OP is a faggot.

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>>96615790
Reposting from /osrg/
An Anon has shared an awesome AzteCKS campaign report. Check it out!

ttps://mega.nz/file/id51UZqa#9pZoBcVtOF3vssbZ4kON2WN9XAbGvSi-TStiB9nKTxY

What's the point of this thread when ACKS fits in with OSR?
We've already got 2 OSR threads on the board, this just seems like an attempt to niche things to death.

>>96616232
ACKS discussion constantly spilled outside of both the OSR thread and into other threads, and after it was claimed that ACKS was very popular, someone asked why there isn't a dedicated thread.
I'm curious as to whether it will last and produce good discussion, devolve into lengthy arguments that are barely even related to ACKS itself, or fall off the board and quietly die.

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>TQ
I only played one ACKS campaign. It was short lived but quite memorable.
>Join an online campaign, dozen or so players total but usually 5-7 play in each session
>Standard Not!Dark Age England setting, old Not!Roman ruins and what not
>Roll the stats for a fighter, GM tells me that background/starting equipment is also random
>Roll up a gladiator
>Gladiators get bonuses to seducing the opposite sex
And so began the quest of Varus
>First adventure, the already established group pool their money for a barge and mercenaries to protect it
>We're going down an unexplored river and looting all the ruins on the way
>Explore an Ancient Elven monument that is protected by automatons we can only flee from
>Encounter werebears trying to keep a low profile who help us find treasure
>Delve into an ancient Crypt where giant lizards almost wipe the party, Varus heroically slams the door shut behind us as we haul ass out of there
>We sail back, our barge tragically half empty
>However we discover a green dragon's cave
>We figure "eh why the fuck not" and convince our company of mercenary archers to stand guard at the cave's mouth
>We sneak in and find it sleeping
>One of our mad lads jumps on its head, avoiding its deadly gas breath and getting a few high damage hits in
>However the gas still wafts up, killing him anyway
>The dragon spergs out and tries to flee, but our brave mercenaries help us in felling it
>We arrive back in port wealthy men
>Varus uses his seductive powers to gain a harem of female fighters to serve as meat shields
Unfortunately the GM had a melty that we killed a dragon "too early" and canned the whole campaign. But Varus and his harem lives on in my heart

>>96615790
GM here. It wasn't a high-level domain play session, but the one that cemented my group's love for the system. It was a 3rd-level party, just getting their feet wet.

They were tracking a beastman raiding party back to its lair, a system of sea caves. The climax was a fight against the chieftain on a narrow natural bridge over an underground river. The fight itself was a standard slugfest, but it was what happened after that made it.

The party's thief, a greedy little shit named Silas, decided he wasn't satisfied with the chieftain's loot. While the magic-user was identifying a sword they found, Silas announced he was swimming down into the submerged part of the cave to see what else was there. He failed his swimming check. Badly.

The current swept him into a dark tunnel. The rest of the party, hearing his shouts, had to choose: let him drown or go after him. They all jumped in. What followed was a brutal, skill-check heavy "dungeon" that was just a terrifying fight against the environment itself - navigating strong currents, avoiding underwater hazards, holding their breath. They lost two henchmen to drowning before they found an air pocket and a way out, washing up half-dead on a beach miles from their starting point.

It was a perfect ACKS moment. The player's greed created an emergent, unplanned adventure that tested their resources and ingenuity far more than the planned combat. The domain-level implications came later, when that beach they washed up on became the site for their first small keep, precisely because they now knew the "secret" water route to it. It felt earned. That session sold us on the whole "Adventurer -> Conqueror -> King" pipeline.

>>96615790
How viable is ACK for solo play?
I gave it a look and I want to play a wonder worker cult leader.

>>96616353
> be me, Dorin Stonehand, dwarven fighter, 7th level
>party finally has enough gold to start being proper conquerors
>find perfect valley, small villages, problem: one (1) poison wyvern
>this is fine, we are mighty heroes
>find its nest on a cliff, classic boss fight setup
>fight starts well, I've got aggro, everything is under control
>our wizard decides to be clever and cast Web to trap it
>flubs his rolls
>giant sticky web erupts behind the wyvern
>perfectly cuts off the rest of the party, leaving me alone with the pissed-off poison dinosaur
>wyvern immediately turns and stings me
>fail the save against poison
>HP goes from 100% to "dying" in one roll
>party freaks out, barely kills the wyvern, rushes to stabilize my paralyzed ass
>carry my rigid dwarf body back to our brand new, barely-started keep
>now the real problem: I'm not dead, but I'm not getting better
>need a high-level cleric or Stonehand is a permanent statue
>only one priest in the region who can do it: Bishop in the capital city, three weeks travel away
>he agrees to come, for a price: 15,000 gold pieces
>wipes out our entire domain treasury. years of adventuring loot, gone.
>villagers who were gonna swear fealty to us now look at us like the bankrupt idiots we are
>the quest to kill the wyvern and become lords turned into the bankruptcy of Stonehand's Folly
>had to go back to basic bitch adventuring, deep into a hated rival's territory, to recoup the losses
>all because the wizard fucked up a Web spell
10/10 would almost die again, ACKS makes consequences actually matter

>>96616381
I've been considering it myself, it'd work nicely with mythic most likely. Then again mythic is plug and play with anything.
>Cult leader
Oh yeah, definitely ACKS then, it's got rules for transcending to godhood through crazy cult worship.
Go for it anon, don't forget to post it in the solo thread.

