Gaming This Last Week: More DCC (it's getting good), D&D 5E Keeps on Going, OSE returns and Lots of New Books (Path of the Planebreaker, Ruins of Symbaroum, Anime 5E)

 Well, the last week has proven exciting, as I resume GMing duties on Saturdays for a while. The recent gaming events have boiled down to the following:

1. Weekly Dungeon Crawl Classics on Monday nights. As we play further and deeper into this particular game I feel that, as mentioned last post, DCC is a game best enjoyed around a live table with fleshy humans; VTT just doesn't do this system as much justice (though in fairness I think approaching the VTT carefully with some clear rules on conduct in the funnel crawl would help). Either way, DCC is fun....maybe I will think about running it, or one of its cousins (Mutant Crawl Classics) sometime. I just can't get over "race as class" in 2022, but MCC handles it well enough with its post-apocalyptic theme (for me), so....yeah, probably that eventually.

2. D&D 5E Wednesdays continue, and it's been a blast. I've developed a very pleasant relationship with 5E, and my strategy of reducing non-critical foes and encounters to minimum permitted HP has helped a great deal with keeping the combat, when it happens, from overwhelming the evening. My setting for the campaign continues to be fun for me, with a large focus on an archaic world straight out of the fifth century AD steeped in traditional folklore, magic and superstition, and eschewing much of the more fantastical/farcical elements of the genre to keep it simple and mysterious.

3. We had a final night with Call of Cthulhu on Astral Tabletop Friday. The Keeper is taking vacation for two weeks, and when he returns Astral will be gone. RIP Astral, you were a decent VTT environment. 

4. Saturday I returned to the GM seat, and while we had bandied about returning to Starfinder I convinced everyone I could no longer pretend I even cared about that system anymore, and we should just resume Old-School Essentials again, which we did, with a follow-up campaign to the first one. Since some high-tech sci fi elements were inevitable in this sequel, I am cribbing content from a combination of Gamma World, Mutant Future, Star Crawl and Mutant Crawl Classics for now to "fill in the gaps" as it were. So far, working great! As the group reaches 3rd level (give or take) they are starting to see how the system, despite feeling anemic compared to modern iterations of D&D, is actually quite robust as a story engine type game. We're using the Advanced Edition rules in OSE, which is where my comfort zone lies; although I did start with the Otus red cover Basic D&D set back in the day, my second purchase was the AD&D three book set and my second game was in AD&D. For this reason the "class as race" thing never made sense to me and feels too limiting. I ordered a second set of the rulebooks for my wife as well from Exalted Funeral, I think for the games she runs for kids at school it might be a great choice.

Several new tomes arrived within the last week: The Ruins of Symbaroum is a really interesting adaptation of that system to D&D 5E, though maybe most useful for use as-is; I am not sure its all that easy to extract content from for other games. 

I also got my copy of the Path of the Planebreaker from Monte Cook Games today. Just started reading it, but already looks like an amazingly interesting approach to cross-planar travel with tons of useful content. It feels like a spiritual successor to one of my favorite 3rd edition books, Beyond Countless Doorways. 

Finally, ordered (and snagged the PDF) of Anime 5E, from the company which apparently now controls the Big Eyes, Small Mouth property once held by Tri-Stat. This book is really dang interesting, and I must write more on it soon, as it provides an apparently very nice approach to turning D&D 5E into a point-buy system of design, and all the rules to allow for it. More on this one very soon.

A Few Random Thoughts on Dungeon Crawl Classics (actual play experience)

 I've been in a few games of Dungeon Crawl Classics now as a player. I'll state outright that the GM for the game has a fair amount of work to do when running DCC....it is evident that the GM neeeds to get "in sync" with the expectations of the system or that can lead to A few problems. Both GMs I have played under have done well, for the most part, though one GM (ahem, my wife) I think learned following her first session that DCC expects you, as the GM, to be extremely ruthless and cruel, especially in the funnel adventure. The GM for the other game is a friend of mine and he excels at being a ruthless, cruel, take-no-prisoners type of GM so he tackles it quite well.

One of the games is at an actual live tabletop....DCC is designed for this medium of play. The other was on Roll20, and I think demonstrated that VTT has some limits. The game in question had more young kids (and parents who were maybe policing their kids a bit too hard), and managing a posse of zero level PCs on Roll20 got a little cumbersome at time (though Roll20 does have a really nice character sheet with multiple zero level slots that works great). It was that lack of physicality that contributed to much of the confusion, I feel.

All told, the biggest problem with the Zero Level funnel crawl I am experiencing so far is simply that I have one survivor in one game which I am frankly not that enamored with (this hapless zero level character survived because she is so horrific in most of her stats that hiding behind all the risk takers was the only way to go). When she inevitably dies after graduating to level 1 I am unsure how to proceed, as I don't recall in DCC if it provides advice to the GM on situations where the player loses a solitary level 1 character, and all other funnel survivors died. As is typical of DCC's approach I imagine it is left to the GM to decide what works for their table, I guess.

In the other game I have an opposite issue, with four survivors so far, and a possibility all four may make it to the end of the funnel. If that happens (and I suspect it might not because I am trying really hard to get some of them killed) then I guess I'll have plenty of prospective PCs for the future.

Anyway.....it's interesting to play DCC, but I realize now its not really my cup of tea as a player. I already figured out its not really something I would want to GM; the specific implied play style of the system grates against the fact that I wish to approach it as I see fit, and I don't really care for the game's arbitrary implied universe choices simply because they are too limiting, and too focused on accomplishing a very specific style/feel of play.* I can accomplish this just fine with other systems and with fewer limitations. I guess it is now good to know that I feel the same way as a player, but at least I can safely say I am still enjoying the ride, even if its one I eventually want to get the heck off of.

*With this thought I suddenly realize that might be my real hang up with Starfinder, too. And pathfinder 2E to a lesser extent. The baked-in expectations of the game design just don't fit with my palette, if you will.

Gaming in July - A Weird and Unexpected Resurgence of D&D 5E and Lots of Time as a Player

 I haven't posted in quite a while, failing my (very mild) commitment to blog more often! I suspect the days of blogs are certainly dimmed, if not over, as vlogs become all the rage, but I just can't bring myself to even entertain the idea, I feel hideously unphotogenic, let alone "video material." 

