It is no secret that I love Castles & Crusades. Once in a while when the stars align, I even publish material for the game. It is my go-to FRPG of choice largely due to its lineage to D&D and rules light approach and ease of play that presents itself withing the pages of its books.
Needless to say, I am happy with it and while it's been a long road from that horrid 1st printing of the Player's Handbook, each printing bought massive improvements to the editing, layout, and just the overall look of the books. The most recent printing of the books have elevated Castles & Crusades to a higher level of publishing as well. The latest incarnations of the Players Handbook, Monsters & Treasure book, and the Castles Keepers Guide have an expanded page count and improved layout with a slightly bigger font (for our aging eyes). More importantly, each book are have beautiful, full color pages much like one expects to see in a top-shelf Paizo product or something from Wizards of the Coast.
An increasing fanbase helped bring this about, largely thanks to their continued success with Kickstarter as a platform to simply do more and produce something that they have always envisioned.
Now, this newest campaign is to reprint the Classic Monsters book for C&C. The first printing of the book was, interestingly enough, the first project that TLG funded via Kickstarter (and the first project I personally backed). It was good campaign and was backed by 166 backers and raised $9108 back towards the end of 2011. The book was a 144 page hardback with B/W interiors -- the same as all the other books in their line. If you want to read more about it, I have three posts about it HERE, HERE and HERE.
The present campaign has a modest goal of $3000 and is running in a shorter time frame than the usual project (12 days). The text will be cleaned up, inconsistencies, corrected, and that sort of thing. It should have NO problem funding but it's the stretch goals we should all concern ourselves with:
At $5000, the book is expanded to include 'Classic Treasure'
At $7000, the book is getting new cover art (the old art was very nice actually)
At $9000, there's a full color poster.
Ok... I don't care about the poster. It's nice to have but I understand what they are doing here by ramping up the goals. The next one is the big one and the one EVERYONE who loves the game and the book should care about:
At $12,000, the books goes full color.
Beyond that? Who knows. Honestly, I think the shorter campaign might mean that it won't go much higher than 12k and that is assuming it does go that high.
As for value, there is plenty here are the very start. $10 gets you a digital copy and $25 gets you a physical copy as well as a digital one. I expect those two pledge levels to do well enough given it's not a brand new book but a new printing. There is a $49 level that gets you all that the $25 level has to offer plus a nice T-Shirt and other goodies (including whatever they 'throw in' as the campaign moves). There are only two higher tiers... one at $99 which gives you an additional leather copy of the book and the upper tier at $125.
Both these tiers also include free domestic shipping but that $125 tier is the one that will be the 'best value' and if you know someone who might want to get into C&C or haven't gotten the new books, this is the one you should consider. At $125, not only do you get the Classic Monsters book but the PHB, M&T, and CKG as well! Those three books alone would retail $110 so I really think this is a great deal.
In any event, I highly suggest you check it out if you are remotely interested. This thing has barely just started but there is less than two weeks to go! You can find more info about the campaign HERE.
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