DCC Level 0 Character Funnel is a Bad Concept

[overgeeked]

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.

Obviously I disagree. For me, DCC's magic is pitch perfect. I'd be perfectly fine never playing any other D&D-like game because DCC handles almost everything I'd want a D&D-like game to handle in just about exactly the way I'd want them handled. I'd tweak a few things, of course. But modifying DCC to work exactly how I'd want it to is wildly less work than making any other D&D-like game work how I'd want it to.

I've described Shadowdark as streamlined DCC, so you and yours might really like that system.

 

[Von Ether]

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?"

Recent ttrpg technology has discovered you can have both with a random table that starts with the phrase "Either pick a result that appeals to you or just roll."

 

[Lanefan]

Recent ttrpg technology has discovered you can have both with a random table that starts with the phrase "Either pick a result that appeals to you or just roll."

I do this with a few aspects of char-gen: you can choose from a list of basic stuff or roll on a bigger table with some more exotic options on it. If you roll, however, the roll is binding no matter what you get.

For example, for a Human male's height you can choose anything between 5'2" and 6'3" or roll with a possible range of about 4'6" to 7' or more.

 

[CapnZapp]

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.

That sounds cool but I am noting how carefully you avoid the obvious issue: friendly fire.

The reason magic was avoided wasn't because it was dangerously cool or just dangerous.

It was of course that a rational analysis of the choices, the outcomes and the probabilities determined it to be illogical to use magic, and that the encounter could be won anyway. Perhaps you like to not think things through and play like a daredevil. Perhaps your fellow players don't mind if their characters burn up with all the enemies. But we try to note how Wizards are supposed to be highly intelligent. And some spells just aren't worth bothering with. Again, other sure are. Maybe you have been lucky and only seen the functional ones.

I'm trying real hard to focus on the strengths of DCC and stay positive in this thread, but you make it really hard with your insistence that the profound overdose of randomness and general rules overload as regards spellcasting is a feature and not the bug and huge design flaw it so obviously is.

With this I will stop responding to you on this topic since I don't want to drag down the thread. Just let it be known that a very large chunk of page count is devoted to spells in DCC, and each page they would cut in a future edition would make the game strictly better.

 

[CapnZapp]

Recent ttrpg technology has discovered you can have both with a random table that starts with the phrase "Either pick a result that appeals to you or just roll."

It never ceases to amaze me how many gamers that refuse to accept that for many GMs, thing being actually printed beside the table makes an actual difference, and provides help to the new or uncertain GM.

Just saying that lots of games fail to take advantage of this new technology, and lazily refer to "rule 0" or some such.

So yes, each time the developer and rules writer does not specifically need the roll to be random (for whatever reason) they should definitely include a phrase like this.

To any experienced GM it is of course not needed, but that does not mean it's a good idea to forget to include it.

 

[CapnZapp]

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?

You're never having your monsters attack from the sides?

And again, the point of the funnel is much more than reducing the number of characters per player.

How do you roll up a level 1 character without using exactly the kind of crutches that foster the "ubermensch" mentality. It is an actual real issue that if you get to roll up your character like in 5E, it reinforces the belief you're simply better than everybody else.

D&D in particular makes a huge effort to separate you from actual real people as fast as possible. Many D&D gamers exhibit signs that they don't truly consider NPCs as valuable as PCs, that NPCs aren't individuals with personalities and histories just like the PCs. Not unless you have these NPCs sport a heap of levels to make it "worth" the players time to even interact with them. Again and again, I see how as soon as level 3, players stop listening to regular unleveled NPCs.

The funnel is a great way to change this perspective. Now you're this larger than life hero... but once you were one of them. Now you can wrestle dragons but you know in your bones you could easily have died like a villager, or perhaps run away and stayed a villager for the rest of your life.

The funnel also reinforces the notion that life is precious, and that your hero's travels can come to an end at any moment. Better live in the here and now, and stop making those obnoxious plans for which feat you're going to select in 12 levels time, or dream about which +3 weapon you're going to equip as soon as you have amassed another 300,000 gold.

