Scan barcode
jason_pym's review
4.0
I love the idea of Dungeons and Dragons. I am always frustrated with the reality.
I have no desire to spend my precious moments of free time reading a ‘fantasy’ gazetteer about the kingdom’s annual grain exports or the interminable spats of the local nobles. I don’t want ‘magic’ to be a number stacking game pushing percentage points*, or ‘monsters’ that are just monotonous bags of hit points and xp.
I want insanely dangerous and unpredictable sorcery, wild and weird and dangerous monsters that lurch from the horrific to the ridiculous. Lots of dungeon crawling; gonzo dungeons and interplanar travel is welcome.
From the looks of it I think, I hope, Dungeon Crawl Classics maybe my idea of D&D made real.
FLAVOUR
Here’s the first page of the Character chapter: ‘You’re no hero. You’re an adventurer: A reaver, a cutpurse, a heathen-slayer, a tight-lipped warlock guarding long-dead secrets. You seek gold and glory, winning it with sword and spell, caked in the blood and filth of the weak, the dark, the demons, and the vanquished. There are treasures to be won deep underneath, and you shall have them...’
Rock on.
The other major part of DCC is making the game vivid and unique. This is achieved through lots of fun tables – different types of monsters have different critical hit tables, each spell has its own results table, there are tables to customise monsters appearance and abilities. What this means is that everything is unpredictable (which is fun for the GM as well as players) and realised in colourful language. There seems to be the right balance of satisfying numbers and storytelling.
ART
The art is perfect. It mostly looks like it was scribbled in the back of a math textbook by a 13 year old. There is a shout out to all the best D&D artists in the introduction; Otus, Easley, Roslof, Holloway, Caldwell, Trampier, and Dee. This makes me happy. I can’t stand the sanitized, uncanny valley, ill-defined digital paintbrush of modern books, which are to rpg art what Alex Ross is to comics: Technically accomplished, soulless, and falling somewhere between insipid and repellent.
DICE
I love rolling dice, I love all the polyhedron dice. DCC not only uses all of them, d4 to d20, it adds extra aberrations: d3, d5, d7, d14, d16, d24, d30. Happily, even though my nearest game shop is a couple thousand miles away, I managed to get hold of a set. Some complain this makes the game less accessible with the need for specialty dice. My feeling is that it shows how it is obscenely indulgent in all the right places.
LANGUAGE
I hate the mangled language and rules of D&D, like why is Perception linked to Wisdom? I hate that the attribute is ‘Dexterity’ when they mean ‘Agility’. DCC uses the eminently sensible Strength, Agility, Stamina, Personality, Intelligence, and Luck.
Armour Class still means you are ‘harder to hit’ but you can’t have everything.
LUCK
This new attribute reminds me of Luck in Fighting Fantasy, which I always liked. It’s a finite resource in the players’ hands that can be used to affect outcomes, and it’s a gamble – the more you use it the less you have for a later, likely more critical, moment. Also fun is that in character creation you roll to see what specific roll your Luck modifier will affect, for example ‘Conceived on horseback’ affects mounted attack rolls, ‘Survived a spider bite’ affects Saves against poison. Instant backstory with mechanical meaning!
ALIGNMENT
Only lawful, chaotic, or neutral. Lawful means tending toward lawful good (angels), chaotic means tending toward chaotic evil (demons and devils). Neutrality can mean a zen calm or an attachment to the Old Ones from before there was chaos or law (Cthulhu, elementals, the undead).
I want the world to be a simple place, angels and devils, black hats and white hats, law and chaos. I do not have any desire to figure out what a ‘chaotic neutral’ (??) character is going to do when faced with a moral dilemma.
And as a bonus in DCC alignment determines your class title! In DCC a first level lawful cleric is an acolyte, a chaotic cleric is a zealot, and neutral one a witness. That is fun. I always liked class titles (level 4 thief is a burglar, level 5 a cutpurse, just adds more flavour), I remember them from B/X D&D, though (I just checked) they were dropped after AD&D1.
MAGIC
‘There is no such thing as a “generic” magic item. All magic items are unique.’
Magic in DCC is ‘MAGIC’: ‘Summoning magical energies is arduous, expensive, and dangerous. No wizard does it lightly. As a result, there are no mundane magics, no spells used simply to light a corridor... Use a torch, fool; it is much safer!’
