Dungeon Review: Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game DCC RPG

    When it comes to tabletop roleplaying games I like to think of myself as pretty open minded to giving any game a fair shake as long as it has something im interested in. Standard fare Sword and Sorcery, Mutant Turtles, Post Apocalyptic anything, steampunk, zombies(you can even jam the last two in the same setting), hell ill even play a mouse with a sword given a chance. So when I stumbled across Goodman Games DCC RPG last year it kind of took me off guard. Joesph Goodman and company have put together a game that really strikes a chord with a number of Old School Dungeon Crawlers and maybe I can give my thoughts here as why. The art throughout the DCC line is awesome but in what I feel you have to be old enough to appreciate it kind of way. Dont get me wrong I really love it but when I show it to other people they always smile and I can never be sure if they like it because its just plain awesome or they think its silly and awesome. Im a huge retro nerd to begin with so it hits me in all the right places right off the bat. I know retro has been in for a while now so im sure it doesnt hurt DCC for the right place right time department.

                                                              The art tells a story by it self!

   I started playing rpgs with Advanced Dungeons and Dragons 2nd edition books. I remember it like it was yesterday. I was probably all of 12 and one of my older cousins and his teenage friends decided they were going to play on a boring summers afternoon. I was just visiting and got dragged into there game. I think only one or two of the players actually had any real experience with gaming so we were on pretty even footing. The Dungeon Master(Tom) already had a bunch of pre-made characters made up for some reason and handed them out. It was so weird and fascinating to me all at the same time. I was a 5th level elf cleric that was a half gargoyle for some reason. I had no idea what was going on most of the time but when my  turn came up I would say what I would want to do. Tom would just say "Are you sure you dont just want to try to hit him normally?" and being the dumb kid I was I wouldnt listen to his sage advice and tried whatever crazy maneuver I came up with. Tom would then shake his head and say "Roll a 20." What did he know? This was just another average day of kid summer for me and I wouldnt remember this the next day right?  Near the end of the session when the adventurers came face to face with a powerful ogre boss I remember using a spiked chain and wanting to jump on his back to strangle and break his neck. Everyone laughed me off because i was calling my shots throughout the game not really knowing how hard it was to get a natural 20 on a d20 but i just kept at it. Anyway like anyone who has ever played and enjoyed tabletop role playing games when something awesome happens for the first time you remember it. I rolled the dice and like magic a 20 came up before the fight even really started. Like a champ Tom said "Damn well there goes that boss." He smiled and said "Good job Berto." Everyone cheered and i felt like a real hero. Honest to god I was a made man in the world of Dungeons and Dragons. Why bring up that crusty old nostalgia during a review of another game all together? Read on true believer .

                                                What my mind defaults to when I remember playing DnD as a kid.

    Dungeon Crawl Classics is another game that tries to bring back all those great memories older gamers have and let you relive them. I just recently came across a slew of these types of games which the community has named retro clones. I think that title is a bit unfair to DCC RPG because it does enough of its own thing to stand on its own merits. DCC RPG is at its core a Dungeons and Dragons style of adventure RPG. You build a character and run through your Dungeonmasters(DCC calls them Judges) cruel world in search of treasure and glory. Becoming stronger the longer you survive but fate can be fickle. The back of the book even says...
 You're no hero.
 You're an adventurer:
 a reaver,
 a cutpurse,
 a heathen slayer,
 a tight lipped warlock guarding long dead secrets.

  Yep gets my mouth watering for adventure just saying that out loud. When I was younger we were never the heroes. Pillaging towns and over throwing other evil wizards and demons was all we ever got into. I played alot of crooked ass Clerics let me tell you. Regardless the back of the book pretty much nails it for me right off the bat.


Dungeonslingers Review:

Objective: DCC RPG is a tabletop roleplaying game in which a Judge(usually one person) puts together a adventure or uses a ready made module for DCC RPG and  lets the Player Characters run wild in the story driven adventure. Each player will take on the role of an adventurer and proceed to do whatever there crazy mind comes up within the rules of the game. So the cut and dry of it is dungeons will be crawled and monsters will be slayed if your dice are kind.

