Monsters & Treasure.

The Castle Keeper's Guide collected the extra bits, from play style to game advice, from environments to equipment. Advanced Dungeons & Dragons was supported by a monthly game magazine called Dragon, with optional rules, advice, and ideas. The Castle Keeper's Guide contains several years worth of quality Dragon items in one hardcover. It truly enhances the game, while not being strictly required for play.

I read the PDF of the third printing, recently on kickstarter, though I did not go back and compare with my earlier print edition. The artwork here is really nice, evocative of situations and adventures. The alternate cover joins in story with the 8th printing of the Player's Handbook, also recently on kickstarter. I read the book cover-to-cover, which I hadn't done with my print edition. While I wasn't reading with a proofreader's eye, I found only one misspelling on page 310, part of the "Ebb and Flow of Battle" section - and that looks like a paste error. A very good record for a 372 page book.

Overall, if you are interested in an "old school rules", I recommend Castles & Crusades in general - and this book in specific and an excellent reference for game play, optional rules, situations and ideas.