Would you use the DCC RPG for long term campaign play ?

[geordie racer]

It seems the majority of playtesting has involved one-shot sessions and module play whicch allows players to use spellburning, burn luck etc to the max without fear of long-term consequences. With a longer time scale the game may take on a different tone e.g. with the rules for Corruption, playing a wizard becomes more risky, also the relationship with one's Patron or Deity.

Now I'm totally cool with running/playing a game that's optimized for senarios, modules and episodic campaigns - I haven't the time to spend on lots of long linked sessions like I did in my youth (the grind through the levels, the day-to-day life of the party).

But how about you ?

Would there be anything that could be added or changed to what we know about the game so far that would convince you that it is equally suited to long term play ?

[bholmes4]

Right now, as is, now I won't use it for long term campaign play. It's clearly been playtested with one-offs and I think the game suffers for it right now.

That said I love the system and have been working on house rules to solve some of these holes. I just wish this beta came out earlier so we might have time to fix them before release (as it is I am counting on it being a broken game, albeit a fun one). Maybe second edition will focus on fixing things for campaign play

And I will happily buy it too...

[Ze Groupe]

If it stays as is probably not. Though I will definately use it for crazy gonzo fantasy one shots! As I think it does that very well and I can see players really having a great time.

[CEBrown]

My gut feeling is this is the game you drag out when your regular group is missing a key player, play for a marathon session (or for several sessions over the course of a week or two), then put back on the shelf for a few months and repeat.

[jrients]

I am considering using the DCC rpg for long term campaign play. While I agree that the Corruption rules are a concern, I think that concern might be exaggerated slightly given the abbreviated nature of the beta rules. I think in campaign play smart wizards will focus early on locating magic items that they can lean on, using there own power only when necessary. The idea of that a wizard is powerful because he is high level may need to be jettisoned. Rather, a powerful wizard is one who owns and knows how to operate effective, reliable magic items. Something like a Staff of the Magi isn't just cool to have, it's a major component of success.

That's my current thinking, at least.

[Kruvil]

I want to use it for a long-term campaign. The beta rules don't support that option, though, so I do think playtesting is not as accurate as it could be. I planned on trying a full campaign through the summer but that isn't possible now due to real life intruding.

I've been reading some of the forums over on Wizards site (shudder, if you aren't a 4E lover who can't see any blemishes at all have a thick skin). More people than I would have thought are looking for D&D 5E to be DCC--emphasis on adventure, no minis and map, simplified to get new players in etc.

I very much hope the full DCC rules support campaign play. Because I very much doubt 5E will give the above players what they want. DCC could, it just needs some campaign playtesting and some rules to support a campaign.

What I think DCC needs is wilderness rules (mounts, random encounters, building a map hex by hex etc.), castle building and running a keep, and ship rules along with some world building advice (again maybe hex by hex). Eventually it will need rules for the planes and underwater but that could wait.

[finarvyn]

I see this as a very viable campaign game. The key is to educate the players so that they don't make stupid decisions that will impact things too negatively later on.

For example, if corruption has some potential long-term drawbacks, players need to learn not to do things that will risk corruption too often. You have to assume that the player will grow to love his character and not play stupidly, but this has a learning curve like anything else. Players will do some dumb things as they live for the moment then later say, "well, next time I won't do that...."

That's okay. It's like re-educating players about 3d6 in order. They are used to playing one way, they can learn to play another style as well.

[wavemotion]

As currently constituted? No. It's a fun one-shot - just like most of the great DCC modules of the past. Main reason: first page states it clearly enough... "You are not a hero". I want a classic Heroes Journey (Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces (c) 1949) in my long-term play.

I play a wide variety of RPGs but my long-term Fantasy RPG play is currently satisfied by Pathfinder. The 50k beta produced a polished system that continues to be extended without breaking (no easy feat) and the support in terms of the Pathfinder Adventure Paths (witness: Kingmaker) keeps fresh material coming to support DMs that don't always have time to create the whole world themselves.

