Where Things Stand

Over the last few days, there have been a number of developments in the saga of Wizards of the Coast's plans to "de-authorize" version 1.0a of the Open Game License and replace it with a more draconian (i.e. effectively non-open) version 1.1. Perhaps the most significant of these is the announcement by Paizo, publisher of Pathfinder, that it intends to create "a new open, perpetual, and irrevocable Open RPG Creative License (ORC)." At its announcement, Paizo was joined by numerous other RPG companies, including Chaosium. Later, Goodman Games, publisher of Dungeon Crawl Classics, indicated that it too would be adopting ORC. 

For its part, Wizards of the Coast issued "an update on the Open Game License" that was clearly intended to dampen the outrage through feigned conciliation. While WotC appears to have walked back some of the provisions of v.1.1, their update is notably silent on the matter of whether they still intend to proceed with their attempt to "de-authorize" v.1.0a. I suspect that's a deliberate attempt at obfuscation on their part, in the hope people will somehow forget this crucial part of their plan. I say "crucial," because so many of the OSR's publications made use of the OGL and the d20 SRD. Without it, creators, both large and small, will need to make appropriate adjustments.

At the same time, one of the things that I hope has become clearer to more people is that there is no need to use any kind of open license to create new old school games, let alone products for use with an existing one, provided copyrights and trademarks are respected. The OGL was never necessary, though it was certainly useful, given what was included in the d20 System Reference Document. Certainly, the uncertainty regarding the status of v.1.0a makes things potentially difficult for the creators behind retro-clones like Labyrinth Lord, Swords & Wizardry, and Old School Essentials, but they are not insurmountable. Both Basic Fantasy and Swords & Wizardry have already announced plans to proceed without the OGL in the future and there is no reason why other creators cannot do the same.

The OSR is much too small a portion of the hobby for Wizards of the Coast to care about us. I don't for a minute believe that their proposed changes to the OGL had us in their sights. Why should they? I've now sat out two editions of Dungeons & Dragons in a row. I'm not one of their customers and likely never will be, so my feelings and preferences are none of their concern. Nevertheless, a part of the hobby that matters to me may suffer significant collateral damage due to their shenanigans and that's a shame. I almost wish I had been a customer of WotC so that I could somehow register my disapproval of their intended actions.

Until something of significance happens on this front, this is my last post on the matter for a while.

Memories in Amber

In 2018, Goodman Games inaugurated the "Original Adventures Reincarnated" line, which has reprinted classic D&D and AD&D modules from the 1970s and '80s, along with conversions and expansions for use with the current edition of the game. Starting with the third volume in the series, I've been providing commentary essays that appear in the pages of these books. 

The most recent OAR release is Castle Amber, a module I adore. I received my author's copy today and I couldn't be more pleased.

I contributed two essays to the book, the first of which examines the Clark Ashton Smith stories whose ideas inspired Tom Moldvay in creating the contents of the module.

The second, whose title I borrowed for this post, is a reflection of my own experiences with the module over the years, starting with my first encounter with it at the age of 12.

I had a great deal of fun writing these essays and hope they add some value to the final product. I contributed material to the upcoming Temple of Elemental Evil volume as well and have been asked to do so for at least one more upcoming Goodman Games reprint of classic material. Onward!

Who in the World is Dave Arneson?

Last year, Joseph Goodman asked me to write a pair of articles for the Goodman Games website, celebrating Dave Arneson and his contributions to the roleplaying hobby. Both articles have been republished this year, the first of which is entitled, "Who in the World is Dave Arneson?" 

In that article, I make reference to two things I encountered around roughly the same time (1983) that first drew my attention more seriously to Arneson. The first is an advertisement in the pages of issue #75 of Dragon, announcing that that year's Origins Guest of Honor would be none other than the co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons. Apologies for the poor quality of the scan, but the original in Dragon isn't much better, sadly. 

The second is an endorsement from the box bottom of Grenadier Models' line of Dragon Lords miniatures, the successor to their official AD&D minis after TSR terminated their licensing agreement with them.

These are the first two times I'd ever set eyes upon Dave Arneson's likeness. Before then, he was little more than one name among many I'd see referenced in the credits of a D&D book. Otherwise, he was unknown to me and would largely remain so for a few years more. Now, it's hard to imagine that there really was a time when one of the creators of my favorite pastime was a mystery.

