This video is amazing. It’s so hard to find good DCC videos that aren’t about either “learning the basics” or “why you might want to play DCC”. Videos like this that offer insight from experience running DCC are invaluable. Please more.
Halflings by themselves are pretty cool, but there's a reason Gandalf hung with Frodo and Bilbo. The power of a Halfling assisting Wizards/Elves with spellburn is where the power of the Halfling shines.
I started running DCC for my kids. All of them under age 10. I tweaked the funnel system a bit because I wanted something for them to be able to "relate" to more - their funnel characters were all kids. But I felt weird creating an adventure where the purpose was to kill them off. So instead they ran away in fear when they lost all their hit points. Beyond the funnel system, characters in DCC can be very hard to kill (I took off the kid gloves after the funnel). I think the funnel system gives people an improper view of the overall game. What really attracts me to DCC is the randomness. The chance of failure is a ton of fun with the kids - I love to ham it up with them and the whole crit/failure system along with warrior's mighty deeds provides ample opportunities for hilarity.
As a longtime 5e player I actually like the way DCC does magic better. I love how DCC spells are more or less spammable--if you're skilled enough and are willing to make sacrifices if needed.
The thing I dislike about 5e spells, is they have been so watered down and neutered.... the game is afraid of itself. I want something fantastic! I look forward to playing DCC for good or I'll on the results, at least it won't be boring.
Been running a “serious” (non-gonzo) campaign on the official Goodman Twitch stream for a few years now (with occasional pauses). The system works really well for pretty much any style. Ours is a science-fantasy lost colony campaign about future humanity stuck on a medieval-magical frontier world. It’s called Pretenders to the Throne.
I’ve been running DCC/Lankhmar/MCC for the past year. The modules are so wildly unbalanced and difficult that I am routing for my players the whole time. I love when they come up with a crazy plan that destroys the BBEG or when when the wizard does crazy shit. It feels epic. When they beat a module they really feel like they earned it.
My group is spread thin and we don't get together a lot. When we can I love the way a DCC module can just go hard for an evening. More fun = More availability. I hope I can get a Dying Earth campaign going soon but I'll take the one night stands.
For those looking for a “setting” but not sold on the bigger published options, Gongfarmer’s Almanac 2019 vol 12 “the known realms Hexcrawl starter” by Jason Abdin.
Well done!! I'm one of the player's on the Dungeon Musings channel and always appreciate your letting us know when you have a stream. We haven't played DCC on the channel, but I'm a huge fan and have most of the official DCC products plus many of the 3rd-party ones. This is a great video for giving folks a quick overview about what makes the game fun and easier than they might think. Kudos!
I’ve been running DCC/Lankhmar/MCC for the past year. The modules are so wildly unbalanced and difficult that I am routing for my players the whole time. I love when they come up with a crazy plan that destroys the BBEG or when when the wizard does crazy shit. It feels epic. When they beat a module they really feel like they earned it.
Thank you for your videos, i love DCC and your videos have helped me a lot . Your mod reviews and playthrough are great. You have a fantastic group of players. Keep up the great work
Great presentation and valuable content. I'm about to run this, and your insights are really helpful. Your frankness in regards to funnels and how they'd run as a first time judge is appreciated. Thanks, man.
I really liked this content. There's lot of topics brought here I think would be really entertaining to expand on. Like some of your RPG horror stories. I want a video or podcast of that.
ASSH is great! I absolutely love the art in their books and even though the mechanics aren't super for me, their adventures are well made as well. They really capture the vibe they are trying to attain.
@@wasabiburger3047 I didn't like Combat in 2E but I actually really like the changes they made in 3E Got rid of the 2 Phase combat shenanigans And for real, the setting and Referee sections are Astonishing 😅 It deserves SO much more attention than it gets.
Great video, man! I finally got around to playing DCC after owning the game for a few years and now I'm hooked! After watching this video, I'm even more stoked to start running it. Thanks for making this!
