Initial Review of Dungeon Crawl Classic RPG & the Sailors of the Starless Sea

I recently had the chance to try out Goodman Game’s Dungeon Crawl Classic (DCC) RPG and their module “The Sailors of the Starless Sea” using a Zero-Level Funnel

What is DCC?

Per Wikipedia 

“In 2012 Goodman Games released the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game (DCC RPG). The company describes it as "an OGL system that cross-breeds Appendix N with a streamlined version of 3E", referring to Appendix N of the original Dungeon Masters Guide, which listed fiction that was an influence on Dungeons & Dragons.”

I would describe it less like cross-breeding and more like Appendix N grudge-fucked 3^rd Ed D&D into submission all while branding the lyrics to Holy Diver into its skin.

The game requires Zocchi dice set, meaning d3, d5, d7, d14, d16, d24 and d30 are required in addition to the standard set of 7 polyhedrals (d4, d6, d8, d10, tens ten, d12 and d20).

Goodman’s idea to make this game even funkier, use some really funky dice. The general idea is in some instances instead of adding a modifiers all of the time, you upgrade a die to the next higher one.

Neat idea, right?

Technical you can use standard dice to get the same results, but the freaking mental gymnastics to remember what does what would drive most people to buy the Zocchi Dice Set.

That folks is what we call in marketing a built-in sale.

We did not get too deep into a lot of the mechanics. The most interesting one was the ability for characters to “burn” ability points to add bonuses to their dice roll. I had never seen this before in any game, it was a novel concept. 

The book itself is one part rulebook and one part art book. There is more art in this one book than 10 other retro-clones combined. The Table of Contents page alone is a two page panorama piece. The art itself evokes that old school late 60’s & 70’s vibe. The art of Frank Frazetta and Boris Vallejo would not be out of place here.

What is a Zero-Level Funnel?

A "funnel" is a metaphor for the shape of the PC pool: large at the entrance, small at the exit.

Each player creates and plays four 0th-level PCs during the adventure. Due to the fragility of these starting characters and the relative deadliness of DCC RPG, many are expected to die. From the survivors you advance one to 1st level. The result is that your "starting" 1st-level character has a bit of a history, some stories to tell, and a connection to the other PCs that's forged.

Each of the characters starts off with an occupation that runs the gamut of traditional jobs you would see in a fantasy setting. These occupations provide the character with some kind of weapon and one trade good that is related to their occupation.

If you roll a farmer, you get a pitchfork and a live chicken.

What am I going to do with a goddamn chicken, eat it?  

Luckily the book makes a suggestion to use them to test rooms and hallways for traps.

One of the players rolled a gong farmer.

What the fuck is a gong farmer? How do you grow a gong?

I was quickly educated that it was someone who dug out and removed human excrement (night soil) from privies and cesspits. Their starting equipment was a bucket of night soil.

A bucket of poop……….

That chicken is looking pretty useful.

Basically the whole things plays out like Mad Max meets the Hungry Games set in the world of Beastmaster, characters dying left and right and the survivors picking their corpse clean for their gear.

The Sailors of the Starless Sea (spoiler free)

This is an adventure written and designed as a zero-level funnel.

Since time immemorial you and your people have toiled in the shadow of the cyclopean ruins. Of mysterious origins and the source of many a superstition, they have always been considered a secret best left unknown by the folk of your hamlet.

But now something stirs beneath the crumbling blocks. Beastmen howl in the night and your fellow villagers are snatched from their beds. With no heroes to defend you, who will rise to stand against the encircling darkness? The secrets of Chaos are yours to unearth, but at what cost to sanity or soul?

This thing drips with flavor, right?

After we rolled up our victims characters we trudged up to the adventure sight. What proceeded was something akin to a 80’s horror-slasher movie, you know the ones I am talking about.

“Hey guys let’s check out that spooky, creepy castle. We can smoke pot, drink beer and make out with some hotties. What could possible go wrong?”

*Cue Music, Chainsaws, Screams, and lots of Blood Splatter

As a veteran gamer, my experience worked against me. This adventure does not award cautious role play. This adventure rewards massive brass ball level risk taking; my natural veteran aversion to risky situations caused me to miss some key point that could have led to items that would have greatly aided in the final battle of the game.

I don’t know if the writer Harley Stroh did this intentional, but there are very few clues in this adventure. Literally in order to find some things, characters have to fucking die. I don’t know what Mr. Stroh’s design philosophy is or his thought process when writing his adventures. My initial take is at some point in Mr. Stroh’s life he was an Outlaw Biker or a Viking or a member of the Spanish Inquisition because he seems to enjoy butchering characters and torturing players.