Whats in the...Book: The DCC RPG rulebook is a massive tome! It is nearly 500 pages long and has everything you will need to get started playing outside of dice, pencil and paper. The core book is MSRP $39.99 unless you score one of the limited edition print runs which are around $59.99. I myself scored the Fire Wizard cover designed by DCC Artist Doug Kovacs which sold me on the game more than anything else I had seen or heard prior. I seen it online and knew I had to have it. I might just collect all of the different covers because there all pretty rad.

The art inside of the book is also second to none when it comes to evoking old school swords and sorcery. I had a giant smile on my face as I poured through the book trying to find my favorite piece of art. If you never play this game know that it makes a great coffee table book to thumb through and start conversations. No joking people want to look through it if its sitting around. When I say you only need this book to play I mean it and thats the hard sell.

                           My favorite piece at the moment. It always changes when I look again though!

The Set Up: One of the strongest parts of the game is the game set up. Each player will need a pencil and some paper, rpg dice and at least one DCC RPG rulebook should be at hand for the table. Character creation is pretty easy if you have ever made a character in any DnD style of game you shoudnt have any issues here. Character creation is also one of the most fun parts of DCC if you dont go with the traditional style of making a 1st level character and start with some 0 level adventurers! Thats right ladies and gentlemen you can play as a level 0 character but not the way your even thinking. No not a fighter or a wizard but instead be a Barber or a Ditch Digger! Maybe a Slave or a Tax Collector is more to your liking. Now if your asking yourself why in the hell would i want to do that? Well believe me you do because you dont get just one of these odd ball jobs you get up to four. Then you run your mini party along with all of your friends parties through a meat grinder DCC RPG lovingly calls the Character Creation Funnel!

Each of your characters will have between 1 and if your really lucky 7 HPs but more often than not most of your characters will have 1 or 2 hit points.Now after you roll up your attribute stats right down the line. (old school) Attributes are the life blood of your character as they determine how strong, how smart and how charismatic you are.  You are then assigned a random job which comes with your characters items and then you are ready for some adventure.Now after that its time to get in that dungeon and die. Believe me its more fun than it sounds. Not just as the Judge either ive run two different groups of players through some funnels and everyone seems to like it. The whole character creation process takes around 10 minutes or so. It gets you into the game and you decide what you want to really be when one of your characters levels up to a 1st level class! If you are lucky enough to get out of the grinder that is. If you dont have 10 minutes to spend or cant be bothered with rolling up a bunch of 0 level fodder worry not. The good people over at Purple Sorcerer have got you covered! They created a couple of tools that are priceless when it comes to running DCC RPG. The 0 level character creator lets you hit a button and create a party in no time flat. I personally like to make my group roll up there own characters but if you need some 0's in a flash there you go! They also have a blank template to put your homemade characters on. Best of all its all free! Go over there and give em some money anyway there doing a bang up job.
http://purplesorcerer.com/tools.htm

Back to Dungeon Crawl Classics....

Mechanics: Once again if you have ever played a Dungeons and Dragons styled game you know what your doing already. Whenever you want to do anything in the game you basically take a test to see if it happens. To do this you will grab the appropriate dice and roll it adding any modifiers your character's stats give you against a target number the Judge deems fair. If you are skilled in the task your attribute modifiers will help you but more likely penalize you if are one of the nameless rabble that the game starts you out with.

   Now one of the more innovative mechanics the game has is the luck attribute. If you really need something to work you can burn some of your precious luck score to make it happen. The catch is once its gone its gone and you usually dont start with all that much anyway. Unless your lucky that is. Another cool use is that once you become a first level character you can use your luck score to save your pathetic life if you get taken down in a fight. Just like when Frodo gets ran through by the Cave Troll in Fellowship of the Ring and they roll him over and he....(spoiler alert) LIVES you too can have that kind of excitement at your game table. Its pretty intense let me tell you first hand.

