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Message: <blockquote data-quote="MNblockhead" data-source="post: 9259703" data-attributes="member: 6796661">A friend of mine ran a classic DCC funnel and I had a blash, but, yeah, I can see where you are coming from. But I took the general idea of a fun, and some rules for level 0 characters in 5e that were published in an Adventurer's League module, and I started my last campaign with a funnel.  The campaign was Rappan Athuk and lasted five years.   In the first session, everyone rolled up four characters.  We had 4 players, so 16 characters. They were part of a caravan travelling down the coast road and then inland to a small trading settlement (Zelkor's Ferry) in-land, close to the area of the mega dungeon.   I thinked it work, because their object was to get to Zelkor's Ferry.  By the time they got into the dangerous section of the travel surrounded by wilderness and far from civilization, they just wanted to survive and get to the safety of Zelkor's Ferry.  The initial encounter involved a highly deadly foe. If it were just the 16 level-0 PCs they would have just been ground up. But there were part of a larger caravan that had many NPCs from merchants to guards. It did a great job of setting the deadly tone of the campaign and was more about organizing with the NPCs for their defense and surviving the massacre.From the PCs who survived, the players level them up to level 1. For players that had more than one survive (and most did, through careful, tactical play or effective cowardice), they selected one as their main PC with the other(s) available on the "back bench" back at the settlement (and later at a stronghold they took over and built up) to be available if their main PC died. I really enjoyed starting a campaign this way.  I'm now enjoying Warhammer Fantasy where you don't start out particularly competent. You might be a stevedore, rat catcher, beggar...there are a lot of careers, most of which don't make you think of heroic fantasy.  I just like game where you become heroes rather than start as heroes.   I like funnels for games where character death is more likely and expected because it sets a tone and expectation for that style of game. Even in DCC not every funnel has to be played as a meat grinder. Where you are just expected to continue to throw your lives away. It could be a deadly escape from captors. Your ship sinks and you find yourselves as cast aways in a dangerous area and need to find a way to safety or just to survive. There are lots of ways you can use a funnel that results in PC death that can still tell a meaningful story, one which can fuel the motivations of the survivors. I can understand why many don't like the aesthetics of DCC or the funky dice and all the roll tables, the unreliable casting, and many other things about the rule system.  But I never understood the funnel hate.</blockquote>

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