I couldn’t agree more. I just discovered this game after 45 years of playing every edition of D&D. This is what D&D felt like when I most enjoyed. It doesn’t focus on character builds and the random stuff is a blast!
@@p-leif630 that depends on your group I guess. At my table you would just make 4 new level 0s while everyone else keeps playing their single level 1 PC. Other times you might have multiple PCs survive the funnel allowing you to just switch to another level 1 PC you already had available.
I saw the thumbnail and couldn't resist! I've been running DCC for several years now, and it is on my short list of core RPGs I run, and one of the best for running short-format public games. If anyone needs further endorsement of this game, take it from an RPG Lifer who also enjoys a granular, tactical character build-oriented RPG like 3rd Edition or Pathfinder (even Champions and GURPS). This game is a completely, ENTIRELY different experience from those, but I have never run this and have it not been a complete hit. DCC does not fail to satisfy! Some advice for new DCC adventurers: Like any RPG, don't try to make this what it isn't. 1) If you run a megadungeon with DCC, be prepared for regular character death. So much death... 2) This game is NOT a retroclone or even an OSR game in the strict sense. It is an homage to Appendix N, the fiction that inspired the creators of D&D. It is not an attempt to emulate Old School style gaming. More like the weird fantasy and pulp science fantasy of the Olden Days. 3) DCC is at its best when running gonzo games of planes-hopping, time traveling, world-spanning, madness-inducing adventures where the characters never feel safe, are constantly in way over their heads, and somehow manage to get spit out the other end; alive, but changed. 4) That said, DCC is very DIY. It is easy to house-rule DCC in many fun directions, and Aaron provides great examples, such as Lankhmar, Mutant Crawl Classics, and Hubris. The 3rd party DIY catalog is vast and extremely creative. Enjoy a deep dive into the DCC rabbit hole! Great video, Aaron! I like your candor and no-nonsense style. Keep up the great work!
I appreciate the kind words and I definitely appreciate the wisdom you compiled here. Calling DCC "OSR" in shorthand is helpful, but the way you play is definitely a different animal. This is part of why I say people just playing 0 level funnels and saying "not for me" are missing out from what DCC really has to offer.
@@AaronthePedantic Absolutely! I forgot to mention that part! 0-Level play and Leveled Play (is that a thing? I'm going with it...) in DCC are two totally different play experiences, and IMO, Leveled Play is way more rewarding in the medium-to-long term. Thanks for the response! I just discovered your channel from this video and I'm digging into your DM Advice playlist at the moment. We have chewed a lot of the same RUclips dirt, so to speak, and it looks like we already have a lot in common, except the obvious; I have been unsuccessful at getting any videos of my own posted so far. Haha!
8 years of DCC! Still kicking! Ive added sooo much extra content over the years from player creative use of the tools available. I’ve been running the game since launch. Never a dull moment
This is an excellent overview of DCC! It's the system I started with a few years ago, and have only otherwise played Lamentations of the Flame Princess, which is also excellent. Coming into the game as an adult, DCC is rad because it streamlines enough of the game, so that you can play regularly as a busy adult, and not get stuck doing too much homework on the rules. I also love the tone. It's not just wacky and silly (though there's tons of room for that), but also emphasizes the weird and chaotic nature of the world. I love that you start as a manure farmer or a cheese maker, or some other pitiful peasant, who has never gone further than a mile from your home, and when you finally do venture out as a warrior or cleric or whatever, it's a brutal existence full of weird and strange adventures.
Make yourself a cheat sheet with page numbers for crit tables, class info, the fumble table, disapproval, and the big spell tables that tell you what pages all the spells are on. If you get all of that, you're golden.
I finally ran my first DCC level-0 funnel! I was testing out the system with my other DM buddy and we ran a 1v1 and he controlled 8 level 0 characters. I had way more fun that I thought. I'm usually not a fan of 1v1's but we had an absolute blast. As always, thanks for all your helpful videos Aaron.
DCC is a solid RPG. I was introduced to it several years ago. I was a little iffy on the whole zero-level funnel thing, but it resulted in one of the most memorable PCs I ever had.
