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Message: <blockquote data-quote="CapnZapp" data-source="post: 9050250" data-attributes="member: 12731">My first and foremost answer is that DCC breaks up the implied social contract D&D so very often grants players. That the game (and by extension the DM, but obviously some DMs have other ideas) makes a "deal" with the player to not mess with the character and above all not cause any permanent scarring.Which is exactly why D&D can feel so "safe". And which encourages (at least my) players to go into minmax mode where the character is reduced to a collection of data points ready to be optimized.When a game like DCC says "no, you can't have that kind of job security"; what that does is it forces players to actually keep attention to what's happening in the world and to proactively roleplay the character in an attempt to stave off disaster (and gain bennies like Luck points <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> ), in a way that you simply don't need to do when death is the worst that can happen, and this death is a minor speedbump at best.When the world can rob you of your ability points, your stuff, your dignity (all far worse than mere death) you tend to perk up, and start treating your character as a living breathing human (or lizardman or whatever) that is vulnerable and fallible.The funnel reinforces these themes because for every high level hero you will also have felt the pain and loss of approximately three other people. No longer are you assured the right to become high level just because you showed up and generated a 1st level character.The argument I often hear is "why would I want to spend time writing a character backstory if I am not given the implicit agreement I will likely reach the end of the campaign?". My reply would be "This is a game, not a story. If you're guaranteed to reach level 20, why even play it out? Why even pretend dice roll matters, why pretend you're in any real danger, why pretend you are a hero?"TL;DR: The difference between DCC (and OSR in general I guess) and D&D to me boils down to you being a DCC hero because you deserve to be called one, not because you were "born" as one. You entered adventure despite that not being the safe choice, manifested by the wrecked would-be heroes you leave behind, and this is why you're a hero. In D&D, the mindset often becomes "adventures are great because they let me farm xp so I can gain levels" - much D&D writing assumes and even outright tells you you are a hero despite you not yet having deserved that honorific, and despite adventures not really bringing any permanent defeats to the table.</blockquote>

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