Wizard Funk

One of the happiest developments of the last decade of gaming is the resurgence of fanzines. Dungeon Crawl Classics played a huge role in this resurgence and Goodman Games deserves a lot of credit for encouraging and promoting 'zines of all sorts. Fanzines are a great way to actively participate in this shared hobby of ours. There are now 'zines for nearly every game and taste and I highly recommend looking into some of them. I have no doubt you'll like what you see.

Earlier this month, the second issue of the digital-only fanzine, Wizard Funk, was released. It's a lively black and white offering, an homage to the APAs of the 1970s, right down to the typewriter-style fonts. The content is a mix of amateur fantasy art and RPG material. There are adventures, monsters, magic items, dungeons, rants – the whole range you'd expect to find in a 'zine emulating the spirit of the early days of the hobby. Best of all, each issue costs only $1, which is a steal, particularly for issue #2, which is 48 pages long and features lots of fun gaming content, as well as an interview with Allen Hammack.

I'm so happy to see products like Wizard Funk. They evoke everything that's best in the hobby and I hope we'll see more issues in the future. If there are any fanzines you would recommend, please post them in the comments. I'd love to know about more!

Free RPG Day Haul

I never had much use for Free RPG Day in the past. I didn't have anything against it, but the start of the promotion coincided almost exactly with the beginning of my disinterest in what "mainstream" publishers were producing, so I never had any reason to give it any heed. This year was different, though, because I knew Goodman Games was producing a 16-page booklet containing two adventures for Dungeon Crawl Classic Roleplaying Game and I wanted to snag it.

So, I set off to a couple of local game stores and succeeded in my quest. I also grabbed a copy of Columbia Games's map of Hârn (which, to be fair, I already owned, but I can never get enough maps), as well as some funky dice from Q-Workshop. I didn't find  anything else that was of interest to me, but I'm very happy to have gotten the map and the DCC RPG module.

DCC RPG and Me

As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, I've joined a regular Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game group on Thursday nights, playing via Google+ with Jason Sholtis and Will Douglas as my (regular) fellow adventurers and Shawn Sanford as our Judge. Shawn started us off with the recently-released 0-level module, Sailors of the Starless Sea, so we all generated four new characters. I elected to use the awesome online character generator over at the Purple Sorcerer Games website. This resulted in my playing a healer named Dalmas (with 8 Stamina), a merchant named Fortin (with 16 Intelligence), a hunter named Marin (with 6 Personality), and a smuggler named Talon (with 16 Luck and a +2 bonus to missile fire damage rolls). My compatriots were a similarly motley collection of misfits, the two most memorable being a disbarred elven barrister and a ditch digger named Joe.

Like the Zocchi dice, I've heard a lot of complaints about the fact that DCC RPG expects a new campaign to begin with a ridiculously large group of 0-level characters (four per player), all of whose attributes -- from ability scores to occupations to starting equipment -- are determined randomly and whose chances of surviving the "funnel" are slim. DCC RPG assumes that player characters are not born but made in the fiery crucible of their first adventure. It is expected that each player will lose one or more of their initial four characters and that it is one of the survivors (if any) who will then become the player's character thereafter.

It's an admittedly unusual approach and one in sharp contrast to the ever-increasing resilience of characters in Dungeons & Dragons over the years, but I have to say it works for me. Over the course of our sessions thus far, watching these 0-level nobodies try to win using the stacked deck placed before them has been remarkably enjoyable. Our first combat began as a decidedly Keystone Kops affair and I fully expected our little band to be slaughtered. But that's not what happened. Instead, a string of lucky rolls made several characters, including my hunter and smuggler, start to look competent and we survived without a single fatality. This emboldened us to venture further into the abandoned keep whose tower was reputed to hold forgotten wealth and whose walls might hide the answer to the riddle of why so many inhabitants of the village below were disappearing.

Our second combat didn't go as well for us; one of our number died, cloven in twain by a beastman's axe. Thanks to some well thrown flasks of oil, the rest of us managed to survive, though, simultaneously fearful of the dangers within the keep and all the more curious to take them on. As fragile as we knew we were, we made use of stealth, guile, and cowardice to proceed without endangering ourselves any more than we had to -- and it was fun. 0-level PCs have no classes. They have little money and thus little gear. We had no magic or healing at our disposal. All we had were our wits and luck to rely upon, resulting in a session that was both tense and lighthearted at the same time. Subsequent sessions have proven just as delightfully tense, including our most recent one where we lost several characters to a tentacled beast in an underground lake that initially seemed impervious to our attacks.

