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Thanks for checking on those PDF files.
I played Pathfinder last night and the characters were flying in the air, fighting devils and witches. One guy did something like 143 points of damage on a critical with his sword. I just don’t think I can convert my players to your system as much as I’d like to. The Codex rules are just so different from standard High Fantasy play (they are level 14). I can play with my son at least. Heck, I even enjoy solo battles. Maybe I can convince them to do a little side campaign or something. They are just used to being larger than life superheroes, mowing down enemies, taking on crazy monsters. I’ve always wanted to do something more gritty like your system. We’ll see what happens.
Hahahahaha. Yeah historical gaming is definitely not for everyone. I think most gamers really prefer the high fantasy and kind of power dynamics a little bit like superheroes. Codex is a pretty small niche historical gaming in general is a small niche. We are probably a lot closer to the OSR people I think.
I got bored with the super power kind of stuff when I was still a kid. When I was young we always customized our games and played a lot of different kinds of RPGs, all different kinds of settings and genres… from Call of Cthulhu to Paranoia, to our own custom post-apocalypse games based on road warrior. Played Twilight 2000 when I was in the military overseas in Germany that was almost too close to reality. But a lot of fun. The one thing we really didn’t do though was very high level or high fantasy.
I think there is a audience for this sort of lower fantasy, grittier type game. The original great fantasy novels were mostly low fantasy. Lord of the rings had the high fantasy story arc but the characters definitely were mortal and did not have super powers. Robert e Howard’s Conan in the early days, was just a thief. He was tough and resourceful but he didn’t fly. Fafhred and the Grey Mouser we’re highly skilled but they definitely lived in a world where they could die. And my favorite Jack Vance, was full of characters like Cugel the Clever who were very cunning and resourceful (and had an outstanding vocabulary) but by no means walked around feeling invulnerable.
Codex is manageable enough that you can survive combat if you make an effort. You may not be able to mow down armies of moocs all day but you can survive. Even though it’s a little more realistic it’s not quite as perilously random as Riddle of Steel and doesn’t take nearly as long or require as much arithmetic as Rollmaster or something like that. I’m sure you can find a group to play with but it might not be exactly the same group that’s doing the 15th level flying demon slaying games in 5e. You can have a little fun on a one-off day or board game night kind of thing just doing a few combats. Especially once you get really comfortable with the system. But for campaign you probably need a group that’s looking for something a little different.
Anyway let us know how it goes. We are still suffering from this insanely long internet outage, so this really puts an anchor around our neck when trying to solve some of these little problems. Still doing everything on the phone. But we should have something in place for the pre gen characters from Monsterberg within a day or two. When it is sorted out I will do an update to both of those titlesbon DriveThru and you should get a notice. I will also post something here on the forum.
Meanwhile I will be glad to continue to answer any questions you may have about the system or any of the supplements. Really appreciate your interest and always glad to discuss things like fencing, combat, game design etc.
You definitely have similar interests to me. I’ve loved Lord of the Rings since I was 12, fan of original Conan stories, read some of those Grey Mouser books, etc. Conan even got knocked unconscious from a sling (easy enough in Codex, critcal Bludgeoning 4 die attack, failed his save). Loved the more gritty stories in general. Some game systems are just too gritty, I remember Arms Law/ Claw Law with all these horrific injuries. I think your system has a nice balance where you can survive. I love capping the HP at 3x Con, it always bugged me a high level guy could be hit with dozens of arrows with no effect. AC always bugged me, too. I just wonder how your system could work on an ongoing campaign. I’d have to convince my players but I don’t want them to do something they aren’t into. Anyway, thanks for feedback!
I definitely think find the right group rather than trying to force the guys who don’t like the low fantasy or history into it. It might be some of your main group, it might be some other people or a new mix. Or maybe just you and your son like you said.
Codex combat system isn’t too hard to adapt to more generic fantasy settings, but historical gaming more broadly is another challenge. We are trying to provide a lot of resources for that but we are a small operation obviously. What we have so far is basically late medieval Europe with the assumption that a lot of the superstitions and mythology they believed in was real so we have a little bit of magic and some fairy tale beasts and so on. So effectively it’s more like low fantasy in a historical framework.
We should have a few more narratives here on the forum soon of people’s experiences running campaigns. The monsterberg campaign is a guideline for one way to do it, although it is of course possible to adapt codex to a variety of degrees. We are also releasing an OSR version along with another (low fantasy as opposed to historical) module which will be a little more simplified. We were planning to release that this year, and maybe we’ll make it although we’ve been delayed from our planned schedule about a month by this hurricane. Maybe by around November we might have something.
Hey Caldreas, for now you can use this link to download the pre-gen Characters for Monsterberg. We will come up with a more permanent solution soon, but in the meantime this should give you something to play with.
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1BzWJ6_xYWTMXnOAYCfJFnVjFljDKgUJ6
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