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My DCC Campaign is of course famously, incredibly, sometimes offensively over-the-top Gonzo (http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?29376-DCC-Campaign-Log).

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. :p

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. :p

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.

Quote from: CRKrueger;925912Eh, 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.

Gonzo isn't innately funny or even wacky. Gonzo can be pretty damn dark. Defining gonzo as endless wackiness is the same kind of gamer nonsense as thinking pulp is all about gorillas in lab coats building doomsday weapons.

You can have an all gonzo campaign and still have a lot of tonal shading.

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

All gonzo, all of the time, just comes off as arbitrary, nonsensical, and silly.  Gonzo is cool for a little escapism and humor, but in my experience, consistent gonzo without some strong grounding in "normalcy" doesn't hold up well for more than a couple of sessions.

Quote from: Baulderstone;925904I 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.

I think the important word here is relative normalcy.  Relative normalcy doesn't have to be boring or un-adventurous.

QuoteIt'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 don't know, I'm interested in your perspective, but I kind of think that a constant string of in your face supernatural horror and weirdness becomes bland.  The law of diminishing returns kicks in. If summoning Azathoth becomes routine, you have lost something, haven't you?

One problem, as I see it, is that an unpunctuated string of gonzo becomes arbitrary from the players' perspective.  For example, DCC modules are great, but they are full of pocket dimensions and alternate realities.  Each is unique and interesting which is cool and all, but if you string them all together, then the players never know which way is up. How do we overcome this challenge: do we fight it, talk to it, engage it in a poetry contest, change dimensions again, put the magical doohickey in its eye socket, can I fly the spaceship, or ride the tentacle to the next dungeon level, or what?  "If I touch the magic skull will it kill me, age me, or give me Kewel powers, I have no idea?" Does this magic skull have anything to do with the moon monsters or dinosaurs from three sessions ago? Probably not. If there is too much anything and everything all of the time, the physics and dynamics of the universe are constantly changing and there is no way to know what makes sense in any given dimension or new Gonzo device without GM approval and fiat.  It becomes a game of guess what's in the GM's head. It can all be fine and fun to watch the weirdness unfold, but if it is constant, the players become powerless spectators grasping for a foothold.

Quote from: Baulderstone;925919Gonzo isn't innately funny or even wacky. Gonzo can be pretty damn dark. Defining gonzo as endless wackiness is the same kind of gamer nonsense as thinking pulp is all about gorillas in lab coats building doomsday weapons.

You can have an all gonzo campaign and still have a lot of tonal shading.

Hmmm...  Maybe you are operating on a different definition of Gonzo than I am.  Can you give an example of "all Gonzo with a lot of tonal shading?"

Quote from: Baulderstone;925919Gonzo isn't innately funny or even wacky. Gonzo can be pretty damn dark. Defining gonzo as endless wackiness is the same kind of gamer nonsense as thinking pulp is all about gorillas in lab coats building doomsday weapons.

You can have an all gonzo campaign and still have a lot of tonal shading.

Well, not seeing a whole lot of tonal shading in DCC gonzo modules, and Zero in the gonzo art.
Doom of the Savage Kings and Chained Coffin were absolutely incredible modules...but not gonzo.  When there is gonzo at all, it's large and in charge and monotone.

Quote from: Madprofessor;925924Hmmm...  Maybe you are operating on a different definition of Gonzo than I am.  Can you give an example of "all Gonzo with a lot of tonal shading?"

Red and Pleasant Land, more surreal than wacky.  A DCC specific example I haven't found yet.

"Tonal shading" is something that's really important to me, and by Jove I wish I had come across this idiom sooner.

I think (e.g.) high-concept science fantasy D&D works best when you start out with only the ordinary fantasy tropes in place and only introduces the weird, genre-discordant stuff as PCs go down the rabbit hole. The much-maligned Dwimmermount is actually fairly good at this, slowly but surely framing the sci-fi substratum to the fantasy trappings. Anomalous Subsurface Environment pretty much throws the sci-fi stuff on people's faces the moment they cross the dungeon entrance, and that's cool too, but it does make for a more everything-goes sort of game. Tékumel and Numenera are sonewhere in between.