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>>96616265
Welp, in that case, to christen this thread for its maiden voyage.
Have the fish story

>>96616409
>We're interested in talking about games here, not about dramafagging or the history of reddit or snarking over ecelebs and other public figures. Please keep discussion of that sort contained to other threads.

So, given ACKS has more of a focus on mass combat, domains, building power, ect, what traditional settings would work well with it?

I can easily imagine Birthright, Council of Wyrms and Darksun but are there any settings that'd play nicely with it?

My fondest session was the one where we learned the true meaning of "sandbox" and why you should always check for carrion worms.

I was part of a small party that had been cautiously exploring the foothills near a borderlands barony. We got a tip from a drunken trapper about an "abandoned" watchtower further up the mountain, supposedly untouched since a plague wiped out its garrison decades ago.

We found the tower easily enough. The place was a wreck, but it felt truly empty.We got complacent. We found the commander's quarters on the top floor and discovered his strongbox, still locked and heavy. Our thief made quick work of the lock, and we were dazzled by a small fortune in old silver coins and a few gems. We were already dividing the loot in our heads.

That's when our cleric, who had been suspiciously quiet, decided to cast Detect Evil. The entire lower floor of the tower lit up like a bonfire in his mind. We hadn't been alone. The "plague" that wiped out the garrison hadn't been a sickness at all. The bodies of the soldiers had been dragged into the cellars and consumed by a nest of Carrion Crawlers, which had been lurking just beneath the stone floors, waiting for us to lower our guard.

We were trapped. The only way out was down, through the main hall that was now a deathtrap. What followed was the most tense, tactical session I've ever played. We couldn't just fight our way out; there were too many. We used every trick we had: we barricaded doors, the magic-user used his last Sleep spell to take out a cluster of them blocking a corridor, my fighter and the dwarf formed a shield wall in a narrow passage while the thief looked for another way out. We ended up having to retreat back to the top of the tower and use our last rope to climb down the outside wall, pursued the whole way. We escaped but just barely.

That session was pure ACKS.

>game no one cares about
>the last time a general for it existed, it was during its kickstarter
>same thing happens when it has another kickstarter
Buy an ad.

Will ACKS 2e be competently formatted this time around? Perhaps a PDF with proper links and such?

The most memorable campaign I ever ran was the one where the players stopped being adventurers and became founders of a nation, entirely by accident.

The party, around 9th level after a year of play, had been clearing out a hex-crawl region known as the Serpent's Marches. Their initial goal was just to map the area and claim bounties on monstrous lairs. They'd cleared out a tribe of degenerate lizard-men from a ruined ziggurat and decided, almost on a whim, to use it as a temporary base. They hired some laborers from a nearby border town to fix up the outer walls.

A few sessions later, they routed a hobgoblin warband that was encroaching on the territory. They took prisoners. Instead of killing them, the party's cunning rogue, who had invested heavily in the Leadership proficiency, decided to offer the hobgoblins a choice: servitude or death. They chose servitude. Soon, the "temporary base" had a garrison of disciplined, if surly, hobgoblin soldiers.

The real turning point came when a group of refugees, fleeing a war in a neighboring kingdom, stumbled into their valley. The party, now seeing an opportunity, offered them protection and land to farm, in exchange for loyalty and a tithe. The refugees agreed. In the span of a few in-game months, the ruined ziggurat was the center of a burgeoning settlement: the lizard-man ruins were cleared, the hobgoblins patrolled the borders, and the refugees tilled the fields.

The fondest session was the one where the players, looking at their hex map, realized they were no longer just clearing dungeons. They were collecting taxes, settling disputes between farmers and hobgoblins, and negotiating trade agreements with the distant border town. They had organically grown a domain from the ground up. They weren't following a module's plot about becoming kings; they had simply responded to the situations the sandbox presented, and the system's rules supported that evolution every step of the way.

>>96616353
>>96616457
>>96616482
>chatgpt, write me an ACKS story
>make sure to round it out by talking really faggy about how the system "just works" like that

>>96616501
Even the greentext was fucking AI. I wonder why he didn't make the rest of them greentexts.

>>96616265
>or fall off the board and quietly die.
Or be bumped every few hours to linger on this board, just like the corpse of the /osrg/.
The ACKShill wrote 200 pages to try a make his efforts to shill this game seem legitimate. I think we can expect him to put in the effort to keep this thread bumped.

>>96616423
>Darksun
Fuck that makes a lot of sense actually.
Also classic middle earth would work perfectly too or Elric of melnibone.
>>96616505
Damnit so this really is just a shill thread by the devs?

>>96616533
Judging by this thread there's a good chance those 200 pages are AI Generated

>>96616533
I think he's more likely to let the thread die or argue with himself for 300 posts in a row. If it stays up but dead, or it's literally just meta discussion, then everyone will just point to it and say "Look how dead this game is"

>>96616551
>Damnit so this really is just a shill thread by the devs?
Call me uncharitable but I imagine AI chatbots aren't trained in greentext.