For July, it looks like my post-vacation fugue turned from "what game will grab my interest?" into "Dungeons & Dragon 5E kind of does all I want for this particular genre of gaming." Part of this is no doubt due to the fact that I am only running one actual live game right now....and when  only have to focus as a GM on a single campaign, I find myself more creatively energized, less spent, and genuinely interested. As a result the campaign has been chugging along with lots of weirdness as I try to see what my players decide to do with their wayward characters.

I haven't abandoned other game prospects, though. I have a campaign for Call of Cthulhu in the works that takes the PCs back to a weird northwest set in 1812, to follow up on a strange campaign twist that happened in another modern day CoC campaign I ran back in 2018. We've been waiting for follow up on this one for years now, so good to get to it again.

I have also been slowly (very slowly) prepping campaign ideas for Mutant Year Zero and Savage Worlds Pathfinder. The latter languishes a bit due to my persistent desire to keep doing D&D 5E but maybe we'll jump in to it soon, I dunno. My Saturday game was postponed while my cohort in GMing for that night stepped up to plate and has been running the Extinction Curse (I think that's it) Adventure path for Pathfinder 2nd Edition. It's been fun to play, but I have been amused by the fact that I now think Pathfinder 2E is actually easier to GM than it is to play....and also more rewarding. As a player I am having fun, but the game's needless layers of complexity in character design are palpable when compared to D&D 5E, Savage Worlds, or even GURPS if I am being honest.

As a player I am also in a live game of Dungeon Crawl Classics a buddy of mine is running (the randomness of it all is a lot of fun, very core and basic but makes for fast-paced and entertaining gaming), Friday night Gaslight Cthulhu which will soon be rotated with a family-focused Dungeon Crawl Classics game my wife is trying to put together (I am interested to see how this goes, her interpretation of therewith!) and sooner or later we will get another Mothership game going, I imagine. Maybe.....I have some SF ideas I am experimenting with....which leads in to:

I'm still working on campaign ideas and stuff for GURPS, too. I don't know when or where I will spring these ideas, or on what hapless group, but I have a strong vision for the historical Egyptian campaign now, along with a fair amount of detail on a prospective exploration-based GURPS Space campaign. 

Games with Multiple PCs per Player

 I've been mulling over a recent experience in a Pulp Cthulhu 7E game where the players each got to run 2 characters. I think some of the rationale was it was a scenario designed for a lot of players but we were a small group. It was also potentially a very deadly scenario, so maybe multiple PCs left some wiggle room for death without taking a player out of the mix. The key thing, though, is that it meant that I was trying to juggle more than one PC, and it was an experience that made me think about another game I've been interested in recently: Dungeon Crawl Classics (as well as Mutant Crawl Classics) and their funnel mechanic.

Here's the thing: I really disliked juggling 2 PCs. I realize this has to do with my play style as a player, because as a GM I of course must juggle lots of NPCs. As a GM the process is simple, because the NPCs are not PCs, they have their moment/turn of events and are tied to the plotline....as much as I choose to ham it up, NPCs are still there to act as foils for the PCs to play off of, letting the story move forward. That is a distinctly different experience from what I want as a player.

As a player I imagine there are a few types of people out there who engage with their character in different ways. Ways I have seen include:

Speaking of your PC in the third-person tense ("James tries to open the door.") like you are an author narrating a protagonist's actions. A lot of new players who haven't role played before start here then work out their comfort zone over time.

Speaking in first-person, but playing, in essence, yourself (you are invested in actions, but not necessarily immersion; dialogue will sound like this: "I talk to the demon to see what it says it's name is."). Players who settle here tend to be playing a role, yes, but are not really role-playing in the conventional sense. 

Speaking in first-person, but playing a character (you may change your vocal tone, accent, or even go a bit out there: "If you, sir, are possessed by a demon, then how might I address you?"). A majority of long term gamers tend to nestle here after a while, and most tend to have a range of around 2-4 "types" that they favor, sometimes with varying personalities and other times with varying playstyles to match.

Speaking in first-person in charicature; these are the players who either are amazingly good at it and bring some genuine thespianism to the table, or they are an earsore and we all suffer, but they are key in always being exaggerated in their personality and voice, and indeed their main satisfaction may be less in following the story of their PC than in the representation of it. This kind of player is actually not that common in my experience.

Anyway.....I have a theory that the multiple PC methodology does not mesh well with all but the first type mentioned above. It creates a disruption when you are a focused player who likes to figure out a character, but must then "jump tracks" every turn to figure out a different chaarcter. In the recent games I found myself resorting to third-person narrative for my secondary PC just because it was the only way to keep things sane in my head.

When I have run my own games, if a secondary character becomes necessary I have always identified them as NPCs who act as henchmen under mechanical control of the player, to which I would then lend the personality or decision making if needed (it is not too common the player is good at this, unless the NPC/secondary character is something easy to manage like an animal companion). This has worked well; I've run games where there were 3 PCs but each had 2-20 henchmen, whom they could direct and control, without worrying about the personalities.

As a result, this got me to thinking about the funnel crawl and its design intent in Dungeon Crawl Classics. The theory is that putting a massive group of zero level PCs who are definitely fodder for the module will let players bond with the survivors. It's an interesting idea, and may work, but does require that the initial game be, in essence, about "no one" at first, and that the disconnect of the player to a mass of PCs will in theory subside once one or two of them are all that is left. I want to see how this works in play, but worry that it would be less exciting than it sounds.

I do know one thing out of all this, though: aside from not liking controlling two or more PCs equally as a player (in Call of Cthulhu, at least!) I also don't much care for the Pulp Cthulhu rules. Too unCthulhuish! But that is another blog post for another day.

Down the Rabbit Hole - Troika!

My immersion into Dungeon Crawl Classics has served as a sort of gateway to other, stranger RPGs. DCC has some weirdness, sure (and books like Black Sun Deathcrawl dive off the deep end), but there is more and stranger, stuff which feels as much like art as game. One of the first I stumbled across was Mork Borg (sorry, umlauts missing), a sort of art piece made of death metal covers and the back wall of old LP shops disguised as a sort of RPG system. I mean....you can probably play it, but I've been perusing it for weeks now and I have no idea precisely how it is all supposed to come together. 

Less confusing but much weirder is Troika! from Melsonian Arts Council (though hard to find in print in the US anywhere other than Exalted Funeral right now. I have seen Troika! mentioned as the source system for some odd sourcebooks on Drivethrurpg on occasion, which left me wondering why some publishers were providing system content for DCC as well as Troika! RPG. Book/zines like Terrors of the Stratosfiend left me wondering: is the DCC game the better system for their vision, or is Troika? After digging around and finding a copy of Troika! I found that the reality was a stranger tunnel than I had imagined.

