A plea for the upcoming DCC RPG....

[Sunderstone]

If it does the following...

1) Drop the reliance on miniatures (too time consuming to prep and too much tactical focus).
2) Easy to convert my old (rather large) library of DCCs and D20 material.
3) Rules light (lighter than 3.5 at least).

Im in with a renewed fury! This will bring back the old school feel for me. I still miss the DCCs.


*** My only 3.5 gripe was the interruptions caused by prep and maintaining the tactical miniatures aspect of the game. It always broke us away from the story momentum.

[finarvyn]

If it does the following...
1) Drop the reliance on miniatures (too time consuming to prep and too much tactical focus).
2) Easy to convert my old (rather large) library of DCCs and D20 material.
3) Rules light (lighter than 3.5 at least).

I'm not a spokesman for Joseph but I've spent hours searching the web for clues and hints as to what the DCC rpg will be like, so maybe I can offer some thoughts and someone official can jump in.

The DCC rpg appears to be a thinned out version of 3E with an old school philosophy. Clearly it will contain elements not in 3E, in part because it needs to be a different enough product so that folks will want to pay money for it, but I think it will offer options very similar to those you've seen in other old school rpg.

1. I'm under the impression that miniatures are a secondary part of the game. Minis actually trace in one form or another back to OD&D in 1974, where movement distances and spell distances were given in inches. From the onset, however, folks often played OD&D without miniatures and I think the DCC game will allow for the same. I get the impression that it is NOT a tactical wargame!

2. If another company were making this I might have some reservations, but it's clearly in the best interst of Goodman Games to offer a rpg system which works well with their pre-existing DCC products. Also, the DCC name seems to imply a tie-in. Since the rpg will be loosely based on 3E, most 3E products should be a simple conversion. I'm guessing a lot of the conversion will consist of ignoring feats and similar elements that don't fit into this game. (At least, that's how I handle my C&C game when using DCC modules.)

3. Everything I've seen would indicate that it will be a rules lite system. I think a contemporary example might be C&C, which is another 3E-simplified style game and it a lot lighter to run than anything 3E or Pathfinder. I'm not suggesting that the DCC rpg will be "a C&C copy" or anything of the sort, but I suspect that the design philosophy will be similar.

I'm so pumped up for this game, it hurts!

[goodmangames]

1) Drop the reliance on miniatures (too time consuming to prep and too much tactical focus).

Yes. I haven't used a miniature yet in any playtest. I hate battlemaps in my D&D! Combats flow very fast and a 4-hour session is enough to get through quite a few encounters.

2) Easy to convert my old (rather large) library of DCCs and D20 material.

Sort of. The "origin system" is very similar. But one characteristic of 3E/D20, which is in direct opposition to OD&D, is the challenge rating system - the basic concept of "game balance" is fundamentally different between editions. In 1E, it was expected that level 1 of a dungeon might have a 20-hit die dragon and you really should just run away from it. In 3E, the core philosophy prevents this "imbalance" (or, as I call it, "fun"). As a result, there are some scaling differences. So it's not a perfect match. But it's a heck of a lot easier than converting anything between, say, 3E and 4E.

3) Rules light (lighter than 3.5 at least).

For sure. Where's the beef? GONE! No feats, no AoO, no skill points, no battle grid, no challenge ratings, no minis, simpler monster stats, etc.

[finarvyn]

The "origin system" is very similar. But one characteristic of 3E/D20, which is in direct opposition to OD&D, is the challenge rating system - the basic concept of "game balance" is fundamentally different between editions. In 1E, it was expected that level 1 of a dungeon might have a 20-hit die dragon and you really should just run away from it. In 3E, the core philosophy prevents this "imbalance" (or, as I call it, "fun"). As a result, there are some scaling differences.

I'd have to check my AD&D 1E rulebooks, but I know in OD&D they had charts for dungeon level and monster level and those were set up so that a 20-HD dragon wouldn't be found on level 1 of a dungeon. At least, if a person did a random by-the-book roll. So, in that way the OD&D and 3E editions aren't that different.

Of course, the classic Gygax modules weren't OD&D, either since Gygax focused on AD&D pretty quickly in the evolution of the game.

So, am I reading correctly you're saying that the DCC RPG that you've allowed for more of a non-balanced approach? If so, I don't think this would affect the use of current DCC products with the new game. Sounds like the effect would mostly be to mess up anyone using "DCC RPG Specific" modules using traditional 3E rules.

Or am I confused somehow?

[Sunderstone]

1. I'm under the impression that miniatures are a secondary part of the game. Minis actually trace in one form or another back to OD&D in 1974, where movement distances and spell distances were given in inches. From the onset, however, folks often played OD&D without miniatures and I think the DCC game will allow for the same. I get the impression that it is NOT a tactical wargame!

<snip>
I'm so pumped up for this game, it hurts!

I dont mind rough defining rules like movement base and spell distances, it helps guage things when looking at a map. I meant the AoO;s and flanking (and the feats, abilities pertaining to these) for example, where you had to know EXACTLY where everyone is positioned.
Anything like AD&D where you used minis purely for flavor, is fine.

Im pumped now too.

[Sunderstone]

Sort of. The "origin system" is very similar. But one characteristic of 3E/D20, which is in direct opposition to OD&D, is the challenge rating system - the basic concept of "game balance" is fundamentally different between editions. In 1E, it was expected that level 1 of a dungeon might have a 20-hit die dragon and you really should just run away from it. In 3E, the core philosophy prevents this "imbalance" (or, as I call it, "fun"). As a result, there are some scaling differences. So it's not a perfect match. But it's a heck of a lot easier than converting anything between, say, 3E and 4E.


