DCC Level 0 Character Funnel is a Bad Concept

[Ralif Redhammer]

The level-0 funnel adventure "Death-Slaves of Eternity" by Marzio Muscedere that I highly recommend does something similar. Because it is set in a classic Sword & Sorcery setting where only humans exist (no elves) it reskins the demihuman classes:

Elf becomes Cultist
Dwarf becomes Soldier
Halfling becomes Pirate

So now every character (and they are all human) have three new classes to choose from.

I've seen something similar in a couple Shudder Mountain con games (I think Brendan LaSalle started it) where:

Dwarf = Mountain Man
Halfling = Luckiest Son of a... You Ever Met.

 

[eyeheartawk]

Fair!

I've been playing from launch and in my experience new players really want to play a funnel and I don't blame them. It's a super cool concept!

But in practice?

Players get to determine marching order of their four level 0 dudes. So 9/10 times, who survives? The guy they like the best at the safest part of the order. I mean, with that kind of result what's the point? Just roll up a decent 1st level character and let's get right into it, you know?

I think the most telling thing, though, is that after experiencing it once, not a single player has clamored to do another 0-level funnel. Everybody has been more than fine starting at level 1.

 

[payn]

Fair!

I've been playing from launch and in my experience new players really want to play a funnel and I don't blame them. It's a super cool concept!

But in practice?

Players get to determine marching order of their four level 0 dudes. So 9/10 times, who survives? The guy they like the best at the safest part of the order. I mean, with that kind of result what's the point? Just roll up a decent 1st level character and let's get right into it, you know?

I think the most telling thing, though, is that after experiencing it once, not a single player has clamored to do another 0-level funnel. Everybody has been more than fine starting at level 1.

I have only done funnel to campaign play once. Usually its a one shot (a wonderful one shot at that) or better yet a tournament to see how far you can go before running out of zeroes. Maybe my taste have been forged differently because DCC isnt something I play for any appreciable amount of time. Its one shots or modules that last a few sessions.

 

[Mannahnin]

It too be a great tool for that, but for decades I ignored them because even back in the TSR days, most of them indicators for the local ecology at best. Just tables of threat flavored encounters modified by random morale. Nothing surprising or inspiring for me, personally there.

The ones I enjoy right now are for Dragonbane as they hint at how the setting works and each regional table has an encounter that feeds into the local dungeon.

Certainly I think a lot of more modern books have more interesting and inspiring tables of random stuff. Although classic encounter tables get a lot more interesting if A) you use reaction rolls, and B) you spice them up with a "what are the monsters doing?" table like all the ones on the d4 caltrops blog. IME a lot of better modules out there include such activities for the random encounters on their bespoke tables.

OSE Encounter Activity Tables

Here is a consolidated list of all entries for my OSE Encounter Activity Table Project (includes all Monsters in the Rules Tome or B/X). By...

blog.d4caltrops.com

 

[Reynard]

It might be worth noting that "wandering monsters" and "random encounters" are different things and serve different purposes in play.

"Wandering monsters" in a location based adventure represent creatures (or NPCs or whatever) outside of their lairs. They may be on patrol, running an errand, hunting for food, or whatever. Encountering wandering monsters is part of the larger puzzle of the site based adventure, and PCs should take advantage of the opportunity presented (from winnowing down the "boss fight" to attempting parlay to following the monster to find out where not to step).

Random encounters are a different thing. They can still happen in site based adventures, but make more sense during exploration and travel. Random encounter charts should never be just a list of potential fights. There should be lots of different kinds of thing on a good random encounter table, including creatures but also weather events, magical happenings, unusual sightings and friendly weirdos.

 

[Lanefan]

Random charts seem good for that old-school mentality where you enjoy seeing terrible traps and awful spells destroy your friends' progress in the game - because "at least it's not your character."

Until it is your character; and not every outcome on a random chart has to be life-threatening or even negative at all. I mean, you-as-player got a Wish from a Deck card, which seems pretty good to me even if you did blow it on turning someone's character into a woodchuck.

As one of my players commented last session "It's not 1974 anymore." I don't need adversarial charts of terrible, random things to do to characters, like a game system that uses Grimtooth's Traps as its core resolution mechanic.

I don't need whole charts of that but I want those things to be there as possible outcomes, among many others, on those charts.

If a chart's possible outcomes consist entirely of "terrible, random things to do to characters" that's probably a badly-designed chart IMO.

Put this way. I love classic arcade games. I can happily play Galaga for about 15 minutes to see if I can beat my personal record before I lose my ships, but I'm not going to lose myself in it for hours like I would Skyrim (or my wife does with Breath of the Wild or Baldur's Gate 3). DCC seems like one of those classic arcade games.

If you think of DCC as being a multi-player table-top rogue-like, where the main goal is to last as long as you can before you die but even then you can rejoin the game with a new character, it makes a lot more sense.

 

[Lanefan]

From what I understand for some GM with the OSR mindset is that random tables give them the sense "being a player" as they live to be surprised by the results the roll up and quickly interpret them into the gaming fiction. As with everything in life being a spectrum, the boundary of "Too many charts" is different for each gamer.

There's also times when random charts are necessary simply due to the fiction. For example, if a group of typical D&D characters suddenly find themselves on the (deserted) bridge of the Enterprise with all those lights and buttons and switches, a random table to determine what happens when they (inevitably!) start messing with said buttons and switches would seem appropriate somehow.

 

[Reynard]

There's also times when random charts are necessary simply due to the fiction. For example, if a group of typical D&D characters suddenly find themselves on the (deserted) bridge of the Enterprise with all those lights and buttons and switches, a random table to determine what happens when they (inevitably!) start messing with said buttons and switches would seem appropriate somehow.

No, no, no.

You are supposed to prepare a full schematic of the bridge and all of the control, with consequences for every possible thing the PCs could do.

most importantly, whenever they declare any action, you need to ask aloud, "Are you sure?"

 

[Lanefan]

Yes. Your players have rejected the notion that magic should be dangerous. That doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with the design of magic in DCC. It just means DCC-style magic is not for your players because they are too risk adverse.

The things you’re complaining about are literally the things that make DCC magic interesting and not boring. If you cast flame fingers, spellburn, and roll high enough you can summon meteors from the sky and destroy an entire city…at 1st level. That’s the definition of amazing. That’s exactly what I want from magic.

As an indicator that you don’t like it, sure. That doesn’t mean it’s bad design. Only that you don’t like it. Again, huge difference.

I think I'm with @CapnZapp on this one: DCC's biggest failing IMO is that it's way too harsh on its casters.

And this comes from someone who loves wild magic surges. Anything can be overdone, and DCCRPG overdoes this aspect significantly. This is the biggest reason why I haven't changed my games over to the DCC system (well, that and all the funny dice, which they also overdo).

It could be toned down some, sure, but that would either a) take a fair bit of DM-side tweaking work or b) mean tossing a fair bit of the DCC pagecount and replacing it wholesale.

 

[Lanefan]

No, no, no.

You are supposed to prepare a full schematic of the bridge and all of the control, with consequences for every possible thing the PCs could do.

Scary thing is, someone out there has probably already done just that for the Enterprise.

But if it's a random spaceship that's not the Enterprise, designing all that would take forever. Better just to let the random chart set precedent as things go along, e.g. if they push a blue button marked #%@ and randomly turn on some lights then all blue buttons with those same markings just became light switches.

most importantly, whenever they declare any action, you need to ask aloud, "Are you sure?"

I'd be doing that anyway.