Goodman Games

This might be heresy, but has anyone checked out the latest 5e test docs? I haven't read the players stuff at all, but the monster stats look 100% compatible with DCC RPG ... I could totally run 5e's Caves of Chaos with the DCC RPG rules, on sight, with literally no conversion at all.

Funny how I think fondly of 5e's Caves for strictly nostalgic reasons, but I love the "old school" DCC RPG because it is new, fresh and challenging. Up is down, black is white, Wizards is old and DCC is new?

The Caves of Chaos & Keep on the Borderlands is an awesome classic!! Keep us posted!!

Warduke, could you give an example of what a 5e monster statblock would look like?

Warduke's Monster (100 XP): AC 10; hp 2; longsword +0 (1d8-1) or short bow +2 (1d6+2)

Seriously, any judge familiar with only the DCC RPG could on-sight this thing.

Galadrin wrote:Warduke, could you give an example of what a 5e monster statblock would look like?

I can.

G-bl-n
Neutral Evil Small humanoid (goblinoid)
Initiative +1
AC 14
HP 5
Str 11 (+0) Dex 13 (+1) Con 12 (+1)
Int 10 (+0) Wis 9 (–1) Cha 6 (–2)
Space/Reach: 5 feet/5 feet
Speed: 30 feet
Melee Attack mace +2 (1d6 bludgeoning)
Ranged Attack shortbow +3 (1d6+1 piercing)
Special Traits darkvision 60 feet, dirty tricks
Equipment leather armor, light shield, mace.
XP 100

Edit: Jumped the gun, sorry! Warduke is online.

bill4935 wrote:Edit: Jumped the gun, sorry! Warduke is online.

All good.

For readers, both stat blocks are "true." Bill's is from the "monster manual" doc, mine was from Caves.

It's worth noting that half of the statblock isn't really needed most of the time, and it's a much smaller statblock than found for most 3E/4E monsters!

I'm hoping that 5E continues to offer old-school style options as well as stuff for the more recent editions. 4E modules were really hard to convert, but if they keep the 5E rules modular as they say then hopefully 5E adventures will continue to look more like Caves of Chaos.

I think they will. There is even a note on the play test character sheets say essentially "for a more old-school experience ignore this half of the character build.

That really simplifies things and indeed makes it pretty much between Mentzner Basic and AD&D in complexity.

I was thinking of using Doom of the Savage Kings for the D&D Next playtests, or Caves of Chaos for DCC. It's so tempting, but for now, I'm going to resist and keep everything where it belongs.

Yesterday we played Dungeon Crawl Classics and today we playtested the 5th Edition of Dungeons & Dragons. It feels like a comparison is in order, especially since there seemed to be a lot of similarities. They have more in common with each other than with Type IV, that's for sure.

DCC yesterday was great. We started on the module "Doom of the Savage Kings", a more open ended scenario than most DCC adventures. A player accustomed to Type IV had his wizard smacked down right away. He was trampled by a warhorse and only survived by dint of Fate. The party then battled an immortal demon hound, first ambushing it, then the next night slaying it through the blind luck of an spell roll that summoned not just a simple wolf, but a pack of 100 wolves that intend to stay for a week! This just might win the whole adventure. I can't say that I mind.

Tonight we took the pre-generated characters into the Caves of Chaos, a pretty simple straightforward series of dungeons. The party entered the Goblin Cave, attracted guards from both sides, and ended up with a long running fight culminating in a battle with an ogre. The characters were happy to survive, casting sleep on the goblins, and sneak attacking the ogre. They continued exploring, occasionally getting ambushed by more goblins, until they finally found and kicked in the door to the Hobgoblin Caves, which ended in the death of the wizard and the others hightailing it out the door with goblins in hot pursuit!

How was it, this Type 5, this D&DNEXT, this Beta game? Well, it was quick and loose. I used to play 4e with some of these guys, but we switched in recent months to DCC, so this was much similar to that style. I drew rough maps of corridors and rooms with minis, but we didn't count movement and or worry too much about positioning.

Everyone liked Advantage and Disadvantage. It's easy, it requires no math, but follows the more dice is better mantra. I like having one fun mechanic to represent most situations. It will break down on the DM's side with large numbers of opponents, however. I think I'll be giving swarms of rats a simple +2 to hit.

The Stat based Saving Throws are great. They make sense. They get rid of another formula from the game and a space on the character sheet. I had already houseruled my DCC game to roll Saves based on Stats with three floating Hero Descriptors (Chicanery, Obstinancy, and Destiny) so this is right on, similar in fact to skill system, which seem to be floating modifiers that can be attached to different stats based on the situation. So a bonus to Athletics can apply to Con, Dex, Str, or Int checks. I dig it.

I loved that the monsters stats are so short in the Caves of Chaos. This was my biggest issue with DMing 3e. I loved the 4e monster stats. Unfortunately in this case, I ended up cross referencing to the Bestiary a lot to find Initiative modifiers and Saving Throws.