If Mork Borg is what happens when someone channels a coke-filled death metal concert into a chapbook, then Troika! is what happens when someone Reads Lewis Carroll, watches David Lynch, and then takes too many funny mushrooms at the same time. Not to suggest that what is happening in Troika! is exclusively a weird, hallucinogenic bender-based excursion into nonsense, but rather that the game seems to exclusively revel in concepts and grounds which not only defy genre expectations (the game seems deliverately determined to avoid the tropes of the RPG and fiction genres it borrows from) but it ends up feeling like a game designed to emulate a weird dream state. It's not billed as an RPG of "weird fever dreams" but it sure feels like that's what it is.

Unlike some other fringe indies out there, Troika! doesn't even feel especially gritty or "adult" and  in fact even feels like a game you could invoke in the presence of kids. This is a welcome change from the traditional focus of a lot of the alt-OSR crowd, which seems overtly focused on recovering the narrow slice of a late teens/early twenties mindset from the 70's with all the accompanying sex, gore and debauchery they can throw in to a product. Troika! invokes the weird, but in an accessible way that is designed to spark creative expression.

Troika! also spawns from the UK OSR crowd, which is heavily influenced to lesser and greater degrees by the old solo gamebooks comprising Fighting Fantasy, which is a rough foundation for the slim mechanical rules of the system. The only part I have found suspect so far is the way initiative is handled, which is essentially what sounds to me like "take a bucket of colorful stones and pull them out one at a time until there are no more colorful stones." 

I'm intrigued enough with what Troika! is trying to do that I've picked up a couple more supplements, and will scrutinize them when they arrive. If your goal is "simple mechanics plus a setting/approach designed to maximize creative input in an environment entirely unfamiliar to the norms of the RPG landscape," it seems that Troika! does this exceedingly well. 

The Growing Obsession with all Things DCC

 While I've been running some odd menagerie of Pathfinder 2E, an occasional Starfinder game, lots of Cypher System, and recently 3.5 D&D back in the mix....on my own time I've really, really really gotten in to collecting and reading up on Dungeon Crawl Classics and its spin-offs. Like, more than normal, or is even healthy. I've been ordering most of the stuff from Goodman Games, chiefly because they are awfully inexpensive, have free shipping after $100 and include PDFs with almost everything.

Although there is much adieu about the whole Appendix N phenomenon and how it may contribute to the focus and feel of DCC and its brethren, the truth is I'd label it something more like, a "pre mid-eighties fantasy/sci-fi/horror" vibe. I say pre-mid-eighties because I dived in to the genres wholeheartedly around 1980 and never looked back, and by 1986 or so in high school had read so much vintage and (for the time) contemporary fantastic fiction that I was noticing lots of trends, from the "every fantasy epic must be Tolkien" trend on down to the rather prodigious level of insanity that was billed as horror for the time, and somehow marketed on the shelves at grocery stores (to be read by little old ladies who thought my fantasy novels were inducing Satanism, of course, even as they read stuff that made Rosemary's Baby look fairly tame).

The point of this though is that DCC really does evoke the wild west feel of fantasy and scifi (and horror) for that period in time. The seventies in particular brought with it an explosion of new authors who had grown up on classic content and pulps as a natural course, and it was entirely possible in that era to write interesting fiction that was nonconformist yet readily picked up and marketed by major publishers. Today, you have to wade through endless self-published novels on Amazon's createspace to try and discern what is a self-absorbed vanity project and what might constitute good fiction. But back then? It was all potentially unique and fun, even when it was garbage (sometimes especially if it was garbage!) 

So Dungeon Crawl Classics really does capture this vibe, and I love it. So does Mutant Crawl Classics, and other spin offs like Star Crawl as well. Under a Broken Moon (the Umerica post-apoc DCC books) are sort of amazing, like weird works of art, managing to evoke the sort of post-apocalyptic adventure we all actually thought we were having in Gamma World back in the day, even as Mutant Crawl Classics portrays the more super-science elements of GW that the game actually formulated around.

All of this, of course, is in addition to the excellent reprint and expansion of Metamorphosis Alpha, which while retaining its original game mechanics from the first edition is still utterly playable and also a great resource for MCC if you are so inclined to use it as such. 

My obsession with this has me thinking hard about how to wrap at least one current campaign up so I can move forward....but it's a tough call. My weekly Cypher System game is suitably weird and interesting with lots of interesting plot and depth so it may wrap sooner than later if only because its so enmeshed in moving the story forward. I just migrated my Pathfinder 2E game to an adapted D&D 1st edition module which I converted over (more on that soon), and the old school retro vibe is working quite well for what I need that game to do right now. The 3.5 D&D game is proving that nostalgia only requires about 15-20 years for it to kick in, and is also scratching an particular itch. So I don't know when the DCC/MCC/CuaBM/MA itch will get scratched, but hopefully soon!

Making RPGs Fun to Read

I've been perusing a lot of Dungeon Crawl Classics content lately, and one commonality in the DCC community is a reverence...nay, borderline obsession with Appendix N. This is obviously relevant to DCC, which is a game which has staked its success on depicting fantasy gaming as one might imagine it would look in the 70's based on the fiction at hand for the time. When you read Mutant Crawl Classics and notice it's own Appendix "M" references a movie like Zardoz and a seminal work like Hothouse, you know they're not kidding! MCC drips Zardoz and Hothouse from its pores.

In the course of this, however, it becomes incredibly clear that Goodman Games' two amazing OSR works have something in common: they are really damn readable, filled with interesting content, discussions on their respective genres and play styles, loaded with rules that somehow aren't a slog to process, and have a ton of general and specific flavor.

You would think this sort of approach to game books...making them fun to read....would make sense, right? But not every game can accomplish this, for a variety of reasons. Even my own personal favorite system these days, Pathfinder 2nd edition, is at best described as a true utility/resource. I read it to execute the game I want, but I don't sit down and read for--you know--fun. Ugh! I've yet to find a single Pathfinder tome from Paizo (sorry Paizo!) that was actually a pleasure to read. They all feel a bit like work, even when I am digging in the details of their mechanical systems. Pathfinder 2nd Edition's only really fun to read tomes so far are the Bestiaries* and the Gamemastery Guide, which do have some engaging content; but try reading them against the evocative and gripping narrative in Dungeon Crawl Classics, and you will see a difference. PF2 is interesting to read, yes, but the other (DCC) is fascinating to read. Every game book should hope to be the latter.

