DCC Level 0 Character Funnel is a Bad Concept

[CapnZapp]

Another thing I loved about DCC was the Test Your Luck concept.

This isn't normally important during a combat or in any other situation where you make lots of rolls. This is important when one roll can change the direction of the story.

I love the way Thieves get a superpower that is they can throw themselves into almost any situation, counting on their Luck to bail them out almost no matter what The player of a Thief can at any time decide to spend one or more Luck points. For each point you spend, you get to roll a special die and add that to whatever roll you're currently trying to make. This special die becomes larger as you level up.

I really hope I can add this mechanic to my next D&D campaign. The crucial point is to make Luck a renewable source (which it isn't for DCC characters other than Thieves and Halflings).

It doesn't need to regenerate very quickly, it just needs to be more than "once you have spend a point of Luck it is gone forever" because then players will never use it for anything except as an alternative to death and defeat. If you can't gain back spent Luck in any dependable manner, then the points basically becomes "Extra Lives" in a video game.

That's not what I want. I haven't yet decided if "you gain back 1 point of Luck per long rest" is reasonable (or too slow or too fast)...

I'll probably fix the special die as a d6, considering the bounded accuracy of D&D. No need to give high level heroes larger bonuses (if anything you need them more at low level!)

Well, anyway.

 

[Mannahnin]

I really love the fiction emulative aspect of Luck as an ability score, too. Isn't there a general rule or guideline that if some bad trap or effect is triggered which could hit some but not all of the party, the DM automatically targets players in ascending Luck score order? So the unluckiest people literally suffer more and the luckier people less often?

 

[overgeeked]

I really love the fiction emulative aspect of Luck as an ability score, too. Isn't there a general rule or guideline that if some bad trap or effect is triggered which could hit some but not all of the party, the DM automatically targets players in ascending Luck score order? So the unluckiest people literally suffer more and the luckier people less often?

Something like that, yes. Either straight effect based on lowest luck or luck rolls to see who's hit. But it's the same general idea.

 

[CapnZapp]

I really love the fiction emulative aspect of Luck as an ability score, too. Isn't there a general rule or guideline that if some bad trap or effect is triggered which could hit some but not all of the party, the DM automatically targets players in ascending Luck score order? So the unluckiest people literally suffer more and the luckier people less often?

The idea that monsters and unlucky events target unlucky characters is so bad-ass!

---

My DCC campaign was set in a Sword & Sorcery setting. I reused this idea but changed the targeting in order to reinforce the tropes of the genre:

While inanimate objects and unintelligent monsters (falling stones, oozes, the like) keep targeting unlucky characters irrespective of gender...
...intelligent monsters (such as guards, ape men or even skeletons) target male characters first (unless you're in full-body armor such as plate, but that's very rare in this primitive era).

At first this might seem plenty regressive, but, well... it is sword & sorcery after all...

...but if you think about it, this provides the party with a decent aggro mechanism - it helps fighters to actually protect their more squishier allies if they can count on the monsters attacking them and not the sorceress in the back.

 

[CapnZapp]

Something like that, yes. Either straight effect based on lowest luck or luck rolls to see who's hit. But it's the same general idea.

Yes, when it's run-off-the mill targeting, I simply go for the character with lowest Luck.

When the attack or effect is more dangerous or even life-threatening, I ask for a Luck test. This way there's at least a minuscule chance of not being eaten if you're the hero with lowest Luck, since you can spend Luck to improve your roll.

Of course, everyone else has more Luck points than you, so...

 

[Dumnbunny]

1) A good GM uses very quick and fluid rules for the first few sessions, before the character roster has been whittled down. For instance, don't place each character individually on the map. Just ask the player "do Bob lead the group, does he hang back, or is he in the middle". This should result in the gang of characters being led by 6 brave characters, and if there is an ambush from behind, the GM knows which six characters are cowards or volunteers for the rear guard.

I really wish I could remember who had this idea originally so I could credit them, but I cannot. In any event, I've done this a number of times when running a DCC funnel and it worked really well:

First, I start with the Purple Sorcerer 0-Level Party Generator, printing the resulting PDFs on cardstock. Then I cut out the individual characters, giving each player something equivalent to a few characters on index cards. I have the players line up the characters in front of them extending out into the table from the player. The character furthest from them is the one on the front line. Easy-peasy, even for the newest of players.

I extend this a bit by having cards to represent foes when there are multiple foes in a fight. The players can push their character cards up to one foe card or another indicating who is fighting what. Again, easy-peasy even for the newest of players.

Finally, I extend this PC card concept a little more, this time at the start of the session by incorporating a draft. The players dice to see who goes first, then the stack of PCs makes its way around the table with players taking turns drafting a PC.

 

[MNblockhead]

I really wish I could remember who had this idea originally so I could credit them, but I cannot. In any event, I've done this a number of times when running a DCC funnel and it worked really well:

First, I start with the Purple Sorcerer 0-Level Party Generator, printing the resulting PDFs on cardstock. Then I cut out the individual characters, giving each player something equivalent to a few characters on index cards. I have the players line up the characters in front of them extending out into the table from the player. The character furthest from them is the one on the front line. Easy-peasy, even for the newest of players.

