Goodman Games

goodmangames wrote:No plans for additional rule books. Core book, one annual a year, and a lot of adventures. Each adventure is almost all new monsters, and they occasionally include new spells where appropriate (as seen in People of the Pit). Given the volume of requests for new patrons, deities, and spells, I believe those are natural topics to include in the first annual. Not sure on including monsters...I am more inclined to include tools to help the judge create his own monsters, rather than statted-out creatures.

I'll tell you what: the "build-your-own-random-X" tables that you created for magic swords, demons and dragons are the absolute best parts of the DCC book (and I love the whole thing). Like everyone else, I want to see new spells and patrons as well as some rules for which gods allow which spells/weapons. And if you provided those in an annual along with a ton of "build-your-own-random-vampires/liches/Lovecraftian monsters/chaos beasts/magic rings" tables, then I would preorder it now, a year ahead of time.

There's a lot of great content coming out in future issues of Crawl! by the way. Folks looking for a cheap hit of extra stuff should really check it out if they haven't already.

Colin

More patrons would be nice. I am currently working on patrons from Moorcock's Eternal Champion series starting with Arioch himself. Trying to reread the Corum and Elric series to get ideas. I don't expect goodman to put these out, fan created ones work as well (see also Crawl magazine's patron which IMHO is the best out there).

Please, God, no deluge of splat books. I think that homebrewing stuff, plus the third party products, plus the annual, along with the amazing random generation tables in the DCC RPG, will give us all plenty of options.

I'll happily take adventures and campaign settings, and I'll sure as hell buy the annuals, but I feel very happy to have finally gotten a stand-along, incredibly awesome sword and sorcery game that speaks to me.

If you want more monsters, either do some quick and easy adaptations of existing resources or grab Raggi's book. I think you'll be set. As far as the spells go, you should find plenty to like in the spellcasting charts themselves. That and the mercurial magic effects should always make spellcasting a unique experience!

I with everyone that feels we don't need more monsters, I too prefer monster generators instead of another "monster manuals". I LOVE James Raggi's R.E.C.G. The monster generators in DCC RPG are excellent too. They're all the monsters you'll ever need.

I honestly don't understand the rush for more spells, I don't see my players using all the spells that already exist. I could, and am interested, in seeing more Patrons, and I'd like to see some blurring the lines between the Pantheon & Patrons. That'd be a great title for a book, I dib it! Hmmm... a community based project? anyone?

reverenddak wrote:I honestly don't understand the rush for more spells, I don't see my players using all the spells that already exist.

Part of it is legacy-thinking, I believe. Folks are used to spellcasting characters having pretty large repertoires of spells in various editions of D&D, so it seems like the selection in DCC is very small. The fact that DCC spellcasters have far, far fewer spells than their D&D counterparts makes it a non-issue in reality, but until that realization is fully grounded, the urge for more spells is going to be a natural one. Plus, as gamers we simply love MORE STUFF (tm).

Colin

Colin wrote:
Part of it is legacy-thinking, I believe. Folks are used to spellcasting characters having pretty large repertoires of spells in various editions of D&D, so it seems like the selection in DCC is very small. The fact that DCC spellcasters have far, far fewer spells than their D&D counterparts makes it a non-issue in reality, but until that realization is fully grounded, the urge for more spells is going to be a natural one. Plus, as gamers we simply love MORE STUFF (tm).

Colin

This makes some sense with regards to Wizard spells but not at all for Cleric spells. At tenth level, a Cleric knows: 9 out of the 11 existing first level spells, 7 out of 11 second level spells, 6 out of 7 third level spells, all 4 fourth level spells and 2 out of three 5th level spells. Asking for more spells so that Clerics can be differentiated is prompted by scarcity of actual spells in the book, not a delusion informed only by other versions of D&D.

I don't really need a ton of splats (or want them). What I do want however is...
An occasional increase in the number of spells (with tables).
A complete update of Aereth to better match DCCRPG.
Redoing of some of the older DCC modules with the new style, particularly Whiterock.

It is only a theoretical problem until two Clerics reach 10th level in the same campaign. Furthermore, diversity lies in class and level in D&D (yes, no matter how much it differs from it on the outside, DCC is just a variation of D&D; an astonishingly good one, nonetheless), plus the player's unique individuality, not elsewhere.

I think what killed a lot of the latest versions of D&D were the waves and waves of splatbooks. When the "burden of splat" got too heavy... bam! they would release a new edition so they can start us on a new splatbook treadmill.

