Dungeon Crawl Awesomeness

This game has become my new obsession.

The Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG is a set of roleplaying rules inspired by old-school Dungeons and Dragons, that attempts to capture the essence of a classic dungeon crawling adventure. DCC started off as a set of modules created by Goodman Games for use with 3E D&D along with 4E and some adventures actually being adapted for the original Dungeons and Dragons. The game itself isn't set for actual release untill around April (hopefully), but Goodman Games has released a beta version of the game on their website for free (here).

As soon as I saw that cover I was in love. I recently attempted to run a game of Pathfinder for a workmate and his friends, it was a disaster. They all had fun, which is the point of the game really, but for me there were just too any rules and conditions to manage. The game ran really slow as I kept having to refer to the book and right from the very start players were all min/maxing their characters. This wasn't my idea of fun. That's not to say the game is bad, there is a lot to Pathfinder that I love (which is why I tried to run a game) but as a DM with no experience that game is just too much.

DCC RPG is the game I want to run. The game wears it's inspiration on it's sleeve, it takes what is good about oD&D and improves on it, much like what Pathfinder does to 3.5 although not as literal. In my opinion the greatest features introduced by this game is the character creation and 0-level gameplay. The focus is to create your character points first, you roll 3d6 for each of your ability scores in order (with no re-rolls) and choose your 0-level occupation (by rolling 1d100). The idea of 0-level play is that your characters start as regular people, you are not a hero yet, and so you start off with an occupation (eg. blacksmith). This starts you off with basic equipment for your career along with associated skills.

With 0-level gameplay each player is advised to make between 3-5 characters EACH! All these characters will be randomly rolled with differing abilities/occupations with some obviously being better than others. These average people will then set out on their first adventure, obviously not all are going to make it. The idea is that at least half of these characters will die, which ever characters are strongest or are most protected by the player will survive till the end and become adventurers. I feel that this helps players see their characters as more than just stats, their care about the character they want to play and will attempt to make sure that character survives and with the random nature of character creation it is impossible for a player to try and mix/max their characters.

The simplified rules and original character creation are what really make this game stand out to me, but the games charm in general is what I'm probably going to remember the most. The art and design of the game evokes a pulp fantasy aura, chock full of mystical creatures and grand quests. It has a certain campiness to it that really appeals to me. I seriously can't stop reading through these rules and have so many ideas of crazy campaigns I want to run. Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG is a must purchase.

tl;dr DCC RPG = Awesome