Anyone excited for DCC RPG?

[Mark CMG]

It's not going to make them a lot of money, but if you want to make a lot of money the RPG business is no place to be.

I believe the saying goes, "If you want to make a small fortune in the RPG industry, start with a large fortune."

 

[Vradna]

Abandon all presumptions

For those that have not opened the DCC RPG Beta; here is the quote from page 4:

Abandon all presumptions, ye who enter here. Turn the pages of this tome only should you meet these qualifications:

• That you are a fantasy enthusiast of imaginative mind, familiar with the customs of role playing, understanding the history and significance of the Elder Gods Gygax and Arneson and their cohorts Bledsaw, Holmes, Kuntz, Moldvay, and Mentzer, and knowledgeable of the role of “judge” and the practice of “adventure.”
• That you are in possession of the implements of role playing; namely, graph paper and an assortment of polyhedrons, including but not limited to d4, d6, d8, d10, d12, and d20; that you know the works of the great mage Zocchi and are prepared to exercise d3, d5, d7, d14, d16, d24, d30, or d% should they need to be deployed; and, although you may possess metal figurines and erasable mats for purposes of enjoyment, you understand their role as optional visualizers not prerequisites.
• That you understand and appreciate certain visual hieroglyphs derived from denizens of the higher planes whose deific identities among mortals are rendered, in the Common tongue, Otus, Easley, Roslof, Holloway, Caldwell, and Dee.
• That you should be appreciative of a life of fantastic adventure and escapades, and acknowledge that a dungeon crawl facilitates the judging of a game focused thereon, but in no way excludes broader adventures in the wilderness, at court, or on the sea, air, or outer planes.
• That you apprehend the fantasy pandect recorded in Appendix N with reverence and delight, acknowledging its defining place in creating this hobby.
• That you are prepared to pledge, with right hand upon your little white books, that you shall uphold the honor of the hobby of role playing to all comers, whether young or old.
• If these conditions are not met, then replace this book upon the shelf on which it belongs and flee with great celerity, for a bane befalls the heretical beholder of that which lies herein.
• Should you meet these qualifications, be aware that you are indoctrinated into the order of Dungeon Crawl Classics and will find kind fellows of similar sentiment also within this order. You may proceed in good health.

In a nutshell, the above asks you to view the Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG with an open, imaginative mind ---the prime quality in being a gamer. If some people want to view this game merely as a potential customer, that is their call, but please close the book and put it back on the shelf. I kinda like that it does not need to make apologies for what it is. It is a brave step trying something new and in my book, fortune favors the brave.

For those that have read the beta, the 'bizarre dice' are tied in with the game's 'Action Dice' mechanic --the thing that PCs and NPCs use to resolve things like combat rolls et.al. To me, this appears to do away with some bonuses and penalties, such as with two-weapon fighting for example. Actually, I kinda like that a (non-halfling) PC with an agility of 12 or 13 has a primary attack using 1d16 and a secondary of 1d14....instead of using 1d20 for each and then offsetting penalties with any number of bonuses.

To emulate Zocchi dice using regular polyhedrals:

• d3: Roll a d6: 1-2=1, 3-4=2, 5-6=3
• d5: Roll a d6: 1-5 read as normal. Roll a 6=reroll and stop crying about it.
• d7: Roll a d8: 1-7 read as normal. Roll an 8=reroll (and see above)
• d14:Roll a d20: Reroll any result above 14.
• d14:Roll a d7 and a d6: (d6)1-3=add 0 to the d7 result. (d6)4-6=add 7 to the d7 result.
• d16: Roll a d20: Reroll any result higher than 16.
• d16: Roll a d8 and a d6: (d6)1-3=add 0 to the d8 result. (d6)4-6=add 8 to the d8 result.
• d24: Roll a d12 and a d6: (d6)1-3=add 0 to the d12 result. (d6)4-6=add 12 to the d12 result.
• d24: Roll a d8 and a d6: (d6)1-2=add 0 to the d8 result. (d6)3-4=add 8 to the d8 result. (d6)5-6=add 16 to the d8 result.
• d30: Roll a d10 and a d6: (d6)1-2=add 0 to the d10 result. (d6)3-4=add 10 to the d10 result. (d6)5-6=add 20 to the d10 result.

