Это видео недоступно.
Сожалеем об этом.
My Top 5 Reasons that Dungeon Crawl Classics is the Best Universal RPG System
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 15 авг 2024
- In this video I discuss what makes a good Universal RPG System, and why I believe DCC is the best one for me. In the video I announce a small upcoming giveaway, so if you are interested in hearing more, be sure to stay tuned for the whole video.
Incidentally, a new game called "Swords & Chaos" is about to drop. It combines the Castles & Crusades Siege Engine with elements from DCC like spell corruption and brutal deeds for fighters. I backed the KS so I'm eagerly awaiting my copy.
Well that is certainly an intriguing combination. Two of my favorite OSR systems coming together seems like a great fit!
Greetings, BB&B! I do not disagree with your top 5 reasons DCC RPG is the best Universal RPG. In my considerable experience, no other RPG does those 5 things better than DCC, all at the same time.
An RPG system is a tool, and I believe in using the best tool for the job, in this case of providing a specific game experience. DCC is the Wolverine of RPGs. It's the best there is at what it does. It is a masterpiece. Also, the DCC RPG community is best-in-class, especially regarding the DIY aspect, represented admirably by the zine community and uber-indie third party publishing community. I would add that the DCC RPG team are honest-to-goodness Good People. Having met several of them at a number of conventions, hung out, helped out at the booth, etc., I am proud to give them money for their superior products and services. You have chosen well indeed, sir!
Now, allow me to wax presumptuous and make a few suggestions for you to consider. Again, none of these will do all that DCC does better than DCC. Yet, you or your group may want a palate cleanse or side quest of some sort, and may enjoy a different style of game experience. The RPGs you mentioned are all good at what they do, but you can never have too many tools/RPGs.
I recommend taking a look at two lines of RPG systems coming out of Sweden. The 2d20 System (Conan, John Carter, Mutant Chronicles, et al.), and the Year Zero Engine Systems (Mutant; Year Zero, Alien, Forbidden Lands, et al.). Both are excellent in their way. Free League (distributed by Modiphius in the US) are making some of the finest RPGs available. It is worth looking at them. If nothing else, everything they publish is drop dead gorgeous!
Judging by your list, I will skip the obvious (HERO System, Rifts, Fate) and unobvious (Masterbook/Torg, Basic Role Playing), and go straight for the jugular.
Yes, it's Savage Worlds. SW is a completely different experience to most RPGs at the table, especially if you are into super-serious dungeon crawls and cosmic horror investigations. But if you or your group think you might like a game session that feels (and occasionally sounds) like a super bowl party, then SW is worth your time. In addition, like DCC, the SW community is excellent (especially in person), and the production team are Good People as well. Some of our fans are a bit excitable, but don't let that fool you. SW is very flexible, runs and preps fast, and plays like an 80s action flick, especially at conventions. With a few tweaks, it can even be made dark and gritty enough to handle properties like Solomon Kane, Lankhmar, and Deadlands.
Thanks for your patience with my long-a$$ comment. Thank you for your time and hard work.
Enjoy DCC! You're part of the band!
Really enjoyed your thorough comment! I guess I left out some of my own experiences as well… I did actually try the Conan 2D20 and forgot that they did have several flavors there because it did feel so very Conan to me, alas my group wasn’t big on Conan so it was quickly set aside. I played some Palladium as a lad, TMNT and a little rifts, I always felt like they were the masters of style, with wonderfully interesting worlds, but I didn’t like the feel of their rules. Savage Worlds I actually picked up specifically to fix that issue with Rifts! I think Savage Worlds is a fine system, but having explored SW Rifts and SW Deadlands and Deadlands Noir, I felt like it felt very gamey and not setting specific enough to me (YMMV). Fate is one that I own and sadly have never given enough of a reason. I actually have the Princess Bride RPG and the Dresden Files RPG based upon Fate, just haven’t gotten to them yet. I saved the best alternative you mentioned (in my opinion) for last, being Free League! I have had the pleasure of reading through the books for Alien RPG, Forbidden Lands and Tales From the Loop and they are ALL amazing games. They are a little less action focused than my group prefers, but there is a lot of merit there. Free League also put their DNA on the newest One Ring RPG and it is likewise beautiful. Since we are rambling I will throw out a dark horse candidate for you as well, Sentinel Comics RPG… It was built by some of the folks that made Cortex (Margaret Weiss Productions Marvel) and it shows! I could easily see creating a band of heroes from most genres in that system and making it work well because of the interpretive dice system. That said, I think any attempt at gritty or horror with it may turn out more Scooby Doo than Cthulhu! Thanks again for the great reply!
