General DCC RPG thread

[overgeeked]

In my last DCC campaign, the Wizards went almost the entire campaign without accruing Corruption. I was so excited when during the last few sessions, boom, face on the back of their head!

That's why I love DCC so much. The random weirdness. That's chef's kiss

 

[CapnZapp]

They fix errors and clean things up between printings. They haven’t dramatically revised any rules as far as I know.

They have basically not changed the rules for ever. There are still inconsistencies and unclear passages. People asked about them over and over again, always given the same response where the reps appeared weirdly proud over writing unclear and ambiguous rules

Pro-Tip: Leaving rules unclear or ambiguous is never the great idea you think it is.

The writers have repeatedly made the grave error of conflating two things: an unclear or vague rule... with a rule that allows for personal interpretation. While the latter is perfectly acceptable (sometimes actively welcomed) the former is just plain bad rules writing. The rules may well decide to leave things up to the GM, but when they do, this absolutely must be clearly communicated.

TL; DR: tell the reader where and when the rules leave something up to the DM.

 

[CapnZapp]

That's one of my top five pieces of DCC art. So perfectly captures magical corruption. One of the reasons I love DCC so much. Magic is both magical and scary as hell.

I just wish they didn't go all out with the mechanical explosion of details.

They wanted magic to be less predictable than in D&D. Fine.

But changing EVERY parameter, for all spells, for all castings? Buries all the fun under a mountain of niggling detail

If you're okay with the game coming to a complete stop each and every time the caster character decides to cast a spell, and the player desperatedly tries to make heads and tails over which options are actually useful to cast... actively helping the party more than it hinders (or melts!) them...

...unfortunately our wizard players ended up not casting spells much at all, which is definitely not the definition of "magical and scary" I hoped to get out of the system.

In short, rational-minded math-savvy players simply couldn't make DCC spells work, because they realized the rational case in almost every case is NOT to cast the spell. I got quoted Wargames to my face as the explanation why my Wizard player didn't seem to enjoy himself or his character.

I would absolutely love a 2nd edition of DCC where they specifically rein in the variables of spellcasting. Adding some kind of skill check where spells in D&D succeed automatically? Yes, please! Randomizing two dimensions where D&D randomizes only damage? Absolutely! Three? Okay, but is that really necessary...? FOUR? No, please stop...

ALL OF THEM WITH A UNIQUE HIGHLY CHAOTIC AND IMPOSSIBLE TO LEARN BY HEART TABLE FOR EVERY SINGLE SPELL!!?? Get outta here... (we had to go back to 5E to "cleanse the palate" as it were...)