Today I continue my game explorations for my next solo play and writing project. If I’m honest, I don’t think to this point that I’ve yet found “the one,” the game system that I immediately want to put into practice upon reading. I’m happy with my process—and diving into previously unexplored rulebooks has been a joy—but so far, my white whale has eluded me. Does a TTRPG soulmate exist for the genre mash-up in my mind’s eye? Will I discover it today?

Spoiler alert:

You know my requirements well by now, but I’m looking for:

• A superhero game that can be played in a fantasy setting, plus allow for anachronistic weapons and technology. Basically, the superpowers and fantasy elements need to be satisfying, but allow for other genre shenanigans.
• Is neither too crunchy (if I’m consulting forums or rulebooks more often than writing, that’s bad) nor too lightweight (I need to feel like the dice are guiding the story and enhancing the narrative). I want to feel like the mechanics support the story.
• Level-up jumps in power. My idea is that the PCs start as “street level” heroes and become demigods as the story progresses. Something will be pushing them closer to godhood, which is a core part of the story. The game should not only allow for those different levels but be fun to play at all of them.
• No hard-wired comics tropes (like secret identities, costumes, etc.). The story will be a genre mash-up, so I can’t hew too closely to any overly specific formulas.

Today I plunge into a game that I didn’t even remember that I’d bought until I was digging around looking for a different game on my shelf. A flip through its modest, 100-page contents reminded me of what attracted me to it in the first place: namely, fun black-and-white art and a focus on the 1980’s superhero TTRPG experience. I’m guessing that it’s a game many supers enthusiasts don’t even know exists, but, well… it’s awesome.

Crusaders

Crusaders is a game developed by Olivier Legrand, released in 2022. There aren’t many reviews of the game I could find, partly because it’s a small-press game few know and partly because any web search results on “Crusaders rpg” get polluted by a d20 fantasy game by the same name, Castles and Crusades, Band of Crusaders, Crusaders Quest, and Crusaders: Thy Will Be Done. Woof. I think superhero games need to think more about brand recognition when launching.

Anyway, the intro on page 1 of the book says that the game takes place in the 1980s and is meant to emulate superhero games and comic books of that time, a time when I discovered TTRPGs in general and superhero games like Villains & Vigilantes, Marvel Superheroes,and Golden Heroes specifically. In an interview, Legrand talks about being inspired by Byrne & Claremont X-Men, Byrne’s Alpha Flight, Perez & Wolfman’s New Teen Titans, and Davis’ Captain Britain. He is clearly a kindred spirit, and Crusaders is a game that delights me from the first page through the entire book. Even the black-and-white artwork throughout manages to capture the spirit of the 1980s superhero scene. An example, from the opening page:

Unlike those 80’s games, the rules in gameplay are massively simplified. Each character has four basic attributes, and, from that same interview: “The system is D100 based but keeps dice rolling to a minimum. Dice are only used for dramatic actions, like attacking, defending, lifting heavy things, attempting power stunts, etc. It’s a very compact, self-contained system, with very few subrules and special cases.” All rolls in the game are opposed percentile rolls, and all rolls are from the hero’s point of view—so if a PC is attacking, the player rolls the attack, but if something is attacking the PC, the player rolls the defense. Players also have Hero Points, a metacurrency that lets them “flip-flop” dice rolls (turning, for example, a 91 to a 19 result), and flip-flopping is a core part of the dice-rolling experience in Crusaders. Distances are abstracted and damage is a set value instead of rolled, both of which are meant to keep combat zippy and unencumbered, which is one of my (and my people’s) primary frustrations of old superhero games. As with most modern superhero games, villains have a “gang of thugs” representation to a single stat (called Fight), lieutenants have a bit more detail, and full villains have the same stats as PCs. Which is all to say that Crusaders is a straightforward system and easy to understand; the whole book is 102 pages, and only 21 of these are dedicated to the core game rules. I get the feeling that playing it would mean needing to puzzle out some situations, but I equally suspect that doing so wouldn’t be difficult.

Character creation in Crusaders is lovingly randomized, so let’s give it a shot…

First comes a percentile roll is for Origin, and I get Freak Accident: The hero got their powers because of a scientific experiment gone wrong or accidental exposure to radiation, chemicals, or—in the world I’m envisioning—wild magic.

Normally heroes get five Power rolls, but since I’m building a lower-level character, I’ll give myself three. I have the option to trade one or more of these rolls for additional Attribute points or perks like a privileged background or connections.