-Dave

[Kruvil]

As currently constituted? No. It's a fun one-shot - just like most of the great DCC modules of the past. Main reason: first page states it clearly enough... "You are not a hero". I want a classic Heroes Journey (Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces (c) 1949) in my long-term play.-Dave

I'm not sure I agree, as the game is designed for levels 0-10 and Joseph has repeatedly talked about the funnel creating great characters for higher-level play. However, I would like to hear Joseph weigh in on his overall intent for DCC--mostly for module play one-shots or for conventions and/or for long-term campaign play in home games.

I think the you are not a hero part harkens back to Appendix N. Conan doesn't kill to be a hero, he does for gold and women and beer. Same with the characters in Dying Earth. They may do heroic things but their motives are more visceral and frankly more realistic. Even real heroes in the real world normally see themselves as just doing their job or taking care of their buddies. They didn't set out to become heroes.

The player may be playing a hero. But the character doesn't see him or herself or a hero. I think that is the difference in DCC--you play the character based on who he is not as a mythical archetype hero. The heroics follow organically and naturally from actual game play not player direction or backstory.

[smathis]

Yes. Maybe?

As it stands, my regular group likes DCC better than the other 'older feel' games we've tried, like LotFP and BECMI. They've expressed anywhere from ambivalence to outright interest in playing this game in an alternate campaign from the regular 4e game. That's about as good as I could've hoped. We'll see if the 5th level playtest changes their minds on that.

The only things that bug me about the rules as-is are the lack of anyway for stats to increase over time and the lack of higher level spells scaling at a rate commensurate with their level.

The stat increase is simply because -- in DCC over time -- a character's stats are going to be reduced at a healthy pace. Either from fumbles or crits or recovering or corruption or whoops! I screwed up that spell. It's a given that a 10th level DCC character's stats are going to be lower than a 0-level character's stats. Perhaps significantly so.

So I see an avenue to stat increase as a way for higher level characters to "keep up" with their lower level selves. I mean, as it stands, I'm looking at a game where my 10th level Fighter is probably going to be doing less damage per attack than my 1st level Fighter -- although the 10th level Fighter will get more crits and MDoAs. Still, that doesn't sit well with me.

I whole-heartedly recommend bholmes4's suggestion of rolling 3d6 and if you roll over a stat, that stat goes up by one point. It honors the bell curve and there's an end point. You're never going to get a stat going over 18. And a stat getting up to 18 will still be a rarity. I'd recommend doing it at first level and then every even level after that (so, 1st, 2nd, 4th, 6th, 8th and 10th). Varying between a stat chosen by the player and one decided randomly (but leave Luck out of the random). At best that will give a player +1 in up to three stats. I'd be shocked if that outpaced the amount of points lost.

So it isn't about overpowering or min-maxing. It's about trying to keep characters on the same "level" ability-wise throughout.

The other thing is spells. I pointed out in a separate thread that the only difference in results between Magic Missile and the Scorching Ray we've seen is that the target gets a save against Scorching Ray. The 1st level Magic Missile spell is better in every way than Scorching Ray. The only real distinction between the two is that a caster is 10% more likely to lose Scorching Ray.

I'd like either the abstraction of Spell Levels to be removed completely or have the risk associated with higher level spells be at least commensurate with the reward. As it stands, there is no way I'd use a 3rd level spell over a 1st level spell -- given two spells of equal applicability to a situation. And that's broken.

There are other tweaks and such. But these are the only two things that I feel would impact campaign play. The first one because it's a downer. And will act as a disincentive, long-term, to a group making the most of DCC. The second because it's one of those things players will pick up on pretty quickly that will scream "broken" to them.

[wavemotion]

The player may be playing a hero. But the character doesn't see him or herself or a hero. I think that is the difference in DCC--you play the character based on who he is not as a mythical archetype hero. The heroics follow organically and naturally from actual game play not player direction or backstory.

