My DCC Campaign is of course famously, incredibly, sometimes offensively over-the-top Gonzo.

I was wondering if other people, however, play DCC mostly 'straight'.  If you do, how do you deal with elements that are inherently gonzo about the rules?

My DCC game is pretty straight so far.  We started out playing Castles & Crusades and converted.  It's worked out fine for us.  I don't feel like DCC has to be weird and gonzo.  There's a natural lethality and riskiness built into DCC that I think actually benefits a more grounded campaign.

The magic system implies a natural drift towards corruption that works really well in our game.  And I've really taken the advice in the monster chapter to heart.  We've not been fighting packs of goblins and kobolds since making the switch.  I spend a lot of time coming up with unique and mysterious monsters.  I don't play them up as gonzo crazy stuff though.  They're the dark things lurking at the edges of civilization.

While I love the gonzo feel that is implied in the DCC books, and the modules are fantastic in that way, what is it about the rules you feel is inherently gonzo and would inhibit a mostly straight game?

I don't think the rules themselves are particularly gonzo, and some of the modules, like Doom of the Savage Kings, are just awesome.

And then there's the rest...
They may be done well, but most of the adventures on the Gonzo scale are running about a 12, and I need them about a 6.
Also, not a real big fan of the "Getting the band back together", Big Hair, Afro-Sheen, Bell-Bottoms Retro-70s We're living in a Ralph Bakshi movie written by the Heavy Metal guys doing acid at Studio 54 art aesthetic.  It's a schtick, and like all schticks, it gets old. FAST.

Also, I was expecting the modules to do a better job of updating Aereth to the new implied setting assumptions of the DCC rules.  So far, fairly disappointed in their personal utility to me, even if the adventures are good in an isolated fashion.

Seriously thinking of doing a DCC Lankhmar now though.

Quote from: CRKrueger;925715Also, not a real big fan of the "Getting the band back together", Big Hair, Afro-Sheen, Bell-Bottoms Retro-70s We're living in a Ralph Bakshi movie written by the Heavy Metal guys doing acid at Studio 54 art aesthetic.  It's a schtick, and like all schticks, it gets old. FAST.

While it doesn't resemble my campaign, I personally love the shtick.  It gives the entire DCC line a consistent aesthetic, which I appreciate, and it's very evocative of the personality with which the modules are written.  I can tone down the gonzo pretty easily, but I find it makes reading it all more enjoyable.

Quote from: CRKrueger;925715I don't think the rules themselves are particularly gonzo, and some of the modules, like Doom of the Savage Kings, are just awesome.

Agreed about that module.  I ran it using WFRP 2, set in Kislev.  It wasn't so much gonzo as Nordic myth.  Awesome.

QuoteAnd then there's the rest...
They may be done well, but most of the adventures on the Gonzo scale are running about a 12, and I need them about a 6.

For me the best thing about the published DCC adventures is that they are short, original, and have good plots/stories/encounters.  If they could keep those factors and occasionally down the gonzo, they'd be perfect.

QuoteAlso, not a real big fan of the "Getting the band back together", Big Hair, Afro-Sheen, Bell-Bottoms Retro-70s We're living in a Ralph Bakshi movie written by the Heavy Metal guys doing acid at Studio 54 art aesthetic.  It's a schtick, and like all schticks, it gets old. FAST.

Your right, it is a schtick, and I can see how it would get old.  I happen to really enjoy it.

I guess I would enjoy the Schtick if it was based on the Appendix N material itself, instead of the pop culture at the time people were reading the Appendix N material at the start of the hobby.

Our DCC games haven't really been all that gonzo... they're definitely Kitchen Sink, with radio-controlled sasquatch, pigtipedes, disco gods, wizard towers that blast off into astral space... and now we're deep into Red and Pleasant Land. But we did the predictable murder hobo thing of using the RC sasquatch as cannon fodder... no one tried to marry it.

What is DCC?

Quote from: Nexus;925773What is DCC?

Oh no you didn't!

http://goodman-games.com/dungeon-crawl-classics-rpg/

I like to include a Zone of Relative Normalcy which provides contrast to the batshit bonkers stuff. Modulating the tone is important. If everything is gonzo...