I'm really enjoying DCC RPG. I look forward to playing each Thursday night, which probably says as much about the Judge and my fellow players as it does about the game. But I am finding the game a great deal of fun and that's no accident. I think DCC RPG works so well for me because it's very clear about what it is and what a player can expect from it. For example, by making each player roll up four characters to start, it highlights in big red letters that this is a game where characters die. A lot. Consequently, players quickly come not only to expect random, senseless death but even enjoy it, much in the same way that I've noticed veteran Call of Cthulhu players come to expect and enjoy the inevitable insanity and/or grisly deaths of their characters.

That said, DCC RPG isn't for everyone and I can easily imagine that not every gamer will find it as enjoyable as I have come to. It's a very specific kind of game with a very specific style. If you're not into that style, you won't have any fun with the game. That's not a fault of the game nor is it a fault of the gamer and I think that it's important to realize that. Not every RPG is written for every player. As niche entertainments, I personally think RPGs would be better off if they weren't designed with the frankly implausible goal of attracting a huge audience. That's just not going to happen in 99% of the cases, so it's foolish to assume otherwise. Make the game you want to make and let it find its own audience; that's the mantra I'd prefer RPG designers followed. It won't result in many (or any) games that everyone will enjoy, but it will result in many more games that some people will enjoy, which is far preferable in my opinion.

For Your Consideration

I'm sure, by this point, a lot of you are tired of hearing about more crowdfunding campaigns, but, after the success I enjoyed in my own, I feel I have an obligation to do so, especially when I think they're particularly worthy projects. Today, I present you with three, all three of which involve people I consider friends and all-around good guys.

The first is for the second edition of Goblinoid Games's Starships & Spacemen, an old school take on science fiction roleplaying on the Final Frontier (*wink, wink*). The second edition is not only revised and expanded but compatible with Labyrinth Lord, which increases its utility greatly, particularly for referees who like to throw phasers into their dragon's hoards.

The second is for Brave Halfling's Appendix N Adventure Toolkit series of modules in support of Goodman Games's Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game. This looks to be a fun collection of adventures for DCC RPG. Plus, John is one of the nicest guys in the hobby and it's always a pleasure to see what he has in store.

The final one is for an unusual project called The Shadow Out of Providence: A Lovecraftian Metatext, which is a fancy way of saying it's a book comprised of two short stories and a play that it focuses on "Lovecraft the writer, the thinker, and the cultural phenomenon, rather than the sliver of his work on which most writers fixate." Old schoolers may find it of interest both because one of the contributors is Tim Hutchings of PlaGMaDA. In addition, the legendary Erol Otus is contributing artwork, two of which I reproduce below.

Open Friday: "Niche" Games

Last night I had the chance to play my first session of Dungeon Crawl Classics (I'll talk about it at greater length tomorrow) and I had a blast. As I said then, DCC RPG is a game that really won me over, despite my initial skepticism, because it was clearly not written to be a mass market crowd pleaser. That is, it's not a "generic" fantasy game, but instead comes with all sorts of mechanical, esthetic, and gaming cultural (e.g. the coolness of Zocchi dice) assumptions that not every gamer is going to share -- and indeed many will actively dislike.

Despite, I think DCC RPG is a great game. Indeed, I think much of its greatness comes from the very fact that it was designed with a niche audience in mind rather than a broad one. So, my question for today is this: what is your favorite "niche RPG?" By this, I mean a game designed for a small, specific audience that understands and appreciates its quirkiness in a way that a mass audience never could.

Feelings Occasioned by Dice

I got the last of the Zocchi dice I ordered so that I'd be set to play in my first game of Dungeon Crawl Classics tomorrow night (you can be sure I'll post about the experience later). I couldn't find a complete set that included everything I needed, so I had to get a few of them separately. Likewise, I'd been told that the "standard" D7 doesn't roll very well, so I got a D14 numbered 1-7 twice instead. And, to be honest, I didn't like the looks of the D7s I saw anyway, though the modified D14 I got is no prize, being large than I expected.

I know, for a lot of people, the use of all these additional dice types is a big turn-off. When I first heard about it, I thought it was a bit gimmicky too. Plus, the cost of assembling these dice was not insignificant, especially when compared to how cheaply one can acquire a full set of "ordinary" polyhedrals these days.