I recall distinctly that the very first time I encountered this sort of evocative, fascinating writing was actually Gary Gygax's own musings and ramblings in the 1E Dungeon Master's Guide. Despite how much content and how exotic and interesting it was the DMG was never a particularly easy read, nor was it so much fascinating as exotic and esoteric, a thing apart for being the first of it's kind, but it definitely set a bar for future game designers to achieve.

It would be pretty much a decade+ later when I snagged Cyberpunk 2020 that I found a book which outdid the DMG in terms of sheer nerve in its writing, presentation, attitude and sheer efficiency at describing its own mechanics seamlessly with its setting. Mike Pondsmith made a book which I feel has not to date been toppled by any other work, and I eagerly wait to see if the upcoming Cyberpunk Red can actually pull this off a second time.

There are other games out there that thrive thanks to their evocative writing, but far more lean toward the utility as their key value. Even literary works such as Call of Cthulhu work better as a resource for gaming than as a tome to read for pure enjoyment (baring any fiction segments). Some exceptions to this norm include most everything ever published first by White Wolf and then Onyx Publishing. Say what you will about White Wolf, but their books are (mostly) indisputably readable if you're into the stuff they write about. But...even then....most of what makes White Wolf and Onyx distinct has been the fiction elements, and the actual rules are often quite dry.

Anyway.....just some musings I thought I'd put to blog since I have neglected this poor thing for the better part of a month now. Family just moved recently and things are finally settling down, we have a nice house with plenty of room to enjoy social isolation!


*For an example of a well-written, evocative and arguably fascinating Bestiary, look no further than 13th Age. Pathfinder's Bestiaries are resources; 13th Age's Bestiaries are art.

Hero System 6th Edition Dethroned by Grimtooth as "Game most Likely to Stop a Bullet."

I picked up a copy of the Silver-Foil leatherette cover, 620 page edition of Grimtooth's Ultimate Traps Collection. The book is larger than all three D&D 5E manuals combined. It looks larger than all of the Grimtooth's books it holds within, combined, probably due to thicker quality pages than the originals? It looks terrifyingly large.

This is a glorious collector's edition, and worth it to secure the special silver/gold goil version with 160 extra pages of content, including Traps Bazaar and Grimtooth's Dungeons of Doom. It remains suitably generic (although in the back are some notes on AD&D and T&T conversions for some bits), but note that Goodman Games also released a special module 87.5 for Dungeon Crawl Classics titled Grimtooth's Museum of Death, so if you want the totally complete Grimtooth experience not even the massive Ultimate Grimtooth's Traps book will cover it! Sadly the DCC module does not offer DT&T conversions, but it's easy enough to extrapolate DCC into DT&T mechanics (hint to any DT&T fans out there: if you love DT&T, I can promise you that you'll also enjoy DCC, which covers a very similar aesthetic and gritty fantasy-meets-high-weirdness feel that DT&T does).

The big book is $80 MSRP but I found a copy for $64. It's worth $80 though, so if you want to have the final, definitive resource on dungeon delving traps, find a copy.

Grimtina is actually in this module, with a terrifying chainsaw. She's like Harley Quinn if Harley were the love child of Hades and Ereshkigal.

OSR Problems; on finding a way to run OSR games, and settling on a system...

...and one day I looked up and realized three sections of my shelf were entirely OSR. The biggest chunk by far was for Swords & Wizardry Complete, which is of course supported by the Frog Gods with gigantic tomes of various and sundry....but there's a lot more:

Swords & Wizardry Complete
Dungeon Crawl Classics
Labyrinth Lord
For Gold & Glory
Beyond the wall and Other Tales (my new favorite darling of the moment)
Spears of the Dawn
Castles & Crusades
Iron Falcon
...other stuff I have no doubt forgotten about. Let's not even bother mentioning the actual original B/X D&D, 1E AD&D or 2E AD&D tomes.

And for each of those I have a big fat mess of modules and support, and some of the support is ephemeral and easily transits from one system to the next, such as Yoon-Suin, Deep Carbon Observatory and the D30 Sandbox Companion which are all easily utilized with any of the above titles.

I have a real desire to actually run one of these, not merely convert content over to D&D 5E like I've been doing lately. My thought is that my local gang of players might put up with a couple nights of one, but it's not going to have legs for the long haul....and I do love D&D 5E, so not interested in forcing that system into competition, anyway.

My Saturday group is pretty much dedicated to Pathfinder and I know them well enough to know that that boat must not be rocked any longer; delving into 13th Age and D&D 5E was enough for them. My Wednsesday group is more flexible, but I have some players who, when I break from established D&D, will simply vanish in a puff of smoke and I'd rather not make that happen just because I happen to want to play some OSR stuff.

My thought then is to delve into online gaming again...Roll20 or Fantasy Grounds. I ran Fantasy Grounds for my old players in Seattle a lllloooong time ago when I first moved to Albuquerque....surely it's gotten even easier to work with since those hallowed days of yore. Plus, Roll20 seems pretty cool. Maybe what I need to do is find some games to get in to as a player first, see how it works....I'm thinking Mondays and Sunday nights are good for me. Hmmmm.

But when I run...it's definitely going to be one of the above titles. Probably DCC or S&WC but For Gold & Glory is damned tempting. Labyrinth Lord would be more tempting, but to try it out only begs the question of why I don't just run the original.....and ironically, I know I will find the race-as-class element distasteful once I'm actually dealing with it. This doesn't bother me with DCC strangely, because my sense is that the Tolkienesque races have no real place in DCC anyway and can be ignored.

But then there's Beyond the Wall....have you seen this book? It's pretty amazing. I'll have to talk more about it and its supplement later.

There's other stuff, too: Perils of the Purple Planet. The Chained Coffin. The Haunted Highlands. Tranzar's Redoubt. A Red and Pleasant Land. Razor Coast.....these are all begging me to run them. And yet I'll probably ignore them all and do my own thing anyway. I always do.

Dungeon Crawl Classics 4th printing: The Stretch Goals Are Making Me Nervous....

UPDATE: I'm sticking with it....merry XMas to me! They've hit over $200K now. Dang!