And I'm not dissing any other games when I say that. The OSR has tons of awesome stuff. DCC just hits it right on the head for me. It's fun, different, random. Not too serious or anything. Hubris is awesome as hell, the adventures are all fun, it's great! There is a adventure for DCC called the Palace of Unquiet Repose that's almost Black Metal in tone. It really shows how diverse the game can be. I absolutely love it.
This is great. This ruleset is on my list of need to try soon. Along w OSE and TBH. Im thinking my ultimate game will be a kind of Mashup of all three. Trying to figure which one to use as the core bones of that Mashup.
@@AaronthePedantic IV played Candyland, Im still paying benny the nose 50 g's a month because I lost at candyland. Candyland is hardcore man, its the most dangerous game you can play with a 6 year old. They play dirty
@@AaronthePedantic And I hope you never have to...I still have nightmares of that time I was in an internment camp and..and...OH GOD they made us play candyland..........
Unfortunately, with 5e, D&D has become candyland. It's presented as a video game in book form. That's the reason all my 5e books were sold and I now play OSE.
Watched a few of your vodeos. I am so bored with D&D. I was tryng to house rule the shit out of it. I've been working on it for months. I dove into OSR and added a bunch of stuff. After your videos i through all that out and bought the DCC book and the Foundry VTT module. Its exactly what i wanted. Thanks for the breakdowns.
This sounds terrific. Is there an option of starting at first level? And is there an unarmed combat system that allows you to grapple / push back / knock down etc. without being madly complex and an unwieldy asspain?
Each party makes opposed attack rolls, adding the higher of their Agility or Strength modifier. An attacker twice the opponent’s size adds +4 to the opposed roll; an attacker triple the opponent’s size adds +8 to the opposed roll; an attacker quadruple the opponent’s size adds +16 to the opposed roll; and so on. If the attacker wins the op- posed roll, he has grappled and pinned his opponent. If the attacker loses the opposed roll, the grapple fails. A pinned target cannot move or take any significant action until he frees himself from the pin. This is done by succeed- ing in another grapple check, as above. Melee attacks against a grappled creature are treated simi- lar to firing a missile into melee. Any failed melee attack against a grappled creature has a 50% chance of wounding the ally who is maintaining the pin. That's grappling. And you can definitely just have them start at 1st.
@@p-leif630 I think the suggestion for that is roll a d12 or d20 twice. The first is for odds or evens. Odds mean you add to the second die, evens mean you don't. So if you roll 5 and 7 on d12s, you have 12+7=19. But 4 and 7 would just be 7. Then for d30, it's two d20s but you see whether or not to add 10
Everything makes 5E look like Candyland, because 5E is Candyland. And frankly, OSR games aren't exactly Risk, either. They're Candyland with pictures of meth and hookers instead of pictures of candy.
I dunno. You tried playing low/0-level DCC? Or early D&D? We've got a very full graveyard from 6 months of B/X play where we record every character that died. It's uh.. probably near a hundred bodies.
@@AaronthePedantic I've got a lot of death-stamped character sheets too, but WHY do characters die? DCC is certainly more lethal than 5E, but difficulty and lethality aren't the same thing. When a character dies in either game, how much was their death the result of bad die rolls, and how much was it the result of the players choosing to do something stupid? If you take a Snakes and Ladders board, and replace most of the ladders with extra snakes, that doesn't really make the game more difficult. The game may be longer and more frustrating, but it doesn't change the fact that the dice determine who wins and loses.
@@fungicideangel8640 Difficulty is typically a measurement best applied against the goal one has made, and with TTRPGs our goals can be infinite unless the game states otherwise. "How difficult is it to survive" is a fairly common metric we can apply to fantasy TTRPGs because death can be the end of the pursuit of our characters' goals and death is something that can usually occur. If I ever said "difficulty" and "lethality" were the same thing, I misspoke, but they are certainly connected. In DCC, if you aren't level0, most deaths will be caused by bad decisions. Taking on too much risk without adequate planning. You can get the occasional catastrophic monster crit, but aside from that, Clerics are basically nonstop healing machines (assuming they don't tick off their deity too much) and Wizards can choose to nuke things when things get dire.. if they have enough stat to sacrifice. When playing 5E, I've found that experienced players feel safe rushing headlong into whatever the objective is without too much worry. With DCC, I've noticed more careful planning. And with B/X, they're either being meticulous in their caution, or accepting that failure is also a pretty fun aspect of the game.