   Before I go any farther talking about book mechanics let me talk about RPG dice in general. Most games use some sort of dice mechanic usually involving some of the standard polyhedral dice. Dungeons and Dragons made the 20 sided die iconic and the rest to a lesser extent. d12, d10, d8, and d4s pretty much come with the territory for a DnD style of game. Not to mention the d6 which everyone has used in boardgames as some point in there lives I hope. Now back to DCC which not only uses these dice but adds in the not as well known funky dice. The d3,d5,d7,d14,d16,d24 and d30. Now where can I get these odd ball dice you may ask? Well when I went looking for my set I had no fucking clue other than digging deep into the bowels of the interwebs. Let me tell you I have a great game store not to far from where I live in Chicago called Games Plus but when I made a standard issue game run I was surprised at how much more expensive they were. A little ebay magic and I got my set for a little more than a normal set of polys. I digress... When first I heard of these funky dice I got all giddy with excitement for the new and unknown. Not only would I have to track these suckers down but color in the number pips on my own! Sounds fare enough to me. Now I started with 2nd ed DnD and the coloring of ones own dice was new to me. The older gentle men gamers may have done this but I was a newbie to this but excited. What was the first thing I did after i ordered my glow in the dark dice? Was there really any option if you can get glow in the dark? I went to the dollar store and made my first mistake. I used cheap crayons. Hours of cleaning them out later I moved over to Crayola for a better result. Im still not sold on coloring my own dice maybe because I dont have the nostalgia for it like some others do but its someones bag thats for sure.

Do all these crazy dice make the game any more fun than regular old DnD? In my opinion not really but I do get a weird kind of satisfaction when I need to roll a funky dice and I actually have it. If you dont have these dice the game provides rules on how you can fudge them with your normal(snickers) polyhedral dice. You could also use the Purple Sorcerer phone app which has a dice roller for your convenience. Option 3 is you could just house rule them out of the game all together. No fucks will be given either way.

                                          This is what a party tends to look like in my head in DCC

Classes: Now after you have gotten past the dice and funnel you get to pick a character class. Now some of you may ask what about my race? Well in some cases it is your character class! Yep just like in the old editions if you are a Elf or a Dwarf guess what that is also your job. Now does this mean they suck compared to there human counterparts? Nope they just are variants on the human classes of Warrior and Wizard. Now the game still has plenty of choice for everyone. You can be a Warrior, a Cleric, Theif, Wizard, Dwarf, Elf, and Halfling. During the funnel you may end up with a race other than human and if you really want can change it up when its all said and done. If your a weeny that is...

Within the classes there are a couple of changes that really set DCC apart from the others. For one the Wizards spells each have there own charts that gives you a random effect from horrible for you to damn that thing is really dead. Also you can Spellburn your life away similar to luck by spending your attribute points as a sacrifice for a completed spell. I remember a mechanic similar to this in a version of AD&D I played when I was younger but it could have been my DM house ruling it. Regardless spellburn makes wizards dangerous and powerful. I still rule a 1 is a 1 no matter what you roll in my game because I like to see the fear in my wizards eyes. Nothing is ever a sure thing in these games and I love that.

The Thief is still the same character we all know and love with the added bonus of having more luck every time he expends a point. The Thief is granted a die worth of luck points for every point he spends is pretty cool considering he gets his luck back a little at a time each day.

The Cleric is still the undead killing machine he has always been with a juiced up Laying of Hands ability. DCC's version of the classic ability heals the Hit Die of the target of the spell which is quite handy for the really beefy Warriors. He still has some spells to pick from as he levels up as well along with some patron favors. Thats right when the going gets tough in DCC for the Cleric he can ask his chosen deity to help a brother out. When this happen you can  roll on a chart that asks your god for help. Sometimes you get a boon and sometimes it falls on deaf ears. Ask too much and your deity may get upset and cast you out of his favor. Shit can get real in DCC.

The Warrior is what really brings me back to those hot summer days of yesteryear. This class is so simple but fun its pretty stupid. It does away with your normal gain a +1 to attack bonus every level and instead gives you a bonus die to roll instead. This is called the Mighty Deed Die and this is perfect to me because you know what? There where times Conan had a off day in the comics I used to read but sometimes he just gutted a fool. Also this Deed die is pretty much what I always wished for as a kid because it lets you create a called shot every turn if you want and you have a decent chance of pulling it off! No more 1 in 20 for this guy. How it works is you come up with a Mighty Deed like "I jump on the back of the giant Ogre and strangle him with a chain!" and then you roll your d20 along with your Deed die. If you roll a +3 or better it works and you choke that sorry ass monster out or whatever it is you want to do. In the game I just ran the Warrior in the party sprung off the wall and stabbed the giant spider that was descending from the ceiling with his Dragon Dagger and nailed the sucka to the wall. Yep oohs and ahhs can be yours if you have an imagination for it. Thats pretty much it for the Warrior but when you consider that you can make up any feat you can think up its really all he needs.