I'm still backing the Dungeon Crawl Classics 4th printing. I really, really do want an additional copy with that awesome Peter Mullen cover. I was completely satisfied at that point. I was also happy when DCC module #75 was added as a stretch goal because it's the only DCC module I don't own. But...well...go check out the stretch goals that have been hit since (I'll wait):



...satin bookmarks, dust jacket, built-in 4 panel screen, gilded pages, thumb tabs, pocket folder, bookmarks and custom pencils. Also, six module reprints. Plus some add-ons like DCC compilation that I'm snagging.

Now, I am actually very eager to get all of this...even though it sounds like there are so many features in this book it will possibly achieve sentience and join Skynet in a war against us. But these stretch goals make me nervous....I normally DO NOT back Kickstarters with too many stretch goals, as they have a reputation for being problematic, and I feel that the Deluxe Tunnels & Trolls Kickstarter was a great example of how too many stretch goals tainted the actual goal of getting an anniversary edition rulebook out.

Have any of you backed a Goodman Games Kickstarter before? Has it been a good experience? I need some reassurance....in looking at the Goodman Games Kickstarter list it looks like the only as-yet unfulfilled KS is the Grimtooth Compilation, which I assume is looking to be about five months overdue right now.

Friday Blaaagh: on the long dark month, kickstarters, Sword Coast Yawns and other stuff

As October rolls to a close I can only say thank goodness....ever since I moved to the more demanding/more rewarding position of my current company I have found October a brutal challenge, as this is a "major activity" month for me. It's one of the reasons I haven't done an October Movie Month for a few years now, unfortunately. Things don't really calm down at my job for a while....but October is the worst month for me, so the subsequently horrible November and December still don't look as bad by comparison (my staff might disagree).

Kickstarters

So for this month I tried backing three Kickstarters. Tome of Beasts is looking strong with more than six times it's Kickstarter goal and the amazing talent at Kobold Press behind it.  The Dungeon Crawl Classics 4th printing looks cool but I admit part of me wonders if there's as much point to backing it as I felt initially....is the cool alternative cover art work the extra money when XMas is closing and I need to plan to buy a ton of loot for my kid (who has a Birthday on the 25th of November, too)? Will I ever actually get to play DCC? It seems like such a great game, but it is fundamentally dependent on my ability to focus my GM style on its requirements, while finding a group of players who are intrigued at what it brings to the table.

Maybe just enjoying the collection and reading of DCC will be enough in the end.

And finally there's the Borderlands Provinces Kickstarter from Frog God. On the one hand I am keen to support any 5E development they want to aim for. On the other hand, it's having some trouble hitting the goal, and in wondering why I realized that their many updates on the Kickstarter have been less exciting than I might have hoped. Not "less exciting" in an objective way, but rather that they made me realize I probably won't use this setting. I love the modules Frog God makes, but I have never been interested in Lost Lands as anything other than a world sufficiently generic and portable as to make it easy to run the scenarios in the setting in my own worlds. It's hard to tell from this project, even with all the updates, if it will have much "ease of conversion" to mine for ideas. I may end up backing out.....we shall see. What I'd really like them to do is another monster book or two and more Book of Quests tomes.

Sword Coast Legends

Sword Coast Legends arrived on PC earlier this month and while it was fun for a little while I really lost momentum....there's just none of the actual "D&D feel" you'd want in a game that purported to be a direct successor to the best of the previous era of D&D gaming. They made a crucial error by trying to simplify the character design system and streamline it to be more action RPG friendly in feel....almost every competing game on the market in the same general niche has more to offer and a abetter overall experience as well, which is in many ways even worse; people who like SCL are likely enjoying it because they haven't played other, better games like literally everything else out there, unfortunately are more forgiving than a guy like me with too many choices of entertainment (and too little time). For SCL to work for me they needed to make this a turn-based tactical RPG, like Divinity: Original Sin, or study what Pillars of Eternity did. Or better yet, WotC needs to license the brand out to a real game development studio, one which knows how to make a really good RPG. As it stands, SCL is better than Daggerdale, but still falls way short of every other CRPG based on D&D out there.

I'd ranted a bit earlier this week about my inability to focus on isometric RPGs. That is certainly a thing, but it really doesn't help if the RPG isn't ultimately interesting enough. I want to see SCL's story.....but I just don't want to suffer through the tired, simple gameplay to get there. I think the only isometric RPG that is holding my attention right now will remain Pillars of Eternity (and Shadowrun on my Nexus 7).


Either way, if you like SCL then don't let my lack of enthusiasm affect you! Remember, I'm the guy who can't get enough of Halo 5, so my tastes in the world of video gaming run far afield these days of what SCL offers, anyway.

Dungeon Crawl Classics 4th Printing Kickstarter (plus DT&T incoming)

I hadn't really intended to back the DCC 4th Printing Kickstarter but I love the new alternative Peter Mullen cover, so I'm in at the $60 level.

I mean....look how amazing that alternative cover is:

I really need to finally convince one of my groups to give DCC a try, or maybe (finally) start a third experimental group night.



In other news I got a flier fro Flying Buffalo indicating my Deluxe Tunnels & Trolls package was now shipping. I can hardly wait....must add DT&T to the list of games I need to find players for.....


I swear that I will damned well get a DCC campaign, DT&T campaign and Fantasy AGE campaign in within the next 14 months! Somehow.

The World Gates of the Whispering Kingdoms - a Dungeon Crawl Classics Campaign percolates from the primordial ooze of an Old One's flipper-print

I've had this one percolating as a filler post for a while, but I want it out now that my Vosjin Wood thing is done so I might feel motivated to work on this more....

The Seer of Adeptos Awaits the Return of the Star Gods

I admit, D&D 5E has consumed my attention and interest in fantasy gaming a great deal lately. However, behind the scenes I have quietly labored with a deep fascination for.....Dungeon Crawl Classics. Why DCC? Because...well...I just can't stop thinking about the weird fun that game propagates, and I really want to try it out. I have...geez...all of the modules, most recently including the Chained Coffin. I have five sets of weird dice. I've been doing a great sell job on Wednesdays and may have convinced the group to give it a go soon. I want to see a funnel in action, and I want to see someone botch a spell and make Cthulhu mad.

I really want to run DCC. Or play it. Both.

I was mulling over the sort of setting one could imagine for DCC, and worked up a short list of ideas that, if strung together, create the barest framework for a setting....but one which I think DCC would be innately suited for. Here it is...so far....perhaps this is the start of more focused development on the blog? We shall see....