Agreed on Portal Under the Stars. Great 0 level funnel, especially for a beginner. Also think we're on the same page about balance & whatnot. Half the fun I've had running the game has been throwing extremely "game breaking" artifacts into the hands of my 0 & 1st level characters (including an MCC mutation that let a dude drop a lightning bolt on the big bad & totally destroy him in one shot...Marvelous!). I ran a test run of a the Phandalin 5e adventures for a friend in DCC last year that went pretty well (I cranked up the weird). I'm prepping a sandbox using a heavily modified version of Phandalin as the home-base town. I'll be starting with Portal Under the Stars. I'm sort of planning to keep this one semi-grounded, with a bit less of the "wizards in a cosmic van" thing, but with the door being open for some crazy, hellzapoppin' madness getting tossed in or discovered. Heck, I've already seeded Danger in the Air, Shadow of the Beakmen, Frozen in Time, and the Goodman Games version of the old D&D module Expedition to the Barrier Peaks in there.
Ooooh that sounds awesome and the exact kind of campaign I would love to run again with all those fantastic pulp elements! I hope you and your group have a blast!!
I want to see more discussion on higher level DCC/MCC play. I ran a 2 yr long campaign and I want to see how others handled the system. The game is clearly not meant for standard domain level of play since wizards can cast apocalyptic spells later on
This video was a solid resource for me. I'm looking to run a Sand box Black Company themed Mercenary, setting. And after much mulling over of systems, I want to use DCC because it's accessible and won't get in the way of a leaner Grim dark Vibe. And as you say I can tweek the rules to dial back the gonzo and inject some dread and more... Thanks for your work on this
Oh DCC Is perfect for Black Company stuff. The magic is terrifying and powerful and I definitely recommend grabbing DCC Lankhmar if you have the coin because you can easily use those mechanics and vibes with some hacking to get a BC feel. I just recently read that series and ran a DCC one shot with the players as a mercenary company where each player had a leveled PC and a few level 0s and they played different roles in the mercenary company and it was really fun. They approached the game differently than they otherwise would. Best of luck with your gaming!!
@@wasabiburger3047 Seriously man thank you for your feedback here. I have DCC Lankhmar to drawn from as well, and want to use company healers, ALA the Malazan Bridge Burner vibe and for the functionality of keeping the troopers patched up. My only concern really, is dialing in the escalating powerup of Magic... BC Mages like Golbin where crafty as hell and risk takers but not Stupid... wiping out the company with magic gone wild was not to be tolerated.... by the Captain... Ideas?
@@YukonJack88 Off the top of my head, mechanically I am drawing a blank on keeping the magic in check. However, maybe you could draw up like a "Company Code" that broadly writes out some restrictions. Such as only using magic when absolutely necessary and there being a written penalty of a certain percentage of loot taken or lashings or something. So that players can make an informed choice about casting and going all out and so they know the consequences of what happens if they do that casually so any punishment isn't a rug pull or feels overly mean from the GM but a consequence that they got to make a decision on. I could see some players taking their punishment proudly knowing they did what they think they had to even if others disagree which could lead to fun internal drama and storylines. I think a few tenets or a code like that with some restrictions that create opportunities for creativity but don't hinder their agency can be really fun for players. Such as not being allowed to hurt non-combatants without captain's consent or stuff like that. I'm just trying to think of ideas off the top of my head while I am at work lol so this may not be helpful at all. If I think of anything better, I'll hit you up!
@@wasabiburger3047 I have the actual Green Ronin BCompany Campaign book to draw from and to hand out to my players to craft characters from... The book is so comprehensive... basically an encyclopedia of the Setting ect.. Have you read this?