Having said that, I want to be honest: it was a lot of fun assembling this new collection of dice. In fact, hunting down all these weird dice reminded me a lot of what it was like in early 1980 finding my first set of polyhedrals. As you may recall, I started with the Holmes set. My copy included chits, not dice. I knew what the dice were supposed to look like, since I'd seen pictures of them and my friend's older brother had some, but I wanted my own. Finding them in suburban Baltimore at that time was no easy task, at least not for a kid who was as yet unaware of the existence of hobby stores that stocked RPGs.

The process of finding that first set of dice is something I'll never forget. It's not only one of my early RPG-related memories, but it reminds me of an aspect of the hobby that's very important to me -- initiation. Finding those dice was like a quest for the Holy Grail. Bringing them back to my friends and showing them off was proof that I'd ascended Mt. Olympus and returned. It was a rite of passage that showed I was now a full member of the fraternity of gamers. I suspect that this was a big part of the initial attraction of the hobby to me -- I felt like I was joining something "mysterious" and "elite."

I'm sure that sounds silly to a lot of people reading this, especially those who either didn't have a mentor who brought them into the hobby or who entered it by way of miniatures wargaming long before annoying kids like me appeared on the scene. For me, though, it's a fond memory and one that Goodman Games has not only conjured up but helped me to relive, if only a little. To my mind, that's what more contemporary RPG publishers ought to be trying to do.

Appendix O

One of the final sections of Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game is entitled "Appendix O: OSR Resources," whose last paragraph says the following:

To the many and varied OSR publishers, I offer one comment. As Grognardia marks its fourth anniversary in 2012, the OSR has re-published a plethora of variants on the core D&D concepts. The target customer is offered no shortage of retro-clones, adventures centered on goblin raiders, excursions into the underdeep, and genre-based campaign settings. I started work on the volume you hold in your hand because I believe the time has come to break the chains of D&D convention and step back one era further, to the original inspiration of Appendix N, beyond the confines of genre assumptions. DCC RPG offers a free license to third party publishers who wish to publish compatible material. Even if you choose not to take advantage of this license, I ask you to consider moving past the boundaries of “TSR mimicry.” The time has come to offer our shared customer something both new and old-school.

What Joseph Goodman says above is a sentiment I regularly hear in various quarters. I don't exactly disagree with what he says, but I do think, based on experience, that it's a little naive. Firstly, here's an awful truth RPG designers don't want to hear: a significant majority of gamers only care about D&D. It was the first RPG and, nearly 40 years later, it's still the most popular (I consider Pathfinder to be D&D for the purposes of this discussion). Whether they play LBB-only OD&D or multi-splatbook, computer-assisted 4e, D&D -- and, more importantly, its broad conventions -- is what people think of when they think of "roleplaying games." Heck, that's as true of video games as it is of tabletop ones, so I don't expect there's a huge demand for games that challenge the prevailing paradigm. That's not to say no one wants something different; I simply don't think there's anything wrong with sticking with and preferring an approach that's deeply, deeply ingrained in the hobby.

Secondly, I think people misunderstand nostalgia. These people throw the term around dismissively -- "Oh, you only like that out of nostalgia." Now, even if that criticism were true, so what? People can and do like things for all kinds of reasons. Ultimately, all that matters is that they like them. If someone likes D&D and its conventions (or anything else) because it reminds him of early days in the hobby, what's so wrong with that? Underlying the critique of nostalgia is the notion that we should only like things for "serious" reasons, which is to say, reasons that others can not only understand but agree with. It's an odd criticism in my opinion, since I suspect most of us like all sorts of things for no reason other than that we like them. When I say I like the taste of a certain food or the way a certain piece of music makes me feel, I have no expectation that anyone else will agree with me. At the same time, I'm not deluded in using words such as "like" or "feel" to describe what I'm experiencing.

Thirdly, and lastly, I think the word "new" gets overused, mostly by the jaded. By that I mean that the cry for "the new" is often a function of what one has experienced. Sure, for many gamers who've been playing for three decades, "goblin raiders" or "excursions into the underdeep" may be old hat, but not everyone has been playing for that long. For a lot of younger and/or less experienced folks, The Keep on the Borderlands or The Village of Hommlet is new. And, for us older and more experienced players, seeing a new spin on these old adventures can be just as fun. This isn't intended as a rebuke to anyone seeking something different, but I do think the cult of the new is frequently selfish and myopic.