Magic corrupts. And it affects everyone differently. Every time one wizard casts Ekim’s Mystical Mask he loses a finger, yet when another casts the same spell his flesh becomes momentarily transparent, making him look like a clothed skeleton. A fumbled spell could mean the wizard’s face is covered in painful pustules, or he grows maggot-sized tentacles around his mouth and ears. This corruption accumulates over time so that practiced wizards stumble around with desecrated bodies. Great power will cost you dearly.
As a bonus, ‘There are no schools of magic, only masters willing to take apprentices.’ This is how it should be. Making magic an institution with a bureaucracy and mission statement is anathema to what makes magic ‘MAGIC’.
RACE AS CLASS
D&D started becoming bland for me around 3rd edition, when any race could be any class. I don’t want gnome paladins and dwarven rangers. Like having obvious bad guys and good guys, I want strong, distinctive character classes. You can be a human warrior or an elf. This to me makes the non-human classes more special, it feels like you are playing a being from a fantasy world, and not just a set of attribute bonuses. Having started on Red Box D&D this also feels like coming home.
THE ANSWER IS NOT ON YOUR CHARACTER SHEET
This is one of the mantras of OSR that I really feel in the depths of my soul. I hate presenting a problem to players for them to just skim through their character sheet for some god-like solve-all ability, roll a dice and then move on to the next ‘challenge’ with minimum brain engagement. This is explicitly tackled in the chapter ‘Quests and Journeys’ and is one of the most exciting parts of DCC. ‘This game is not about mechanical solutions to requests; it’s about adventure!’ If the players want to accomplish something miraculous, make it part of a unique quest, do not hand it to them as reusable magic item or feat or spell. They have a great list of examples at the start of the chapter:
‘Speak with the dead: Obtain the tongue of a still-living witch who gives it willingly, then place it in the mouth of the corpse.
‘Slay an immortal: Find the hall of souls, where a candle is lit for every living being, somewhere on a divine plane of existence, and snuff the candle that represents that immortal’s soul.
‘Summon creatures from beyond: Find the creature’s representation in the vast collection of statues kept by Gorgon, the medusa god, then carry that statue back to the mortal realms and turn it to flesh.’ And so on…
THAT’S IT
I just realised even the name, Dungeon Crawl Classics, is unapologetic fun. I am really looking forward to playing this.
* Caveat: I don’t mind Bladesharp 1 in Runequest, because that gives you the feeling of a low-level hum of magic all around in a fairly low-magic setting, broken by miraculous blasts of divine magic or chaotic horror. And I don’t mind every day at-will magic in Talislanta, because everything is supposed to be soaked in magic, there is no mundane. But in pseudo-medieval D&D, where magic should be a thing of awe and horror, using magic to start a campfire and light a corridor (let alone a +1 sword) is just joyless.
I have no desire to spend my precious moments of free time reading a ‘fantasy’ gazetteer about the kingdom’s annual grain exports or the interminable spats of the local nobles. I don’t want ‘magic’ to be a number stacking game pushing percentage points*, or ‘monsters’ that are just monotonous bags of hit points and xp.
I want insanely dangerous and unpredictable sorcery, wild and weird and dangerous monsters that lurch from the horrific to the ridiculous. Lots of dungeon crawling; gonzo dungeons and interplanar travel is welcome.
From the looks of it I think, I hope, Dungeon Crawl Classics maybe my idea of D&D made real.
FLAVOUR
Here’s the first page of the Character chapter: ‘You’re no hero. You’re an adventurer: A reaver, a cutpurse, a heathen-slayer, a tight-lipped warlock guarding long-dead secrets. You seek gold and glory, winning it with sword and spell, caked in the blood and filth of the weak, the dark, the demons, and the vanquished. There are treasures to be won deep underneath, and you shall have them...’
Rock on.
The other major part of DCC is making the game vivid and unique. This is achieved through lots of fun tables – different types of monsters have different critical hit tables, each spell has its own results table, there are tables to customise monsters appearance and abilities. What this means is that everything is unpredictable (which is fun for the GM as well as players) and realised in colourful language. There seems to be the right balance of satisfying numbers and storytelling.
ART
The art is perfect. It mostly looks like it was scribbled in the back of a math textbook by a 13 year old. There is a shout out to all the best D&D artists in the introduction; Otus, Easley, Roslof, Holloway, Caldwell, Trampier, and Dee. This makes me happy. I can’t stand the sanitized, uncanny valley, ill-defined digital paintbrush of modern books, which are to rpg art what Alex Ross is to comics: Technically accomplished, soulless, and falling somewhere between insipid and repellent.
