phil500 said:
I am curious: are these actual "classics" or new adventures?
The Dungeon Crawl Classics line consists of new adventures, so they aren't "classics" in the sense that they were adventures from the heyday of OD&D or AD&D 1e. The artwork, authorial voice, and overall layout hearken back the early days of D&D. When 4e comes out, the DCCs will be getting an art upgrade, but I suspect the contents will remain full of traditional dungeon-crawling goodness.
how is the quality of the series overall?
The quality is very good, IMO. These adventures have lots of puzzles, combats, and secrets. In addition, most of them have a twist (or several) that makes things even more interesting. They are pretty low on roleplay interaction, but it's easy enough to add it in IMO. IMO the most notable DCCs are:
DCC 1: Idylls of the Rat King (the first one)
DCC 2: Lost Vault of Tsathzar Rho (written by mearls, lots of Far Realm goodness)
DCC 13: Crypt of the Devil-lich (the Tomb of Horrors done right)
DCC 17: Legacy of the Savage Kings (nice sword and sorcery vibe IMO)
DCC 28: Into the Wilds (a cool intro adventure with bat-riding goblins, among other things
)
DCC 35: Gazetteer of the Known Realms (a campaign setting based on the DCCs - it fits in well with the 4e "points of light" setting philosophy)
DCC 50: Vault of the Iron Overlord (this has a really neat rotating dungeon)
DCC 51: Castle Whiterock (a massive dungeon crawling epic)