Mini Review - Crusader # 25 (Castles & Crusades)

Sometimes you need to take a break.  Sometimes you need a reboot.  Crusader #25 seems to be both.  Long time readers of this blog should remember my previous posts of the Crusader Magazine under the auspices of James Ward.  I was far from kind.

Move ahead to now, and I am very suprised.  This is most certainly not the Crusader that I learned to louth and, lets face it, you probably felt the same with those issues too.

This is a new magazine.

Forget the News & Culture section.  Interesting, but all of the articles are dated.

The Gen Con article?  It's alright.

Dropping Into Adventure: An Unorthodox Approach to Beginning a Dungeon Crawl - my God!  A real article in an issue of Crusader!  It's decent too.

Movie, game and book reviews.  Eh, nothing special.

New Class for C&C:  The Pankratiast - A Western Monk.  This isn't the Crusader I knew and hated.  This is a real resource.  This is also a decent class.

A Stairway to the Gods.  An honest to God adventure.  In Crusader.  What is the world coming to?

Historical Footnotes.  Classic armor and weapons for Mesopotamia.  Nice illustrations.  Useful article.  In Crusader.  I'm still stunned.

There's some other stuff: fiction, a deity write up, new magic items, comics...

Useful, interesting, well written, articles that aren't just advertisements for the C&C product line... Crusader 25 is a keeper in my book.

Just End the Crusade(r) Already!

I really wish Troll Lord Games would put the Crusader Magazine / House Organ to bed already.  Issue #22, which came out last December, even caused me to rant about it.  I'll try to avoid the ranting this time.

Where shall I start?  Perhaps the misguided attempt to take the magazine monthly?  As the current issue is #24, that obviously was an impossible target.  The funny thing is, the current issue feels as much filler as the last dozen have.

One improvement with the current issue is moving away from stapled binding to a glued binding.  The cover is by Peter Bradley, and I generally like his work.  It's nice and subdued this issue.  It's also less cluttered with the table on contents inside, where it belongs.  I'd link it, but I cant seem to find it on the Troll Lord's site (edit:  found it, obviously).

Physically, the magazine is much improved.  It's the filler I can't stand.  What I want from Crusader, and what I haven't seen since it's earliest issues, is alternate rules for use with Castles & Crusades, a small adventure, creatures or magic items that ARE NOT ANOTHER SAMPLE from a soon to be released item.  The last item is the worst of all fillers.  I'm paying for something I'm expected to pay for again?  Besides, it was already written, so it's just being thrown in as filler.

I guess this is an anti-filler rant without trying.

I look at an average issue of Signs & Portents from Mongoose, which is 100% house organ, and I find more that I could use in a C&C game at my table then I do in Crusader.

Issue 24 was a bit of a surprise when it arrived, as I thought my sub had run out.  I suspect with this issue, it has.

At least there wasn't the usual guilt trip to try to raise subscriber numbers that Ward had been giving to his readers.  That crap still has a bad taste in my mouth.

I really want to like the Crusader, but I can't.  Even at $3.99 an issue it's a constant disappointment.  None of this stops me from getting other stuff from the Trolls, but as far as the Crusader, this is my last one.  Sadly, it wont be missed.