For sure. Where's the beef? GONE! No feats, no AoO, no skill points, no battle grid, no challenge ratings, no minis, simpler monster stats, etc.

Im ok with ditching the challenge rating system as per your examples above. It adds a tad more realism by saying a Dragon wont only be found in a dungeon of high level monsters. I like this.

Any system without stuff like AoO's, Flanking, etc, where you HAVE TO know where everything is exactly on a grid will be good enough for me.

About conversions however....
Converting some things from 3.5 to Pathfinder for example, while it may be easy, its tedious (even moreso at high levels). This is because the base classes are changed so much from one system to the next.
If the DCC RPG is staying CLOSE to the original 3E/3.5 classes (and class abilities), ill be a happy camper. This will make converting even easier.

[finarvyn]

The secret to most game conversions is to keep 'em as simple as possible. To me, 3E and Pathfinder are essentially interchangible as far as modules go since monsters are mostly a collection of attacks, damage, defense, hit points, and the occasional cool ability. Not much to convert at all since 3E and Pathfinder are built on the same basic SRD engine.

Converting to OD&D, C&C or AD&D is a tad more challenging but usually I keep as many factors the same as possible and don't worry if a monster is suddenly a little easier/harder to kill. As a GM I can always toss in a few extra critters if the players get too cocky. Things like hit dice can be kept the same in number (although sometimes you switch the dice type, e.g. swap a d6 for a d8) and Armor class goes down instead of up in early versions of the game, but those are minor speedbumps and really don't affect play much IMO.

Conversion is usuallly only a problem when you convert characters, because (a) characters tend to have more depth of detail than monsters, and (b) the players sometimes get hissy if they feel like they have been shortchanged in the conversion process. (Funny, but they never mind if a conversion makes them better. )

[Sunderstone]

Converting enemies with classes and levels (like an evil high level wizard), specifically prepping 'em from a DM's standpoint was a time consuming process. If they were multi-classed, it was worse. Again, im using 3.5 to PFRPG for my examples because of the differences between the classes.

[Sunderstone]

one more thing....

Erol Otus and Jason Edwards. Nuff Said!

[finarvyn]

Converting enemies with classes and levels (like an evil high level wizard), specifically prepping 'em from a DM's standpoint was a time consuming process. If they were multi-classed, it was worse. Again, im using 3.5 to PFRPG for my examples because of the differences between the classes.

Agreed. Any NPC with a level is as complex as a PC. I was thinking mostly about generic monsters.

Clearly the "Big Baddun" requires a lot more work.

[Tavis]

At the Anonycon playtest I used the 3E SRD for the stats of monsters mentioned in the Castle of the Mad Archmage, and that worked fine, and also used the Castles & Crusades stats given in Castle Zagyg, and that also worked fine! But I'm with finarvyn about not sweating the details - in a megadungeon like this, it doesn't much matter whether each encounter is perfectly calibrated because the random encounter tables could always throw out something unexpectedly hard or easy & the players were encouraged (by the convention goal of who can reach the lowest level) to bite off more than they could chew anyway.

[finarvyn]

At the Anonycon playtest I used the 3E SRD for the stats of monsters mentioned in the Castle of the Mad Archmage, and that worked fine, and also used the Castles & Crusades stats given in Castle Zagyg, and that also worked fine!

I'm not really surprised by this, based on what I've read so far and the fact that all of these rules are based on the same basic 3E mechanic, but it's nice to see the confirmation that conversion works well!

I suspect that you have to really simplify the monster stat blocks, however, since 3E has so many details built in.

[cr0m]

I was never a huge fan of AoOs, but I was wondering if there are plans to have some kind of "zone of control" mechanic. In other words, a mechanical reason why people can't just waltz past armed enemies, like in wargames.

In a lot of wargames the zone of control simply means that an enemy has to take two turns to move past: one to move up to the enemy, and one to move past.

[goodmangames]

I was never a huge fan of AoOs, but I was wondering if there are plans to have some kind of "zone of control" mechanic. In other words, a mechanical reason why people can't just waltz past armed enemies, like in wargames.

No battle grid and no miniatures! But you can't waltz past enemies for the same reason you couldn't do it in the 1E rules: they're in your way and the DM says "no" when players try to do something stupid.

[Harley Stroh]

No battle grid and no miniatures! But you can't waltz past enemies for the same reason you couldn't do it in the 1E rules: they're in your way and the DM says "no" when players try to do something stupid.

For me, this is one of the DCC's great strengths. In the rules I've playtested, there aren't any rules for AoOs, and yet every game I've run has included Judge-determined AoOs. "The archpriest stoops to pick up his skull-mace. Free attack!"

//H

[finarvyn]

In the rules I've playtested, there aren't any rules for AoOs, and yet every game I've run has included Judge-determined AoOs. "The archpriest stoops to pick up his skull-mace. Free attack!"

As a long-time OD&D player, I'm really a fan of this style of rules design. There's no reason why a rpg has to cover every possible situation, and in fact I think they often run better when the GM has control over this very type of situation.

All of the playtest hints and snippits are sounding very positive! Very cool indeed, and feel free to add more playtest nuggets!