Overall Impression

The production quality and art in this book are top-notch. The rules mechanics are familiar yet different enough to make this game stand-out from the glut of retro-clones out their.

The adventurer on the other hand, can either be a good adventure if tweaked a bit or a vehicle for DM's to hate-fuck his players.

Classic D&D + The Known World vs. Adventurer, Conqueror, King + Auran Empire

Preface

Mystara is a campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role playing game. Following Greyhawk and Blackmoor, It was the third official campaign setting for what was coined the "Basic" version of the game.

It originated as the Known World, a semi-generic setting used in early adventure modules, first mentioned in the Module X1, Isle of Dread, which was expanded upon by several semi-independent projects by different teams of writers who were each assigned to the task of developing different cultures and nations that would exist in the fantasy world that was supported by Dungeons & Dragons at the time. Their work was gathered and compiled, blended, and combined to form a fantasy world, Mystara.

The Birth of Known World 81

A couple of years ago I finally got my hands on a copy of the 1981 "Basic" D&D game, the 1982 “Expert” D&D Game and the blue cover of the X1 Isle of Dread. While pursuing these books I had a thought.

How would a modern day DM run a campaign using just the materials that were available in 1982?

I got a list of everything a DM would have accessed to and then I built-up a campaign world out of it.

• ·        1981 "Basic" D&D game
•       1982 “Expert” D&D Game
• ·         B4 - Lost City
• ·         X1 - Isle of Dread

Using just the information in these publications I created what I initially called “Known World 81” and created an adventuring campaign for it. My gaming group played for over a year in this world and much fun was had. I am planning on running a new campaign in the same world 50 years later as a generational campaign with some of my players playing descendants of their original characters.

 There is more information first campaign on the Dragonsfoot Forum, where I posted an adventure journal.

 This time around I have updated the campaign and the setting. I am going to be running it using the Adventurer, Conqueror, King (ACK) Rule System. I have also taken parts of the default setting for ACK and merged it into my campaign.

What is Adventurer, Conqueror, King (ACK) Rule System?

ACK is one of the slews of RPGs that has been spawned out of the Old School Renaissance (OSR) movement of gaming. At its most base, the OSR movement is the fan-based movement to recapture the feel of the older versions of D&D by publishing new rulesets and adventures by “cloning” older rulesets. 

With all things this is good and bad, the sheer output from the community is staggering, with some exceptional writing, some utter dog turds, and sheer money grabbing/band wagoning. ACK is considered to be a neo-clone of the classic “Basic” D&D game that was published parallel to Advanced D&D back in the day.

What made ACK standout from the rest?   

For one thing it does not read or feel like a Retro-Clone or a Neo-Clone ruleset.  It does not try to mimic the older games. The best way I can describe it is as follows.

What 5^th Edition D&D is to Advanced D&D, ACK is to Basic D&D. ACK reads and plays like a new edition of the classic original D&D.

The little diagram below is how I see ACK as a rule set; it is the next iteration of the tradition of the classic D&D game that I played as a kid. It still has some of the hallmarks of the earlier versions of the game, but presents them in a new and/or interesting way.

Original D&D (Gygax/Arneson) -> B/X D&D (Moldvay/Cook) -> BECMI D&D (Mentzer) -> Rules Cyclopedia D&D (Heard/Allison) -> ACK

One of the things that has really set it apart it from other games, is the fact it is the races, classes, arms, magic and monsters are not all tied to the traditional middle/high medieval fantasy like so many other games. Instead the game is steeped in late antiquity, the age of dying empires and barbarian hordes.  The default world is known as the Auran Empire and the thought and detail that has gone into it is amazing.

Can it be used in a traditional high fantasy setting like Greyhawk or Forgotten realms? Sure, not a problem. A lot of people dislike or disapprove of having default settings in RPG’s. Who wants to run some wankers idealized version of Greyhawk or circle-jerk fanboy version of Forgotten Realms? Not many I would think.

Auran Empire vs. Known World 81

As part of a recent Kickstarter, the creators of ACK are putting out an Auran Empire Primer, which provides more details about the campaign world that is alluded to in the core rule book and companion book. As a backer I got a draft copy of it (Still Waiting for the Finalized Version). 

After reading it and then going back and looking back at my own Known World 81 I was amazed at how similar our two worlds are. Instead of Auran Empire I had the Thracian Empire and on and on. Even the timelines for our two worlds bore similarities.  Needless to say I have begun to merge many element from the ACK defaulting into my own campaign.