The World Gates of the Whispering Kingdoms

1.       Premise: Earth, the impossibly distant future, after eons of change and apocalypse. Mankind and his demihuman kin, all descendants of a time long lost, are living in peace and harmony in an era when the lost technology of man is indistinguishable from magic, and the simplicity of a medieval life is once again the center of human culture. Amidst this simple land of medieval kingdoms lie ancient relics that can, if activated, open up to other worlds. Meanwhile rumors of a darkness from beyond stir concerns among the people.

A Star Banshee

2.       The Darkness: Across the depths of space and time comes the Empire of the Star Banshees, five sisters of the unending Darkness who harken to the call of Azathoth’s mad dance through time and space. The Veil of the Great Attractor has been penetrated and the power of the old gods pours into the world once more. Behind the Star Banshees is a army of evil that is set to engulf the entire galaxy in its grip of death and chaos.

The Darkness is a broad term for many evils, all aligned with different factions. The Star Banshees are just the most powerful with their dark cults of Azathoth and their vampiric starfleets commaded by undead helmsmen navigating through eternity. They conquer slowly....so much of their technology is scavenged from the ruins of old empires, and much of the fleet moves at sublight speeds, but to the undead it hardly matters. Finding a working Transitional Gate, though? Those are the golden gems the fleet seeks, for it immediately opens up luscious living worlds to the Star Banshees' endless hunger....

The Wyrm Lord of the Darkness

3.       The Immortals: As the stirrings of the old ones awaken slumbering beings of old, so to do the immortal beings of light, ascended men and women from a lost era of man, return from their extra-dimensional explorations in time to discover the dire peril to the worlds of man. These beings, a handful though they may be, set about awakening the inner magic and spirit of those souls who can call upon the arcane forces of the Dimensions Beyond to harness magic against the onslaught of the darkness.

The immortals are a motley collection of ancient transhumans and AI constructs who barely remember the various epochs from which they originate, although a few may be more "contemporary" in their memories thanks to time travel. Their migration through higher dimensional space was rudely interrupted when they discovered that the entire higher dimensional universe was being twisted into a cosmic singularity by the all-consuming manifestation of Azathoth, who is literally pulling himself through from an entire other universe into our own, ripping up higher dimensional space as he does so.

4.       The Interstellar Expanse of Man: Unknown to most on Earth, the empire of man at one time ranged across the Galaxy, having expanded to include hundreds of inhabitable worlds. The network of this ancient empire was powered by the Transitional Gates that allowed creatures to move freely from one world to the next with minimal cost. It was only when the ancient humans discovered the threat of the Old Ones and their minions from beyond the universe itself that they shut the gate down to keep mankind and his allies safe.

The old Interstellar Empire lasted for tens of thousands of years before they realized that the transitional gates were weakening the boundary between universes.....and even then, it wasn't util the first "exonauts" to try and explore what lay beyond the expanse of the universal membranes discovered that the neighboring universe was an all consuming force known only as Azathoth, which had been quietly harvesting the near-infinite souls of other universes, that they were warned of the threat. But it was too late. 

The Reaver of Worlds

5.       Hydroska and the Whispering Kingdoms: Today, in the pleasant kingdom of Hydroska which is said by many to be the greatest kingdom in all of the Whispering Kingdoms, the men of the land know something is amiss, as new dark cults awaken to the call of strange gods, and the oracles and mystics feel the power of magic returning to them, a gift of the almost forgotten immortals. The king sends out a call: will any adventurers stand up who can take the challenge of the Immortals, the prophetic declaration made by his own daughter as she channeled their power, declaring that the strongest of Hydroska would stop the forces of darkness and the vile Star Banshees?

Hydroska is a smallish realm on a large continent that was formed when North and South America mashed together, and not long after a vast array of extinction-level planet killer asteroids ripped the solar system apart untold ages ago. Despite this, the ruins of untold eons dot the landscape, and there are many strange myths and folklore of "those who came before." The men of Hydroska do sense the antiquity of their world....but few truly understand the magnitude of it.

6.       Transitional Gates (World Gates): These are the relics of the Ancient Men, left behind when they ascended to the heavens. With the return of magic and the rise of darkness some of these portals can be reactivated with the right process, ritual or sacrifice. The portals open up into strange and terrible worlds of mystery, each one a doorway to another planet across the Galaxy, or sometimes another terrifying dimension entirely.

 In the lands of Hydroska and its neighboring kingdoms of the Whispering Kingdoms, the World Gates as they are known are both a boon and a bane. Gates sometimes have keepers who know how to open the portals to other worlds. Sometimes those worlds contain other civilizations, and a brisk trade can begin....other times they contain dead worlds, or lands filled with beasts or conquering armies. There are perhaps three dozen known World Gates in the Whispering Kingdoms, but its the many, many more buried in the underlands and hidden in ancient ruins that most fear. Wizards, in their incessant desire for power, have found that the World Gates are the quickest means to finding the ancient patrons which can teach them dark magic. It is considered a heresy and crime punishable by death to awaken a World Gate in secrecy, but the practice is exceedingly common.

Lord Garon of Hydroska

 In this world of the Whispering Kingdoms are young heroes made...through blood and sweat only the strongest and sturdiest will survive, and even then they may yet face a greater doom if they hear the pleading call of the Immortals to stave off the endless armies of darkness that lurk beyond the edge of the stars....

Grimtooth Traps Collection Kickstarter

Goodman Games is doing the Grimtooth Traps Collection as a Kickstarter. This is a 460 page compilation of all the original Grimtooth's Traps books from Flying Buffalo back in the 80's, complete with the original content, which was built for easy use in any system under FB's Blade/Catalyst line of products. From the sounds of it there may be some extra Dungeon Crawl Classics content in there as well. A hardcover will set you back $50 or a softcover is $35.....or you can do like I do and wait patiently for the actual July 2015 release to buy a retail copy. In this case I think Goodman Games has a sterling reputation for timeliness so I am sure we can count on the release being pretty close to on-time.

Watch the video, it's well worth it!





As a total aside, does anyone remember the cartoon illustrations of Michael von Glahn? He did work for some of the Grimtooth books,  as well as other products such as the Murphy's Rules cartoon in Space Gamer and he also illustrated (at no cost) for my old fanzine The Sorcerer's Scrolls. Michael did one of the best maps I ever owned for my original campaign world back in the day, too. I have been out of touch with him for all these years, and he doesn't have an internet presence, either....which can mean nothing, I've learned, other than that some people are very good at staying off the grid. If Michael is still out there I would love to reconnect.

