Are you sick of Wizards of the Coast? Bloated rules, declining quality, retiring printed books, license struggles, and more! There’s not a lot to say nice about WotC and what used to be an excellent game. Would you like to find a game that plays like “the good old days”? Maybe DCC is what you are looking for. DCC isn’t for every one. If you spend days writing the great American novel style backstory for your character, don’t play DCC. If you want published rules about skills and feats and need a menu of options from the PHB to select from in order to do something as your character, don’t play DCC. If want lots of social interaction with NPCs and festivals and general in-game social loafing, don’t play DCC.
Perhaps you recall “the good old days” where you rolled up a character with 6 3d6 rolls in order, picked the class that best met those stats, got some gear and then ran off to find a cave to delve into the darkness to seek fortune or death. That’s DCC. If you want a fast to start, easy to play, and not too serious TTRPG you should play DCC. Just be ready to see many characters die. The game is lethal and unforgiving; yet with high risk comes high rewards. The rule seem to encourage the murder hobo lifestyle. Many of the adventures are dungeon delves for treasure. No complicated plot, no overarching social message; simply go into the cave, stick your sword into anything that won’t flee, take their stuff, rinse repeat.
Get the Quick Start Rules from their web site https://www.goodmangames.com/
Having played lots of DCC the things to think about if you are a WotC refugee:
- Race is Class (demi-humans are their own thing so no having to pick race and class)
- Anything you’d need a skill or feat for is just an attribute roll
- Magic is not Vancian. You can cast fireball all day long provided you roll over a 14 each time you cast it, but roll a 1 and really bad things happen
- You’ll want additional dice (Funky or Zocchi dice)
- You level up more slowly to a level cap of 10
- And the funnel…
The Funnel
When you start playing DCC you will not loving hand craft a character from a list options and set attributes using point buys and selecting backgrounds and feats and skills. NO! Roll 6 3d6s and fill out the sheet top down, roll hit points, and then roll on the professions table. You’re done. You are now a level 0 farmer with a spear and a cow. Off you go into the Portal Under the Stars and if you live you can pick a class. If you have to be a Halfling then fudge the roll on the professions table and hope you make through the funnel. For most funnel games the player has 4 PCs just because a level 0 farmer with 3 hit points doesn’t have a high probability of success by himself, but combine him with your halfling haberdasher with 2 HP and a dagger, a 4 HP milkmaid with a club, and a 3 HP dwarf miner with a mattock and you might just get one through the funnel and that becomes your character.