I am sure that all manner of people will now magically appear and inform me that by using regular polyhedral dice to emulate Zocchi dice is:
a) Gimmicky
b) Not giving a true result or,
c) Hastening the inevitable destruction of our universe

I call rubbish; I play games for fun to exercise my imagination and ingenuity, not a misplaced sense of entitlement.

 

[Dausuul]

Look, if the game works for you, more power to you and have at it. I will say, however, that you have a weird idea what "sense of entitlement" means. I form opinions on things, some of which are negative. When I have a negative opinion of something, I usually choose not to spend my money on it. Guess that means I've got a sense of entitlement, because I sure feel entitled to do those things.

As for that opening page, I read it. It was amusing, but like I said above, I'm looking for an evening's entertainment, not becoming a Freemason. What that page says to me is, "Are you grognard enough to grog with the real grognards?" And my reply is, "I'm not buying your game just to prove how grognard I am."

 

[Vradna]

All good

I'm excited about the DCC RPG, despite what my status says.

 

[Pilgrim]

I'm definitely looking forward to the DCCRPG to come out. After reading the Beta and the Free RPG Day module, it was the first RPG since 2e, to make me feel like finally, somebody gets what D&D is suppose to be.

 

[Walking Dad]

I would like to read the free RPG Day module, but I'm not American and 16 pages (pdf) for $4.99 is a bit much for me to just take a look.

 

[Neonchameleon]

For those that have not opened the DCC RPG Beta; here is the quote from page 4:


In a nutshell, the above asks you to view the Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG with an open, imaginative mind ---the prime quality in being a gamer. If some people want to view this game merely as a potential customer, that is their call, but please close the book and put it back on the shelf. I kinda like that it does not need to make apologies for what it is. It is a brave step trying something new and in my book, fortune favors the brave.

Now, see, when I read that that's the last impression I get of the quoted text. What I'm reading is that it asks you to roleplay being a gamer in the 1970s with 1970s tastes while at the same time making references to things that imply that you have already been through the 1970s ('Appendix N'). And that you are familiar with "Elder Gods Gygax and Arneson and their cohorts Bledsaw, Holmes, Kuntz, Moldvay, and Mentzer" and "Otus, Easley, Roslof, Holloway, Caldwell, and Dee". Locking yourself into reverence of such people and sources is to me almost the opposite of approaching with an open mind.

Hmm... maybe this makes DCC a truly meta roleplaying game. You are roleplaying a roleplayer roleplaying a D&D PC. Which would make DCC far more post-modernist RPG than anything White Wolf has ever put out. Looking at it from that perspective it starts to look interesting.

 

[Jan van Leyden]

Hmm... maybe this makes DCC a truly meta roleplaying game. You are roleplaying a roleplayer roleplaying a D&D PC. Which would make DCC far more post-modernist RPG than anything White Wolf has ever put out. Looking at it from that perspective it starts to look interesting.

It even lets your dice playing with you, running their own characters! The d6 can play a d5, the d8 a d7, and so on. Heck, the d20 can even multi-class as d14/d16. The options are ... staggering.

 

[Aurumvorax]

I can't say I'm excited to actually play it, because players are generally slow to pick up new RPGs, but there are a lot of good bits to steal for other games.

 

[Griego]

I think what a lot of people (myself included) are looking for in a retro clone is the simplicity of yesteryear's rules without the arbitrary and clunky mechanics and other design issues. To state it bluntly, DCC RPG seems to have fallen into the same trap as a lot of other clones, confusing nostalgia for good game design.