The Demi-Humans are all variants of the existing classes and they arent really hurt for it. The Elf is a Wizard that has a bit more of a Warriors training. The Dwarf is straight up Warrior with the added bonus of smelling gold(awesome) and he gets some of the Thieves finding secrets and traps. The Halfling is a lucky little bastard ala Tolkien that is a Thief with the added bonus of being a natural 2 weapon fighter! Yep Sam Wise opened a school for Hobbit fighting which included sword and pans I guess. Whatever the case they are all pretty fun in action. Now how does one chooses to be one of these Demi-Humans you say? Well during the funnel some of the jobs are that of the non-human races so it can be really fun to just see what you get. The book also recommends that if someone really wants to be something when they get to level one just let them. I think its pretty funny if your just playing a farmer and they transform in front of everyones eyes into a Dwarf! It could be a little more subtle than that like he was hiding his identity the entire time but whatever. As long as everyone is having fun its fine by me.

The Combat: I pretty much covered it and it really is that easy and fun. Grab your 20 sided die(it might be a d16/24) roll it and add whatever modifiers you need to get the job done. You are trying to hit your targets armor class which starts at 10 and is modified by his armor and stats and voila. If you roll a natural 20 on the dice you just scored yourself a critical hit! Critical hits are something that I have always thought have been great in RPGs. Whats better than really nailing a monster with a killing blow that takes everyone by surprise? Well instead the the standard  issue double your damage of normal DnD in this game you roll on the Critical effects chart and see what happens! More often than not you not only damage the guy but you get a neat side effect like extra damage or disarming him.(sometimes literally) Whats also really cool is each class rolls on a different critical chart so you never know what may happen on someones turn.
  Now when you roll the 20 something great happens but when you roll poorly and get a 1 you also reap all of the failure to everyones delight as well. Throughout the years of my Dungeon Mastering whenever someone rolled a 1 it was always a miss of course and that person lost his turn. Sometimes you drop your weapon and other times you hit the wrong person by accident. Well in Dungeon Crawl Classics you get to roll on the fumble chart again to everyones delight and usually its pretty bad. At best you just lose your turn and at worst you break your weapon or kill yourself. I had a hobbit drop his weapon in a fight and get body splashed to death by a ogre that was awaken from a dead sleep.

Magic: Well the Magic system is pretty fun in the fact that each spell has its own chart of effects that you get to roll on to see if it not only work but how good or bad its effect was for you the caster. Yep Magic is a thing to be feared in DCC as it should be. The book talks about how it really derived the system from Appendix N literature and after some use you will become a believer. Magic is scary and bad shit can happen thats all you need to know. You will not light a candle with fire if you got access to a torch. You will not heal someone if they really dont need it especially if your god is pissed at you. You will mutilate yourself to make sure a spell will work with spellburn if you absolutely need it too. Those are the rules you will quickly learn if you choose to play a spellcaster. Is it really that bad you ask? Nope its worse because if you really fuck up not only will you lose the spell for the day but you will corrupt your body. Boils and mutant appendages are the order of the day if you gamble with magic and fail. If you ask me it still seems really fun and I would press my luck all day long until my Wizard was unplayable. Thats just me though.

Game Flow: Well the game consists of the players taking turns usually exploring a dungeon, a Mad Wizards Castle, or whatever set piece the Judge comes up with. During the players turn he will tell the Judge and other players what he is doing within the confines of the game. The game usually only gets more technical if a test is needed or combat is happening. Then you are restricted to one action which you can use to attack or come up with a action to help someone out or use a skill you have come up with. The player may also move a number of feet his character is allowed per turn. Remember this only really matters if you are in combat. Usually each player will do as much as he can in a turn until the Judge deems its the next players turn.

