Since I still didn't start my campaign, I can tinker some more with ideas about how character generation's going to work. I was thinking a lot about seperating race and class, and adding some more of both.
Creating a new race is easy as a pie - just take the iconic abilities from the classes, change them a bit, remove those that feel more like class abilities and you're good to go. If you let the players choose races, and you feel some of them is a bit stronger than it should be, increase the XP needed to level up. If I go this way, I'm going to create an occupation chart for every race. You can also include sub-races in the charts, eg. dark elf cutthroat, high elf scribe, wood elf hunter. For new races, use your intuition, but generally tw or three bonuses and one penalty is good enough.
The major races I'm planning to use so far are:
- human
- dwarf
- elf
- halfling
- gnome
- orc
- insectoid
- lizardman
- android
Creating a new class is harder. Not because of game balance, since DCC RPG is a game, where cunning helps much more in survival, than balance. It's because of what I call "the spirit of DCC RPG". You could create one easily by mixing the abilities of the already existing ones, or by changing them slightly (eg. drop the initiative bonus and hit die of the Warrior, give him some cleric stuff and voilá, you've got a paladin), but where's the fun in that? The four core classes of DCC RPG are very different when it comes to gameplay elements, and they already cover a lot of ground. The plan is to make every class a bit more unique and different.
Classes I'm planning to use in my campaign:
- Warrior
- Thief
- Cleric
- Wizard
- Paladin
- Ranger
- Monk
- Bard
Here are some of the basic ideas:
Paladin: A holy (or unholy) warrior of one of the cosmic forces. Hit dice is d10, gets deeds, has better Fort, Ref, Will. The paladin fights better against the enemies of his faith and his mere presence makes their abilities weaker. Every level his god will send the paladin on a quest - if he completes it, he can advance to the next level (of course only if the he has the required XP too) and gain a boon. These quests and boons are random, like:
- Recover a long lost magic sword from the Lake of the Wailing Fey! You can keep the sword after the quest.
- Kill the disease demon in the Black Marsh! Your mere touch will heal diseases after you've won.
- A rogue beast of chaos roams the Red Waste, your masters want it alive! As a reward, they'll bind him to you so you can summon him with a command word every midnight.
Ranger: A warrior trained in unconventional warfare. Hit dice is d8, gets deeds, has better Fort, Ref. A ranger is good at sneaking and tracking the enemy. Every level the ranger gains a new training - bonus damage against a particular type of enemy, better initiative on some kind of terrain, the ability to use magic items, new languages, and so on. This training depends on what kind of plans the ranger company has for him.
Monk: The unarmored oriental martial artist. Hit dice is d6, gets deeds, has better Fort, Ref, Will. Still thinking about how to handle them. Their abilities are going to be based on alignment, and they're going to get a table just like thieves - the chaotic ones are going to be called ninjas, that's sure. I want to make them the masters of Mighty Deeds of Arms too.
More of them coming soon - I'm going to create a "beta" version of them in the following weeks - or months.

_________________
Vorpal Mace: a humble rpg blog with some DCC-related stuff.