I really think the game will work best right now if they try to maintain a straightforward clear cannon. A cannon that can be home-brewed, but not regimented.

I don't want to feel that I have to have a pile of books 2 feet high just to be able to play in a "convention" game of DCC.

Right now I like DCC just the way it is.
I'll let you know how I feel in a year.

T

Troy812 wrote: Right now I like DCC just the way it is.
I'll let you know how I feel in a year.

Yeah - I like DCC the way it is. I can house rule or add in my own things for whatever niche I want to fill. I agree the avalanche of splat books for previous versions of D&D helped lead to their downward trend and then a new release to start the cycle over.

With Pathfinder, I got in with that when it was just the Core Rulebook. It was great. Building characters was fun, even with what many would consider fewer options. After going through the 3.5 release cycle the reboot with Pathfinder felt very light and nimble to me. Flash forward a few years and number of options out there is astounding. It has started to make it feel more heavyweight and cumbersome than when I first got into it.

Don't get me wrong, Pathfinder is my game of choice to get the D&D feel, but I am losing interest in the swift product release cycle.

So yeah - I hope DCC stays just this single book for a good amount of time. Add a few new critters or spells in the sidebars of modules or the annuals, but hope to see the firehose kept under control.

Patrons and Pantheons, Doug Kovacs' Character Sheets, and a fancy version of Jeremy Deram's reference sheets =

Oh yeah, and keep crankin out kick-ass modules!

Colin wrote:Part of it is legacy-thinking, I believe. Folks are used to spellcasting characters having pretty large repertoires of spells in various editions of D&D, so it seems like the selection in DCC is very small. The fact that DCC spellcasters have far, far fewer spells than their D&D counterparts makes it a non-issue in reality, but until that realization is fully grounded, the urge for more spells is going to be a natural one. Plus, as gamers we simply love MORE STUFF (tm).

I think you're on to something here. When folks come up with a "wish list" the natural default is to think: "now, what have I always needed in other games?"

The quick answer is usually monsters, spells, and things like that. But really we won't know until we have a chance to play it more. I've been playing DCC for more than a year now and still haven't really used up everything in the rulebook. Most of my players have tried a few but not all of the class options, and we haven't gotten characters to the tippy-top levels yet to exhaust the choices offered there. I suspect I could play for another couple of years on the core rulebook without many other extras.

I guess the things that I find most useful:

(1) Modules -- but of course this is happening already.

(2) Setting choices -- I wish we could get Blackmoor, the Wilderlands, or Greyhawk officially released in DCC format. Or maybe a literary setting from Appendix N like Nehwon (Fafhrd & Grey Mouser), the Young Kingdoms (Elric), or Hyboria (Conan). I'm looking forward to some of the settings out there, but would love to have something *BIG* that really attracts gamers and says "this is why you should play DCC. You get to play in __ setting!"

(3) Character class options -- I still have folks who want to be Rangers or Assassins or Paladins.

As far as spells go, it's really not that much work to convert them from other editions. Just spend some time looking at other spells of the same level and make it progress in a way that makes sense. I'm currently working on a DCC RPG version of "Disguise Self". It will go up on the blog.

finarvyn wrote:(2) Setting choices -- I wish we could get Blackmoor, the Wilderlands, or Greyhawk officially released in DCC format. Or maybe a literary setting from Appendix N like Nehwon (Fafhrd & Grey Mouser), the Young Kingdoms (Elric), or Hyboria (Conan). I'm looking forward to some of the settings out there, but would love to have something *BIG* that really attracts gamers and says "this is why you should play DCC. You get to play in __ setting!"

Wilderlands could be very interesting, though with Frog God's recent acquisition of Necromancer, I imagine it'd be more likely to be released for S&W and Pathfinder. As for Greyhawk, I think the likelihood of WotC releasing that property are akin to a snowflake's chance in hell even if they never intend to do anything with it.

Unfortunately, Nehwon and the Young Kingdoms are tied up with Mongoose, and Hyboria would be prohibitively expensive (which is one of several reasons Mongoose dropped that license despite doing very well with their OGL-derived Conan rpg).

finarvyn wrote:(3) Character class options -- I still have folks who want to be Rangers or Assassins or Paladins.

Isn't the Assassin just one of the paths for the Thief in DCC? Similarly, I'd just have a Ranger be a Warrior with an appropriate Occupational background (such as Hunter or Trapper). As for paladins, I hate them with the heat of 1,000 suns; in my games, you want to play a "holy warrior" you play a cleric or a warrior who's part of a religiously-affiliated order.