>>96616564
You're incorrect >>96616505

>Faggots ree and kvetch about how ACKS is all over the board, a-bloo-bloo-bloo, why must they persecute me so by talking about things that trigger my autism
>"Fine, guess we'll make our own thread to get away from you retards."
>Immediately follow into the new thread and start acting like subhumans
I'd like it noted, failure or success, these chucklefucks aren't planning to leave you alone just because you try to leave them alone OP.
That's not how these "people" work

>>96616582
I don't need to be left alone nor did I ask to be. I asked to discuss the game. Why aren't you?

>>96616578
Ah yes, how could I have possibly missed that.
The 4chan greentext trained AI detection bot.

In fact, let me just try something

>>96616586
I'm just noting it for the record.

>>96616588
Also, well fuck me, it didn't detect my greentext as AI generated.

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>>96616505
Given my green text didn't show up as AI generated I decided to double check the one you posted.
And Jesus fuck you're such a perfidious little faggot, holy shit.

>>96616588
>>96616604
This level of lying is something else considering we have evidence right here >>96616505
And anyone can go ask chat GPT to generate a greentext and get a response.

>>96616635
>"Double check"
>Uses some other random site
Nah sorry, you lied.

>>96616635
>>96616604
>>96616588
>>96616582
>>96616564
There's our ACKShill! Here to seethe and deny reality again. Maybe try claude or deepseek next time.

>>96616604
>I'm just noting it for the record.
That what, autism can't be stopped with reason? You've shown that well enough by shitting up the thread and refusing to discuss games despite my polite request not to.

>>96616513
I figured out why.

Look at the first line of this post >>96616385
There's a space between the > and "be". The reason for that, is that AI sites tend to fuck up greentexts and will format them with a line instead of an arrow. So you'll often have to manually delete a bunch of spaces and add an arrow to the start of every post.
This is slower than just generating text walls, so he immediately quit doing it after his first greentext. Too much work for the shill.
You could probably narrow down what models he could have used by referencing which AIs fuck it up.

>>96616692
Know what, you're right.

Has anyone else ever used the guns of War splatbook and if so how did it pop up in your games? I've not gotten as far as using cannons yet but muskets have been a rather refreshing twist to throw on my fantasy settings.

lmao fish is making a false flag to make it seem like there was an AKS brigade.

>>96616859
How could you brigade an ACKS thread with ACKS???

>>96615790
>What was the fondest session you've ever played or ran in ACKS?
It must have been our Ravenloft campaign, in particular that session when Strahd summoned invisible, hastened, 12 headed hydra. It fucked us up but it also died in a single turn.
Lots of fun stuff in that campaign
>killing literally 100 gypsies inside of the church
>fighting coven of hags with 23 AC
>30 wights with pc levels led by Strahds son
>abusing combat manevours to kick zombies down the stairs, tripping the ones behind them, then overruning them and stomping them into the ground.

>>96616958
Come to think of it a Ravenloft game of Dreadlord domains, aka: 'I can't believe I'm stuck in this place with you assholes, clearly I'm the only one who doesn't deserve to be here' could be very entertaining.

Just started my ACKS campaign
>made a 6-mile subhex with that worksheet
>kinda arid forest region
>made an ancient tomb (~20 rooms), an ancient underground city (~250 rooms but only done 50 so far), and a tower (~20 rooms)
>they went for the tower first where harpies were rumored to live
>snuck in
>one PC got paralyzed by centipedes so was allowed to play a new character from town that they went to get to try to heal her (didn't work, but now they had an excuse for a new PC)
>the explorer used the hide in foliage ability to great effect multiple times
>they went down below, killed some dire rats
>found a sleeping orc, killed it
>heard more orcs coming back
>somehow convinced them the harpies killed him
>orcs agreed to fight the harpies with them
>they fought 3 harpies with 4 PCs and 3 orcs
>2 orcs died and all 3 harpies were killed
>surviving orc took a share of the treasure
>PCs went back to town
I'm doing a "1 week in-game between sessions" rule so people have time to heal. I am not gonna be able to do 1-to-1 time because peoples schedules are too infrequent. Running it again this weekend. I like ACKS but I wish it was just a B/X clone with extra rules for ship warfare and trading and kingdom building piled on top of it. I don't like the extra classes much. We have a mage, a ruinguard, a shaman, a bladedancer, and an explorer currently. It's fine but I'd just as soon have the basic four plus 1 or maybe 2 classes per demihuman race. And stuff like weapon tricks you can spend gold to be trained in and stuff.

>>96616088
fpbp

>>96616232
if you think about it the things that are marketed as ACKS strong side have nothing to do with how D&D was played in the first decade, so, no, the foundation is a retroclone sure
but it got so much shit bolted on top it's just its own thang

>>96616986
Building on this thought:
>Players get to start as either a HD 14 monster or Level 14 class
>They must be Chaotic
>They each get to design their realm
>Each has their own secret win condition that's woven into their backstory
>As well as an unofficial public one in that there are rumours you can escape by eating the heart of another Dread Lord (Which is bullshit but people believe it)
>Basically a game of intrigue and fucking each other over while scheming away
>Use abstract rules for heroic parties that rise and can be manipulated or otherwise act against the PCs
Could actually be pretty fun.

What's been done better, the improvements to the thief or the improvements to the fighter?
On the one hand, cleave. On the other hand, shadow sight.