I wish more people to hit that same conclusion as yours - DCC is awesome, in fact almost everything is better than DND 5e (but DND 4e) - Just can´t believe how long it is taking to people realize that...
My hope is that with D&D One on the way, it may have a similar impact as the transition to fourth did. That shift segmented the fan base and allowed other systems to shine, resulting in Pathfinder even outselling D&D for a while. Maybe this is the opportunity for games like DCC to shine and get the love that they deserve!
For me the issue is the funky dices adds an unnecessary layer of complexity
@@ernesto906 To each their own. To me a die is a die, I am reading what number comes up, so all the same complexity level. It adds the option for more granularity which provides more options, without adding crunch.
So I'm a long time D&D novel reader / CRPG player but only started playing 5e D&D watching Critical Role. But I've looked into the OSR OGL stuff for a few years and with the debacle and political direction 5e / One D&D is going I'm liking the oldschool mentality alot more (thanks mainly to professor DM). As i cross 45 I'm all about ease of running my group of heroic players and less about rules lawyering! i'm subbed!
Great! I talk quite a bit about OSR gaming, so hopefully you will find some useful material on the channel. Thanks for the sub!
Interesting and thought provoking video topic. Many if not all of your points can be applied to other systems, however. Savage Worlds instantly comes to mind, although with a very different mechanical feel. This topic of game mechanics and the ability of such to be applied to various genres with success factors in, I believe. Some systems always feel similar at the table regardless of the window dressing we give them through genre and setting particulars. Just my thoughts for what they are worth.
Cheers!
YMMV, but I feel like the interpretive and simple nature of a lot of DCC’s mechanics (like Mighty Deeds) as well as the specific tables that direct much of the flavor of the game help DCC to be a very solid and flavorful way of doing a wide variety of genres quite well, while feeling very in genre.
Love the 80s cartoon nostalgia! (He Man , Thundar, BraveStar, and Dungeons and Dragons (I'm an idiot for not remembering the final one).
Pirates of Dark Water! Thanks!
@@booksbricksandboards783 Ah yes of course! Now I can sleep tonight 😀
Good points! I’m sure any RPG could be modified to any genre you want. I once wrote a pamphlet on using a Democratic Method for TTRPGs that started players from scratch and let’s them use democracy to build a system that works for their genre and style. Eventually, they would use that experience to inform their decision on which professional game system was best suited for their group, mostly because Mass Produced TTRPGs are a resource for content, experienced GMs and replacement players to maintain the group. I like DCC for its efficiency, and Pathfinder because Paizo made a complicated D20 version that is so logical in design that any GM who knows how to run it, can easily follow that design to add new classes, feats, weapons and monsters for whatever genre their stories need. DCC uses tables, deeds and more GM leeway to uncomplicated rules, but the problem I see in adapting to new genres is the tables. Is the design intuitive enough to make creating new tables balanced with the rules? I know balance isn’t something DCC makes a priority, but without some measure of balance you will end up with the same old issues from O&AD&D
A lot of the Zine style genre expansions to DCC do a very nice job of handling the flavor changes in a small packages. I have the Bronx Beasts and Vigilante City zines for doing TMNT or Batman games. The Weird Frontiers and MCC books do a fantastic job covering their respective areas (albeit in MUCH larger packages). As for the tables, in non magic settings, really fumbles and crits are the only major tables and with a little reskin they can represent very different arenas while being mechnically the same (thus as balanced as DCC ever gets 😀).