Colin

Colin wrote:Wilderlands could be very interesting, though with Frog God's recent acquisition of Necromancer, I imagine it'd be more likely to be released for S&W and Pathfinder.

Not going to happen. The Wilderlands is Judges Guild property and Robert Bledsaw III told it multiple times that they don't want to work again with Necromancer Games or anyone associated with ever. Don't ask me why.

Ravenheart87 wrote:

Colin wrote:Wilderlands could be very interesting, though with Frog God's recent acquisition of Necromancer, I imagine it'd be more likely to be released for S&W and Pathfinder.

Not going to happen. The Wilderlands is Judges Guild property and Robert Bledsaw III told it multiple times that they don't want to work again with Necromancer Games or anyone associated with ever. Don't ask me why.

Oh, that is interesting news. I wonder what happened there then? In that case, if anyone can license Wilderlands for DCC, that'd be very cool.

Colin

Colin wrote:

finarvyn wrote:(3) Character class options -- I still have folks who want to be Rangers or Assassins or Paladins.

Isn't the Assassin just one of the paths for the Thief in DCC? Similarly, I'd just have a Ranger be a Warrior with an appropriate Occupational background (such as Hunter or Trapper). As for paladins, I hate them with the heat of 1,000 suns; in my games, you want to play a "holy warrior" you play a cleric or a warrior who's part of a religiously-affiliated order.

Oh, I agree. I often encouage players to improvise and/or mix class options to create what they want. (For example, the paladin could have levels of fighter and cleric. The assassin could have levels of thief and fighter. The ranger can be a fighter who can track. Etc.) I was just thinking of the folks who play AD&D and who would like to have similar options specifically spelled out in DCC.

Colin wrote:

finarvyn wrote:(2) Setting choices -- I wish we could get Blackmoor, the Wilderlands, or Greyhawk officially released in DCC format. Or maybe a literary setting from Appendix N like Nehwon (Fafhrd & Grey Mouser), the Young Kingdoms (Elric), or Hyboria (Conan). I'm looking forward to some of the settings out there, but would love to have something *BIG* that really attracts gamers and says "this is why you should play DCC. You get to play in __ setting!"

Wilderlands could be very interesting, though with Frog God's recent acquisition of Necromancer, I imagine it'd be more likely to be released for S&W and Pathfinder. As for Greyhawk, I think the likelihood of WotC releasing that property are akin to a snowflake's chance in hell even if they never intend to do anything with it.

Unfortunately, Nehwon and the Young Kingdoms are tied up with Mongoose, and Hyboria would be prohibitively expensive (which is one of several reasons Mongoose dropped that license despite doing very well with their OGL-derived Conan rpg).

I didn't say it would be easy. I know that most of these settings are tied up with other companies. I was just thinking that DCC could really score a major crit by landing an established setting for the game line.

Colin wrote:Oh, that is interesting news. I wonder what happened there then? In that case, if anyone can license Wilderlands for DCC, that'd be very cool.

Colin

Why not create another sword & sorcery sandbox instead?

Ravenheart87 wrote:

Colin wrote:Oh, that is interesting news. I wonder what happened there then? In that case, if anyone can license Wilderlands for DCC, that'd be very cool.

Colin

Why not create another sword & sorcery sandbox instead?

No doubt people will (and have, as evidenced by Fallen Empires), but that doesn't detract from the fact that a number of folks like Wilderlands and as an established setting with a long history it has a certain recognition and weight to it that a new setting would lack.

Colin

Yeah, I can do all of the homebrew settings I like. Most of my games are put together in a setting I create (I just throw together a map and get started).

I think that it would be really cool to get an established classic campaign officially authorized for DCC. That would be best of all.

What I'd like is an free or low-priced pdf of a fairly small-scale overground map, and I'd like all current and forthcoming modules to be placed on that map.

That way we can have consistency between modules and let PC wander sandbox style. (Also, would encourage judges to buy all the modules.)

Finally, I think Goodman should focus on low-level adventures for the next few years. It should take at least a year of regular play to raise your PCs up a level, and PC death is supposed to be frequent, so I think Goodman should encourage proper play by withholding higher-level adventures. (Right now, they should be putting out more funnel adventures.)

Yes.. I found it strange that some of the early modules are for 4th level and not more geared towards 1st or 2nd levels. Is 4th level a bit of a sweet spot maybe?

I agree with Finarvyn in that a BiG setting would be a draw. Would Blackmoor be possible?
I have heard good things about it and it has that historical pedigree of course. Never looked at it however. Is it good?