The numbers for cannons doing fortress reduction in the gun supplement don't seem quite right. The rate of fire seems way too fucking low for the smaller varieties. I know with the large Ottoman cannons they had to do a bunch of maintenance between shots but I don't think that applies to Falconets for example.

>>96617496
Fighter. Thief is still somewhat useless (unless played by real commando minded player)
>>96617579
Nope, you still need to clean these. Its just faster since they are smaller.

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>>96617642
There's a difference between the ol' sponge stick and draping the entire thing in wet hide to keep it from melting. One takes a minute, tops.

Why then does a 12 pounder cannon fire only 90 times each day? Even assuming an 8-hour siege day where everyone stops sieging after 5:00 pm that's still only one shot every five minutes. For earlier cannons this makes sense, but for anything later it is rather slow.
The book does say:
>Note that the ROFs of the artillery pieces presented on the Gunpowder Artillery Characteristics table are often slightly better than the ROFs calculated with this formula. This represents the fact that highly standard artillery pieces should have optimized their rates of fire through years of minor improvements and crew training
That "minor improvement and crew training" should really be putting the ROF at 90 seconds with the "adjusted" 5 minute value as the standard.

>>96616457
>>96616482
>>96616353
>formatting
>namedrop system in a google-indexable friendly way
>no whimsy or originality
If these aren't ads then it's even more sad, they make the game sound philosophically like pbta shit, where you just roll the story on a shitty table.

>>96617175
Sounds fun, but how would you keep up the fog of war and resolve combats between only a couple of players if everyone is sitting at the table?

>>96619280
the old school way would be note-passing but I could see that getting old fast

ACKS is easily the best iteration of B/X.
Sadly it lacks all the best aspects of ADnD 1e.
That new elf-book seems like it's going to contain even more pointless sub-systems.

I really appreciate ACKS, I own most of 1st edition and the Kickstarter books for 2e. Getting my treasure tome soon.
It does have problems.

>>96618682
there were a bunch of posts pointing out the "play reports" were AI-generated en mass apart from the first one
Apparently OP aka fishfag-fag aka ackshill aka acksfag mass reported those and for some mysterious reason jannies agreed and deleted the posts with screenshots showing AI-scanners as evidence [but not the AI-generated posts themselves]

for example
https://archive.4plebs.org/tg/thread/96615790/#96617201

How would you guys handle intelligibility between magic types? Is there maybe something in the JJ I have overlooked?
Specifically, I have a witch player and I'm thinking about letting him learn spells from arcane scrolls, probably with an additional week necessary for translating the spell to the divine type, as long as the spell is on both lists, similar to how ceremonial magic users and spellcasters need translation between each other in the HFH.
Spells not on the divine list would still need spell research, of course.

>>96620704
>How would you guys handle intelligibility between magic types?
I simply don't allow it. The player can stick to his class. No need to bend the rules or make adjustments.
He can sell the arcane scroll to a Mage and spend the gold on the correct scroll type.

>>96619987
>fishfag-fag aka ackshill aka acksfag
You know fishfag got really desperate when he started trying to claim that "fishfag" means someone who like ACKS.

>>96620844
Oh right, made me look again, and I found there are prices for spell formulas in the city section in the JJ. Guess it makes more sense for him to go look for a swamp witch and pay her in monster parts or gold, anyway.

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>>96619987
>Be (You)
>Be fishfag.
>Been trolling /osrg/ and trying to topic-shift it for years without success.
>Hate ACKS because of /pol/ bullshit.
>Have an AI write a few false flag ACKS play reports so you can accuse ACKS fans of not really playing but only using AI to write play reports.
>Run an AI detector on the AI content (You) generated.
>Report the content (You) generated with AI as AI-generate.
>I-got-them-this-time.exe
>Nobody gives a shit because most Anons can recognise you at this point and nobody takes (You) seriously anymore.
>Get desperate.
>New tactic: Deploy your classic "no u" retort to create confusion around the nickname (You)'ve earned by trying to attribute it to everybody else.

>>96616457
So the carrion crawlers were just living there for decades somehow after eating all the guys?
>>96616482
So the hobgoblins just continued serving the party after getting their weapons back?

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>>96621121
>So the hobgoblins just continued serving the party after getting their weapons back?
Given the choice between potentially death at the hands of someone who already rolled you once or a pay cheque, which would you choose?
Besides, Hobgoblins normal gimmick is being the most disciplined of the Thuglyfers.

Also, an interesting thought experiment.
The new bonded weapons from Treasure Trove gain XP by siphoning life force (which can also be harvested for use in magic items/spells/ect) out of slain enemies.
This life force can be directly translated into divine power points.
Which are behind the mechanics for ascending to divinity.

Based on these facts:
1: Is it finally possible to play Elric.
2: Could an intelligent magic weapon become a god and how completely fucking sick would it be to build an entire setting off this concept?

>>96616672
>acksshill in an acks thread
What's the problem?
Isn't this the place he should be?