I agree with what you write... and Campbell describes the first step in the Hero's Journey as the Call to Adventure where the person may or may not be a willing participant or may have motives other than setting out to be a hero. But I don't yet get the feeling from the rules that this sets out to be a Heroes Journey over long-term play. Right now the beta rules are really geared for the funnel system and first level (most of the stuff at level 5 is missing - no higher level spells, no significantly new Warrior feats, etc). In short, proper epic scaling at higher levels is missing (i.e. there is very little other than a new line on one chart to read when I level up). Stat penalties seems to be built into the system so even the most basic of attributes doesn't advance towards epic. In short, nothing draws me to higher levels of play. Right now, the best you can say about a level 5 character is "holy $h*t, he survived this long?!". The full rules may make me change my mind.

I will say that if I were to use it for long-term play, I'd ditch the funnel system. I love the system and think it works well for short-term play but I tend to spend my free time writing short stories and thinking about characters. I don't want to come into a year+ long adventure with some ideas and a beautiful hand-painted lead mini only to have the system tell me: "That's nice... but you're a wood-gnome and love to tend gardens."

(By the way, if any of you haven't read Joseph Campbell's seminal work, you really owe it to yourself to pick up The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Most of the great epics in our lifetime have acknowledged a debt to Campbell - witness the first three (IV, V, VI) Star Wars films for a near-perfect movie adaptation of the Hero's Journey and Lucas has said that Campbell's work was a major influence). As a Game Master / Referee, your campaigns can only benefit from reading this book.

-Dave

[jrients]

I reject the implication that you need a lot of flashy high-level mechanical widgets to play out a Campbellian hero's journey.

[Michael Pfaff]

I think in its current state, there is a lot to be desired. I really hope the end-game has more to offer for the DM in terms of campaign play. I'm not sure what that'd look like at the moment, but I know I want it.

[smathis]

I reject the implication that you need a lot of flashy high-level mechanical widgets to play out a Campbellian hero's journey.

+d7

I think in its current state, there is a lot to be desired. I really hope the end-game has more to offer for the DM in terms of campaign play. I'm not sure what that'd look like at the moment, but I know I want it.

+d5

[Dreamslinger]

I think in its current state, there is a lot to be desired. I really hope the end-game has more to offer for the DM in terms of campaign play. I'm not sure what that'd look like at the moment, but I know I want it.

+d% ( take that you Thief skill haters )


I see a lot of potential in the game for long term campaign play. Both the Cleric and Wizard magic systems seem like they'll have the potential to toss out a ton of plot hooks.

I think there are a couple of issues that need to be addressed to make long term campaigns viable and fun. Even if none of the changes are official it'd be easy enough to house rule around.

[smathis]

+d% ( take that you Thief skill haters )

If you can roll 30 or under, then I never saw that coming.

[reverenddak]

I have hopes for some relatively long-term play. When I played D&D for the first time, AD&D in the 80s, we cheated and fudged A LOT, and had some really high level characters. Probably about 6-8 years worth of play. I played 3.0 and we reached 10th after about 3 years of fairly consistent weekly play. 3.5 we also reached 10th, but after about 4 or 5 years of consistent weekly play. In 4e we reached 10th after about 2 years of consistent weekly play. Realistically I've never had a campaign go past 11th level. So I would imagine that DCC should work really well for a long-term campaign. It really is the kind of RPG I want to play, so I'm pretty confident it will work out.

[bholmes4]

I echo what Smathis said.

The slow wear down of your character (corruption, ability loss) does not lend itself to long term play. It's very cool for an adventure or two but long term you will drive your character in to the ground. In every way your character gets more powerful (hp, spell access, equipment, saves) but we are going to pull the rug out from under you over here? I don't like inflated 3e / 4e stats but I think this will lead to frustration and ultimately the player will quit or grow apathetic to their character and let them die.

"Oh my character with elephant ears, 1 leg, and 3 strength is dead, oh darn".