Here I’m going to depart from Crusaders and dip into the very fun Background Generator tables in the Origins supplement for ICONS, which will help me make the decision on spending Power rolls for background perks. After a whole series of rolls, I get a 38-year-old, male, who is friendly and outgoing, who values a mentor or teacher as well as his reputation. He believes that respect is earned, not given away. He was born middle class in a city and, as a child, his family was divided by conflict. He has a foe who’s a family member and a friend who’s a current or past lover. He’s suffered from a physical or mental illness, but he’s renowned for something he’s done.

As always, that’s juicy and gives me a lot to think about and build. It does not, however, suggest that I need to trade in any of his Power rolls. So back to the Crusaders book I go, and with each roll I can flip-flop the numbers (so a 70 can also be 07), and, thanks to the Freak Accident origin, can choose from either of those results across any of the four Powers tables.

Roll 1: Armor or Super Senses or Clairvoyance or Telekinesis or Energy Manipulation or Magnetic Control or Acrobat or Scientist.

Roll 2: Energy Blast or Super Speed or Psychic Blast or Telekinesis or Fire Mastery or Magnetic Control or Detective or Scientist.

Roll 3: Armor or Energy Immunity or Illusions or Psychic Blast or Energy Manipulation or Fire Mastery or Acrobat or Detective.

Holy cow that’s a lot of options, and demonstrates how the seeming randomness of Power rolls allows for a lot of flexibility to craft a PC I’d enjoy playing. In addition, there is a Crusaders Companion that has even more Origins and Powers to add to the mix. I almost want to write a bunch of pages dedicated to making a series of possible characters with these same rolls like I did in my Golden Heroes deep dive, but to save time and space I’ll go with Acrobat on Roll 1, Super Speed on Roll 2, and Acrobat again on Roll 3, giving me the Supreme Power version of it. My new guy is a super acrobatic speedster. I also get an extra “improvement” on one of my powers, which I’ll give to my Super Speed.

Next, it’s time to select my character’s attributes, which are Physique, Prowess, Alertness, and Psyche. Each character begins with a score of 9 (average) in each, and I get 18 points to distribute, which I’ll dial down to 15 since this is meant to be a lower-powered hero. Since this is a physical character, I’ll leave Psyche at 9, bump Prowess and Alertness each to 15 (well-trained and watchful, respectively), which leaves me with a Physique of 12 (fit). My Vitality (i.e. hit points) is 36 (Physique x3) and my Rank is 1 (more on this in a bit).

Sadly, Crusaders hasn’t made a form-fillable character sheet available, but here are the final stats:

If I were making a character that I intended to play, I would write out a brief backstory, incorporating my rolls from Origins and tying it to the world. For now, you get the idea. Crusaders’ character creation process, I have no doubt, would generate fun and interesting characters with which to play in my world. I would probably play around with the number of powers and how many Attribute points a Rank 1 character receives in my world, but it wouldn’t take a lot of fiddling to get it just right for what I’m envisioning.

Why Crusaders Works For Me

Look, nostalgia is a powerful force. I don’t know what someone who didn’t fall in love with superhero TTRPGs in the 80s would think of Crusaders. My guess is that the twenty- and thirty-somethings of my regular gaming group would squint and wonder what the big deal was. “Seems pretty sparse on the rules,” they might say, or “Ew, random character generation,” or maybe even, “That art seems a little derpy.”

For me, though, Crusaders has a je ne sais quoi that I can neither explain nor feel the need to try. It’s just great. Good job, Olivier Legrand… you’ve managed to capture the spirit of character creation from my early teens while making a combat system that isn’t bogged down in math and simulationism. Everything about the look and feel of reading the rulebook makes me happy. More importantly: It makes me want to pick up dice, roll up characters, and jump into a game. I wish the game had more random tables, plus more examples of gameplay, more optional rules, any VTT support, a more vibrant online community, and a mess of supplements. I do. I wish these things. But as a barely two-year-old game by an individual game designer, it’s fine just the way it is. It’s got a spark that many bigger-press games don’t.

In addition, despite any warts I’ll outline in the next section, leveling up in Crusaders works just as I’d want it to for this project, and better than any game I’ve covered to date. Every character has a Rank, from 1-10, that symbolizes that character’s reputation and experience. Players begin each “episode” (i.e. game session) with a number of Hero Points equal to their character’s Rank. Those Hero Points get spent to flip-flop rolls during sessions. Each jump in Rank allows PCs to add improvements to powers or points to Attributes. And in a world where I limit myself to 3 Power rolls instead of the typical 5, I can also weave whole new powers onto the Rank track, perhaps something like one new power at Rank 3 and every other Rank thereafter. Which is all to say that Crusaders’ advancement system both works with my original concept and is easy to tweak and tune to my needs.