The funnels get them every time. Player is like "Cool, I get four characters?" Me: growing a maniacal smile...
Yeah the funnel almost rewires your RPG brain as a Judge and a player. We grow so accustomed to, “don’t kill the players if at all possible” and as a player, “don’t risk anything, face the dungeon as an accountant would, calculate every risk.” DCC brings our brain back to, “what is best in life Conan? To crush the monsters, steal the treasures, and hear the lamentations of the dead heroes.” As Jim Wampler put it, the “win” in an RPG comes from a good story to share, and what story is better than a glorious death or an unlikely victory!
I got DCC. But now I have and love a similar game called D100 DUNGEON Mapping game with books by Martin Knight!
Thanks for watching. I have D100 Dungeon, and may do some content on it in the future.
Under A broken moon setting reminds me of Thundarr the Barbarian.
That was one of his main inspirations.
I'm just getting into it now, but it looks like a hoot.
DCC is a great, fast system. It plays loose and keeps players attention with unexpected levels of gonzo.
i have to turn my audio up to 11to strain to hear you. Thanks for the video, please work on audio
It’s very strange you aren’t the only one to have that problem, but the majority have not. I can listen on my TV, my phone, my computer and my tablet and don’t have an audio issue. I have had others try to recreate the issue and had no luck either, but have had a couple folks I don’t know say the same thing as you. Might want to see if you can adjust some of your audio settings on your device.
Can you tell us why in particular other systems like GURPS, Cypher, & Savage Worlds doesn’t do these things for you?
DCC provides a simple framework which most people are relatively familiar with already (D20 is pretty well established), it has enormous community support (offering solutions that are more niche), and it has a different feel/flavor mechanically with the well developed fumble and crit tables as well as other specific mechanical features related directly to classes. GURPS I found to be much more bookkeeping focused and with a heavier focus on bolting on numerous subsystems to an already crunchy enough base. Savage Worlds I just never really enjoyed the core mechanic, it doesn’t in do it for me or my group of players. Cypher I have ran a few times (just ran a Big Trouble in Little China game yesterday using Cypher actually). If I don’t want to spend a lot of time prepping, Cypher is one of my go to systems (I also really like their solutions for supers and spellcasters). Cypher would be a close second, and taking time into consideration possibly first. I do enjoy Cypher quite a lot. Thanks for watching!
@@booksbricksandboards783 thank you for the quick reply!
On a side note, what did you use for info on Big Trouble in Little China?
Was it just the movie?
It’s one of my all time favorites!! I always steal the “old Jack Burton” phrase & my wife hates it!!
I'm curious if this was ever brought up. Since you can't copyright generic game terms and a lot of games (pathfinder as far as I know) don't specifically use D&D terms that are copyrightable, could Paizo remove the OGL terminology from their game and continue to publish their game? Meaning, even if they revoke the OGL and it stands in court, since WOTC can't copyright the "D20 roll over" mechanic, these 3pp wouldn't have to destroy their products if they just remove the OGL verbiage in the front of their books. I only ask because PF2e is so vastly different from D&D, but Paizo still puts the WOTC OGL verbiage on their products. Does that make them beholden to any revision of the OGL made?
