Sell Me on Dungeon Crawl Classics For Long term Play, and NO Funnels

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

About Monster Overhaul, @Whizbang Dustyboots , @overgeeked , @Nightfly - have any of you read the 13th Age Bestiaries? For me those have always been the platinum standard - not the gold standard because nothing was close to them. Interesting monsters mechanically, presented at a range of levels, dripping with lore and hooks, with encounter building advice, adventure-including advice, and really focused that it's not a GM aid to logically including the monsters in your specific adventure and making them awesome in-session instead of just a listing of cool creatures.

I'm not trying to sell any of you on it - I respect that you have your favorite. But if any of you have worked with the 13th Age Bestiary or Bestiary II, can you tell me how it exceeds it?

Thanks.

I don't own any 13th Age stuff and haven't come in contact with it, I'm afraid.

 

[overgeeked]

About Monster Overhaul, @Whizbang Dustyboots , @overgeeked , @Nightfly - have any of you read the 13th Age Bestiaries? For me those have always been the platinum standard - not the gold standard because nothing was close to them. Interesting monsters mechanically, presented at a range of levels, dripping with lore and hooks, with encounter building advice, adventure-including advice, and really focused that it's not a GM aid to logically including the monsters in your specific adventure and making them awesome in-session instead of just a listing of cool creatures.

I'm not trying to sell any of you on it - I respect that you have your favorite. But if any of you have worked with the 13th Age Bestiary or Bestiary II, can you tell me how it exceeds it?

Thanks.

I only have a few of the books and none of them are for monsters. Sorry.

 

[Nightfly]

About Monster Overhaul, @Whizbang Dustyboots , @overgeeked , @Nightfly - have any of you read the 13th Age Bestiaries?

Yes! Love the 13th Age books. For those who don't know, here's a taste of the awesomeness: when a 13a owlbear scores a critical hit, it rips your arm off and then attempts to escape combat so it can feed your arm to its cubs. Good stuff! Another killer tidbit: a suggested plot hook for the lich is that the players are hired to disrupt a wedding between two liches which would unite their undead kingdoms. Holy hell is that delicious.

If you force me to choose, I guess I'd say the Monster Overhaul is even better, since it's system-neutral and has such amazing tables. But they're both amazing and both very similar. I wonder if 13th Age was an influence on Skerples? I don't think of 13a as "OSR" at all but I wouldn't be surprised.

Blue, given your love of the 13a books, you must check out Monster Overhaul if you haven't already. It's chock full of the same kind of killer hooks and ideas.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Those sound like excellent hooks.

 

[el-remmen]

Wait, they gained a single level in a year of play?

This is basically how I run 5e! Well, we average about 2 levels a year of real time (though one of my groups has been at 5th level since November 2022 - and we’ve played 19 sessions and xp has been awarded once more since then - just not enough to advance).

 

[Divine2021]

About Monster Overhaul, @Whizbang Dustyboots , @overgeeked , @Nightfly - have any of you read the 13th Age Bestiaries? For me those have always been the platinum standard - not the gold standard because nothing was close to them. Interesting monsters mechanically, presented at a range of levels, dripping with lore and hooks, with encounter building advice, adventure-including advice, and really focused that it's not a GM aid to logically including the monsters in your specific adventure and making them awesome in-session instead of just a listing of cool creatures.

I'm not trying to sell any of you on it - I respect that you have your favorite. But if any of you have worked with the 13th Age Bestiary or Bestiary II, can you tell me how it exceeds it?

Thanks.

I wasn’t asked, but I found it superior in that I can just plop and play—boom, excellent encounter with just enough backstory that I can flesh out if I want. The book just oooooozes practical creativity.

 

[Blue]

I wasn’t asked, but I found it superior in that I can just plop and play—boom, excellent encounter with just enough backstory that I can flesh out if I want. The book just oooooozes practical creativity.

I'm a bit confused. Both of the 13th Age Bestiaries have encounter suggestions, including paring with other creatures.

So what is the benefit you are seeing? Is it that 13th Age Bestiaries have too much lore and adventure help, so you don't feel comfortable just plopping them down randomly? Because you absolutely can "plop and play" from them.

EDIT: Dustyboots shared a page from the book, and I now see what you mean about being excellent for immediate play without prep. I get it now.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I'm a bit confused. Both of the 13th Age Bestiaries have encounter suggestions, including paring with other creatures.

So what is the benefit you are seeing? Is it that 13th Age Bestiaries have too much lore and adventure help, so you don't feel comfortable just plopping them down randomly? Because you absolutely can "plop and play" from them.

It's easiest if you just look at the preview pages: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/daishugars/the-monster-overhaul

Scroll down to the mercenary entry. This is one of the leaner ones, but it takes what's normally a pretty rote Monster Manual entry and instantly gives you the color needed to make it something other than "uh, it's 2d4 mercenaries, I guess."

I wish the previews showed some of the better entries. (The DriveThruRPG preview weirdly just shows the table of contents and information on how to use the book, which is a really poor choice.) But the dragons entry, for instance, has a chart that lets you take the stats for young dragons or elder dragons (the two core stat blocks) and make almost two dozen variants of each, including all the classic D&D ones, but also iron dragons who breathe out a blast of swords, for instance.

The vampire entry goes over three pages and gives you everything from what sort of supernatural powers this vampire has to their appearance, who their servants are and even a complete castle to drop them into.

There's a bunch of posts about the book here on ENWorld that go into more detail.

 

[Reynard]

It's easiest if you just look at the preview pages: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/daishugars/the-monster-overhaul

Scroll down to the mercenary entry. This is one of the leaner ones, but it takes what's normally a pretty rote Monster Manual entry and instantly gives you the color needed to make it something other than "uh, it's 2d4 mercenaries, I guess."

I wish the previews showed some of the better entries. (The DriveThruRPG preview weirdly just shows the table of contents and information on how to use the book, which is a really poor choice.) But the dragons entry, for instance, has a chart that lets you take the stats for young dragons or elder dragons (the two core stat blocks) and make almost two dozen variants of each, including all the classic D&D ones, but also steel dragons who breathe out a blast of swords, for instance.

The vampire entry goes over three pages and gives you everything from what sort of supernatural powers this vampire has to their appearance, who their servants are and even a complete castle to drop them into.

There's a bunch of posts about the book here on ENWorld that go into more detail.

Questing Beast does a great overview of the book @Blue should check out.

 

[HaroldTheHobbit]

Regarding DCC and long campaigns: We usually do heavy roleplaying, heavy background stuff. But I bought DCC on a whim a while ago, and got seriously bitten by the nostalgia bug. My players are a decade or two younger than me, and I think they would enjoy the player skill focus gaming style for a change. So I start a campaign in September, and have gotten the core module and Sailors/Portal for Foundry to start with. My plan is to create my own stuff with a Warhammer Fantasy:ish touch for tone and style, we'll see how it goes. But on the subject - besides a potentially high mortality rate, I don't see anything in the game that would hinder a long campaign, especially if you make your own adventures.