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.
I just realized alignment is in this game.
How does it work? Do the PCs *have* play a certain alignment? How strictly should behavior be enforced? Normally alignment has no actual teeth in D&D, so I'm wondering how it fits here.
Are the PCs supposed to play in alignment or are they just going to do whatever it takes to survive in the character funnel?
Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;873402I just realized alignment is in this game.
How does it work? Do the PCs *have* play a certain alignment? How strictly should behavior be enforced? Normally alignment has no actual teeth in D&D, so I'm wondering how it fits here.
Are the PCs supposed to play in alignment or are they just going to do whatever it takes to survive in the character funnel?
Alignment is important in DCC, but it's not very strict. There are only three alignments, and things like "playing your alignment" are mostly left up to the Judge and players.
The biggest impact of alignment is on healing magic - Clerics are best at healing those of the same alignment as themselves, and are almost guaranteed to get into trouble with their deities if they're healing people of opposed alignment without a VERY good reason (in my campaign, this has even led one Chaotic character to renounce his evil ways and become a Lawful worshipper of the Cleric's deity).
There are some other effects as well - the Thief class gets different bonuses depending on alignment (Chaotic thieves are the best at backstabbing, etc.) and some spells have alignment effects.
It hits a comfortable spot for me, personally - the alignments are broadly defined, do little to restrict a PC's behaviour, and have a minor but meaningful impact on the game.
So does that mean Clerics go around asking people if they're Chaotic before doing anything? Is "Law" and "Chaos" even a thing in-universe instead of a metagame concept?
Also how well does DCC work for campaigns? Does it have longevity or is it more of a 1-shot thing?
Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;873603So does that mean Clerics go around asking people if they're Chaotic before doing anything? Is "Law" and "Chaos" even a thing in-universe instead of a metagame concept?
Also how well does DCC work for campaigns? Does it have longevity or is it more of a 1-shot thing?
My DCC campaign has been running for about three years now (since may 2013). It's worked very well. In fact, tomorrow we'll be playing adventure number 36, which is something like session number 75. That would be about 600 hours of play.
In my game we break the 4th wall a lot so we have not just alignment but stuff like levels or sometimes even hit points talked about as though they were objective things inside the game. That's just because its probably the most gonzo campaign I've ever run.
I also changed the alignment system. There are two axes now: Lawful/Neutral/Chaotic and Boyscout/Freak/Asshole
Isn't that just the same as D&D. Lawful = Boyscout, etc.
Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;873898Isn't that just the same as D&D. Lawful = Boyscout, etc.
Yes, but more Gonzo!
I kind of like how DCC handles it, for DCC.
Lawful = fights for humanity
Chaotic = fights for himself
With all the extraplanar horrors constantly threatening to spill over and dominate the mortal world it adds an epic scale to it. Makes it feel like Warhammer 40k.
I like it too. My 'extra alignments' are mainly for humorous effect.
Here's another question. What's the DM supposed to do for patrons? I don't see anything about them.
Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;874622Here's another question. What's the DM supposed to do for patrons? I don't see anything about them.
There are a few sample ones in the rulebook... but I'd generally assumed GMs were meant to make up their own to suit their game worlds.
Still, there are a number of them out there. Some on the Goodman Games forums, some in the various DCC zines like Crawl, Crawljammer, Crawling Under A Broken Moon, etc. , others in the DCC modules... more on gaming blogs like Wrathofzombie's. There's also a whole book of them, Angels Daemons and Beings Between (http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/109995/Angels-Daemons-and-Beings-Between) that I think is pretty decent.
It would be nice if those patrons specified what kind of alignment they were for. I actually bought that book today to check it out but a lot of them seem kind of in-between in terms of what they'd qualify for.
Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;874640It would be nice if those patrons specified what kind of alignment they were for. I actually bought that book today to check it out but a lot of them seem kind of in-between in terms of what they'd qualify for.
The way I see it is that it's YOUR game, you get to make those decisions... how rigorously to come down on issues of Alignment and such.
A Cleric might avoid Patron beings altogether as being in conflict with their other devotions... but for the average man on the street, looking for whatever edge he can get... things are probably a lot more elastic. I don't micromanage the whole Alignment thing... except regarding Cleric and healing.
Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;874622Here's another question. What's the DM supposed to do for patrons? I don't see anything about them.
There's a few good ones in the main book: the frog demon, azi dahaka, sezrekan, the king of elfland, the three fates. There are more in supplements. I made up some of my own. In my DCC campaign some of the Daemons available as patrons include a false angel, a killer rabbit, the daemon of hedonism/deviancy, and Alan Moore.