That deserves a better answer than I am qualified to give, but I will give my best shot. When the OGL released it seemed to come at a time where it was a genuine gesture to the community, an attempt to make SURE that D&D didn’t go away altogether, and to step completely away from the litigiousness associated with TSR, especially late stage TSR. I think a lot of developers initially avoided treading those waters because even if they had a legal argument, they could not afford court battles against a large company. With the OGL, it seemed almost like a “ceasefire”, like “hey obey these simple rules and we won’t drown you in frivolous lawsuits. You’re welcome!” Even after the OGL release some companies were skeptical of how it would be allowed to be used. I read that when making OSRIC, they intentionally modified in small ways the xp tables and attribute tables, because they weren’t confident that direct copies of existing table material would be allowed. But then as more and more companies delved into the OGL waters, companies felt good about spending their efforts there. Now 23 years later for WOTC to try to revoke the existing one SEEMS ludicrous on its face, but even the threat of being dragged to court with Hasbro is scary for a lot of these publishers. Also, just because it SEEMS like it should go one way, who knows in a court room. I know I hadn’t bought anything WOTC related in about 6 month or so, this probably just cements that I won’t buy any WoTC products going forward. I will on the other hand, continue to support great companies like Goodman Games, North Wind Adventures, Necrotic Gnome, Paizo, and others, whether they use the OGL or decide to move away from it. Paizo has really developed a separate system with little in the way of mechanical overlap with modern d&d, but since it was developed under OGL, it would be hard to later claim it is not based upon the SRD, but again, courts are weird places!
I absolutely love Dungeon Crawl Classics. The system is absolutely spectacular
Agreed. I am trying to build a series of videos to introduce players to the game, because I honestly think it is a hard game to appreciate without a little deeper look. On the surface you see, "B/X races, trimmed down 3.0 OGL system, some funky dice", but when people see what is going on under the hood they can really appreciate just how different it is than everything else out there. I have done a new player's buyer's guide, a class breakdown, and will probably look at doing either a magic or monster video next. So much content to cover!
@@booksbricksandboards783 I bought the book, and it sat on my shelf for about 3 months because I thought it would be a really crunchy game, because of the sheer size of the book. I was absolutely wrong. The magic system and Mighty Deeds of Arms are absolutely perfect for Sword and Sorcery style games. It's my favorite RPG now, by a mile
That is awesome! Another DCC convert 😊
@@booksbricksandboards783 Oh I'm a full blown DCC enthusiast now! It's gotten me reading a lot more Appendix N books, picking up Zines again, I'm going to grab the Lankhmar boxed set and adventures soon.
@@midnightgreen8319 Nice, the Lankhmar boxed set is one of the best products I have seen for a single city in a long time. I'm actually going to be discussing "City Campaign" products in my video next week.
I enjoyed your explanation why DCC works for all genres. And I love DCC but I think while DCC can emulate all the genres just fine, it always does it with a similar feel at the table. After all genre is just a coat of paint. Both Guardians of the Galaxy and the expanse are sci-fi. But while DCC is good at Guardians it fails at expanse/arrival and the like in my mind.
How is your experience with table feel?
I always hear DCC is very random and gonzo, I think you can play DCC pretty strait but you will always have randomness and swingieness.
Last point would be that DCC seems to me very prep-heavy or at least you need a Module. Wheras other systems are much more suited for improv and letting the players be part of creating the fiction.
TLDR: I believe systems invoke a game feel and that trying to force a different feel into a system is probably not worth it.
I think you have a well thought out and coherent comment here. I think I understand your issues you present, and I believe our differences are primarily out of perspective. For me, you can absolutely play gritty and serious with DCC. You can see some examples of this in their excellent Horror modules, (Creep, Skrag, Kill is effectively Alien on a boat). The more “gonzo” aspects of the game tend to come primarily from the spell effects, and then mostly due to spellburns (which are more a problem in one shots than campaigns). I have played gonzo games as well as some VERY gritty games in the DCC system. I feel like the granularity in the dice chain and the mitigation of the luck mechanic leads to a less random experience than a 5E for example. To hit on your last point, I think that the OGL 3.0 shell (with the bloat removed), makes improv very easy in the system. I use as a general benchmark, HD # is equal to the base to hit bonus and the bonus to base AC of 10. Damage and special abilities can be easily appropriated from similar power level enemies and then repurposed. I do think part of my love for this as a toolbox system comes from my background as a DM since red box, and if I started later I might have a different perspective on this than I currently do. If you haven’t tried running a sci fi, western or supers game with a DCC base, I suggest you give it a shot. It may change your mind better than I can! Thanks for the thoughtful reply.