Quote from: CRKrueger;925783Oh no you didn't!

http://goodman-games.com/dungeon-crawl-classics-rpg/

I see, thanks. I've heard the name Dungeon Crawl Classics but I assumed it was a series of updated or reprinted classic modules.

Edit: Dumb questions number 2: What's appendix N?

Edit 2: Never mind. One of more D ad D enlightened friends explained.

Quote from: CRKrueger;925728I guess I would enjoy the Schtick if it was based on the Appendix N material itself, instead of the pop culture at the time people were reading the Appendix N material at the start of the hobby.

That's actually why I enjoy the shtick. When I started playing D&D, we unashamedly threw every element of pop culture we consumed into the game, and it was enormous fun. Sure it was silly, but not actually any sillier than vanilla D&D. DCCs aesthetic is a good reminder to do get back to that.

Granted, I don't want all my gaming to be that way, but it's something I want as part of my gaming diet.

That said, I agree with Under_score that DCC can easily be used for a more grounded campaign.

Quote from: Harg of the City Afar;925800I like to include a Zone of Relative Normalcy which provides contrast to the batshit bonkers stuff. Modulating the tone is important. If everything is gonzo...

I don't buy that. Gonzo can already include a number of tones to provide contrast with horror, high adventure, comedy, science-fiction and fantasy. You can easily avoid if feeling one note. When I sit down a play a gonzo game, I don't want to sit through a session of wandering through the Kingdom of Mundania so that I can more properly appreciate the gonzo. I want the game I came to play. My real life leading up to the game session will provide a suitable contrast to the gonzo of the game.

It's like saying that when you run Call of Cthulhu, you need to make sure to mix in adventures with no horror element so people appreciate the horror.

Quote from: Harg of the City Afar;925800I like to include a Zone of Relative Normalcy which provides contrast to the batshit bonkers stuff. Modulating the tone is important. If everything is gonzo...

"Zone of Relative Normalcy" - I love the phrase, and I think it is important in all games and genres.  I use the concept all of the time. I just never had a label for it.

 It is one reason why I love historically based games and settings.  A contrast with a strong foundation in "normalcy" and reality is what makes supernatural weirdness - supernatural and weird.

I enjoy gonzo, but all gonzo, all of the time, just comes off as arbitrary, nonsensical, and silly.

Quote from: Baulderstone;925904That's actually why I enjoy the shtick. When I started playing D&D, we unashamedly threw every element of pop culture we consumed into the game, and it was enormous fun. Sure it was silly, but not actually any sillier than vanilla D&D. DCCs aesthetic is a good reminder to do get back to that.

Granted, I don't want all my gaming to be that way, but it's something I want as part of my gaming diet.

That said, I agree with Under_score that DCC can easily be used for a more grounded campaign.



I don't buy that. Gonzo can already include a number of tones to provide contrast with horror, high adventure, comedy, science-fiction and fantasy. You can easily avoid if feeling one note. When I sit down a play a gonzo game, I don't want to sit through a session of wandering through the Kingdom of Mundania so that I can more properly appreciate the gonzo. I want the game I came to play. My real life leading up to the game session will provide a suitable contrast to the gonzo of the game.

It's like saying that when you run Call of Cthulhu, you need to make sure to mix in adventures with no horror element so people appreciate the horror.

Eh, that's only if you assume the genre itself you're playing is "Gonzo Genre".  You don't mix in non-Arthurian adventures in Pendragon, or non-Middle Earth adventures in TOR.  But, you can easily mix in different kinds of CoC adventures that aren't all "Antiquarian personally encountering Sanity-Blasting Eldritch Horror".

The stupidest thing people do with Gonzo is never turn it off, never turn it down, JUST ALL GONZO ALL THE TIME, WOOHOO ISN'T THIS FUNNY, WACKA WACKA, I'M HERE ALL WEEK!!1!!!11  

It becomes a very, very bad 70's Sitcom with a never-ending laughtrack.

Quote from: Baulderstone;925904It's like saying that when you run Call of Cthulhu, you need to make sure to mix in adventures with no horror element so people appreciate the horror.

I think it's more like having some non-Mythos mysteries mixed in to keep the campaign grounded in the real world.  If every death in Arkham is the result of a cult trying to raise Cthulhu, that'd get pretty old.