I suspect this post has gotten a bit away from me. I really appreciate what Joseph Goodman did with DCC RPG. I think it's a fantastic game and a big part of its fantastic-ness is that he made a game that appealed to him. That's why I find the paragraph I quoted above a little grating. I'm sure there are some folks involved in the OSR who've written stuff not out of personal interest but because they thought it's what others wanted them to write, but their numbers are probably very, very small. There's not enough fame or fortune in this to not follow your heart and do what it commands of you. My advice to anyone who feels that there's "too much" of X and "too little" of Y in the OSR is to go ahead and make it themselves. That's why Joseph Goodman did, to great success, and that's what nearly everyone else in this corner of the hobby is doing, so why not you too?

At Last!

DCC RPG PDF

It's rare that I actually buy RPGs anymore, let alone pre-order them, but that's what I did with the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game. I was initially very skeptical of the game and its approach, as you may recall from some of my posts about it in the past. That feeling didn't dissipate once the open playtest began last year. Over time, though, my opinion softened considerably and in fact I've come around to seeing the advent of DCC RPG as a good and worthy thing. Mind you, I'm one of those guys who actually sees value in anyone and everyone publishing their game, even if that game is "just another clone." Now, DCC RPG is not just another clone, but the principle is the same for me: publish for yourself and don't worry about anyone else.

I bring this up because, yesterday morning, I received word that the PDF of the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game was available for download for those of us who'd pre-ordered the game. So, I happily snagged a copy and, while I was too busy yesterday to have much of a chance to do more than glance at it, I've been spending this morning reading it more intently. I'll have more considered thoughts on the thing, after I've digested it more thoroughly, but let me say this right now: I'd like to play this game.

Again, this is a rare thing; by and large, I've already got all the RPGs I need and am not in the market for any more. But DCC RPG looks like a lot of fun to play, like an extremely well-read and much more self-aware version of HackMaster -- and I mean that as a very high compliment. Will it replace Labyrinth Lord as my go-to game for fantasy? Nope. Can I imagine playing a multi-year DCC RPG campaign with my gaming group? No. Heck, I'm not even sure that's possible. Are either of those things strikes against DCC RPG? Not in the slightest.

Seriously, this is a very well written and presented game that knows what it's about and gives it to you. It won't be to everyone's tastes and I consider that a good thing. We already have enough lowest common denominator mass market entertainment as it is and Goodman Games should take considerable pride in not having given us more of the same.

Words of Wisdom

I was happily reminded that this week Goodman Games' Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game is going to press, with the book expected to appear on store shelves late next month. Electronic copies of the game will be made available to those who have pre-ordered sometime after April 1. I'm among those who pre-ordered a copy, in large part because, after some initial nitpicking about certain design choices in the DCC RPG, I came to a conclusion that Joseph Goodman neatly summarizes in an interview he gave earlier this month. In that interview, Goodman is asked, "What is your target audience for the upcoming DCC roleplaying game?" His reply is a terrific one:

Joseph Goodman is my target audience. I have said this before and I’ll say this again: I’m writing this game for me. It’s the game I’ve always wanted to play. Hopefully a few other folks will like it as well.

That's not something I hear very often, or at least that I don't hear often enough. I think, ultimately, that the best games (not to mention books, movies, etc.) are those created to please their creators, not anyone else. Naturally, of course, creators like it when others share their enthusiasm for their creation, but that's not really the point -- or, at least, it shouldn't be.

One Man's Nostalgia

By now, I'm pretty sure everyone in the old school community is very much aware of Goodman Games's upcoming Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game, which is currently in open playtest and is on schedule for a February 2012 release. I haven't paying as close attention to the playtest as I'd intended to, in part because I've got my own projects to work on. But another part of my inattention is that, while there's a lot I do like about the DCC RPG, there's also a lot I don't and, perhaps more importantly, I'm not really in the market for another fantasy roleplaying game right now. So, I keep half an eye on DCC RPG's development, checking in every now and again to see how things are unfolding.

One of the more intriguing aspects of the game line's development are the upcoming adventure modules to support it. Take a look at the covers of a couple of them:

Those are both really awesome, right? They scream pulp fantasy in a way that adventure module covers haven't since I first entered the hobby. That they're reminiscent of the covers of both Weird Tales magazines and 1970s paperback novels, without being apes of either, is also a point in their favor. For me, they hit that sweet spot between nostalgic evocation and unique vision.

On the other hand, this does nothing for me. Indeed, it almost looks like a parody cover.