Grimtooth's Traps Compilation from Goodman Games

Did you know about this? I sure didn't, until wandering over to Goodman Games to see what was new for Dungeon Crawl Classics, that is....my proclivity for collecting DCC modules has reached a fever pitch as I plot ways to either actually run DCC at some point or convert the modules to D&D 5E....because frankly it wouldn't be too hard, and the spicy zip that DCC brings to weird fantasy is well worth the effort.

Anyway, it looks like Flying Buffalo has joined in an unholy union with Goodman Games to produce a definitive hardcover collection of all the Grimtooth books, as originally presented with no alterations (such as was done with the Necromancer Games' D20 edition).

This absolutely MUST be on my game shelf.

Fiddling around with DCC: The time/energy problem in absorbing Big Huge RPG Books

Not much to blog about just yet....spent a four day weekend enjoying life away from the real world for a bit, with only my cell phone as a tether. While on vacation I did get a little time (not much) to poke at DCC a bit before the sheer volume of "stuff" overwhelmed me and I turned to easier entertainment. It's hard to find that energy when you have a 2 1/2 year old kid (or kids, as the weekend worked out; lots and lots of kids everywhere).

Before I say anything else: it's not that DCC is voluminous (though it is big and wordy) nor is it complex (though it is designed to do a lot of fiddly bits well). It's not even a very dry read (it tries hard not to be). Rather it's an issue of age and familiarity; DCC is another D&D-like in a long and venerable line of such games, and it's particular take is quite entertaining, but in the end it's still another rulebook with a bunch of rules that you need to learn to go from " look at this book" to "I'm playing a game." So that was the wall I ran into; I run into the same problem with Numenera, Shadorun 5th, Edge of the Empire and others....they are big, fat books that require a lot of free time to read and digest. They are also games which (for me at least) are just different enough mechanically that I can't just jump around and skim the books to start playing (not anymore, anyway); they need me to actually read them, to invest time and energy....something I'm in short supply of.

DCC has a slightly different issue, though: it's a big book, but it feels very familiar at times. It's got lots of rules that are sort of like or very close to other D20 system rules, and as such it's a game which you have to learn by virtue of determining "how we do things differently round these here parts." One problem I have run into with D&D-likes is very common for me: at a certain point you get rules fatigue; you get tired of trying to remember how which system does Initiative this way, or how which game handles dual-weapon attacks that way, and so on and so forth. It was a serious unspoken problem back when I ran 4th edition D&D and Pathfinder at the same time; you could get tripped up by the similar but slightly different rules all the time. It was why my C&C games always ended with us moving back to AD&D 2nd edition, which ironically was different enough from the post-D20 era of D&D that it felt like a different game entirely, and triggered none of those expectations.

Anyway, this is a lot of writing to say that I made a level 1 fighter in DCC, got about midway through the combat mechanics, stared a long time at the magic rules and thought about how they looked easy enough if I could find a quick summary of how it worked somewhere, and then I realized my graphic novels and PS Vita (with Killzone: Mercenaries and Borderlands 2 begging for attention) were just sitting there promising less work to achieve more immediate fun.

I'm still going to figure out DCC, though. Just need to find the necessary energy and time....

Tomorrow: Void Core, maybe!

On Dungeon Crawl Classics

I've been reading Dungeon Crawl Classics lately. I looked into it when it first came out and (at the time) found it wasn't what I needed at that moment....but time has a way of changing one's perspective, and after my recent B/X D&D binge I decided to give DCC another look-see. Glad I did; I secured a copy of the Easely cover edition with the art insert, and a couple modules (with a bunch more on the way). I also recently snagged DAMN! issue one in PDF and the first two issues of the Crawljammer fanzine in print (still not sure how to get my PDFs, need to ask), which really is a weird blast from the past.....I was "cutting edge" in the world of fanzines in the 80's and its really interesting to see the form come back into existence. Tempting me to try my hand at it again.....no! That way lies madness. I'll stick to the blog. Still.....

DCC is probably a familiar game to most bloggers and blog-perusers in this neck of the woods, but if by some miracle you are not familiar with it, here's six points worth noting about the game:

The Weird Dice: You probably know it has weird dice. It also has conversion notes for how to play without them in case that's not obvious. However, I discovered that this guy sells DCC dice sets and so there you go (I plan to order a couple sets).

The B/X Classes: DCC uses B/X styled classes, at least at the core. So elf, dwarf and halfling are races. This is something I was not keen on until the last year or so when my mind about this gradually shifted from one of intense dislike at the concept (dating back to 1981 when I hated the concept even more) to a weird sort of acceptance.

The Crazy Random Spell Effects: DCC is nothing if not determined to make every potential spell cast a deadly or weird event if you don't do it right...or luck is not with you. This is pretty much half the book; spells and their enormous, sometimes complicated, always interesting unintended side effects and escalating craziness based on how good (or bad) you roll. The first time I saw this I thought it looked like work. With my more recent reading I realize it's a stroke of evil genius.

An Effort to De-Typify Monsters: There are a fair number of standard monsters in the book, but DCC makes a special effort to randomize whenever possible, or provide suitable direction on how to make every humanoid, demon, dragon and other weirdness just a bit hard to identify, or unique in its own right. This is part of the philosophy of making the game feel "new" in the sense that it works to defeat player expectations that they can identify and type/categorize creatures.

Appendix N as the Weird Fantasy Mashup Genre: This is what D&D would have looked like if Appendix N was gospel rather than just an interesting reading list of fiction at the time. A lot is made about Appendix N from the original AD&D Dungeon Master's Guide, but one thing which is often overlooked is that back in 1978 there wasn't nearly as much constant, never-ending output in fantasy and SF as there is today. For this reason many people interpret Appendix N as some sort of holy grail as to what AD&D was defined by, and they are partially right in so far as when you look at the broad swathe of fantasy fiction in the 1960's and 1970's Appendix N isn't a niche corner of that selection: it's a good representative sampling of everything that was available. Indeed, one could argue that if Appendix N was meant to be the "special secret sauce" tp AD&D then you could learn just as much about what AD&D was not by looking for fiction from the time period that was excluded from the list. But here's the catch: it really wasn't "all that was D&D" for the time, it was an example of what Gary Gygax liked, and what inspired him; but I like to think he realized his game was bigger than just him, just Appendix N, and all that....and also that Gary in all likelihood never stopped reading fantasy fiction...right? So from a D&D historical perspective Appendix N is an interesting myth and parable of how someone can historically go back and find greater meaning in something than perhaps was relevant at the time the subject was young and new.