DICE
I love rolling dice, I love all the polyhedron dice. DCC not only uses all of them, d4 to d20, it adds extra aberrations: d3, d5, d7, d14, d16, d24, d30. Happily, even though my nearest game shop is a couple thousand miles away, I managed to get hold of a set. Some complain this makes the game less accessible with the need for specialty dice. My feeling is that it shows how it is obscenely indulgent in all the right places.
LANGUAGE
I hate the mangled language and rules of D&D, like why is Perception linked to Wisdom? I hate that the attribute is ‘Dexterity’ when they mean ‘Agility’. DCC uses the eminently sensible Strength, Agility, Stamina, Personality, Intelligence, and Luck.
Armour Class still means you are ‘harder to hit’ but you can’t have everything.
LUCK
This new attribute reminds me of Luck in Fighting Fantasy, which I always liked. It’s a finite resource in the players’ hands that can be used to affect outcomes, and it’s a gamble – the more you use it the less you have for a later, likely more critical, moment. Also fun is that in character creation you roll to see what specific roll your Luck modifier will affect, for example ‘Conceived on horseback’ affects mounted attack rolls, ‘Survived a spider bite’ affects Saves against poison. Instant backstory with mechanical meaning!
ALIGNMENT
Only lawful, chaotic, or neutral. Lawful means tending toward lawful good (angels), chaotic means tending toward chaotic evil (demons and devils). Neutrality can mean a zen calm or an attachment to the Old Ones from before there was chaos or law (Cthulhu, elementals, the undead).
I want the world to be a simple place, angels and devils, black hats and white hats, law and chaos. I do not have any desire to figure out what a ‘chaotic neutral’ (??) character is going to do when faced with a moral dilemma.
And as a bonus in DCC alignment determines your class title! In DCC a first level lawful cleric is an acolyte, a chaotic cleric is a zealot, and neutral one a witness. That is fun. I always liked class titles (level 4 thief is a burglar, level 5 a cutpurse, just adds more flavour), I remember them from B/X D&D, though (I just checked) they were dropped after AD&D1.
MAGIC
‘There is no such thing as a “generic” magic item. All magic items are unique.’
Magic in DCC is ‘MAGIC’: ‘Summoning magical energies is arduous, expensive, and dangerous. No wizard does it lightly. As a result, there are no mundane magics, no spells used simply to light a corridor... Use a torch, fool; it is much safer!’
Magic corrupts. And it affects everyone differently. Every time one wizard casts Ekim’s Mystical Mask he loses a finger, yet when another casts the same spell his flesh becomes momentarily transparent, making him look like a clothed skeleton. A fumbled spell could mean the wizard’s face is covered in painful pustules, or he grows maggot-sized tentacles around his mouth and ears. This corruption accumulates over time so that practiced wizards stumble around with desecrated bodies. Great power will cost you dearly.
As a bonus, ‘There are no schools of magic, only masters willing to take apprentices.’ This is how it should be. Making magic an institution with a bureaucracy and mission statement is anathema to what makes magic ‘MAGIC’.
RACE AS CLASS
D&D started becoming bland for me around 3rd edition, when any race could be any class. I don’t want gnome paladins and dwarven rangers. Like having obvious bad guys and good guys, I want strong, distinctive character classes. You can be a human warrior or an elf. This to me makes the non-human classes more special, it feels like you are playing a being from a fantasy world, and not just a set of attribute bonuses. Having started on Red Box D&D this also feels like coming home.
THE ANSWER IS NOT ON YOUR CHARACTER SHEET
This is one of the mantras of OSR that I really feel in the depths of my soul. I hate presenting a problem to players for them to just skim through their character sheet for some god-like solve-all ability, roll a dice and then move on to the next ‘challenge’ with minimum brain engagement. This is explicitly tackled in the chapter ‘Quests and Journeys’ and is one of the most exciting parts of DCC. ‘This game is not about mechanical solutions to requests; it’s about adventure!’ If the players want to accomplish something miraculous, make it part of a unique quest, do not hand it to them as reusable magic item or feat or spell. They have a great list of examples at the start of the chapter:
‘Speak with the dead: Obtain the tongue of a still-living witch who gives it willingly, then place it in the mouth of the corpse.
‘Slay an immortal: Find the hall of souls, where a candle is lit for every living being, somewhere on a divine plane of existence, and snuff the candle that represents that immortal’s soul.