Every RPG makes 5e look like Candyland, Butter Bean. 5e is Care Bear, Easy Mode, helicopter mom having, co-op only playing, weak sauce, beta gaming. Where have you been? Everyone can do everything...why even have classes?
![Twenty One Pilots - “The Line” (from Arcane Season 2) [Official Music Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/E2Rj2gQAyPA/mqdefault.jpg)
I couldn’t agree more. I just discovered this game after 45 years of playing every edition of D&D. This is what D&D felt like when I most enjoyed. It doesn’t focus on character builds and the random stuff is a blast!
The zero level funnel where everyone makes 4 PCs and you see who survives is the best part of DCC. It's awesome. DCC blows D&D out of the water.
soif you levle 1 or levepc diesdo you have to repat the funnal alone?
when I played it I got tow tp survive (pre corona wone shot in my monthly rpg clube good miss these days)
@@p-leif630 that depends on your group I guess. At my table you would just make 4 new level 0s while everyone else keeps playing their single level 1 PC. Other times you might have multiple PCs survive the funnel allowing you to just switch to another level 1 PC you already had available.
You can do a villager death run in 5e
@@elgatochurro you mean a zero level funnel? No, you can’t without drastically changing the game.
It's not a superhero high fantasy RPG like D&D is today, which is what is so great about DCC.
I saw the thumbnail and couldn't resist!
I've been running DCC for several years now, and it is on my short list of core RPGs I run, and one of the best for running short-format public games. If anyone needs further endorsement of this game, take it from an RPG Lifer who also enjoys a granular, tactical character build-oriented RPG like 3rd Edition or Pathfinder (even Champions and GURPS). This game is a completely, ENTIRELY different experience from those, but I have never run this and have it not been a complete hit. DCC does not fail to satisfy!
Some advice for new DCC adventurers: Like any RPG, don't try to make this what it isn't.
1) If you run a megadungeon with DCC, be prepared for regular character death. So much death...
2) This game is NOT a retroclone or even an OSR game in the strict sense. It is an homage to Appendix N, the fiction that inspired the creators of D&D. It is not an attempt to emulate Old School style gaming. More like the weird fantasy and pulp science fantasy of the Olden Days.
3) DCC is at its best when running gonzo games of planes-hopping, time traveling, world-spanning, madness-inducing adventures where the characters never feel safe, are constantly in way over their heads, and somehow manage to get spit out the other end; alive, but changed.
4) That said, DCC is very DIY. It is easy to house-rule DCC in many fun directions, and Aaron provides great examples, such as Lankhmar, Mutant Crawl Classics, and Hubris. The 3rd party DIY catalog is vast and extremely creative. Enjoy a deep dive into the DCC rabbit hole!
Great video, Aaron! I like your candor and no-nonsense style. Keep up the great work!
I appreciate the kind words and I definitely appreciate the wisdom you compiled here. Calling DCC "OSR" in shorthand is helpful, but the way you play is definitely a different animal. This is part of why I say people just playing 0 level funnels and saying "not for me" are missing out from what DCC really has to offer.
@@AaronthePedantic Absolutely! I forgot to mention that part! 0-Level play and Leveled Play (is that a thing? I'm going with it...) in DCC are two totally different play experiences, and IMO, Leveled Play is way more rewarding in the medium-to-long term.
Thanks for the response! I just discovered your channel from this video and I'm digging into your DM Advice playlist at the moment. We have chewed a lot of the same RUclips dirt, so to speak, and it looks like we already have a lot in common, except the obvious; I have been unsuccessful at getting any videos of my own posted so far. Haha!
Keep an eye on Humble Bundle. Got some great deals on the main book and adventures.
I love DCC and it produces a good time pretty much everytime we get into it.
8 years of DCC! Still kicking! Ive added sooo much extra content over the years from player creative use of the tools available.
I’ve been running the game since launch. Never a dull moment
Heck yeah! Glad to hear it!
Anything in particular that you say are “must adds”?