The funnel is EXCELLENT to start a Sword & Sorcery game precisely because of these reasons. S&S heroes live from one day to the next. They try to remain thankful for what fate have given them. They are acutely aware of the responsibility their heroic abilities place on them (if they don't handle the threat, nobody will and lots of people will die). They usually end up doing the right thing, even if they bitch mightily while doing it.

Again, I would caution against underestimating just how great the funnel is as a tool to turn players away from the D&D as war-as-sport mentality, or at least inoculate the players to last a while.

 

[overgeeked]

That sounds cool but I am noting how carefully you avoid the obvious issue: friendly fire.

I’m not carefully avoiding anything. Don’t want risky magic, don’t play DCC. Two things. One, that’s a built it part of the risk…

It was of course that a rational analysis of the choices, the outcomes and the probabilities determined it to be illogical to use magic, and that the encounter could be won anyway. Perhaps you like to not think things through and play like a daredevil. Perhaps your fellow players don't mind if their characters burn up with all the enemies. But we try to note how Wizards are supposed to be highly intelligent. And some spells just aren't worth bothering with. Again, other sure are. Maybe you have been lucky and only seen the functional ones.

And two, you’re dramatically overstating the risk of friendly fire. There are only a few rare edge cases where it might be a problem.

the profound overdose of randomness and general rules overload as regards spellcasting is a feature and not the bug and huge design flaw it so obviously is.

In your opinion. According to your preferences. Your opinion and preferences are not objective fact.

Just let it be known that a very large chunk of page count is devoted to spells in DCC…

True.

and each page they would cut in a future edition would make the game strictly better.

According to you, someone who clearly does not like a lot of what DCC is doing.

With this I will stop responding to you on this topic since I don't want to drag down the thread.

Probably for the best for both of us.

 

[CapnZapp]

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.

Thanks.

Regarding the funny dice - they must have been struck with a moment of megalomania. If DCC ever grew to even 10% of WotC's size, I could see it justified.

But asking your customers to purchase funny dice for just this one sideshoot of the D&D family. That's a hard sell.

I mean, I have two sets of DCC dice. But I'm thinking they must have lost way more customers than they attracted with this move.

You can't even argue it's "easy" to replace the funny dice with regular dice, like some other games.

For instance, if a game uses six sided dice with the distribution of
HIT
HIT
NEUTRAL
NEUTRAL
MISS
MISS

You could at least in theory argue you can use this system using regular dice:

1 and 2 means hit
3 and 4 means neutral
5 and 6 means miss


It sure isn't popular and these games too suffer for it. But DCC?

The only way to use basic dice for DCC is to use a bigger die and reroll surplus results:

In order to simulate a d7, you'd roll a d8 and:
1 means 1
2 means 2
3 means 3
...
and so on
7 means 7
8 means you need to roll again

This is a major pain in the butt. Had DCC stuck with regular D&D dice I am certain they would have had a bigger fan base.

It's not that d7s or d16s are needed. They're a gimmick.

Unfortunately, it's an excluding and expensive gimmick.

 

[CapnZapp]

@Reynard and @Lanefan maybe discuss Star Trek in a thread of its own? I don't see many Trekkers finding your posts in this thread. This thread is about DCC

 

[CapnZapp]

You have your characters work together...sort of how DMs control mob/swarm type monsters. Instead of thinking as your 4 characters as separate individuals, you control them as a team.

Bob the dung farmer has a rope and tosses it to Shelly the halfling who weaves around the monsters legs with it, meanwhile the other two taunt the monster, distracting it so it doesn't squish Shelly. Boom boom boom boom. Have 4 d20s and indicate which character is which color before rolling them all at once to determine who is successful and who isn't and then role-playing the result with the assistance of the judge.

Then when some of your characters inevitably die as they are meant to in a funnel, your turn becomes a bit less chaotic, but you also lose some advantage to being able to control the entire team and have to actually interact and work together with the other player characters too.

Yep.

Four level-0 characters are often MORE powerful than one level-1 character.

Sure we could wish for the rulebook to contain more examples to help the GM new to DCC, especially a GM that's used to regular (modern) D&D.