Ah, the magical moment when you start a new campaign you’ll be DMing…

  Since my three players are all new at tabletop role-playing games, I decided to use the ‘Castles & Crusades’ rules. C&C is basically a ‘retro clone’ of D&D, very rules-light. I haven’t actually played it yet (last night we got the character sheets ready and we’ll start the actual game next week), but I figured for new players it might be best to avoid the complexities of the other editions so they could concentrate on the RP and having fun. Although the rules are simpler, since I’m less familiar with them I do have to read the class and race descriptions as much as the players do to familiarize myself with them. It’s a process, but one that will be worth it in the long run I think.

  One thing I noticed right away is how little prep time C&C requires for a DM stats-wise. That’s a big plus. It’s also very easy to convert material from other editions to C&C. One of the monsters the characters will be facing is taken out of a D&D 3.5 book. It gives me a fuzzy warm feeling to know that even though I am using a new system, I can still use most of my D&D 3.5 books when it comes to monsters and traps.

  The players are two girls and a guy. The girls are playing an elf assassin and a half-orc barbarian, both chaotic neutral. The guy is playing a lawful good paladin. I wonder how smoothly things will go between them, given their respective classes and alignments…