Delving into Dungeon Crawl Classics

It’s been a while kids. To my eternal shame, I’ve been neglecting this blog for far too long. I seem to spend more time playing games and prepping for them than I do writing about them. Ultimately, I guess, this is the ideal scenario for someone who loves gaming, but still, the blog regularly nags at me from the corner of my mind. I’m glad to finally be doing something about it.

A while back I posted a glowing review of Goodman Games Dungeon Crawl Classics. Since I posted that review though, my gaming life has become (somewhat predictably) 5th edition heavy, and I’ve not had any time to delve into any other rulesets, much to my disappointment.

I was therefore delighted to find a bit of spare time recently to further explore the system. I also purchased a copy of the softcover rulebook, which is much more manageable as a read than my beautiful but slightly heavy and unwieldy hardcover version. To complete the DCC saturation, I’ve been listening to the absolutely excellent Spellburn podcast on my daily commute to the office.

One of the main reasons for picking DCC up and reading it again was that I had taken the time to flick through the fabulous “Sailors on the Starless Sea”. The style of that adventure is fabulously reminiscent of the more gonzo adventures of the earliest days of Dungeons & Dragons. It’s a style of adventure writing that I miss. 5th Edition adventures are well written but there are always a number of sub-plots and political machinations which weave through WOTC’s adventures that I never seem to be able to successfully pull off. Instead, I flounder around and never really do it justice. Sometimes you just want some good guys, some unapologetically bad guys and a dungeon and DCC doesn’t just give you that, it gives you that in style.

I also fell in love with the unpredictable magic in DCC. I love the idea that a Wizard can cast magic missile and, depending on the die roll, singe their own hair or wipe out an entire town. OK, I can see the higher die rolls (and therefore more dramatic effects) causing me some narrative problems in my career as a DCC “Judge” but I’m stoked to give it a try nonetheless.

So, with my Curse of Strahd campaign just finished (after two years of fortnightly play), we will launch into some DCC next week with “Doom of the Savage Kings”. I’m mildly concerned that I’ll somehow forget all of the rules or get them wrong, particularly around spellcasting. On the other hand, I suspect it’s going to be a whole lot of fun and a necessary deviation from 5e for a few sessions.

I’m also running a public one-shot through Fantasy Grounds. Goodman Games has a great scheme where they’ll send the Judge free swag for running public games. I received my first package earlier this week and it was full of all sorts of DCC goodies. It’s a great initiative.

I fully intend to report back on my experience running these sessions so stay tuned for an update.