Indeed, I was so flabbergasted by how strongly Crusaders had pulled me into its nostalgic embrace, I ran back to my bookshelf and pulled out Mighty Protectors (also called V&V 3.0, the 2017 update of Villains & Vigilantes) and Squadron UK (the 2012 update of Golden Heroes) to read through them both. Recall that I’d rejected both games in my initial screen of what games might work for me. However, it occurred to me, maybe all I was searching for was a modern 80’s game, and these other games might improve upon what had so charmed me in Crusaders. Imagine my surprise when much of the licensed stock art from Crusaders that I love so much is also in Squadron UK!

But you know what? I like Crusaders more than these other two, even though they’re the spiritual successors of some of my all-time favorite games, designed by true legends of my gaming childhood. Squadron UK has more crunch to it than I want, with more of an emphasis on outlining the many Skills (both common and technical) a character possesses, and with a significantly more complicated way of handling rolls, within combat and outside of it. Mighty Protectors, on the other hand, has all the random tables I adore, and I have a feeling that character creation might make me slightly happier than Crusaders because of it. Combat, on the other hand, is still a math-y mess, and relies on precise distances and too many calculations to fit what I want. That Jeff Dee art is still friggin’ sweet, though.

My Crusaders Hesitations

The most glaring misfit between Crusaders and my project is the setting. Crusaders is set in the 1980s, though the setting is neither more detailed than that nor hardwired into the game. Like any superhero game, there are rules for medieval weapons and armor, and the distinction between “gear” and “powers” is clear. Still, Crusaders would take some work to transform into a base fantasy setting. I would likely need to tweak Origins, Powers (especially Super Skills), and figure out how to deal with equipment in a way that fit the other mechanics without bogging down the game’s brisk pace or overpowering the PCs. Every monster and foe in a fantasy setting is one I’d have to create myself. The labor involved here isn’t zero.

In fact, the more I stare at the rulebook (so far, I’ve read it cover to cover twice), the more I see things that I’d alter. I’ve already talked about loving the Rank and progression system, but also wanting to fiddle with it to allow “street level” heroes to achieve cosmic power levels. I absolutely love the options in the Crusaders Companion (which literally has the same name as a 300+ page supplement for Castles & Crusades… oy), so would immediately remake the Origin and Powers tables to include them. Long ago, I created a Motivation list that I like better than the one in the book. I think there’s an opportunity to make hazards more dynamic and interesting. And on and on. By the time I was done, I would have likely homebrewed a significant portion of the original rules. None of this work, funnily enough, sounds awful. In fact, most of it is exciting. Again, though, there are barriers between the book as written and my ability to jump in and play.

Finally, like a lot of small-press games, there isn’t a vibrant community online generating discussion and materials to inspire me. The Crusaders Facebook group currently has only 79 members, including me, and Facebook is us oldfolk’s primary way of connecting (and there’s no Discord server I could find). No virtual tabletop support for the game exists. The one saving grace, as far as I can tell, is that Olivier Legrand himself is still passionately plugging away at creating supplements and is accessible. Maybe I don’t need a community if I can email the game’s creator with my hairbrained ideas? Hard to know.

Yes, I’m throwing out hesitations and then immediately rebutting them. I’m seeing the problems of Crusaders, but I’m like a kid who just got his first beat-up car… its flaws are endearing.

One Game to Rule Them All

I spent a full ten minutes staring at my screen, wondering if I’m done. I really, really like Crusaders and, though it doesn’t precisely fit what I want to do without significant tweaking, the process of making those tweaks doesn’t daunt me. It’s funny to compare my reaction to changing parts of Crusaders against systems like City of Mist, Scion, or even Prowlers & Paragons. I haven’t played any of them, but there is something I innately understand about the mechanics of Crusaders that feels familiar. Again, it’s speaking directly to my 1980’s teenage brain.

Back to my central question: Am I done? Has the search ended?

On one hand, what I need to remember is that Crusaders was a pleasant surprise. I had no idea that I would love it, much less consider jettisoning my process halfway through to jump in. Perhaps another system is lurking on my pile, ready to dazzle me even more and without all the adjustments needed.

On the other hand, this is the feeling I want to have with whatever game system I choose, a decisive YES! in my bosom. This entire deep exploration process was meant to find me a game system that made me want to jump into a homebrewed solo game. If I’m excited about Crusaders, why keep looking?

After much contemplation, I’ve decided that I look for games like I shop for clothes: When I find something that fits and I like, I’m done. There are no less than five more games on my “to be explored” pile, at least two of them, I think, would give Crusaders a run for its money. But the systems are all so different… I’ve flipped through them all, thinking about my next post, and suddenly a task that was bringing me energy is draining it away. I want to get started.

Let’s do it: Crusaders is my game of choice!

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