This is an excellent overview of DCC! It's the system I started with a few years ago, and have only otherwise played Lamentations of the Flame Princess, which is also excellent. Coming into the game as an adult, DCC is rad because it streamlines enough of the game, so that you can play regularly as a busy adult, and not get stuck doing too much homework on the rules.
I also love the tone. It's not just wacky and silly (though there's tons of room for that), but also emphasizes the weird and chaotic nature of the world. I love that you start as a manure farmer or a cheese maker, or some other pitiful peasant, who has never gone further than a mile from your home, and when you finally do venture out as a warrior or cleric or whatever, it's a brutal existence full of weird and strange adventures.
This was my first ttrpg experience. I tried it last week and it was so fun. Forged by fire!
Do you know which module you played? :D I think Sailors on the Starless Sea is probably the most popular intro
@@AaronthePedantic wow never saw this comment. Yes it was sailors. Extremely fun
Sick and tired of running 5e. First dcc session on Friday! The book is awesome. Hope it plays well at the table.
Make yourself a cheat sheet with page numbers for crit tables, class info, the fumble table, disapproval, and the big spell tables that tell you what pages all the spells are on. If you get all of that, you're golden.
I finally ran my first DCC level-0 funnel! I was testing out the system with my other DM buddy and we ran a 1v1 and he controlled 8 level 0 characters. I had way more fun that I thought. I'm usually not a fan of 1v1's but we had an absolute blast. As always, thanks for all your helpful videos Aaron.
My pleasure! Always love to hear a success story. 😁
SHEEEIT. Just now seeing that my camera lagged massively for some reason. (probably high resolution). Ohhh well.
DCC is a solid RPG. I was introduced to it several years ago. I was a little iffy on the whole zero-level funnel thing, but it resulted in one of the most memorable PCs I ever had.
Loved MCC and using that in my Gamma World/Star Frontiers mash up game. The lethality of DCC reminds me of old school D&D from the 80's
It's the best TTRPG in current production.
And I'm not dissing any other games when I say that. The OSR has tons of awesome stuff. DCC just hits it right on the head for me. It's fun, different, random. Not too serious or anything. Hubris is awesome as hell, the adventures are all fun, it's great! There is a adventure for DCC called the Palace of Unquiet Repose that's almost Black Metal in tone. It really shows how diverse the game can be. I absolutely love it.
This is great. This ruleset is on my list of need to try soon. Along w OSE and TBH. Im thinking my ultimate game will be a kind of Mashup of all three. Trying to figure which one to use as the core bones of that Mashup.
Great overview. Thanks!
Thanks for watching!
I played a samurai using cleric class to turn holy on demons etc good times
I’ve added monster manuals
Check out encyclopedia of magical creatures book
Brilliant book for DCC
I was sold before on DCC. I’m twice as sold now.
Exactly!
A Luck point for you!! #DCC
Sounds like totally fucking soup sandwich!😆😂🧙
You take that back Aaron, CANDYLAND is hardcore!
TFW you get outed for never having played Candyland ;_;
@@AaronthePedantic IV played Candyland, Im still paying benny the nose 50 g's a month because I lost at candyland. Candyland is hardcore man, its the most dangerous game you can play with a 6 year old. They play dirty
@@TheOGGMsAdventures naw I was saying I haven't played candyland. 🤣
@@AaronthePedantic And I hope you never have to...I still have nightmares of that time I was in an internment camp and..and...OH GOD they made us play candyland..........
Going to check this out.
Yesss! Job completed!
Thank you good info
Candyland makes 5E look like Candyland.
My game system of choice at the moment.
Unfortunately, with 5e, D&D has become candyland. It's presented as a video game in book form. That's the reason all my 5e books were sold and I now play OSE.
OSE is awesome.
@@AaronthePedantic yep. I'm loving it. Going back to basics. It's also very hackable, which suits my group.
Love this game!
Watched a few of your vodeos. I am so bored with D&D. I was tryng to house rule the shit out of it. I've been working on it for months. I dove into OSR and added a bunch of stuff. After your videos i through all that out and bought the DCC book and the Foundry VTT module. Its exactly what i wanted. Thanks for the breakdowns.
This is the kind of comment I love to see. I'm glad you're finding great stuff for your table!
My copy is on the way :)
I hope you enjoy it! It’s a fantastic system. 4 years since I picked it up and it’s still my favorite pulp adventure game.