I extend this a bit by having cards to represent foes when there are multiple foes in a fight. The players can push their character cards up to one foe card or another indicating who is fighting what. Again, easy-peasy even for the newest of players.

Finally, I extend this PC card concept a little more, this time at the start of the session by incorporating a draft. The players dice to see who goes first, then the stack of PCs makes its way around the table with players taking turns drafting a PC.

This is how the Index Card RPG (ICRPG) is played. Great for theater of the mind play.

 

[CapnZapp]

Man, I thought the days of purely random PCs were behind us. Why would anyone join an adventuring group like that?

Many funnels begin by thrusting a gaggle of completely unremarkable villagers into a complete naughty word position.

• the local lord forces all of you to enter the Caves of Doom to retrieve the McGuffin. If you refuse, he will burn your village to the ground.
• you are all randomly rounded up from the street and thrown down into a dungeon, sentenced to remain incarcerated until you die
• your town leader has been horribly murdered. Who will walk up to the haunted mansion and demand justice? If you - an apple salesman, a housewife, a bar maid, and a goat herder, don't do it, nobody will!

Think of the difference between war propaganda and actual war.

D&D can encourage the first line of thinking - you create a gleaming hero that goes off to adventure, slays many monsters, and returns home with success and riches. You never have to think about your actions and you definitely never have to answer for any crimes you have committed. Are these characters heroes when combat mostly is a reward where more gold and XP can be found?

DCC can encourage the second line of thinking - the only heroes are those that survived a meatgrinder. These heroes are actual people, with the scares to prove their worth. They come with "survivor's guilt" (why me? I never deserved to survive!), PTSD, and lots of gruesome war stories. But these are true heroes - they kept going and didn't turn back, even though they KNOW in their bones they could be the next ones to die violently through no fault of their own.

 

[CapnZapp]

I think that's the premise. Kind of a chuckle concept for a product line that doesn't take itself too seriously. Where the players sit around and laugh at the amusing way your character dies at a random die roll.
"Oh, you rolled a 94? ... Your character turns into a chicken and Colonel Sanders chases you out of the dungeon with a cleaver. Hardy har har."
That's the impression I got anyway.

It CAN be that way.

It definitely doesn't HAVE to be that way.

Remember, the point is for your actual "main" character to start the campaign with a bit of a history, some stories to tell, and a connection to the other PCs that's forged in fire.

Also, an important objective for the funnel is to be able to use random ability rolls (and not have to use point buy or weighted rolls) without having to suffer the worst consequences, since if all your funnel survivors are hopeless at what they do, you can always recruit a 5th or 6th character.

That is, if you can see the allure in using completely unweighted "roll 3d6 in order no bennies". The DCC funnel is actually an ingenious solution that least you eat the cake and still have it too. Each character IS rolled up using this, the most old school and bad-ass generation method of them all - but you don't have to suffer the consequences for too long and you will likely end up with an average or better character in the end anyway; all while your trials and tribulations is turned into characterization and personality gold.

In practice, the funnel experience makes many players bond with at least one character, even if it has a poor Strength or its Intelligence is only average, and they want to keep playing this character instead of taking the risk of rolling up a new one.

Remember, in games like 5th Edition (and definitely in games like Pathfinder 2) every point makes a big difference and many player can't imagine playing these games with anything else than point buy / standard array. But DCC is more like older D&D editions, an old school renaissance if you will, where your character will do just fine with a 15 or 12 Dexterity even if you play a class using Dex. Maybe you are instead exceptionally charming, or gifted great Luck. Or maybe you aren't exceptional at all, which makes your heroism all the more impressive!

 

[CapnZapp]

More often than not you're only controlling one character at a time. The rest of your stable is "off camera".

Yes, when I ran my DCC campaign, I fully intended for the players to pick one surviving character and then play on using only that character.

Turned out almost all the players revolted at this idea and would not let go of any of their remaining characters!

Sometimes I chose a harder adventure where it would be appropriate for them to use maybe two characters each. (Remember that before 3rd edition this was the norm. A D&D adventure would not specify "for 5 characters of 7th level". It would instead target 7x5=35 levels and say something like "for 4-12 characters of total 30-40 levels". It was also not a given every character was the same level - far from it: your Thieves would nearly always be high level than your Wizards.

This way you could play the adventure using four high level heroes (say they're level 11, 9, 9, and 8 for 37 levels in total) or you could play it using ten low level heroes (say they're level 6, 6, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 3, 3, and 3 for 41 levels in total with the expectations the 6th level heroes would go first and the 3rd level heroes would just be there as "understudies" that actively avoided conflict). In AD&D for example.

In DCC they would perhaps have one level 5 character each, and also one level 4 character each.

Sometimes I would choose an adventure more suited to a smaller group, where each player picked one character out of his or her stable. It isn't super important they all are the same level, not in DCC anyway.

One time I even staged three different adventures to occur simultaneously. I still ran them one at a time, but this explained why each group could not be helped by the others. They got to roleplay how they created one team for each quest. In the end they chose to create one team out of their highest leveled heroes, and another from the mid-level heroes and one made from the softest heroes. They could equally well have gone for three teams all spearheaded by one or two high-level heroes.

A few times, when only some players were available, I even ran small "solo" scenarios where one or two (okay, so that one was a "duo scenario") players had a shorter adventure.

'twas great fun