D&D General Anyone have the DC20 alpha? What do you think?

[overgeeked]

Dungeon Coach has been talking about his D&D hack/heartbreaker, DC20, for a little while now. I’m not generally a fan of his videos but came across a Treantmonk video singing the praises of DC20 today and it piqued my interest.

I liked a lot of what Treantmonk mentioned, but wanted to see if anyone had the alpha and what people thought of it.
So, anyone have the aloha release? What do you think?
Here’s the video for context.

 

[The Myopic Sniper]

I posted the pretty much the same question a bit earlier today.

I tried watching some of the Dungeon Coach's videos but found his presentation style way too Millennial Influencer (TM) to sit through, but the way that Treantmonk describes his system it seemed like a savvy, but possibly overcomplicated mashup of 5e, 4e and Pathfinder 2e.

I am curious to what he comes up with though. I am afraid his reach might be a bit beyond his grasp. WotC and Paizo can playtest and improve their crunchy systems because of their scale. He seems to try to be balancing all these action economy and numerical changes without access to their deep pockets and experience.

But a lot of things that Treantmonk describes in his video seem like sensible and interesting changes to a D20 post5E tope system. I hadn't heard anything about the system before now which is kind of surprising, but I am guessing I fall outside his target demographic, but I have seen plenty about what Matt Colville, Kobold Press, Critical Role, etc have been doing post-OGL debacle.

 

[GMMichael]

I tried watching some of the Dungeon Coach's videos but found his presentation style way too Millennial Influencer (TM) to sit through . . .

Quoted for truth. Sorry, but I tried to find a written version of what the game is about, and the most likely candidate was a link to buy the alpha for $14.00. Must be a good alpha.

Somehow, this song comes to mind:

 

[The Myopic Sniper]

I can't fault him for charging for an Alpha. For a creator in his position, I imagine it was one of those things that if he didn't do it that way, it would simply never get made. If it was a Matt Colville type or an established gaming company there would be issues with that.

He has a lot of good ideas, but I am probably going to see if he and his fans can execute a finished game that is balanced as something from Paizo or WOTC. I think he made a lot of good decisions early on by taking some of the best elements of Pathfinder, 5e and other systems. Getting that to be a balanced game given how much he has reinvented those concepts to something new is probably going to be a challenge.

Just a not to anyone reading my dig on his presentation style shouldn't stop someone from digging further, but I think the reason that he seems to have broken out in his space and doesn't get nary a peep on an old school internet forum like EN World probably comes down to generational, or at least presentational, preferences.

 

[overgeeked]

I can't fault him for charging for an Alpha. For a creator in his position, I imagine it was one of those things that if he didn't do it that way, it would simply never get made. If it was a Matt Colville type or an established gaming company there would be issues with that.

He has a lot of good ideas, but I am probably going to see if he and his fans can execute a finished game that is balanced as something from Paizo or WOTC. I think he made a lot of good decisions early on by taking some of the best elements of Pathfinder, 5e and other systems. Getting that to be a balanced game given how much he has reinvented those concepts to something new is probably going to be a challenge.

Just a not to anyone reading my dig on his presentation style shouldn't stop someone from digging further, but I think the reason that he seems to have broken out in his space and doesn't get nary a peep on an old school internet forum like EN World probably comes down to generational, or at least presentational, preferences.

Yeah, charging for alphas and betas is just ridiculous in general. He's got a YouTube channel with however many followers, ads, and a Patreon (I think), so it's not like he needs to charge for the early, early playtest draft of his 5E knock off. Rally the troops and go to Kickstarter when it's almost done like everyone else.

Just from watching the Treantmonk video we already know that it won't be balanced. While making the caster/martial gap much smaller, he's also preserving casters and having a warehouse of toys while the martials only get a shoe box of toys.

 

[The Myopic Sniper]

Just from watching the Treantmonk video we already know that it won't be balanced. While making the caster/martial gap much smaller, he's also preserving casters and having a warehouse of toys while the martials only get a shoe box of toys.

Hopefully, his playtesters can nudge him to sorting out the martial/caster gap. He seems familiar enough with Pathfinder as well as 4e and it's descendants to have some models on how to do that. Although at this point, if he can manage to get closer to reducing the gap than 5e does, it is probably a win.... though that may not be enough to justify a new d20 based dungeon fantasy RPG system. If he solves it for his game I think he will definitely have a wider market than simply people who follow his YouTube channel or people who like his take on the mechanics/action economy which seems to be the strongest selling point to me.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

Creators should charge whatever they want for their whatever they create, in whatever state that creation exists
Not a single person is forced to pay if they don't want to
If the price is too high for the value received, the market will indicate with low sales
If the creator is satisfied with that level of sales, they should keep the price the same going forward. If the sales are too low, they can decide to lower the price. If the sales are higher than expected, they can consider charging more
It's Economics 101

 

[Ancalagon]

am I the only one who finds that Treantmonk's video title to be... misleading?

 

[The Myopic Sniper]

Yeah, it seemed a little clickbaity for him. He sets straight what the video is about pretty quickly. I get where he was going with it though. I think that a lot of folks, Treantmonk included, were hoping that the 2024 WOTC "refresh"/"evolution" as well as the Tales of the Valiant/Black Flag from Kobold Press were going to be closer to a new edition and this DC20 system more scratches that itch.

 

[AK81]

I really like it. He has a lot of good ideas. I especially like the 4 action economy and that it recharges at the end of a player's turn. You can use your 4 actions on alot of different stuff. Like making your spells or attacks more powerful, longer reach, give yourself advantage, etc etc. You can also use your 4 actions outside of your turn as reactions, which makes it possible to do combos with other players, protect them with your shield or parry, attacks of opportunity or initiate spell duels when another mage casts a spell.

If he can make it balanced I think this can be a really fun game