Why and how did ACKS go from attack matrices to something even more finicky?
It's not like they had the excuse of being scared of legal actions like earlier retro clones did

>>96620993
>>96621059
No-no, you don't understand dudes.
He started claiming that's a nickname for AztecGM in September 2025
https://archive.4plebs.org/tg/thread/96526070/#96538573
When he was first called it in March 2024
https://archive.4plebs.org/tg/thread/95551347/#95571998
And as we all know September 2025 comes before March 2024.
Or maybe the ACKStec guy has a time machine, who knows what kind of crazy shit Fishfag believes in by this point.

Tinkering with a custom fantasy setting and been recommended to try out ACKS for it, since I wanted a more grounded feel for it. I heard there were rules for class creation. How easy would it before a new GM to use them? I've already cooked up the races I got in mind so I didn't want to cut any.

>>96621285
ACKS is probably one of the worst designed systems. The only thing holding it together at all is that is largely a copy of B/X, which is a system proven to function.

The problem really is just every single change and addition that ACKS introduces.

It's basically the system equivalent of taking a car and inexplicably passing it off to a mason, who proceeds to just start adding bricks to it.

>>96621328
I picked them up pretty quickly when I gave it a shot.
What races have you got in mind?

>>96620993
>>96621059
>>96621291
I think I'm starting to believe excessive masturbation causes vision loss
How else could it be explained that 3 supposedly separate anons read
>fishfag
Instead of what was written
>fishfag-fag
Oh wait... I know it could be explained by that being a single samefag!
L M A O
L
M
A
O
way to out your samefagging fishfag-fag

>>96619987
>for some mysterious reason jannies agreed and deleted the posts
Huh, wouldn't peg them as pro-ACKS
>>96621285
>It's not like they had the excuse of being scared of legal actions like earlier retro clones did
On a semi-related, copyright, note: What's the legal situation if I want to plagiarise and distribute fish tables in my shitty homebrew?

>>96621404
>plagiarise and distribute fish tables in my shitty homebrew?
Well that would make a certain poster deeply upset and a bit salty.
Don't forget to include Deep Ones

>>96621059
>it's actually a false flag
>only I tried to deny those are ai
>and I mass reported those that accused ai generation
>but not the posts that defended the ai generated post or those ai generated
l e l
lol even
No one is buying that

>>96621335
Anon, it is based on Adnd..

>>96621356
The ones not already found in the SRD are....
>Illuminated: humans blessed by the goddess of knowledge, with paper skin they use to record their life. Their classes will consist of Grimoires, a Mystic Theurge-type, and Treatises, classical spellswords.
>Goblins: domesticated pests that made up the first of the old Draconic Empire's subjects. Very family-oriented. Considering adapting Explorers and Bards for them.
>Hobgoblins: Taller, redskinned goblinoids that have an extremely martial cultural based around their former role as enforcers for the draconic empire. Considering giving these guys their own variants of fighters and an alchemist class.
>Pecorids: Humanoid sheep that most-often live in religious communities akin to monasteries. They would have monks as a martial class and a variant of clerics that are less-focused on melee combat in exchange for abilites themed around their god.
>Squirlek: bushy-tailed rodentfolk who live in tree-tops and invented cutting-edge technology like a rope-and-pulley elevator and the crossbow. This is where I adapt B/X Halfling along with maybe some sort of druid class except the wildshaping is replaced with some swarmkeeper ability.

I've been tinkering with more races in the future, but these (along with elves) are the only ones I'm really set on as of right now.

>>96621582
My advice in that case? Don't be afraid to do custom races either, looks like you've got a good line up and the custom race rules are basically the same as the custom class rules, so you can easily build one onto the other.

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Do any non-ai anons have experience with domain play? It sounds fun but from what I can tell it just seems like a lot of paperwork for the DM

>>96621464
NTA. No, ACKS is based on B/X.

>>96621006
Chad decision Anon.

>>96621464
Also NTA, It isn't based on Adnd.
It doesn't have side based initiative and I'd describe that as they key difference.
Also Alexander Macris has said it's not based on Adnd so there is that.

>>96621464
>>96621761
>>96622647
It's obvious it's based on B/X and not on AD&D to anybody who isn't a complete retard.
- Level 14 character cap.
- Level 6 spell cap. (Nominally level 7/8/9 rituals don't count, they're treated like creating a magic item.)
- d4/d6/d8 HD.
- 9 HD cap for all classes.
- Fighter to-hit bonus scales as +2 every three levels.
- XP progressions match those of B/X, not those of AD&D.
- Monsters have individual Morale scores.
- Weapons deal the same damage against monsters independently of size.
- No segments.
- Surprise lasts one whole round.
- No casting time for spells.
- No VSM components for spells.
- No gold cost for levelling up.
- Travelling movement rates match those of B/X, not those of AD&D.
- No monthly disease and parasite checks.
- No taking multiple classes for humans.
- No psionics.
I could easily list another twenty if not fifty.

>>96621680
Oh, are humanoid classes mechanically different from human classes in some way? I've only skimmed through the system so far.

>>96626238
Do you mean demi-human classes? Yes, they are.

>>96621752
It's a bit of that at the start when you need to calculate the population, the income and the expenses. After that it's pretty easy actually: If you don't want to roll encounters each week, use the periodic table in the JJ. Only thing you need to do from there is to roll for the liege's tasks (if your players are vassals) at the start of the month and the domain morale at the end.

On that topic, the liege favors table is kind of interesting as an oracle: If your guy gets a call to arms it's to be assumed that some war or chaotic incursion is going on somewhere else, for example. I like it and it is useful with other systems.