Why is the app just impossible to use in portrait mode?
This sounds terrific. Is there an option of starting at first level? And is there an unarmed combat system that allows you to grapple / push back / knock down etc. without being madly complex and an unwieldy asspain?
Each party makes opposed attack rolls, adding
the higher of their Agility or Strength modifier. An attacker
twice the opponent’s size adds +4 to the opposed roll; an
attacker triple the opponent’s size adds +8 to the opposed
roll; an attacker quadruple the opponent’s size adds +16
to the opposed roll; and so on. If the attacker wins the op-
posed roll, he has grappled and pinned his opponent. If the
attacker loses the opposed roll, the grapple fails.
A pinned target cannot move or take any significant action
until he frees himself from the pin. This is done by succeed-
ing in another grapple check, as above.
Melee attacks against a grappled creature are treated simi-
lar to firing a missile into melee. Any failed melee attack
against a grappled creature has a 50% chance of wounding
the ally who is maintaining the pin.
That's grappling. And you can definitely just have them start at 1st.
@@AaronthePedantic Magnificently thorough and absurdly helpful - many thanks from Over Here.
5E D&D IS candyland
Try DCC with Cha'alt!
the trun of is the speciallty dices that are so over priced and hard to get out side of the us
I get that. There are some shortcuts you can use with regular dice though. Like for a d3, roll a d4 and reroll 4s, etc. Still gives you that 1-3 range
@@AaronthePedantic d3 is not the problem the d 24 and d30 are
@@p-leif630 I think the suggestion for that is roll a d12 or d20 twice. The first is for odds or evens. Odds mean you add to the second die, evens mean you don't. So if you roll 5 and 7 on d12s, you have 12+7=19. But 4 and 7 would just be 7.
Then for d30, it's two d20s but you see whether or not to add 10
Why is your video going at half a frame per second?
It was recorded before I got the video settings down properly. 😅
Everything makes 5E look like Candyland, because 5E is Candyland. And frankly, OSR games aren't exactly Risk, either. They're Candyland with pictures of meth and hookers instead of pictures of candy.
I dunno. You tried playing low/0-level DCC? Or early D&D? We've got a very full graveyard from 6 months of B/X play where we record every character that died. It's uh.. probably near a hundred bodies.
@@AaronthePedantic I've got a lot of death-stamped character sheets too, but WHY do characters die?
DCC is certainly more lethal than 5E, but difficulty and lethality aren't the same thing. When a character dies in either game, how much was their death the result of bad die rolls, and how much was it the result of the players choosing to do something stupid?
If you take a Snakes and Ladders board, and replace most of the ladders with extra snakes, that doesn't really make the game more difficult. The game may be longer and more frustrating, but it doesn't change the fact that the dice determine who wins and loses.
@@fungicideangel8640 Difficulty is typically a measurement best applied against the goal one has made, and with TTRPGs our goals can be infinite unless the game states otherwise. "How difficult is it to survive" is a fairly common metric we can apply to fantasy TTRPGs because death can be the end of the pursuit of our characters' goals and death is something that can usually occur.
If I ever said "difficulty" and "lethality" were the same thing, I misspoke, but they are certainly connected.
In DCC, if you aren't level0, most deaths will be caused by bad decisions. Taking on too much risk without adequate planning. You can get the occasional catastrophic monster crit, but aside from that, Clerics are basically nonstop healing machines (assuming they don't tick off their deity too much) and Wizards can choose to nuke things when things get dire.. if they have enough stat to sacrifice.
When playing 5E, I've found that experienced players feel safe rushing headlong into whatever the objective is without too much worry. With DCC, I've noticed more careful planning. And with B/X, they're either being meticulous in their caution, or accepting that failure is also a pretty fun aspect of the game.
Every RPG makes 5e look like Candyland, Butter Bean. 5e is Care Bear, Easy Mode, helicopter mom having, co-op only playing, weak sauce, beta gaming. Where have you been? Everyone can do everything...why even have classes?
Good game but not playing it because it's CHART MADNESS!
Valid take. 😜 I'd still steal the Mighty Deeds system from it, and consider just improvising results rather than using the tables.
The charts are honestly my favorite part.