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Dungeon Crawl Classics
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<blockquote data-quote="DWChancellor" data-source="post: 7639417" data-attributes="member: 96184"><p><strong>5 out of 5 rating for Dungeon Crawl Classics</strong></p><p></p><p><strong>TLDR - A beautiful system for emulating sword & sorcery/pulp short stories. Theme and mechanics mesh wonderfully to provide unusual and rich experience.</strong></p><p></p><p>Dungeon Crawl Classics (DCC) is a vibrant love-letter to the old pulp and sword & sorcery stories as well as a "simpler" more evocative era of D&D (the way people "remember" it being, not the actual mess it sometimes was). The design conceits are deliberately odd to support the flavor DCC is trying to achieve. It is almost unfair to consider DCC without the accompanying line of adventures which are incredible rich in detail and deliciously bizarre in execution.</p><p></p><p>DCC begins with the notion of funnel adventures to start of play - hilariously dangerous and odd events where players begin with a handful of peasants, bakers, tax-collectors and other oddities with little to no adventuring experience. Their numbers are soon whittled down making every survivor precious and special. It is remarkably effective in getting players into the game and having a stake in characters that are often bizarre and would never have been made deliberately. The included funnel adventure is probably my top adventure/tutorial ever - evocative, enthralling, and mysterious in spades.</p><p></p><p>DCC then buckles down to putting the survivors in a world of dark sorcery where magic is otherworldly and dangerous. The universe is a big place and mortals are small players. Leaning on its sword & sorcery roots DCC jams both its mechanics and its accompanying adventures with the spicy thrill of real danger and genuine mystery. For example, casting spells always requires rolling on a table. As you advance and level the chances of hilarious mishaps in spell-casting shrink but never vanish. Spectacular rolls are rewarded with increasingly powerful spell effects while poor rolls mutates and otherwise hampers the characters. Wizards are grasping at power beyond the mortal ken and the mechanical flavor is immense. The implementation for clerics is just as good.</p><p></p><p>I gave DCC 5/5 stars because it wears its purpose on its sleeve and is totally committed to its mission: pulpy rich adventuring with danger and death nipping at your heels (Appendix N all the way!) The book itself is filled with gorgeous art and ridiculous ideas. Critical tables (by class and level!), miss tables, roll your own dragon/demon/magic item tables... the stories that emerge from play are guaranteed to be memorable. The game works reasonably well for short-mid length campaigns and is a perfect palate cleanser for one-offs. Longer campaigns suffer a little as high-level DCC characters become relatively resilient in a system that is mostly tuned to high-risk high-reward play.</p><p></p><p>Having sung DCC's praises I will end by saying it isn't for everyone. Character death is always just around the corner. Some players may find the punishments for bad rolls too harsh. While many of the accompanying adventures in the DCC line are incredible they can also be a little obtuse (you know, eldritch mysteries and all). But if you loved the old Conan stories (or Buck Rogers, or Grey Mouser, or John Carter, or Chthulhu, or...) you'll find a lot to love in DCC. I'd also recommend that DM's of any system pick up a copy and leaf through as this book is jammed with great ideas to adapt, both thematic and mechanical.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="DWChancellor, post: 7639417, member: 96184"] [b]5 out of 5 rating for Dungeon Crawl Classics[/b] [B]TLDR - A beautiful system for emulating sword & sorcery/pulp short stories. Theme and mechanics mesh wonderfully to provide unusual and rich experience.[/B] Dungeon Crawl Classics (DCC) is a vibrant love-letter to the old pulp and sword & sorcery stories as well as a "simpler" more evocative era of D&D (the way people "remember" it being, not the actual mess it sometimes was). The design conceits are deliberately odd to support the flavor DCC is trying to achieve. It is almost unfair to consider DCC without the accompanying line of adventures which are incredible rich in detail and deliciously bizarre in execution. DCC begins with the notion of funnel adventures to start of play - hilariously dangerous and odd events where players begin with a handful of peasants, bakers, tax-collectors and other oddities with little to no adventuring experience. Their numbers are soon whittled down making every survivor precious and special. It is remarkably effective in getting players into the game and having a stake in characters that are often bizarre and would never have been made deliberately. The included funnel adventure is probably my top adventure/tutorial ever - evocative, enthralling, and mysterious in spades. DCC then buckles down to putting the survivors in a world of dark sorcery where magic is otherworldly and dangerous. The universe is a big place and mortals are small players. Leaning on its sword & sorcery roots DCC jams both its mechanics and its accompanying adventures with the spicy thrill of real danger and genuine mystery. For example, casting spells always requires rolling on a table. As you advance and level the chances of hilarious mishaps in spell-casting shrink but never vanish. Spectacular rolls are rewarded with increasingly powerful spell effects while poor rolls mutates and otherwise hampers the characters. Wizards are grasping at power beyond the mortal ken and the mechanical flavor is immense. The implementation for clerics is just as good. I gave DCC 5/5 stars because it wears its purpose on its sleeve and is totally committed to its mission: pulpy rich adventuring with danger and death nipping at your heels (Appendix N all the way!) The book itself is filled with gorgeous art and ridiculous ideas. Critical tables (by class and level!), miss tables, roll your own dragon/demon/magic item tables... the stories that emerge from play are guaranteed to be memorable. The game works reasonably well for short-mid length campaigns and is a perfect palate cleanser for one-offs. Longer campaigns suffer a little as high-level DCC characters become relatively resilient in a system that is mostly tuned to high-risk high-reward play. Having sung DCC's praises I will end by saying it isn't for everyone. Character death is always just around the corner. Some players may find the punishments for bad rolls too harsh. While many of the accompanying adventures in the DCC line are incredible they can also be a little obtuse (you know, eldritch mysteries and all). But if you loved the old Conan stories (or Buck Rogers, or Grey Mouser, or John Carter, or Chthulhu, or...) you'll find a lot to love in DCC. I'd also recommend that DM's of any system pick up a copy and leaf through as this book is jammed with great ideas to adapt, both thematic and mechanical. [/QUOTE]
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