Awesome, great to hear about all these Road Crew experiences. Hadn't noticed this thread before so I thought I might as well share mine as well.
I had been running DCC at my store (Cosmic Oasis) rather infrequently, but the regular players kept using the same characters so I decided to link the modules when possible; mostly just by using lots of time skips which seem appropriate for Sword & Sorcery in my book anyways. Up until the road crew began I had ran the following spread out over last year:
- Zero Level: Portal Under the Stars
- 1st Level: Doom of the Savage Kings
- 1st Level (Technically Zero but it worked): Sailors on the Starless Seas
- 1st Level: The Doom That Came to Hirot (Session that took original content along with the Sunken Fens portion of Savage Kings, which we did not get to complete due to time and having to finish it all in one session, to make a new adventure)
My regulars were excited about the Road Crew announcement and so we decided to make DCC a permanent monthly thing at the store. Since then I have run 4 sessions, but only reported 3. After the first few, excitement has surged and we're now moving towards playing two sessions a month. It happened so last minute I didn't bother to report the first go of that. So since the Road Crew I have run:
- 2nd Level: The Emerald Enchanter
- 2nd Level: The Vile Worm (Brave Halfling)
- 2nd Level: Treacherous Cobtraps (Brave Halfling)
- 2nd Level: The Balance Blade
I'm really impressed with how things have picked up with DCC from me pitching it to store regulars a year ago to now. We average about 6-9 players per session depending on who is available or sometimes having a new player interested. A year ago, our store was a place where the only RPG's going on were D&D 4th Edition. Alright game in my book, I currently run our store's Encounters program as well.
4e Regulars were a bit hesitant about DCC at first, but now most of them would rather be playing our Encounters seasons using DCC than 4e; which says a lot to me. Everyone really loved the free swag too, especially the pencils.
As far as some highlights:
-We usually have one or two sit-ins at each session, but there's also a core group of regulars that have been to every single session since the Road Crew games began (and for one or two even before that). Here's our mainstays:
- Kemble, a Wizard that has pledged service to Azi Daka.
- Gerard, a cunning bard seeking to travel and hear new tales (the cover story for a Lawful Thief acting out of the party on behalf of his guild to recover treasure in secret or gather information)
- Jarpii Meatshield, a brave butcher turned Warrior. His claim to fame was defending his village when it fell under attack with little more than his trusty meat cleaver and a rack of ribs.
- Raina, a blood thirsty barbarian turned highway bandit. She joined the party because it seemed more profitable at the time.
- Grom, an aggressive dwarf known for charging into the fray with a passion for women and wine. Deceased as of The Vile Worm.
- Kelt, a Cleric of Cthulhu who spoke little of the mysterious faith he held. Also deceased as of The Balance Blade.
-They finished The Emerald Enchanter in perhaps the shortest amount of time of any session; having discovered the teleportation trick between the slabs of green crystal. It wrapped up so fast we actually spent the next Saturday doing an unofficial game of them just looting the place for treasure after the fact and dealing with the leftover traps.
-As much fun as the modules are, we've had quite a bit of fun character arcs pop up. Most recently Kemble, the party's wizard who is aligned with Azi Daka, has started to fall under question by the others. His Party Member kill count is currently at 2, both times at the command of Azi Daka in exchange for something. Granted, he has gotten the party out of some impossible spots with it but I find it quite amusing that the party is questioning how much the wizard values the lives of the others.
-The Balance Blade was a blast to run. I'd say it leans much more towards being a one-shot given the ending, but it was so perfect because said wizard had made a rather large request of Azi Daka and it was all too fitting for him to charge the wizard with such a quest. I toned down the finale just a little so the point still came across, but we could run the adventure tied in with their ongoing story.
-I hate to rag on Brave Halfling's modules due to recent events, but neither of the two I have ran for my players has gone over very well at all. I backed the Kickstarter and thought it'd be a good way to try some of my rewards out while fitting in stuff around the right level. Too short, too easy (even after I bumped them up some on my own) and uninspiring to paraphrase the table. They particularly got hung up during the Treacherous Cobtraps when the module has the players discover an Elf that has been likely killed by the spider antagonists of the story, but he had been carrying an iron shield. We got derailed for a good while as the PC's wanted to debate whether it was the spiders or the iron that killed the Elf. In the end, they requested me not to run anymore Appendix N Adventures so I suppose I'll be filing those away for another group sometime.
-Hirelings. Everyone hated the idea when it came up, especially those whose only experience with D&D had been 4e, but they've grown to be a party favorite. It's pretty much tradition that Gerard hires on someone new at each town only to have them die in horrid ways. Though, the party recruited a pair of Halflings during the Treacherous Cobtraps that, by fortune of dice rolls, proved to be as competent as the normal party members.
We'll be carrying on June 1st with their first 3rd Level adventure, The Jeweler That Dealt in Stardust. Their regular Thief, Gerard, set himself up as a member of some organized guild in his backstory to match up with being Lawful so I'm tying that in with the module some. My Road Crew shirt came in too, looks excellent, so I'll likely make that my official Judge's attire for our Road Crew games.
No cool photos of us playing DCC, but here's one from the previous weekend when we were playing Marvel Heroic Roleplaying (RIP) which is currently the other store favorite alongside DCC with the regulars:
Since it came up in thread, I'm really looking forward to that Sunken City Omnibus. The Crawler's Companion has become a permanent element at my tables when I am running DCC and of all the third-party modules I've had access too, Purple Sorcerer's have been my favorites so far. When the Kickstarter reward finally comes in, I'll likely try running that at the store as the start of a different campaign since there's been some interest in playing again from the start as the majority of our current table joined in during level 2.