So what does that have to do with DCC? Well DCC is what I would call a alternate history D&D in which AD&D was built specifically to emulate Appendix N, by someone who specifically called out the most delineating features of weirdness and the exotic from the tomes on that list. It's a fascinating study in just what D&D could have looked like if it had been bult from the ground up to be a sort of 60's/70's weird fantasy genre mashup emulator specifically aimed at drawing out those tropes, and not what D&D actually was: a wargame turned into the first RPG with an effort to encapsulate fantasy fiction in a broad manner which allowed for a wide array of interpretations (for the time).

Anyway, the thing about this is that it makes DCC a very interesting modern variant on D&D. DCC is D&D viewed backwards in time through the lens of a modern viewer, who is seeing fantasy that was once the default, the norm....and realizing that in the last forty years we've moved quite a distance away from it all, such that an artifact like Appendix N now stands out as a unique benchmark of something that while unique today was at one time "no big deal" if you will (other than that between the age of 10 and 14 I used that list in the DMG to read every book I could get my hands on by every author on the list....)

The Modules are Great: I love the DCC modules I've read so far, and I also like that I think I could port them over to pretty much any variant of the game (and if I don't actually get to run DCC I will almost certainly adapt the modules to either D&D 5E or Pathfinder). I'm not a big fan of most modern modules....but DCC's style hits the right spot for me. If you never buy DCC the game, at least look at the modules.

About the only thing I don't like so far in DCC is that damned warrior in his bell-bottom striped pants. What the hell....I may have been a kid in the 70's, but I don't recall anyone actually liking bell-bottoms. Some fashion trends need to stay buried in the dungeon.....

Sifting through D20 Debris

With Wizards of the Coast announcing their 3.5 edition reprints even as their 1st edition remasters are imminent, and with so many D&D-variant systems popping up every day (most recent of which is Dungeon Crawl Classics) I have to say the market for RPGs now seems utterly clogged with dozens of games all trying to do basic variants on the same thing.

I gave a fair amount of thought to the 3.5 edition situation, and contrasted it with Pathfinder. I realized I probably don't care to do anything with 3.5 (though as a collector I may still buy them, we'll see) as Pathfinder really has done more than I often give it credit for to advance the game in meaningful and structured ways. Pathfinder needs a "real" revision, I feel...an actual "Pathfinder 2nd edition" sometime in the future to give it its own credence as more than a 3.5 spin-off, but I am pretty confident that Paizo will do it right when the time comes, by simply cleaning up and advancing the actual system Pathfinder fans enjoy rather than ditching it for an entire revision.

WotC seems to be really bad at this for some reason. AD&D 1st and 2nd edition may have been different, but 2nd was clearly an evolution of 1st. 3rd edition was decidedly a different game that accomplished the same thing in meaningfully similar ways and so was fine, but 4E was a whole new beast (worthy of its own identity apart from D&D)....and my first playtest impressions on 5E leave me feeling that rather than building on what has come before they are instead reconstructing it, and fairly arbitrarily at that. So I don't have high expectations for the future of D&D right now.


Games like Dungeon Crawl Classics are fascinating beasts in their own right. I've finished reading DCC and I am keen to try it out, although I doubt the chance will ever come. This is a system which manages to capture D&D's essence but packages it in a unique fashion, a manner which stands on its own in contrast with both classic editions and retroclones alike. I might honestly be looking forward to the 1st edition reprints more if DCC hadn't come along. As it stands, DCC has stolen a bit of that thunder with a fresh take on a classic experience.


Anyway, just some random musings....

Reading DCC

I've been reading Dungeon Crawl Classics and I have to say its a very enjoyable book. I am trying really hard to buy into the intentional retro-design decisions (such as with class-as-race, something that rankled me when I was a kid and still annoys me now) with the recognition that unlike B/X D&D where such a design choice had more to do with keeping it simpler as an introductory game, the intent here is very specifically to treat classes as specific archetypes. It's also a bit weirdly incongruous with the flavor and intent of the book's implied setting, which I guess can be summed up as a not-unwarranted feverish worship of the Appendix N section of the 1E DMG. If the game was truly embracing the concept of "classic pulp fantasy fiction and its many distinct tropes" then I would probably be happier to see a Melnibonean analog somewhere, maybe a lizard man or serpent man, an ape-like race or two, possibly even some four armed Tharks....but not quite. DCC could definitely sustain a sourcebook or two introducing such, however, and I would welcome it. I think a few 3PP are planning books along this theme, though.

DCC's spell system is elaborate and detailed, and seems to be designed to insure that sooner or later weird and unpleasant things can and will happen to spellcasters. It's a great idea, albeit with an execution that takes up a large volume of book space. I want to run this game to see how it plays out. These days I think just about any magic system that is not another D20 OGL cut-and-paste will be satisfying to me, as I think I'm reaching critical mass on D&D-likes and the infinity of clones. I think I can tolerate this for C&C (as my lone choice of D&D clone) but if I have to play one more game where all the usual D&D spells come into play in all the usual ways....ugh, I think I've got burnout! DCC seems to run with a traditional take on D&D magic and then jumps off the deep end with it, which I like.

Anyway, I have to say that DCC does a surprisingly good job of taking "D&D circa 1974" and reinvents it in a way that manages to feel both like a retro homage and a modern design. I may be getting burned out on D&D/Pathfinder right now, but DCC doesn't really "fit" in there. It's definitely in its own weird world.

Dungeon Crawling, Classic Style

I finally have DCC deluxe in my grasp, along with modules 66.5 (stuck in the big black book), 67 and 68. This is one of those rare tomes that evokes a sense of "game manual as art" aesthetic in me....something that rarely has happened before (Nobilis might be the last time I felt a game book truly qualified as art). It is also extremely well written and engaging. It's not often I start on page one and then proceed from there like a "real book"....for the first read-through anyway, I find I don't want to jump around randomly like with most RPGs, I want to absorb this thing sequentially.

I may phase Pathfinder out on one of the nights. Right now Wednesdays are all Pathfinder but we're moving in a week or two to a Pathfinder/4E split, rotating between the two so each has an ongoing bi-weekly campaign. On saturday the split right now is 4E/C&C. I may either boot Pathfinder on Wednesday night or 4E on Saturday night (but give it a few sessions for a nice mini-campaign, first) and then slam them with DCC.....this is a game that demands to be played.