@@booksbricksandboards783 thanks for the thorough reply. I think there is much to love about the system. I recently tried a very similar thing with Cervin Crawfords systems. Namely Stars without number and worlds without number.
And it works very well. But because of scheduling issues we changed to the forged in the dark system, this way every session is one mission and the operatives are the people that showed up.
But if we had more frequent sessions I would love to try a complete campaign with DCC or wenn.
@@medugenusblub7256 You seem to have a similar problem to one of my 2 active groups. We are all pretty active, older with families, a doctor, a nurse, a teacher, a high school kid, and myself. We typically run one session a month, but sometimes there are up to 8 weeks between sessions, and it is very hard to maintain continuity. But they want to have a sense of achievement and growth, so one shots are a solution for them. I'm STRONGLY considering using Runequest Glorantha for them once we finish the PF2 Adventure Path we are playing. Similar to your Forged in the Dark solution, Runequest Glorantha has a built in solution, in that each session takes place in a single season, with time between to do stuff with the tribe. It gives a mechanical reason for the heroes not continuously delving into dungeons. I also happen to really like the BRP system as well. Odd for me to bring up here as I am touting the virtues of DCC I realize, but for that particular group BRP is going to meet their needs better, and I can get behind the system and setting as well. :)
I like DCC. What if a simple game system combined rules from D&D, DCC, Dundeon World and had good playthrough tables? This is a game system I love called D100 Dungeon by Martin Knight as show cased on Geek Gamers.
BhudaTao thanks for watching. For a universal game system I was looking for something that could cover multiple genres, D100 Dungeon is aimed at a fantasy only crowd as far as I know. It would be interesting to see Martin expand it.
Nice review!
Eric, appreciate that! I have several of your Survive This! Line of books on my shelf, so I take that as high praise from you!
@@booksbricksandboards783 Thank you so much!! I really appreciate it. :)
Weird Frontiers... is it on DTRPG?
Yes it is. It is also available on Goodman Games website. It is a fantastic take on the Weird West, but if you get the physical book, be aware it is pretty unwieldy. I would rather have it split in two. If you get the PDF, that is less of a problem.
@@booksbricksandboards783 my family recently got into red dread redemption online with me... i think it's their gateway... 😈
Nice! I will say this, while it is all well executed and well thought out, the Weird Frontiers book adds several new procedures to the DCC system, which adds some complexity. It might be a little tougher to grok than regular DCC for a newbie. That said if they enjoy the genre, it will pull them through!
I would have said Basic Fantasy was the best, but then I found a simple RPG called Dungeons and Delvers Dice Pool Edition. I call it the game that Savage Worlds should have been. It uses the dice chain setup where everything starts at a 1D4, and then is replaced by 1D6, up to 1D12 at maximum. No D20's used in this game. Each character class is highly customizable as you get access to lots of talents, but can only take 2 or 3 at the start of the game. You roll your attribute, your skill, and often get even more dice from your talents. Roll all of them, pick the best 2 and if you beat the target number set by the GM, you succeed.
It fixes a lot of what I don't like about D&D. No bloated hit points at higher levels, no cookie cutter classes that get X-ability at Y-level no matter what you want, and armor is treated as additional hit points and not a defense bonus that makes you harder to hit.
Weirdguy564, when you say Basic Fantasy, do you mean the BX retro clone or the Cthulhu based one from Chaosium? I have not heard of Dungeons and Delvers, it sounds similar to the universal system (Essence 20)employed by Renegade Games in their GI Joe, Power Rangers, and Transformers games. It works pretty well, but it doesn’t hit all the beats I want for all genres… it does fluffy fast paced stuff very well though.
Why can’t the world be more like dungeon crawl classics?
Pretty sure that life provides some funnel style adventures for us from time to time.