‘Summon creatures from beyond: Find the creature’s representation in the vast collection of statues kept by Gorgon, the medusa god, then carry that statue back to the mortal realms and turn it to flesh.’ And so on…
THAT’S IT
I just realised even the name, Dungeon Crawl Classics, is unapologetic fun. I am really looking forward to playing this.
* Caveat: I don’t mind Bladesharp 1 in Runequest, because that gives you the feeling of a low-level hum of magic all around in a fairly low-magic setting, broken by miraculous blasts of divine magic or chaotic horror. And I don’t mind every day at-will magic in Talislanta, because everything is supposed to be soaked in magic, there is no mundane. But in pseudo-medieval D&D, where magic should be a thing of awe and horror, using magic to start a campfire and light a corridor (let alone a +1 sword) is just joyless.
btony's review
3.0
Dripping with classic fantasy flavor, a lot of the art is also excellent
The magic system fucks
Only critique is that formatting could be better and some tables made easier to use at the table, but I understand why the table entries are as long as they are.
Update: After actually playing DCC, the formatting could be MUCH better and more usable. It is a serious problem
The magic system fucks
Only critique is that formatting could be better and some tables made easier to use at the table, but I understand why the table entries are as long as they are.
Update: After actually playing DCC, the formatting could be MUCH better and more usable. It is a serious problem
srdaine's review
4.0
Mazmorreo de la vieja escuela bastante curioso: quiere un sistema sencillo y dinámico, alejado de cálculos extensos y tardes enteras para diseñar un personaje, o de intentar cubrir cualquier situación con una regla específica, pero luego te añade tablas de todo tipo para usar durante la partida y plantea un sistema de dados extra que se añaden a los de toda la vida. Lo importante, de todas maneras, es lo mucho que insiste en que las reglas son tuyas y que las uses cómo y cuándo desees, tanto a la hora de diseñar tu escenario como los propios monstruos. Esto, la apuesta por llegar a la variedad de personajes no por la planificación medida y meditada de todo sino por la aleatoriedad, y la ingente cantidad de material alternativo para diseñar tu partida perfecta que tiene en internet, es lo que me lo ha vendido. No creo que vaya a jugarlo en la vida pero ya estoy escribiendo aventuras.
jvan's review
3.0
The art is amazing. The rules are hit and miss, some incredibly cool stuff and some...less so. The GM advice and material is not great.
On the whole, I like it but don't love it.
On the whole, I like it but don't love it.
grilledcheesesamurai's review
5.0
So, I GM a Homebrew world for my players and I. We use the D&D 5th edition ruleset as the backbone for the mechanics of our game. However, I have some Pathfinder material in there, some Cypher system in there, some Dungeon World in there, and yes, a whole lot of Dungeon Crawl Classics in there ( and a whole shwack of other stuffs).
That's the beauty of tabletop RPG games. You can pretty much do whatever the hell you want. The key is to stay consistent. If I say that 'this is how we do something,' I have to make sure that the next time we do that thing again, the rules stay the same. If you have all that chalked out properly then you can snag material from whatever sources you want and make them your own.
The world that I have created that myself and my players adventure in is called, Aventyra. And even though, when asked, I say that it is a D&D 5th edition game, really, it is a melting pot of all kinds of mechanics I have picked up from all over the place over the years.
Dungeon Crawl Classics is a huge inspiration for me. This book is friggin gorgeous and, without any kind of exaggeration, I can honestly say that every single time I open this book I find something awesome and new. Whether it be something that inspires me, or a new ruleset that I think is cool, or just a particular piece of art that gets my juices flowing, there is always something in this damned book that blows my mind.
It's a juggernaut of a book too. 470 pages packed between its hardcovers. Hell, just looking at the book sitting on my bookshelf makes me feel all gooey and excited.
And the magic system...holy balls is it ever cool. It is easily the coolest magic system I have ever come across in my years of RPGing. I have slowly been incorporating the way magic works in this book into our own world and the 5th edition ruleset that my players and I use. It really adds a sense of danger and impact to the game that I haven't really ever seen in any other ruleset before. Magic has consequences and the risk/rewards of using Dungeon Crawl classics in my fifth edition games has really made it exciting for all of us involved.
Bottom line? If you are a tabletop gamer and you see this book sitting on a shelf somewhere...you buy that motherfucker! Buy it with complete confidence that even if you don't play DCC games - you are gonna find stuff inside that will blow your mind and make yourself a better player or GM.
That's a promise!
More...