Crawl! no.6 Classic Class Collection! Now on Sale!

[sheriffharry]

I've had two players in my last funnel trying desperately to kill off some of their 1-hp characters doing suicidal-like attacks, so they will not become their 1st-level characters.

An unbelievable series of "20" and "19" for them and "1" and "2" for me followed and both hopeless characters survived the funnel (one being a gnome!), with only 3 others out of 17 characters total.
Once leveled up, both look highly playable and more likable. More stuff happened and fun was had by all.

Bottom line: Let the dice falls where it may... (character "customization" was what killed the hobby for me during the 3rd ed. days..)

[Raven_Crowking]

To me, the words "with the judge’s approval" are the key part to that rule.

[Colin]

To me, the words "with the judge’s approval" are the key part to that rule.

It's an ambiguous paragraph. As written it could be interpreted to mean that choosing an Occupation is at the Judge's discretion, period. Or it could be interpreted to mean that a Player can choose their Occupation regardless, but if they want to create one, that's down to the Judge's discretion. Or it could be interpreted to mean that they can choose or create an Occupational concept if they want, but that the gear and weapons that accompany a newly-made one are at the Judge's discretion.

To place it firmly within the "Judge's approval only, period" approach, it really needed the "with Judge approval" element to be appended to the end of the second sentence, not the third.

Of course, we can all guess how Joseph would answer this one: do what suits you.

Colin

[Sveden]

Just got my copy yesterday. Haven't had too much time to delve but I scanned. It looks great! I especially love the illustration of the paladin.

[Blood Axe]

Just ordered issues 4,5, & a subscription. I guess it would start with 6. I had the first 3 issues and thought they were great, but I got lax & missed a few.

[jozxyqk]

It may not be optimization to the extent that "build-orientated" editions like 3e and 4e were obsessed, but there's still some possible optimization there.

Finally, I write rules that make sense to me and provide options, and rely on Judges being able to exercise their right to say, "No." to any given rule or houserule. Writing rules that assume a lack of Judge-Player trust, or that assume Players are going to be munchkins, leads to the madness of things like 4e. :shudder:

Colin

What an odd response. I said that one reason I enjoy DCC RPG because optimization is virtually impossible and for that reason I don't like rules that introduce additional possibilities for optimization. Your respond that optimization already exists in DCC RPG because (1) a particularly lawyerly player could argue under the rules that he is able to pick his starting occupation without the DM’s approval, (2) players with human characters get to pick among three classes and (3) the funnel gives players some level of control over which mook survives.

First, those examples of "optimization" in DCC are frankly laughable. They more or less prove my point that optimization (in the sense that the word is generally understood) is virtually impossible in DCC RPG. Such is a great virtue of the game. (1) is a pretty iffy rules lawyer interpretation that most DCC games reject, (2) is the single example of choice during character generation, and not even all characters get it, and (3) is ..... ha! The funnel as an example of optimization? Even if there were no funnel I guess a player could just keep suiciding a starting character until he rolled one with the badass scores he wanted. Optimization! Also what sheriffharry said.

Second, even if there is some tiny level of mechanical character customization possible in DCC RPG, DCC is at base a game that rejects such things. It focuses on actual play at the expense of lengthy and complicated character generation. By limiting player choice, DCC encourages a game that is substantially more creative than one where players spend a bunch of time choosing character options. http://monstersandmanuals.blogspot.com/ ... andom.html . It also guarantees a game where it doesn't matter if you have a predilection for meticulously reading rules to find the best and/or most effective abilities/skills/feats. In light of that focus, why would I want to add more customization? To make DCC RPG more like 3.5?

Finally, this isn't about "trust" between the DM and players. If I put a bunch of mechanical options in front of them, they are going to think about how those mechanics work and how those mechanics will play out in game. It has nothing to do with trustworthiness -- people just play the game in front of them. 3.5 and 4e place substantial focus on the character generation process and player choice therein, so players spend large amounts of time mechanically customizing their characters. DCC has no such focus, so players do not focus on mechanical customization. I think it's a bad idea to modify DCC to make it more like 3.5 and 4e by adding optimization-encouraging "customization" options that shift the focus from play to character build.

[Raven_Crowking]

I especially love the illustration of the paladin.

Thank you!