Looking for opinions on Xcrawl

[Tetsubo]

Has anyone used the Xcrawl setting? If so, what did you think about it? I saw some art for a new supplement yesterday and it looked interesting...

 

[Roger]

The setting is pretty darn cool.

There's a couple of new game mechanics sub-systems. They're pretty good, but not so vital to the setting that they can't be dropped or reworked if required.

In general, I give it a thumbs-up.


Cheers,
Roger

 

[kingpaul]

I like the setting. I was in a campaign a couple years ago, but it fell apart because of RL. I've done a couple one-shots since then. Its very interesting. I heartily recommend it.

 

[Capellan]

I loved the concept of dungeoneering as an extreme sport, but was not enamored of the X-Crawl setting itself. North America recast as a latter day Roman Empire? Yawn.

I yoinked the basic concept for my X-Path games, but completely ignored X-Crawl itself in favour of using a less extreme (but far more perverse ) make-over of Earth as my 'background' setting.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I liked X-Crawl and sci-fi books that preceeded it- Larry Niven & Steven Barnes' Dream Park trilogy:

* Dream Park (1981)
* The Barsoom Project (1989)
* The California Voodoo Game (1992)

Or the classic Sci-Fi movie, Westworld. (Its sequel wasn't so good, though.)

The first book in the Dream Park series is set in 2051. Technology is used to create realistic games in which participants act out the roles of free-willed protagonists in various stories.

The books also inspired another game, (Dream Park).

Heck- you could even get ideas from video games like Smash TV.

If you're going to run X-Crawl, I'd advise reading at least one of the novels or watch the movie first- they'll give you great ideas.

 

[trancejeremy]

If it were like Dream Park, it would have been much better, IMHO. But it's more like American Gladiators.

 

[kingpaul]

If it were like Dream Park, it would have been much better, IMHO. But it's more like American Gladiators.

I've always thought it more of a blender-ized version of Running Man (the Ah-nold movie), the Roman Colliseum and your basic dungeon crawl.

 

[trancejeremy]

Yeah, that's a pretty good summation. The presentation is somewhat Running Man-ish, and the scenarios are pretty much all Dungeon Crawls. And the setting itself is Roman-esque.

Dream Park was a lot more varied in terms of scenario types. Kinda like d20 Modern in that aspect. The first novel was set in the South Pacific. The 2nd was futuristic, I think, and I don't think I read the 3rd.

 

[Staffan]

I haven't used XCrawl, but it inspired me to create something similar for use when I couldn't be hedgehogged into creating a serious adventure. I called it "Dungeon X-TREME", and the idea is similar. The Great Empire has more or less conquered the world, and in order to amuse the Emperor and to give the public something to cheer for, they are doing dungeon-crawling as a sport. Without the modern-day stuff, though.

This is where I let loose with my sillier ideas (like the Donkey Kong room) or scenarios set up just to make a good fight, rather than stuff that's supposed to make sense.

 

[BluWolf]

Is the basic book sufficient? I am thinking of picking it up to run a once a month game. To little time try and run an immersive style campaign and I am thinking the campiness of this premise would fit the bill sufficiently.