Previously I reviewed the C&C Player’s Handbook, and now it’s the Game Master’s (aka Castle Keeper’s) turn, and therefore let’s look at the Castle Keepers Guide. Is this Open Gaming License variant of 3e Dungeons and Dragons worthy of delving into? Does the CKG clinch it for me? Well, find out! [Update, there’s a few additional pieces I’ve added after many more months of reading other systems and going back to this! - Feb 11, 2023]

Lots of games that has D&D heritage, and many others, have some form of Game Master’s Guide (GMG). You can learn a lot about a game, and the authors of the GMG, from what’s included, how it is organized, etc. It can tell you how experienced with game mastering they expect the GM who is reading it is, how familiar they expect that GM to be with their system, and what they, as the authors, think is important and essential to any game.

At one end of the spectrum are GMGs like the Referee’s Tome for Old School Essentials (I’ll be reviewing soon), and at the other end are ones like the Castle Keepers Guide. At the Referee’s Tome end is the assumption that this may be your first time as a GM (Referee in OSE speak) and it takes very little for granted. It provides you with what you need and sends you on your way, nothing more, nothing less.

The Castle Keepers Guide doesn’t provide a welcome other than a really brief introduction to what it is your looking at. It then immediately gets into some pretty extension customization options, the likes of which you really wouldn’t need until you’d been playing C&C for quite some time (in my humble opinion, others may differ). Here’s what the table of contents looks like:

The CKG gets into wealth of information and tables, alternatives and options, enough to make your head spin. Yet, at the same time, it seemed oddly familiar. I then picked up my old 1st edition Dungeon Masters Guide and looked at its table of contents, which was remarkably similar. Extraordinarily.

I have no issue with the CKG having been strongly inspired by the content of the original AD&D DMG. Everything from lots of content on hirelings to types of government to terrain to aerial travel, all of it revisited and made to fit within Castles and Crusades’ context. There’s a part of where it covers not just basic firearms but includes semi-automatic weapons and even laser guns, allowing you to go beyond that medieval fantasy feel (or maybe helping you get some of that Expedition to the Barrier Peaks feel without needing to make things up on your own).

Bad and …sorry, the bad.

When you’re following the lead from another book, there are some things that you should consider NOT including. One of those things that bothered me when it was first introduced in the 1st edition Unearthed Arcana was the optional state of Comeliness - the physical appearance stat.

Well, the CKG introduces Beauty - its physical appearance stat. It was a mistake to introduce this concept in 1e, and still is. Essentially Beauty becomes the ability to charm people based on physical appearance, and it falls flat. After pages of talking about rolling stats and making changes, etc. you get to Beauty and its only a sign of things to come.

The first part of the book also introduces 4 variants of Elf and then the ability to use monsters as races, so you can expect to see a Hill Giant Ranger sometime soon. These are examples, for me, that take a GM down a road that isn’t necessary to take them down, but especially not at the beginning of the guide. Put this type of thing near the end after you’ve provided them with a wealth of other things, like building dungeons, talking through magical items (very little in the book), etc.

The book also gets into energy pools for spell-casters and two explanations on opposing pages for dealing with counter spells that required me to re-read them a few times to get them straight in my head.

Where does this leave us?

All in all, it provides really good material for world building and customizing, but it ends up feeling like a reference guide that’s only of value for the experienced GM who has significant experience with C&C, and that’s where I have an issue. Rather than supporting the new GM, or even one who’s been doing it for a bit, with really solidifying their game, it feels more like a box of IKEA parts that has “lots of options” but not necessarily going to move you forward in what you want to build.

Ultimately, the contrast between how the Player’s Handbook was put together really bothers me and turns me off from being interested in getting a group together and giving it a shot. The Player’s Handbook is accessible to new comers, but the CKG is not. What’s worse, the CKG has very little to offer anyone who has a lot of experience with other games. A GMG, in my opinion, is an opportunity to provide some real flavour and sense of what makes your game stand apart and this doesn’t do it for me.

In really brief summary, I think that a Castle Keeper would be better off NOT buying this book until much later in them being used to the game, but they would buy it because they’d expect it to help them game master better. Given how many editions this has already been through, I would say that this just isn’t for me and that the audience it is for must like it.

UPDATED Sept 24, 2022 - I really appreciated the comments and emails I got about this, as well as the CastleKeeper’s Guide review. It prompted me to pick up Monsters & Treasures and have an improved view of the game.

UPDATED Feb 11, 2023 - Since originally reading this book, and posting the review, I’ve read a number of other systems (from Tiny Dungeons to Hyperborea to CRACK to PF2). In looking back at this book, and leafing through it again, I think there are a few tweaks that could make a real difference. The first is having a book, like a free one online, that is to help new Castle Keepers (aka GMs) understand the flow of play, how to handle encounters, etc. this is pretty standard fair in most other gaming systems and would really make C&C more complete.

The CKG, in looking back, really fits more with modern books that seek to provide the CK/GM with “advanced” topics, and a reorganizing of what content appears when in the book could really increase the immediate value to the CK. For example, putting World Building, Monsters, and Treasure at the front of the book would allow a CK who is reading it from cover to cover to immediately be getting value out of it. What the CKG misses most, if anything, is having defined the journey it wants to take the CK on - how is it going to bring value to the person who has decided that C&C is going to be THEIR game without having played another in the D&D family of variants.