Odds and ends: Considering half of the book is dedicated to magic you may wonder what else is in this tome? Well plenty of good stuff thats what. You get a nice little bestiary which gives you enough classic arch types to use whatever monster you can dream up. Also some helpful charts to really make your monster interesting. Why use a normal orc when you can have a clan of blue 3 eyed orcs who  never surrender when the going gets tough. The whole book kind of has the same DIY attitude about it. There is no list of magic potions or weapons it encourages you to get off of your butt and make your own. This approach really took me off guard again because I was used to looking at the artifacts in the back of other games I have and getting some inspiration but not here. Its fun once you start doing it.Remember people if you have a library of DnD books sitting on your shelf its not too hard to convert anything you have already. It is at its core using a 3.5 system with heavy modification.  Now if making everything from the ground up is not your strong suit there are two complete adventures included in the book and one is a handy 0 level funnel to get you right into the grinding. There is so much in the book I know im forgetting some stuff but one of the neat things I did like is the Appendix N reading references. For those not in the know Appendix N was a list in the original DnD manuals of inspirational material that Gary Gygax(DnD creator/God) enjoyed while making Dungeons and Dragons. Joesph Goodman tipped his hat to the list in the back of the book with a reference guide. Works for me.

Dungeonslingers Thoughts: I will be the first to admit that this game may not be the end all be all Dungeons and Dragons system of choice for you. If you like your DnD games a bit more crunchy and more matrix heavy. When you have to power score up a character to no end then DCC RPG is probably not gonna be your first pick. Now if you want a game you can start fast and not worry about the rules other than the tables you have to roll up for crazy effects than you might be on to something here. Where I think DCC thrives is where it pulls its inspiration from. Not just old school DnD but the Appendix N library. Ill be the first to tell you that im no Sword and Sorcery literary expert but I do love me some Robert E. Howard. From the short stories, to the Marvel and Dark Horse inspired comics, to the Arny punching camels movie I love Conan. I also love me some weird ass He-Man Science and Sorcery. Forgotten tech like androids and lasers can make an appearance in DCC without any fucks given. It feels naughty but great all at the same time. Want some Cthulu Cultist running around your adventurers will be saying "Just another snake cult." in no time. All this and whatever else you come up with is at your disposal. You want some Dragons and Princesses why not? If you want forgotten magic swords that will drive you mad and corrupt your soul you can get that here too.The game is gritty and the death count will be high but if your doing it right everyone will be rolling up replacement characters with a smile on there face. All the while talking about the demise of the last poor soul who died alone in some dank dungeon.
   Not only do I think this game benefits from the classic pulp fantasy stories of yesteryear but from gamers who played lots of different systems and used what they thought was fun. Throughout the book the Goodman tells you if you dont like a rule toss it out. The game has plenty of room for DMs who like to do a bit of tinkering. Creating your own classes and monsters to just house ruling its yourself. Im not a positive if the writer was a fan of Warhammer Fantasy Role Play or not but I am and I see lots of similarities in both games. The random jobs you start with and critical tables are the first thing that comes to mind. The magic and low level gritty play also rings true. The thing that stands apart for me is that I feel DCC RPG is more eloquent and a bit easier to run for someone who has never played a rpg before. I get some Call of Cthulu vibes as well not really in the sanity system but more from the aspect if I wanted to drop a Lovecraft Old One in here it wouldnt be hard at all. All in all I like.

Final Game Review: If you cant tell by now I love Dungeon Crawl Classics. Im a huge fan of lots of different Swords and Sorcery rpgs and feel that it does enough things different to merit any gamer to give it a try. Im not going to convince you to force your game friends to rush out and buy a copy of the rulebook. Im just saying that if you are a fan of Old School Dungeon Crawling with some pencils, paper and maybe graphing a dungeon or two while you play this might be the game you have been waiting for. You only need one book to make this game work but you may find yourself buying all the different covers anyway! You dont need minis for this game to be awesome but nothings stopping you from using them. I also think this game was meant for adventures that lasted one to two sessions. Go in a nice tight little dungeon and get to the good stuff. If it lacks anything its that there arent what many options for classes but im not one of those people. There is enough in this book to homebrew any class you want.

Scale of 0-10 Adventurers Survive : 0 Total Party Kill= horrible dont play - 10: Amazing Dungeon entire party survived and will gladly enter dungeon again due to greedy awesomeness.

Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game: 9 Adventurers Survive. 
DCC RPG is an amazing game that could be better with a little DIY magic of your own. 

Until next time: Dungeonslinger.....