It looks like a crossover between Luke Cage, Hero for Hire and Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser -- and while that's probably awesome in some people's eyes, I find it silly. Of course, even sillier in my opinion is another DCC adventure module:

Now, winged apes are cool and, of course, Michael Curtis is even cooler, but basing an adventure off Tramp's iconic DMG illustration? That's not so cool. I find myself uncomfortably reminded of some of those HackMaster adventures of old, the ones that turned me off them to such a degree that I never bothered to give the game a fair shake. That's what Emirikol Was Framed! does for to me: it turns me off DCC RPG and it's not even out yet.

I'm just one guy, of course. I'm sure many other old schoolers looked at those second two covers and pumped their fists in enthusiasm. They looked at them and found them as delightfully evocative as I found the first two. Nostalgia, just like esthetics, is a funny thing; one man's "delightfully evocative" is another man's "Hell, no!" I bring this up not as a criticism of DCC RPG at all. Despite my own qualms, I'm actually glad that Goodman Games has decided to forge ahead with a game that looks like it's the product of a clear and idiosyncratic vision of fantasy. It's hard not to applaud that, even when it's not wholly something I would have done -- but then, that's part of the point.

DCC RPG Character Generator

Take a gander at this awesome online character generator for DCC RPG, which not only creates a party of four 0-level characters for you, but also produces an attractive PDF with all their stats on a single page.

Now go forth and spread nihilism!

DCC RPG Playtest Files Available for Download

As announced earlier in the week, Goodman Games has released the playtest files for its upcoming Dungeon Crawl Classic Roleplaying Game. You can get the PDF here. I should note that these files are not the full DCC RPG. They are enough to play the game for the purposes of playtesting the game, but they are not everything that will appear in the final release. Monsters and spells, for example, are much smaller in number in these files than they will be in the full game.

My quick impression: the game is gorgeous, with some of the best neo-old school art I've seen in years. In fact, I might be willing to say that it's one of the nicest looking RPG products of any type produced in a while. Seriously, the art is really, really good. Like it or dislike it, Goodman clearly gets the old school esthetic like few others and the DCC RPG shows that in spades.

The game system itself is a lot less complex than I'd expected it to be. It's main turn-off for some might be the preponderance of tables, since, for example, every spell requires its own unique table to adjudicate its effects. Likewise, critical hit tables are divided by class, so there are several of those, too. Again, this will either intrigue or repulse depending on one's own tastes. Not having played it, I find myself intrigued by the conventional wisdom-defying boldness of this design choice, but the proof will be in the playing.

In general, though, the DCC RPG looks like it'll be, at the very least, a much talked about game, since its design and presentation are a direct challenge to the trends in the industry for the last decade or more. I suspect it's a game about which there will be little middle ground in terms of reaction: one will either love it or hate it. At the moment, I tend toward the former; time will tell whether that tendency solidifies or not.

DCC RPG Beta Coming This Week

Joseph Goodman informed me this morning that the public beta of the Dungeon Crawl Classic Roleplaying Game begins this Wednesday (June 8th). You'll be able to download the current draft of the game and take it for a test spin. Better yet, you'll be able to contribute feedback to Goodman Games in order to help make the final version of the game (to be published in November) as good a game as it can be.

I'm definitely looking forward to hearing what people think about the game after it's made available. I suspect a lot of gamers will either be sold or turned off DCC RPG based on what they see this Wednesday. Either way, it'll be illuminating.

Reavers and Cut-Purses

One of the things I really appreciate about the upcoming Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game from Goodman Games is the way that even its artwork signals that this isn't just another heroic fantasy RPG, like so many others. In fact, judging from this illustration by Doug Kovacs, I'm not sure "heroic" is an appropriate adjective at all.

There are no Silver Age heroes to be found here, just a blood-drenched warrior, a creepy warlock, a bad-ass battle nun, and a shifty-looking dwarf with an eye patch. Notice, too, that they have torches -- torches. From where I'm sitting, this is awesome stuff and clearly distinct from what WotC and Paizo are doing these days. Whether there's actually a demand for this kind of thing outside our little echo chamber, I have no idea, but I, for one, am really starting to look forward to this game.