>For the DM
IMO players should be in charge of keeping their own domains in order same way they ought to keep their inventory updated. As a GM your main concern should be vassal and monster domains, if they exist.

>>96626238
Essentially they get extra powers at the cost of a lower level cap and more XP.

NGL the AI shit really turned me down from participating in this general.

why should i play ACKS over other OSR games

>>96627691
because you like feats

>>96627691
ACKS 2e is player friendly, easy to read.
The 3d6 class backgrounds easily help the players grasp an identity for their character.

Most every optional tool or rule you could need is worked out in the Judges Journal and Revised Rulebook.
Very easy to bolt on when you need it.
The class maker is superb.

I don't like the trade economy or how Macris sets up campaign worlds.
You just need 3 hexes to start playing.

adnd 1e is the better game but if you want a B/X clone then go for ACKS.

>>96627809
The proficiencies ("feats") are an extension of the secondary skills in ad&d 1e. They remove the need for rulings from the DM on a lot of issues.

>>96626238
Yeah, it's one of the best things about ACKS imho.
Basically it uses race-as-classes, rather than race as class. Each demi-human race is a sort of chassis that you then modify to create classes.
So all dwarves are strong, hardy, detect stone, ect, ect, these are the universal traits of the dwarves.
But they've then got unique cultural classes that are mechanically distinct from the human equivalents.
A dwarven fighter isn't a fighter, they're a vaultguard, or a berserker, and both play different to a human fighter.
An elvish thief isn't just a human thief reskinned, they're an entirely distinct class, the nightblade.

It's such a clever way of doing things and one of the ones I respect most about ACKS since it bypasses both 'Every member of non-human races is a stereotype' and 'Every non-human character is just a human with pointy ears/green skin/a beard'

>>96627680
Call me a conspiracy theorist if you like but given ACKS has its own resident troll who immediately teleported into the thread having decided to AI scan on a supposed jolly?
Personally I think that was the intention.

I've recently started an ACKS II campaign where my group has to track down a rebel instigator deep in the forest, but none of the characters that my players rolled up have any proficiences relevant to tracking or wilderness exploration. Do they need an Explorer hireling or something of the like to succeed, or can they traverse the wilds well enough on their own? Anyone with experience willing to chime in?

>>96628049
Traversing is possible, but tracking and actual exploration will be more difficult for them.
Don't be afraid to have their boss go 'By the way, here's our resident tracker, who'll be helping you' and give them a level 0 Henchman with tracking and wilderness exploration.
Throw some flavour on them and keep in mind they're loyal to the big boss not the players and that's fine, PCs aren't the only ones who can be proactive after all and the local lord is hiring them to be strongarms more than anything.

>>96628064
>Don't be afraid to have their boss go 'By the way, here's our resident tracker, who'll be helping you' and give them a level 0 Henchman with tracking and wilderness exploration.
This is WotC-tier retardery. It's not the DM's job to make sure that the players succeed, it's for the players to figure out that they need a tracker.

>>96628049
>Do they need an Explorer hireling or something of the like to succeed, or can they traverse the wilds well enough on their own?
You and the players will find out by playing.

>>96628621
>NPCs have to all sit there eating lead paint chips while the PCs do everything.
1: A living world is a virtue rather than a vice
2: Why wouldn't someone that wants a bunch of people tracked down help those he's hired along by providing a tracker? What do your NPCs do, just go 'Go do the thing' "Can you give us a bit more detail on that?" 'What are you stupid, I said go do the thing.'
3: Stop being retarded

>>96628866
Yours are just narrativist excuses to justify hand-holding your players and curating their experience by managing their odds of success to a level you find acceptable.

>>96629407
>Narrativist excuses
Alright so you are actually Jenkum huffing retarded then. Carry on.

>>96616423
wake me up when we get full psionics classes

>>96616501
>he plays a system that dosent 'just work'
>laughs in ACKS and 13th age

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>>96615790
>ACKS general
... why?

>>96621232
The problem is that this thread exists. On what purpose? This game was already talked and dissected to death FOR YEARS and nobody actually plays it for the simple fact it's a terrible early 10s OSR heartbreaker (and its mechanics don't work).
What's there to discuss at this point? We literally been over this game and had to endure it in every single random thread the shill showed up

You should call this fish general

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>>96629781
>seething

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>>96629814

>domain play against the city of gay fishmen in ACKS
fishfag conversion therapy singing gay ass little mermaid songs

>>96629781
There's tons of threads for games I don't like as well, but I'm not gonna go into those threads to shit on them for liking them

>>96629781
Two years ago it got banned from Reddit for its discord shilling during a kickstarter, so they have no where else to go in order to shill whenever they have a kickstarter.

4chan: The Dumping Ground for Reddit's Rejects™.

>>96629407
Nta but calm the fuck down dude: In the AD&D DMG there's an example with the party being led to the dungeon by a local. If your players are inexperienced there's nothing wrong with throwing them a bone, tho parties already used to pure sandboxes should be wise enough to seek henchmen themselves.

It's a matter of balance, like most things.
>>96629781
Wdym? I am playing in a campaign right now and it's quite fun: We had mass combat last week, a siege assault. The town's garrison was massacred.