The spell progression is out of whack, again for reasons Smathis stated so I won't go in to it deeper. As it is this area needs some major fine-tuning.

Other issues include:
- The annoyance of fluctuating abilities in-game and the book-keeping involved. Between spell burn, luck and spells/traps it gets more irritating than fun.
- Too many ways to "break" the game with spell burn, luck, and other potential abuses (ie. get crazy bonuses on your patron bond and invoke patron spell at 1st level and conjuring things that put the rest of the PCs to the background).
- Too many complexities that don't add much (ie. lucky weapons, alignment based thief skills/lay on hands, needless complex turning rules) and take some of the shine off the good parts of the game. Seems to 3e-based at times when old school had this right. The MDoA's, spells etc. are already fun, no need to add little "extras" tweaks for us to look up when used.
- Not fully embracing the best idea of this game: using the funky dice as your level bonus (ie. not using them with clerics/wizards).

All that said I still do plan on using this for long term play. A lot of these are easy to house rule and I will do it if I have to (though I'd rather just see them fixed in the first place).

[bholmes4]

By the way, I am looking at the Rogues Gallery from TSR (AD&D) to see what sort of stats and such the main players in Gygax's long term campaigns had as a point of reference. These are pretty heroic characters I am looking at.

I just think that in long term play it's important that a player feel like their character is growing, not slowly broken...

(That does not mean I in anyway want the super heroes of 3e/4e).

[reverenddak]

Ability score increases of some sort would definitely help in long term play. d20 increases an ability every few levels. Since 10th is considered tip of the top, maybe 2 abilities increase at 5 and 2 more at 10th? or some smaller increases in between? There are clearly more cases of ability drain and other permanent penalties. Making them "not-so" permanent should help. Probably should be quest based kind of stuff. Not sure. Since 5th+ level play is not even in Beta, I bet there are some rules considering this that we haven't seen.

[finarvyn]

The only things that bug me about the rules as-is are the lack of any way for stats to increase over time and the lack of higher level spells scaling at a rate commensurate with their level.

Good! That's an easy fix, either through a tiny design tweak or by house rule.

As to what it takes to "play a hero" I think there are many different interpretations and there is no way that a single "by the book" rules set will ever address every one of them. I don't like D&D 4E because of the puffed up power levels, but that in itself doesn't represent a design flaw. Playtest has mostly been done in "one shot" play instead of campaigns, but that in itself doesn't represent a design flaw either. I'd say folks should be careful about making decisions that any game system is good or bad for campaign play based on a single game session. Sometimes it's just a matter of players learning how to play this particular rules set.

Ever play "Castle RISK"? It is a lot like RISK, only has a few little changes so that you have to manage resources backwards. The first half dozen times I played I wiped up on my group because I saw this and they didn't, and after a while they just wanted to quit playing. Once they saw how to reverse their thinking they had a great time and my winning percentage fell way off.

I think that ultimately the question has to come down to if there is any reason that the DCC RPG would not work in campaign play, and if not how could it be tweaked. I haven't seen any critical problems in design; all I see are limitations in resources as characters burn luck or lose atrributes or whatever. These aren't serious problems in game design and are easy to fix.

And it's a fun game. No, it's not quite the same as some other games on the market. That's what makes it so cool.

Just my two cents.

[smathis]

As to what it takes to "play a hero" I think there are many different interpretations and there is no way that a single "by the book" rules set will ever address every one of them. I don't like D&D 4E because of the puffed up power levels, but that in itself doesn't represent a design flaw. Playtest has mostly been done in "one shot" play instead of campaigns, but that in itself doesn't represent a design flaw either. I'd say folks should be careful about making decisions that any game system is good or bad for campaign play based on a single game session. Sometimes it's just a matter of players learning how to play this particular rules set.