DCC RPG and Character Death in Old School Gaming

The first adventure included in the upcoming Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game Adventure Starter is called "The Portal Under the Stairs" by Joseph Goodman. Its introduction includes the following words:

This adventure is designed for 15-20 0-level characters or 8-10 1st-level characters. Remember that players should have 2-3 characters each, so they can continue enjoying the fun of play even if some of their PCs die off. In playtest groups of 15 0-level PCs, 7 or 8 typically survive. The author has playtested this adventure with groups of up to 28 PCs and experienced one complete TPK and several sessions with only a handful of survivors.

When I first read that, I was floored. "15-20 0-level characters?" My first thought was that it couldn't possibly be serious. My second thought was that it made a HackMaster-esque mockery of old school games' lethality. But as I thought about it, the more it started to make sense to me, especially in light of my own experiences playing D&D back in the day. Nowadays, it's commonplace to reduce all discussion of character mortality in old school gaming into one of two extremes. Either old school campaigns were non-stop killfests of characters without any depth or, well, character or they were in fact finely crafted epics of song and story little different than the trendiest indie RPGs of the 21st century. As usual, the reality, at least as I remember it, lies somewhere in between.

In days of yore, characters did die in droves and few of us gave it a second thought. You played D&D for three hours and were slain by an elf? Ah well, time to roll up a new character. What's often forgotten, though, is that it was primarily low-level characters who died in droves. Certainly it's true that even high-level PCs in OD&D and AD&D were significantly less mechanically "robust" than are their contemporary descendants, so they could die, but it was, as I recall, pretty rare for them to do so and even rarer for them to remain so permanently. No, what has, over time, become exaggerated into this notion that old school gaming was an abattoir is based on the fact that low-level characters were pushovers and it took a combination of skill, luck, and referee kindliness to get them beyond that point. 

In reflecting back on my old D&D campaigns, most (though not all) the character deaths I can still remember, occurred when the character in question was somewhere between 1st and 3rd level. There was the ill-named Hercules, who was slain by the minotaur in The Keep on the Borderlands and there was Father Miles, paralyzed and then consumed by ghouls in the Moathouse outside The Village of Hommlet. I could go on, conjuring up the names and circumstances of long-dead PCs who never had a chance to gel beyond being "a 1st-level fighter" or "a 2nd-level cleric," but I think the point is clear: in old school gaming, there's no guarantee that any newly-created character will make it beyond 3rd-level and indeed the odds are somewhat stacked against that possibility. But characters did (and do) make it beyond 3rd level if luck is on their side. And the fact that they did so while many of their companions did not is, in my experience, an important part of the old school experience and a major element in the transformation of "a 3rd-level fighter" into "Morgan Just, Scion of the Snow Barbarians and Bane of Trollkind." That Morgan Just would never again be in serious danger of death doesn't matter; that he once was and overcame it is the significant thing.

That's where I think the DCC RPG has the right of it. By making it clear from the outset that a player needs 2-3 characters at the start of a new campaign sets the proper tone. It gives the referee leave to let the dice fall where they may and it warns players not to expect that any given character will ever become more than a bloody smear on the floor of some godforsaken dungeon. Because of this, I imagine that any PC that manages to survive to 3rd level or higher will feel much more fun to play, even if he's not necessarily the character one would have chosen in advance to make it that far. He'll feel real, like someone with actual experiences and a genuine past -- a past filled with the corpses of his fellow adventurers who weren't so lucky. I actually think that's pretty cool and about as fine an evocation of old school gaming in a modern context as any I can imagine.

Free RPG Day Adventure Starter

Thanks to Joseph Goodman, I recently received an advance copy of the Dungeon Crawl Classics Adventure Starter that'll be released to the public on Free RPG Day next month. The Adventure Starter consists of two adventures, one for 0-1st level characters and another for 5th level characters. Though very short, the adventures are quite interesting and have a nice pulp fantasy vibe to them. You can tell that Goodman and his collaborators have really been immersing themselves in the literary forebears of D&D as preparation for writing the DCC RPG.

I'll probably do a lengthier "review" of this product later. For now, I'll only say that, the more I see of the Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG, the more intrigued I am. I'm starting to think that may prove to be a bigger success than people are expecting. Neither a true clone nor really "3e lite," as some have suggested, the DCC RPG is most definitely its own game with its own sensibility. This fact, coupled with its little quirks, like the Zocchi dice, and what I am sure will be solid adventure support from Goodman, ought to distinguish it from any of its competitors.

A year ago, I wasn't all that enthusiastic about the DCC RPG. Now, I'm actually looking forward to its release. Heck, I'd love to play it, which is about as ringing an endorsement as I can give a game that's not even been released yet.