>>96630209
>an example with the party being led to the dungeon by a local
In that case the adventure is dungeon delving, and the guide bypasses what is potentially a spurious distraction.

In this case:
>track down a rebel instigator deep in the forest
exploration IS the adventure, and OP immediately proceeds to solve the problem of exploration for his players only because he's afraid they might fail.

Failure is as engaging an outcome as success, you just have to open your mind to it. What does take all fun out of the game is the DM going, in one breath:
>"Here's the quest (track down a rebel instigator deep in the forest) and here's hope to solve it (hire an explorer). What do you do?"
Players:
>"We hire an explorer."
Wow. So engaging.

>>96630553
>>"Here's the quest (track down a rebel instigator deep in the forest) and here's *HOW* to solve it (hire an explorer). What do you do?"
t. phonefag

>>96630553
>>96630562
The players could have one guy roll an explorer for their character stables and bring him instead.
No matter what thread they currently pull on don't make a mountain out of a grain of sand.

>>96629781
Why are you so mad about other people talking about a game in its own general?

>>96630817
He's been spending hours every day on his personal jihad against ACKS for at least a couple years now. It's a mental case.

>>96630086
Based, I was against the shill until your post.
>>96630553
>exploration IS the adventure
And PCs don't have tracking skills... so either the adventure is not theirs to go on, or the adventure was an escort mission for a tracker hireling all along and you misread the situation.

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>>96631079
The Judge can even let one player run two characters for a while

>>96631095
Falls under
>the adventure is not theirs to go on

>>96631127
Any player can swap out his current player character for an explorer character and then switch between the two going forwards. It's a sandbox not a book.
If that concept is tricky for them, allow them an opportunity to trial run it.

>>96631079
Only shills ever say anything positive about Acks. Only shills even could.

>>96631139
>Any player can
Can being the operative word in a sandbox, otherwise it's, as you said, a book. They can also hire npcs and don't play as them if they'd rather, and they can also ask for directions from other npcs too, which would reasonably tell a bunch of non-trackers to hire one if prompted (or even if not, people love giving advice).
>>96631157
Then >>96630086 must be the biggest shill in the thread, I've never seen higher praise for this fish salesmen simulation system than saying it was banned from reddit.

>>96631079
>And PCs don't have tracking skills
Strictly speaking, they don't need specific tracking skills, they only make the mission easier. Either way, they'll have to figure out how to deal with the fact that they don't have tracking skills, which is the whole point of the game.

>>96630086
>Two years ago it got banned from Reddit
Based if true.

>>96631406
>which is the whole point of the game.
It's a sandbox, there's no "whole point". One of the ways they can deal with it is to ask npcs, but I don't think it's much of a stretch for an npc to look at them and say "you need a tracker to track and a tracker needs your brawn to survive". If the players want to be the sole detainers of initiative and hate proactive npcs I guess exalted would be a better system.

>>96631449
>It's a sandbox
Not if you hand-feed them both the quest and the solution to the quest.

>exalted
FOEGYG

>>96631474
>the solution to the quest.
>"the"
>not "a"
That's not sandbox anon, the npcs having more than 90 IQ have nothing to do with it not being sandbox. Also, if the entire quest is solved by hiring a tracker then it is a shitty quest, better to be spoonfed the solution and jump to the next one hoping it had more effort put into it. I assume in the scenario described they'd still have to go through the wilds, fighting the local fauna (and maybe flora) to cut through shortcuts and reach the fugitive in time for a dramatic final showdown where failure means the freedom of their enemies. That's way more stuff to solve than "hire tracker, roll d20 until it tracks".
>FOEGYG
Kek, to each their own.

>>96631474
>hand-feed them both the quest and the solution to the quest.
>FOEGYG
lmao

>NPC knows something players don't about the thing they're offering to pay them for doing
>'Hm, better not help them too much, they might succeed too easily then.'
Actual retard logic. Friendly NPCs should offer all the aid they can unless they have reason not to.
It's just there should be more going on in the quest than they themselves know to keep things spicy.
'Go track down these bandits, here's someone who knows the local woodland' followed by going and finding the bandits without any issues is, I think we can all agree, kind of boring.
'Go track down these bandits, here's someone who knows the local woodland' followed by it turning out the bandits have camped out in an old monastery to Ahmahdik, Chaotic god of dirty fighting and awakened an undead master of their dark kung fu techniques, with those who pledged loyalty being brought in as cultists and those who tried to run imprisoned inside as living training dummies, all of which is shit no one could know or prepare for? That's how you keep it from being too easy without relying on 'Well the NPC is an asshole who hands you a burlap sack and sends you on your way with a pat on the ass when you ask for some more details.'

>>96629896
There is a difference between having threads for games and a situation where you first deliberately astro-turf hatedom for your game of choice and then make a general for it. Which is why I'm asking - what's even the point?

>>96630086
>reddit has higher posting standards than /tg/
I honestly don't know how to feel about it

>>96630209
... so you basically had the game play itself?
What's fun about that? And I don't mean automated outcomes (since that's not even the case in ACKS), but the concept of the game playing itself. Where is the engaging part of it that? 100% serious question

>>96630817
Since when asking why making a general for a game already talked to death is seething?

>>96633006
>so you basically had the game play itself?