Maybe gonzo means different things to different people. Or there are many variations of gonzo. I add a lot of these elements to my games in the old school spectrum. Usually starting with small things creeping in and branching out from there. The odd extra intelligent species running around, a spell effect going horribly wrong. Some of my gonzo is implied and not even seen, left mysterious (a location moving someplace else overnight for no reason, for example). Start the gonzo small, build it up, then bring it back under control over time. Then next game bring another aspect of gonzo and work with it, let the players interact and alter it.

There's no wrong way to do it, I just like to pace things more like a double LP than a 45. Some guys in the blogosphere with a penchant for the bizarre pen scenarios that come hellbent screaming out of the gate, and there ain't no brakes on the crazy dayglo microbus. I do love reading that stuff.

If I had 3-4 games going, maybe I could see keeping one in lysergic overdrive. Just push it till it falls spectacularly apart.

Quote from: CRKrueger;925933Well, not seeing a whole lot of tonal shading in DCC gonzo modules, and Zero in the gonzo art.
Doom of the Savage Kings and Chained Coffin were absolutely incredible modules...but not gonzo.  When there is gonzo at all, it's large and in charge and monotone.

I only own a handful of DCC modules, and I just used those for parts, so I can't really judge how well they do in general.

QuoteRed and Pleasant Land, more surreal than wacky.  A DCC specific example I haven't found yet.

Good example.

What makes DCC gonzo?

Quote from: CRKrueger;925912The 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.

Only if you do it badly.

My DCC campaign has been "Gonzo turned up to 12" for four years now, and it just keeps getting better.  Almost everyone involved feels its the best game they've ever been involved in, myself included. And I've run quite a few really epic awesome campaigns.

Quote from: Nexus;926042What makes DCC gonzo?

I think there's a lot of basic rules that are very gonzo. Some of them are aesthetic, like the wizard corruption rules and mercurial magic.  But some of them if taken as written demand that you create a very strange default-setting. For example, the rules on clerical magic and disapproval only make any sense at all if the Gods are completely insane.

well, in the campaign I'm planning on running, Bill the Elf will be a god / patron...

Quote from: remial;927910well, in the campaign I'm planning on running, Bill the Elf will be a god / patron...

Oh man; I hope Bill's player doesn't read this. We'll never hear the end of it!

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

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

Heh, before I read this thread I knew DCC was an OSR and that was about it Aaaand a few hours ago I walked into my FLGS and bought a copy. I saw this in Pundit's DCC thread.

Quote from: Pundit...cannibal riverweed looks like a walk in the park compared to a Vicious Giant Wiener Dog.

I would totally use a Vicious Giant Wiener Dog in a game.

Quote from: Krimson;928848Heh, before I read this thread I knew DCC was an OSR and that was about it Aaaand a few hours ago I walked into my FLGS and bought a copy. I saw this in Pundit's DCC thread.



I would totally use a Vicious Giant Wiener Dog in a game.

Glad to hear you got inspired!

Quote from: RPGPundit;930338Glad to hear you got inspired!

Ah, thanks for reminding me! I'm running a 5e game set in Sigil and I can use that sometime after they deal with the ice penguins. :P

in my current game i try to de-gonzo dcc. not that it is too hard. it is just a question of toning down misfires, mercurial magic and corruption and you can go howard instead of vance or hiero's journey.

Quote from: ostap bender;931545in my current game i try to de-gonzo dcc. not that it is too hard. it is just a question of toning down misfires, mercurial magic and corruption and you can go howard instead of vance or hiero's journey.

There's also Tales From the Fallen Empire (https://www.amazon.com/Tales-Fallen-Empire-James-Carpio/dp/0985022124)... which turns DCC toward Sword & Sorcery.

Quote from: Simlasa;931546There's also Tales From the Fallen Empire (https://www.amazon.com/Tales-Fallen-Empire-James-Carpio/dp/0985022124)... which turns DCC toward Sword & Sorcery.

Well, that sounds interesting, but I don't know if I see the purpose of de-gonzoing DCC. I went the opposite direction: I pushed Gonzo to 11. Maybe 12 and a half.