Renegade Announces Dungeon Crawler Carl RPG

Renegade has announced plans to develop an RPG based off the popular book series Dungeon Crawler Carl. Renegade announced plans to release a wide-ranging line of tabletop games based on the popular book series, which features a former Coast Guard veteran and his ex-girlfriend's cat forced to compete in a dungeon crawl competition created by hostile aliens. The first of these projects is a "full scale" roleplaying game that will allow players to immerse themselves in the world of the games. No designers were named for the project and it's unclear whether the game will use a bespoke system or one of the systems previously designed by Renegade for other publishers.

Renegade has built up an RPG line built primarily on licensed IPs. The publisher works with White Wolf on various World of Darkness books and also develops RPGs based on Power Rangers, GI Joe, Transformers, My Little Pony, and Welcome to Night Vale.

 

[darjr]

Well cool!

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

Maybe they use the same game system for the Hasbro licences.

Do you remember any 5e setting that were a litRPG, the PCs knew they were avatars within a computer simulation? I remember to have seen something in kickstarter but I can't find it.

 

[Arkanum]

Cool. The novel’s premise reminded me of X-Crawl. Full circle.

 

[DaveMage]

So now there are two DCC RPGs?

 

[SteveC]

This is an area where I'd love to hear people who've read this series talk about: what's special about this that it shouldn't just be a sourcebook for another game?

 

[athelu]

This is an area where I'd love to hear people who've read this series talk about: what's special about this that it shouldn't just be a sourcebook for another game?

It is a class/skill/loot system. The attributes deviate a little from standard attributes. Multiclassing results in a new class, not a combo of classes. Thebook is very much about breaking the rules tooof the game too.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

So now there are two DCC RPGs?

I look forward to years of baffled conversations.

 

[Zerbads]

As Athelu states... the hero is existing to break the system, rather than be broken bu the system. I don't see this as a game I'm interested in playing. Would it require an adversarial DM? Open world play w/ railroad story/plots... requiring PC's to constantly attempt to brake the game.
Good reads but I'll play something else.

 

[whitemage12380]

This is an area where I'd love to hear people who've read this series talk about: what's special about this that it shouldn't just be a sourcebook for another game?

This is a great question that gets me thinking about what the book might contain. This is one of those cases where it could be adapted to D&D or Pathfinder or something similarly crunchy, but I can easily see why it would get its own system, especially since there's already the bones of an established system present in the book material.

• As mentioned, attributes deviate. Scores range from 1 to 120, with human average being 3-4. Because...
• The system itself is an artificial one in the context of the universe, with an express intention of making crawlers super-human very quickly. This is because...
• The context is that this is an intergalactic game show. One of the most important "stats" is view counts. Popularity means the show-runners want to keep you alive, benefactors give you extremely powerful equipment not found in the dungeon, and, if you're "lucky," the system AI that keeps things running could develop enough of an interest to not kill you for funsies. Any Dungeon Crawler system worth its salt should heavily incorporate this as a mechanic.
• A frankly insane bestiary with a a slimmer overlap with standard RPG tropes than you'd think
• A spell list with loads of unique spells, in a system where almost all crawlers can cast spells to some extent, regardless of class
• Speaking of it being an artificial system - it borrows MMO-like elements as well. In addition to a spell point system, cooldown mechanics run rampant. There's a cooldown on consuming potions, for instance.

Some folks have spoken about breaking the rules/system/game. That is a massive theme of the books, but I wouldn't weigh that too heavily as an imperative. Players won't be playing Carl, they'll be crawlers in the system. They can choose to try to break the game, or just try to survive. Honestly, if this game does it right, PCs will be getting so many wild magic items with weird potential interactions that they'll be finding ways to break things not because they have to, but because it's fun. The DM, as always, will have their work cut out for them.

If the game does things wrong, it'll just use a system similar to one they've already done for a different IP, and make it Carl-themed.