Dungeon Coach's DC20 RPG

[The Myopic Sniper]

Although I had seen a lot of the announcements of new D20 based dungeon fantasy games coming out after the OGL debacle earlier this year, I somehow missed this one about YouTube creator The Dungeon Coach's system until Treantmonk reviewed it's Alpha version this week.

Trenatmonk:

It looks pretty advanced for what I am guessing is a solo adventure and rather than being a 5e with a few terms changed and the WOTC serial numbers filed up and published, this looks like a full blown hybrid of Pathfinder and 5e with a fair bit of 4e and its descendants in there.

As ambitious as this thing seems to be, I am a bit reluctant to throw money at it until I hear some other reports since balancing out the new action economy and numerical systems should require a lot more staff and playtesting than your average YouTube influencer should be able to muster especially with something this crunchy.

I looked around to see if there were any threads on EN World about and couldn't find any, but I am curious to hear if anyone has looked at it or have any thoughts about it?

The Dungeon Coach's YouTube channel here:
https://www.youtube.com/@TheDungeonCoach

 

[Aldarc]

I'm a bit more surprised this isn't getting as much attention. There was another Youtube video recently that talked about a few of the TTRPGs that were in development as a result of the OGL Fiasco, and it mentioned this TTRPG. It sounds fairly interesting.

 

[Reynard]

I have never heard of the Dungeon Coach (and have heard of Treantmonk, for reference). Maybe there just isn't a lot of overlap here?

 

[Aldarc]

I have never heard of the Dungeon Coach (and have heard of Treantmonk, for reference). Maybe there just isn't a lot of overlap here?

That's possible. I've seen his videos pop up from time to time, though I don't know too much about him. (I admittedly kind of lose track of who's who in the crowded throng of bearded late twenties to thirties white guy D&D Youtubers.)

I decided to look more into this new system and watch more of his videos, just so I can talk about my own impression of the game so far. The way he presents in his videos does feel like he's Billy Mays about to sell me something on an infomercial. Whether that's a fair assessment or not, it's almost too much fast-paced salesmanship energy for my tastes.

Listening to Dungeon Coach talk about his game, I'm kind of struck by how his TTRPG experience seems to boil down entirely (as far as I'm aware) to 5th Edition D&D and Pathfinder 2. He came into the hobby with the former, and I'm not sure how much actual play experience he has with the latter, as it seems his familiarity seems more with rules he read about and likes, and he has no videos where he evidences any actual play experience with PF2. (He does have additional game experience with card games like Yuh-Gi-Oh, Magic the Gathering, and Hearthstone.) I personally find that it helps to have actual play experience with these games you take ideas from so you get an idea of how it works out in actual play practice (i.e., is this actually fun?) and how that rule may interact with the other moving parts of a system since what rule works in one game may not work in another due to the sum of all parts.

The system he is making does sound fairly interesting (in its current state) as a possible alternative to these two games. There are things that I do like about the changes he is making, especially intrigued by Treantmonk's own feedback of the system. I can go into greater detail on that some other time. However, I can't help but wonder how different his system would look if he had more experience and familiarity outside of these two games, even if that experience was with other D&D and D&D-adjacent games (e.g., Shadow of the Demon Lord, OSE & OSR, 4e D&D, Fantasy AGE, 13th Age, ICRPG, etc.). I'm not expecting his system to be original, but it does seem like having greater familiarity with how these other games approached similar game design issues would help enrich his project.