Yeah, I also thought the thief seemed like the most unbalanced. Those luck bumps can be applied to damage rolls. Oh, let's burn five luck and add 5d6 damage to that roll. Crazy. I think those three classes are greatly balanced. The wizard is the glass cannon as you said. The thief is the specialist that can be awesome when they need to. The Warrior is a consistently bad ass tank. I allow clerics, but made a bunch of changes to them
So helpful! Thanks for putting this together, love the insights on all the various aspects of DCC. I’ve run Portal and Sailors each a couple times and everyone had so much fun although we haven’t yet got into leveled play but am looking forward to it.
@@wasabiburger3047 tomorrow I get to attend the virtual War of the Cyclops Con by Goodman Games and I am so excited 😆 for it because I get play vs. Judge/DM AND… I signed up for a few different sessions of DCC/MCC and one of them is Frozen In Time so I’ll get my first real taste of leveled play very soon. Once I play it, I’m certain that’ll end up running it for my groups fairly soon!
This video was a huge help for me thank you, I am new to DCC and I was going to run Sailors as my first funnel but now I will go with Under the Stars. I will also be running it solo! So I have my stuff on place for that no problem, want to open up after do a quick short homemade adventure then run it into a follow up module (if I get that far) have some cool resources for pre made dungeons to use, quest prompts to base things off, hexcrawling rules, city/village stuff with random tables and events plus creation of course add the DCC stuff from the book into it all. Going to start with 8 level zero characters in two sort of teams with one leader in each to make things a bit easier. Have prompts for character behaviours if I want to use them m just need to make sure I got the basic tiles down right ha
More "advanced" DCC content, please. I really enjoy your channel and like your deep thinking on the topics at hand. I'd love to see more DCC content on converting modules (converting a Trilemma adventure might be a good example). Most of what I see out there is just about running the more gonzo DCC modules. It would be nice to see how one would go about converting and running a more "traditional" RPG adventure or module.
wonderful job on this video. I bought the book and I am looking forward to running DCC with the group of nerds I have fallen in love with! LOL Thanks ♥
"A bunch of people in a wizard van going across the stars taking cosmic bonghits." Cowabunga dude. 🤟 Beautiful quote, btw. Lol The visual i get is basically a Greatful Dead road trip. Lol
Fantasy Grounds does the alternate dice as well, just right-click for example the d8 to get the d7 option.. etc. The DCC main ruleset is on sale currently for $18.79 there too. Save 6 bucks.
Thank you for a great video! But I’m still at a loss for how to proceed. I want to use DCC-rules and make a sandbox campaign in the style of naive 90’s fantasy like Dragonlance or like questing around a Heroes of Might & Magic 2-map but with down to earth PC’s that aren’t too epic and that aren’t destined to save the world. On top of that it has to work with one or two player-sessions and I would like to use a lot of modules since I don’t have time to make a lot of homemade adventures. So Lankhmar seemed the way to go, but I am looking for more classic dungeon crawl-like modules than heists and urban adventures. I hope it makes sense…
What about coming from Rolemaster/Merp? There seem to be certain similarities between the two, like the crazy crits and high deadliness with lots of flourish. DCC in a way feels like DnD augmented with Rolemaster combat and fumbles.
Ok, I'm 14 minutes into this video. I don't necessarily expect any direct response to any of my comments, especially not detailed responses. And its also a possibility that you will answer this question in the video in the next 5 seconds. To be clear, i played and ran alot of DnD back in the 80s (yes I'm THAT old, lol...), but not much since, and I've been buying DCC books and watching videos like yours for a few years, trying to work up the nerve to run a game. Anyway, you say that running a funnel is just like running a regular adventure. Ok. BUT, i have seen and read several instances where people such as yourself (or the packaging on a premade adventure) say "this adventure can be run as a funnel OR a 1st lvl adventure", which leads to the practical question--which i have not been able to find a direct answer for--how do you run a funnel different from a "regular" 1st lvl? Maybe you will answer this in the video. If you don't, then maybe you will do a followup that tackles this essential question specifically. But here you say there ain't much difference between funnel & 1st lvl. So then, what IS the difference? Besides a larfe group of 0 lvl nobodies...
