Scriptorium

ight now I'm a few hundred pages deep into The Lord of The Rings, the great fantasy epic which is so deep in texture and song, and it is just as enchanting as they say. It is epic but also deeply personal, with a specific tone which is chemically constructed.

As a boy, my mind was nourished chiefly by three things, which I call the trinity of my childhood: Star Wars, Bionicles, and The Lord of The Rings movies. It explains a great deal about me, I think. The fact that I am only reading it now is honestly pretty surprising, and I'm yet to be disappointed by the work. At any rate, it is no wonder that there have been so many Tolkien imitators and aspirants.

On that matter, I will continue to illustrate the obvious and make points which are entirely unprofound: Nearly all of fantasy fiction looms in His shadow, and like many great authors He is emulated, but as to such an amount His is done He may be unique. All modern fantasy works are compared to The Lord of The Rings and often not without reason- but I know for a fact that there are plenty of amazing authors out there who write fantasy surely influenced, but totally original from Tolkien's work.

The trouble deepens, however, in the world of Tabletop Roleplaying games, with which I have some experience. Both dungeons and dragons are compelling separate subjects for stories, but in truth, a good number of people go to TTRPGs for the funny dwarves, and the sexy elves, and half-elves, and dark elves, and winged elves, and fire elves, and so on. For many, the features of Tolkien's world are less an influence, and more of a synonym for how TTRPGs look. I hold no issue with this, as the last thing I want is for parade-goers to feel they need keep an umbrella ready when I approach. As aformentioned, I love high fantasy and Lord of The Rings and all that shit, and tabletop roleplaying games are basically a tradition of borrowing ideas from fantasy books and movies. But, it can be hard to escape the feeling that we are all just cast in His shadow.

In any case, I've concluded that setting a tone or idea in a tabletop game is more about finding the right rules and mechanics that reflect the story you want to explore, rather than making a system that is geared towards something else bend to your will.

I do know that among the codemonkey cafe users, there are at least a few other tabletop roleplaying connoisseurs, so hopefully, this is post not wasted on at least a few of you. If the first half of this post bores you, this second half will not be much better, so you might as well quit reading now. Earlier this week, I ran a game of the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game, a book which is aptly subtitled Glory & Gold Won by Sorcery & Sword. Here is my review:

Before I can tell of the game, however, I must recount the tale of its finding. I had stumbled across it during my travels abroad in December, in an entirely unexpected way. A cold mist held that morning in a stillness. The streets of Philadelphia were weirdly empty, and after going to some great lengths to secure a cup of coffee, I encountered a small magazine stand- or it appeared as one. The magazines were obviously tales of adventure, that visually recall the legacies of Robert E. Howard and the dreaded H.P. Lovecraft. The salesman there explained that he was selling a tabletop roleplaying game of the OSR (Old School Revival) tradition, and directed me toward the rulebook. The thing could hardly be called a book- no, Tome would be a more appropriate title. On the shelf at home, I can't help but notice that the other RPG books next to it must be feeling pretty self-conscious about their size. But rest assured, the rules are actually quite brief, as a majority of the book contains a catalogue of weird spells, strange monsters, and gods, and two separate adventures to run your party through, as well as Dungeon Master/Judge's rules.

The huge wall of magazines were modules as it were, a massive variety of published supplements. Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game, or DCC as it is often abbreviated is published by goodman games whose works are vast and their history storied. Their philosophy regarding publishing is two parts. A; that the rulebook should be an entire playable game by itself, and B; that they should publish a large number of supplements at low cost. In my assessment, this is extremely based, as opposed to some of the more modern ideas of how publishing TTRPGs should be done. DCC is like the RPG magazine of the '90s that never was, recreating that kind of magic for both the veterans who lived through that era and the newer dice rollers like myself who were born too late for it.

Persuaded, I bought the book from him, (Which I had neglected the foresight to realize I would then have to carry it around for the remainder of the day- not an easy task in my small laptop carrier.) Nevertheless, I was excited to read more about this new ruleset. I went to leave, but when I turned back to ask the man his name, he had entirely vanished along with his wares.

DCC is not your grandpa's D&D- it's more like your weird uncle's game. The one who smokes a lot of weed and your parents told you to stay away from. DCC's flavour is as we mentioned inescapably reminiscent of Tolkien, but it is based much more in the traditions of weird fantasy and even science fiction. In the time before Atlantis sank, there were strange aeons and cosmic horrors. In this game, your character is probably going to be more like Conan The Barbarian than Aragorn son of Arathorn, and you'll more likely be fighting an alien snake demon than a regular Orc.

DCC is a self-proclaimed RPG for seasoned veterans. It in fact forbids the casual or uninitiated in TTRPGs from owning the Tome, lest a curse fall on your bloodline. The way the game is written reflects this in a lot of ways, at times directly addressing the fact that some rules are not as you would expect. An unusual disclaimer, but one that allows the game to do some genuinely interesting and fun things.

First and most immediately, play in DCC starts with players each rolling up about four to five classless level 0 characters, whose peasant occupations and ability scores the game insists be determined entirely on the dice roll. Then you throw those losers into a level 0 dungeon (sometimes called a funnel) where most of them will certainly die, and the few who survive can become level 1 characters, beginning their life of adventure. You also play all of those level 0 characters concurrently, which sounds like more work than it is since their character sheets are really tiny, and most of them are going to die anyways. This leads to both tense gameplay and sometimes hilarious outcomes- but most importantly of all, it leads to a sense that both glory and death are on the table.

I ran the level 0 adventure which came in the back of the book, Portal Under The Stars. Without spoiling too much of the dungeon, some of the highlights of our first game were a short-lived rivalry between the local cheesemakers (Only one of them survived), a naked gong farmer trapped in total darkness beneath a killing machine, and a heavily armed halfling named Googinga, whose vocabulary consists entirely of the word “Googinga.” You have to be careful in this game because a throwaway joke like naming your halfling trader after this man who you are sure will die, might turn into your permanent character.

Despite the arm waving and disclaimers, on the most granular level DCC plays like a regular D&D game. Each character has a place in the initiative order based on their agility, they get a movement and they get an action. A good chunk of the time you are rolling D20 for skill checks, and so on. But the amount of weird and bad shit that can happen directly as a result of those rolls is a big part of the draw.

There's a whole list of other novel mechanics that I won't get into here, like the dice chain, spellburn, patron mechanics, etc. DCC is a game that emphasizes some of the most fun and chaotic aspects of RPGs, made by people who have invested many a night into this hobby. I've also said nothing of the incredible art in the book which recalls the early days of D&D and weird fantasy. The whole thing kicks ass honestly.

In the grand scope of TTRPG games, I'm still being deeply romanced by LANCER. However, DCC is a game that I will jump at the next opportunity to engage with- I've been kicking around the idea of a longer fantasy campaign with a specific vibe, and DCC feels like it would be a great home for that. Oh, and the softcover + PDF is $25.

~ Your friend,