What? No. Some players took the role of attackers while others played as the town's militia. I don't get what you mean by playing itself.

That aside, while there are genuine reasons for disliking ACKS, across this thread you have a weird fixation of stopping discussion about it which I find unnecesary and childlish: You are not a janny and some actually like the system and if anything, if you are bothered by shilling, a general is the right place to keep discussion contained. I assume you don't harass the 5e or the GURPS general complaining about the game being talked to death already, do you?

>>96631908
Again, IMO it should depend on the experience of the players: While I agree that a quest that is solved in one step makes for a poor adventure, if your group is already familiar with the format expecting them to actually bother and check if there's a tracker or a local that can help should be an standard procedure. Same with stuff like rations or (more important in ACKS) water; a first time group might be given the grace of informing them about how you can't just relly solely on rations.

Talking about my own group, they picked up the need of planning expeditions and securing resources pretty quickly after the 1st dungeon.

>>96634648
>I assume you don't harass the 5e or the GURPS general complaining about the game being talked to death already
The difference is those games are popular.

>>96634668
>IMO it should depend on the experience of the players
I disagree, politely mind you, I view this as external to the players, it comes under the preview of 'Building a realistic world'.
Keep in mind you can easily have an NPC that doesn't have access to a tracker asking them for help, which solves the problem as well, or have their resources be elsewhere, but unless the NPC is powerful, busy or arrogant, having them just go 'Nah, here's what you're getting, don't let the door leave a bruise on the way out, shithead.' feels video game-ish imho.
It turns them from a living, breathing character to be interacted with into a quest dispenser and that, fundamentally, is worse than the alternative of players occasionally getting bits of info or suggestions (Some of them can even be wrong for extra fun).

>>96634716
>The difference is those games are popular.
And? Popularity is now a metric on what topics are allowed? Are you really trying to play wannabe janny here? While I would rather discuss ACKS on the OSR general, if you don't like it simply hide the thread, anon. No one forces you to be here or try and stop people from talking about it.

>>96634730
>it comes under the preview of 'Building a realistic world'.

Yeah I get your overall point, and I guess that in situations like these reaction rolls come to bear the most: It's reasonable to assume that in a 9+ the quest giver would offer some advice in regards to trackers on the area or general indications about the adventure location, while 12+ might outright give a temporal henchmen to the characters for free, if they would have him, or more reasonably rations and water.

I am not against NPCs being proactive, mind you: My point was more about breaking the 4th wall a little and warning the players about things that should be obvious in-universe: You can't just explore dense woodland without the skills necessary to survive in it, or at leats you can't expect good odds.

>>96634738
>And? Popularity is now a metric on what topics are allowed?
Yes? Are you under the impression that something being unpopular, not held in good regard, and not to most tastes makes it a good topic to throw around 24/7? People will naturally tolerate it less if it's less popular.
>Are you really trying to play wannabe janny here?
I'm not the guy you were talking to, I'm just pointing out why there's a difference in standards.

>>96634738
>Are you really trying to play wannabe janny here?
Given his great authority to call upon in times of desperate need is 'B-but reddit jannies don't like it :('?
I think he's well past playing wannabe janny.
Though that's being charitable and assuming he's sincerely just a bootlicker rather than a devious little bastard that's up to something.

Frankly I agree, ACKS should and is part of /osrg/
But if this thread is here then hey, so be it.

>>96634756
>>96634738
Samefagging now? Wew lad. This thread really is just one autist's pet project.

How do you guys handle worldbuilding? Do you follow the JJ procedures? Did it recently and got a nice borderlands-type map, but next I plan to make something more akin to the 11th century Iberian wasteland, a sort of wild west between two rival powers constantly at war.

>>96634750
Oh yeah, it definitely all has to be in character information and things the NPC would know. Definitely no OOC nudges unless they're real newbies or it's something that the adventuring proficiency would cover.
In that case, we're pretty much agreeing.

>>96634759
Give him a minute, he has to samefag some more to make the thread look alive.

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>>96634759
Dude what the fuck is wrong with you, why are a you so obsessed?

>>96634767
It's one of the things I am not sure about in ACKS desu: I understand why the leeway that AD&D had needed some constrains, but at the same time the reliance on proficiencies made it so level 1 parties need certain character types to be viable or at least to not have a hellish time with some situations. It defeats a bit the random element in character creation.

>>96634829
Why did you take a picture from your phone as if it proves anything? It makes you look more deceptive, not less.

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Do not feed the scrag. Stay on topic.

>>96634843
It depends on the kind of job early level characters are going on really.
Tracking is a chance of automatic success, but players can still go 'My character isn't retarded and has eyes, can I see anywhere where 20 dudes and a wagon might've come through?' or go hex exploring without the mapping proficiency.
That and henchmen are always an option, even a 0th level dude who has the tracking proficiency can be hired, handed a sack of gold and a spear and told 'You're going to be our Benny'

Personally I rather like that characters can't do everything themselves, it gives them a bit of a nudge towards the idea of soft power, making friends, hiring others, ect, rather than being the self-contained Ubermensch of 5e.

>>96634845
He's a retarded shill who thinks people don't know what inspect element is (putting aside that taking as zoomed in a picture as possible doesn't even rule out photo editing)
Notice how he also checks in every 20-30 minutes.