I got the book, I fell in love with the art, and the entire concept of it. But it's a huge bundle of rules and I haven't even begun to get through it yet.

My friends want to play a game of it in two weeks. The key question is, how do you handle adventures?

Is it the kind of game where you need to draw up maps, and have everything planned ahead of time? Or the kind of game where the rules just generate the next step for you and you pretty much do no prep? Do I need to go buy modules, or is that all handled in the rulebook?

Help me RPG site, you're my only hope.

There's an intro funnel in the book.

From what I've seen you can run it like any other D&D type game.
For the group I Play with the GM runs it like an open sandbox but dips into published stuff when we take the bait (I only noticed because he ran one of the ones I've read through).

The group I run has stuck to urban adventures and we've yet to straight up use any of the official modules, but I am pulling ideas out of various city books... like Cadwallon, CSotIO and such. It's been more about inter-guild intrigues and factions jostling for power. Precise street maps aren't necessary. Eventually I expect they'll get into the under-city and I'll have some detailed maps for that.

What do you usually run?

How much prep do you usually do for it?

How often do you use published adventures?

Quote from: The Butcher;871946What do you usually run?

How much prep do you usually do for it?

How often do you use published adventures?

I started running D&D 5e for the first time with the Starter Set and I've expanded it to last us a year and counting so far. That's all I've got.

Also a lot of experience running freeform and forum RPs, but one year of 5e Starter Set is it for IRL tabletop.

Prep wise, I had to do a lot of prep for the published material but it's a lot easier when I'm winging it with my own imagination, so consequently there's been almost no prep at all now. Once I get a grasp on the world I can just freestyle it.

You shouldn't need massive prep to run a published DCC adventure, it's all in there.  Read through it a time or two til you feel comfortable, then go.  Pay particular attention to not only the monsters but the 'toys' which invite PCs to do interesting/suicidal things - that's where the zero-level dudes will spend most of their time.  Improvise fill-in where necessary.  It's d20-based and ascending-AC, so your 5e experience will be somewhat helpful.

Honestly, if you're running a funnel for your first session, you don't have to worry about any Mighty Deeds or spells or even Luck if you don't want to mess with it.  You can learn the game at the same rate as your players.

'Portal Under The Stars' (in the book) and 'Sailors On The Starless Sea' are both solid funnels and not overly complex as introductions to the game (and implicit genre) for you and your players.  Also run over to DriveThru and grab the free (I think it's still PWYW) "Prince Charming, Reanimator".

Head over to Purple Sorcerer's website and use their app to generate zero-levels.  Good to go.

Another thing, how do you handle introducing new characters to the game?

Like the players go through tons of PCs, so if they're in a dungeon in the middle of nowhere, what do you do to bring a new PC into the party?

I know DCC DMs have to have a way to do this since death happens so often. Do you just pretend that they were there all along or handwave it? That hurts immersion.

The funnel is a great intro into DCC. The players get 3-4 PCS each, and while TPKs do happen, usually everyone ends up with 1-2 PCs to make into Level 1 PCs.

Quote from: VectorSigma;871951Head over to Purple Sorcerer's website and use their app to generate zero-levels.  Good to go.

I'm reiterating that bit of advice, The Crawler's Companion is a very useful tool for running DCC, and it's free.

I just went and ordered Sailors On The Starless Sea since literally everywhere I look about DCC it's getting praise.

How long does the initial funnel last, timewise? An entire session? A few hours? one hour?

Basically, am I even going to need Sailors On The Starless Sea yet.

I haven't run Portal Under The Stars myself, but I wager it'll take at least a session given you have new-to-DCC players.  Take your time, let them take their time.

The last published funnel I played in (They Served Brandolyn Red) took two 3.5 hour sessions to complete with 5 Players and most everyone hit lvl 1 by the end... except maybe one guy who lost his last lvl 0 in the final battle and started next session with a new batch alongside our lvl 1 PCs... which worked fine.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;871947Prep wise, I had to do a lot of prep for the published material but it's a lot easier when I'm winging it with my own imagination, so consequently there's been almost no prep at all now. Once I get a grasp on the world I can just freestyle it.

Like VectorSigma and others said, DCC modules tend to be fairly contained and require less prep than, say, their WotC D&D counterparts (not to mention having lurid, pulpy titles and covers, I'm a sucker for those). I think any funnel-level DCC module will do the trick without much fuss.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;871952Another thing, how do you handle introducing new characters to the game?

Like the players go through tons of PCs, so if they're in a dungeon in the middle of nowhere, what do you do to bring a new PC into the party?

There are usually places in an adventure where it makes sense to find someone who can be a replacement PC.  Monsters often have groups of captives, and set locations can easily have other parties of adventurers who have suffered severe casualties.  

Locations with friendly NPCs are likely to have one or two folks with a screw loose who want to join the party.  This is a fun way to add in custom or non-standard PC races; if the party is in the middle of an adventure, and the only potential replacement character around is a magical talking beaver, then the player is unlikely to turn down the opportunity to play it.

After a level or two, it's likely that the PCs will want to hire someone to help carry their stuff, guard the horses, and so on, and this is also a source of potential replacement PCs.  You can even have hirelings bring along friends and family members to ensure that there is a pool of potential candidates.

Also, the patron of a wizard or elf may ask the party to drag someone along as repayment for a favour.  The fact that this NPC is a potential replacement PC is only one possibility here.

Quote from: Ddogwood;872118if the party is in the middle of an adventure, and the only potential replacement character around is a magical talking beaver, then the player is unlikely to turn down the opportunity to play it.

That's how we ended up with a Bigfoot and an uplifted spidergoat in our 'Crawling Under A Broken Moon' game.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;871966How long does the initial funnel last, timewise? An entire session? A few hours? one hour?

I did ran it in one session, maybe 5-6 hours.