When I'm talking about the ability scores, I'm not saying anything about what it's like to be a hero. Or being a hero. It's merely to put a tourniquet on the loss of ability points from recovering, crits, fumbles, corruption and spellburn. Not to mention any monsters that might add on permanent drain. It's not about making the heroes more competent. It's about keeping them from bleeding out competency.

The reason I like bholmes4's suggestion is because it is most likely to only help those characters who need it most. Meaning that it would hardly ever bump a PC from 17 to 18 in a stat. But it would take that character who got a permanent drop from 11 to 9 in an adventure and maybe get him back up to 10. And you can't roll above an 18 on 3d6. So stats above 18 are not under consideration. As it should be, IMO.

I'm comfortable with most everything about how DCC presents the characters. I believe "hero" is a title that is earned through action. Not stats. And it certainly is not a PCs right to be considered "a hero" just because he got scribbled down on a character sheet.

I think that ultimately the question has to come down to if there is any reason that the DCC RPG would not work in campaign play, and if not how could it be tweaked. I haven't seen any critical problems in design; all I see are limitations in resources as characters burn luck or lose atrributes or whatever. These aren't serious problems in game design and are easy to fix.

I think the math of attribute attrition has been masked by the randomness of the game. But I think, long term, that will be a problem. Easily fixed, as you point out, but a problem.

The spells are a problem too. It won't take a group too long to compare the charts to, say, Fireball and Magic Missile and realize that Magic Missile is the better spell -- just as much bang, with no saves and much lower chance to have it disappear.

I'd like to see a chart like the one I posted for Divine Aid make it in. Maybe some form of healing a chunk hit points quickly after a combat (catching one's breath and such). But those are minor things compared to the spells and abilities, IMO. I don't think they'd impact long-term play immediately. Just become more annoying over time.

And it's a fun game. No, it's not quite the same as some other games on the market. That's what makes it so cool.

Sure is. I agree. I'm here because I care.

[CEBrown]

I echo what Smathis said.

The slow wear down of your character (corruption, ability loss) does not lend itself to long term play. It's very cool for an adventure or two but long term you will drive your character in to the ground.

One thing - if you really want to use the game for long term campaign play - ignore some of the penalties, or give the players ways to get around them (magic items, further deals with The Powers, Quests, even Wearing Off over Time) - BUT try the game as written first. It might work well anyway (though it's very tough to tell with only the first level rules + bits and bobs of the rest...)

[tovokas]

I agree that judging the 'long-term campaign' value of the DCC RPG by what's in the Beta rules is a bit premature. Obviously, much of the 'flavor' of how to manage the system isn't going to show up in a rules package designed to get players started.

But big picture, I think from reading Joseph's comments in the various forums that he prefers 'role-playing' solutions to many problems, rather than hard-coding everything in the core rules. For example, concerning gaining stat increases as you go up in levels (in part to offset the inevitable losses), Yes, it's necessary. But instead of having a table that everyone follows, just role-play it. Your character is a bit too weak? Why? Is it malnutrition/disease? A family curse? An old injury that can be healed? As the player addresses the problem, and the judge feels the timing is right - give the character a strength boost. I'll likely give most of my player's 0-level characters who survive a bit of a boost at 1st level to shore up defects that could make them unplayable as envisioned. It makes sense that surviving the 0-level experience would change someone. Just not everyone the same way.

I understand this might be difficult with players who want everything hard-coded with exactness. But I personally think it looks as if DCC will strike a nice balance between loosy-goosy & rules-exact.

Harvey has mentioned that DCC will require lots from its judges, but I think once judges and players buy into this type of flexibility, it will be really liberating - and should work well for long-term campaigns. (It would also help the Judge 'massage the tone' of the system to work with the 'heroic milieu' he envisions)

[mythfish]

Harvey has mentioned that DCC will require lots from its judges, but I think once judges and players buy into this type of flexibility, it will be really liberating - and should work well for long-term campaigns. (It would also help the Judge 'massage the tone' of the system to work with the 'heroic milieu' he envisions)

What I was going to say. Huzzah!