So it accomplished quick and dirty dungeon crawling. I could see playing through a scenario in an evening. We had about four fights in three hours. It's compatible with pre-4e editions. It's definitely D&D. No problem.

The biggest gripe we had about 5e was that it wasn't DCC. Without the deep tactical complexity of 4e, this Beta test felt static. It had a lot of the predictability of 4e without the tactical decisions. Afterwards the consensus was that 5e needs to steal DCC's Mighty Deeds of Arms to make playing that character more engaging. We also missed Crit Tables.

Basically, this game swings more than it used to, but after the wild unpredictability of DCC, this felt less interesting. You're not along for the ride, at the mercy of the dice, nor are you planning two moves ahead for your martial power combo.

I don't mind the Fighter being very simple, but I think where the Beta shows its confusion is with the spellcasters and with average damage. They all have high damage at-will spells. The wizard can automatically hit with Magic Missile every round and do as much damage as a dagger. A Fighter does 3 damage on a miss. A cleric can do as much damage at range as a longsword every round on a hit. It seems like some sort of DPS mechanism, but the result seemed to be that those spellcasters spammed their at-wills, while the fighter spammed his one attack and nobody really played any different than the other. Wizards and Clerics weren't thinking of clever ways to use their arsenal of spells, but just reusing the same spells each round. I think the problem here is that their at-will spells do to much damage. There is no down side. They can just straight up fight. The Wizard character liked having MM at-will, but admitted he barely looked at the rest of his spells because MM was so reliable. It made everyone play the same. I think the Cleric and Wizard should have much weaker at-will attack, so that they are obliged to look for other ways of helping the expedition.

There's definitely some good ideas in 5e, but DCC has a lot of good ideas as well and they don't have to try to oblige the "balanced and predictable" type of player, which I think is alot of people. I enjoy a more random game, so I sort of think DCC beat 5e to the punch.

caveman wrote:The biggest gripe we had about 5e was that it wasn't DCC.

I loved this part.

Seriously, nice comparrison of the two systems. Your observations closely mirror my own. 5E plays well but doesn't have that spark that makes DCC unique. I have high hopes for 5E but I'm not sure it will beat out OD&D, C&C, or DCC, which are my present go-to games.

I hope 5e fails and Hasbro sells it's TSR/Wizards division or packs it away. Let the small companies carry the torch.

Karaptis wrote:I hope 5e fails and Hasbro sells it's TSR/Wizards division or packs it away. Let the small companies carry the torch.

WotC and Hasbro need not fail, nor does 5e need to fail.

Small companies already carry the torch just fine despite there being someone else out there with something torch-like.

I say "better to have more lights when the nights get dark."

TheNobleDrake wrote:
I say "better to have more lights when the nights get dark."

...For the night is dark, and full of terrors?

bill4935 wrote:

TheNobleDrake wrote:
I say "better to have more lights when the nights get dark."

...For the night is dark, and full of terrors?

Mostly on Tuesdays... it's more about lights making one feel less isolated.

Sorry Hasbro must go. Make some GI Joes or something.

bill4935 wrote:

TheNobleDrake wrote:
I say "better to have more lights when the nights get dark."

...For the night is dark, and full of terrors?

Depends on the neighborhood. Mine is full of terriers.

Ravenheart87 wrote:I was thinking of using Doom of the Savage Kings for the D&D Next playtests, or Caves of Chaos for DCC. It's so tempting, but for now, I'm going to resist and keep everything where it belongs.

I think this an excellent idea. I have promised to run a dnd next playtest next week and I will send the players through the Sailor on the Sunless sea module. Thanks for the idea!

finarvyn wrote:

caveman wrote:The biggest gripe we had about 5e was that it wasn't DCC.

I loved this part.

Seriously, nice comparrison of the two systems. Your observations closely mirror my own. 5E plays well but doesn't have that spark that makes DCC unique. I have high hopes for 5E but I'm not sure it will beat out OD&D, C&C, or DCC, which are my present go-to games.

Agreed. My regular group play-tested it over the previous weekend. There were some things I liked and some I didn't. My conclusion is just that if I wanted to play an older edition, I would play that older edition. If I want a D&D that is very new and different there is 4e. If I want something that has that old feeling, but with modern design in mind there is DCC.

In my opinion, there's no niche NEXT fills for me right now that makes me excited and wanting to play it. DCC on the other hand, I can flip to any random page in the book (or modules) and feel excited about playing or running this game.

I ran the 5e playtest character's through the Sailor on a Sunless sea Mod last night. The game played fast, faster than DCC rpg even( no tables to look up) but i quickly had to double all the hit points for the various encounters because of the huge amount of damage a 1st level DnD Next party does. The spell caster's at will 0 level spells seemed a trival over powering. It will be interesting to see what the future playtest documents look like.

The players who are all 3.5 /pathfinder fans like it and the module, i just need to persuade them to try out DCC Rpg next....