The question is, let's say you make a group where everyone's playing three 0-level characters; how many of each should die?

By the end of the night, should most players have 3 left?! 2? 1? Surely not 0?

RPGPundit

As lethal as the players are stupid.

Ideally, the players are not, and by the end of the evening, I would assume they'd have 1-2 characters left on average.

Sailors on the Starless Sea, DCC's published 0-level funnel, mentions in the introduction:

"This adventure is designed for 10 to 15 0-level characters. [...] In playtest groups of 15 PCs, 7 or 8 typically survive."

So, on the average, expect a 50% casualty rate. Circumstances - smart play, or foolhardy behavior - will sway that rate towards few, or no deaths, or a TPK.

Indeed, I'd say fifty percent is where you want it. If more than one character survives you have a character tree, keep leveling them up one level behind the pc's post first level and have them when their other PC dies/gets unplayable.

Hmm, I was just planning to let them have them as a level 1 character in reserve.

RPGPundit

I have played 3 funnels so far and each time, each player had at least one character survive.

In most funnels, we had a 5-6 players and only had 2-3 characters each, not the recommended 4.

In the one funnel I played with 3 players, we each had 4 to start with and we each walked away with 1 PC each and then only by some very lucky dice action...and my Elf Acolyte of Unnamed Dark Gods betraying the party to their fate.

Ok, so it really seems like my group is not too far off the average.

I only had them make 3 PCs as well.

RPGPundit

It's funny that the funnel has become a standardized game mechanic. Back in the day, my buddy and I used our own version of the funnel: one of us would make a dungeon, and the other would make 6-8 1st-level characters. We'd play through the dungeon, and the 2-3 survivors formed the core of the group going forward.

However, I've never understood Goodman's thing for 0-level characters. Aren't 1st-level TSR D&D characters wimpy enough?

Quote from: Haffrung;634880However, I've never understood Goodman's thing for 0-level characters. Aren't 1st-level TSR D&D characters wimpy enough?

Precisely. I just don't get it. Hell, even 1st-level 3e characters die in droves in a better adventure.

I go with 3 characters per player with the hope that roughly half die. My "ideal" situation would be for each player to end up with exactly one character left over, but the odds of that are pretty minimal.

Sometimes my game is lethal enough that they need to gain more zeroes along the line. Some of the modules are written to have points where players can recruit villagers or whatever if they are running low on characters.

Quote from: Melan;634882

Quote from: Haffrung;634880However, I've never understood Goodman's thing for 0-level characters. Aren't 1st-level TSR D&D characters wimpy enough?

Precisely. I just don't get it. Hell, even 1st-level 3e characters die in droves in a better adventure.

Same here. It's cute, but being 1st-level RAW in most TSR-era versions of D&D is lethal enough.

Quote from: The Butcher;634892Same here. It's cute, but being 1st-level RAW in most TSR-era versions of D&D is lethal enough.

I thinks it's basically a matter of having no abilities whatsoever - no spells, no weapons, perhaps a shovel or a bag of flour instead. So character generation is faster, and it's a unique play experience not having any defined abilities to rely on. It's up to the player to figure out how to use that bag of flour to help them survive the dungeon.

Yeah, DCC level 0 is pretty much the same as d&d level 0, but DCC level 1 is a mite better than d&d level 1 (and each DCC level is a mite more powerful than d&d levels up to the top level of 10).

Quote from: RPGPundit;634106The question is, let's say you make a group where everyone's playing three 0-level characters; how many of each should die?

By the end of the night, should most players have 3 left?! 2? 1? Surely not 0?

RPGPundit

It's nice to have 1/2 or 3/4 die, but you really don't have a great deal of control over it unless you're using "gotcha" traps, or exercising some very heavy-handed DMing. Both of these things seem likely to get less of a negative reaction from players in a funnel adventure than they would otherwise, but I still personally have a fundamental problem doing either.

It really is just a matter of play style. Some players will embrace the craziness of the funnel adventure and gleefully rush headlong to their deaths. Others will be extremely cautious and poke everything with their broom before going anywhere near it. Either way, I think it's fine. I've run perhaps a dozen funnel adventures, and I've had groups that were nearly decimated, and groups where every last PC survived. I wouldn't interpret either as "doing it wrong".

I played DCC once with all the players having four zero level characters.

For me, the high death count was meaningless and added nothing to the experience.

But, I early on In became attached to one of my four characters, and he was the one I cared about. Way before any died.

So for me, the funnel worked in the sense of giving me four characters to get a feel for.


But the concept of "Lets see who survives" does not work for me.