That's a good question! Strictly keeping it to published DCC funnels vs published DCC leveled adventures as a comparison, in most instances I have found there are honestly probably only 2 real differences that jump out at me. The first is what you said there, the large group of nobodies vs leveled characters is the biggest one. The characters with a jumble of random items and a focus on creative problem solving leads to some really fun ideas you won't see as much in leveled play, at least not the same kind of creative problem solving. Also the lack of classes I find tends to make more diverse characters and less falling into archetypes that I think any system's class system encourages unconsciously. The second difference is I find funnels have a lot more "gotcha!" traps and hazards to kill levels 0 off consistently for the pacing and brutality than leveled dungeons do. Losing level 0s is an understood part of the fun of funnels, whereas even though DCC is known for it's brutality, losing a leveled character is more time consuming and not quite as much of a focus, rather just a potential event as part of how the game plays. Those are the two main differences that pop into my head and I also want to keep this as short as possible lol.
I still prefer 2e D&D. DCC is fun, for sure. Better than 5e in my opinion. I think 5e is too clunky. Ocean's Eleven? The original Brat Pack version or the Clooney/Pitt version?
Interesting, I have not yet heard anyone say dcc is imbalanced in favor of the players, and in my opinion 5e actually is there are piles of specific special abilities players can min max into mighty heroic builds... DCC is like Sure cast that spell again, but enjoy having a tentacle where your casting hand used to be lol
Way ahead of you lol. I realized only after it was fully up that I forgot to turn it down in the editor. The video that came out after this one is balanced properly. Thank you for the feedback and kind words though!
My problem with DCC is that my players don't get invested in their 0 level characters. They want a bacstory nd their own ideas, who this person is nd hte the randomness of the character creation. A few litterally said they were noz going to bother with naming zhem, as most of them won't make it anyway. And to a certain degree I can understand them. As a player I know what character I like to play (anything not magic and definetey no monks). Being stuck with a frickin wizard would totally turn me off as a player. I guess my guys don't take DCC serious. More like crash test dummies to be killed asap.
Yeah and I have had friends/players who have a similar feeling towards either DCC or level 0 DCC and I get it. It just isn't for them, so we just end up playing other stuff we both enjoy. The randomness and gonzo stuff just isn't the vibe for some people!
heh. Clerics in DCC rpg are soo very powerful. A Warrior & Cleric duo is a very strong combo. They're much easier to be consistent in their power/ability output. Where as wizards and elfs are very much a crazy roller coaster ride and very inconsistent in their power/ability reliability. Edit: As an aside, you truly might want reconsider how you edit your videos. You talk very fast as it stands and with how you edit out your errors makes listening to/watching your videos much more difficult. Slow down a bit in other words, you aren't as bad as Matt Colville but you're definitely playing in the same league. lol
I was wildly disappointed with magic in Dying Earth. People keep saying its new and interesting but it it feels like an overly fiddly throw back to less interesting magic. It was sold as something new and cool, and IMO it failed on both all while departing from the easy to play rules that I've come to expect from DCC.
I cannot get into the "funnel" concept. The rest of DCC looks okay other than the "any spell you learn has a bad effect" but the 0th level stuff is so unlike not only any D&D clone I've seen but unlike any sword and sorcery or fantasy novel I've read either (which is funny because Goodman goes into depth about how great Appendix N is, yet none of those feature "0th level nobodies who have to earn being an adventurer". Even settings where the protagonist is transferred from our world, for example Dwellers in the Mist, The Moon Pool, Harold Shea of Incompleat Enchanter, even Barsoom, they are a cut above the regular people that inhabit that world and let's not even get into Conan, Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, even Cugel the Clever of Dying Earth fame who while is probably the weakest, still isn't a 0th level nobody when he starts). SO yeah, the whole "you have to EARN being an adventurer" just stinks of someone who didn't play in OD&D trying to push how they think it must have been played on people.
