DCC Urban Crawl

[Harley Stroh]

We'll inject atmosphere into this baby.

Excellent. *does Burns impression*

[Mike_Ferguson]

Well, I figured I'd resurrect this thread, if only to see how much life it still has ... or to see if it needs to slumber a little while longer.

Rick and I have had some good discussion over the past few months about where to possibly take this thing. One particular idea we both share is to loosely - and I can't stress *loosely* enough - connect all the adventures with an optional metaplot. Nothing major - more like this example - there's a key that gets found in the levels 1-3 adventure that can prove to be very important in the levels 4-6 adventure ... but both adventures are also deliberately set up so they don't have to connect, and can be run independently of each other, no problem. I'm personally convinced that setting up an option metaplot is a Very Good Idea - gamers I've talked to about that concept seem generally to like it a lot, and the success of the Adventure Paths in Dungeon (and the interest in Pathfinder) seem to lend some credibility to that sentiment.

I was thinking this might be a good time to lay down the groundwork for this project, as this might take some time to figure out exactly how to define a "UCC" vs. a typical "DCC" (a "UCC" would almost require NPCs not meant to be killed, for example), and if we go for an interconnected storyline, we need to figure out what the overall story might be in relation to the individual stories for each adventure. Also, if this is to be set in Cillamar, we have time now to go through Whiterock and see how the new stuff will mesh with the foundation established there.

But the effort's moot if this is already dead in the water.

So ... Dr. Stroh? Can you let us know how the patient is doing?

[Harley Stroh]

The Urban DCC book is still a go, but it is going to have to wait a few months (or more) until *hopefully* one of us can get our hands on pre-release copies of the rules. Don't stop daydreaming about plots, but don't get too attached to any one storyline. I love you guys as writers, which means I get to be really hard on you. The urban DCCs need to glow.

Re: meta-plot. I'd like to think of it more as a "meta-place," sort of like the old Thief World stories (before they became a game setting). Things like you mentioned --- the key being useful dozen of sessions later, peripheral NPCs showing up as major villans later on, etc. ---- these are fine so long as they don't upstage the _adventure_.

The one of the keys to DCCs is that people can take them a place them anywhere, anytime. They could play out the entire Cillamar sequence, or they could pull one for their Eberron game, and another for their Ptolus game, and another for Freeport. You get the idea.

Utility and adventure, with the opportunity (if the GM so desires) for a cohesive back story in our world.

//H

[Mike_Ferguson]

The Urban DCC book is still a go, but it is going to have to wait a few months (or more) until *hopefully* one of us can get our hands on pre-release copies of the rules.

Sweet. This is too cool of a project to let go.

Re: meta-plot. I'd like to think of it more as a "meta-place," sort of like the old Thief World stories (before they became a game setting). Things like you mentioned --- the key being useful dozen of sessions later, peripheral NPCs showing up as major villans later on, etc. ---- these are fine so long as they don't upstage the _adventure_.

No argument here. Again, I definitely want somebody to be able to pull out a mid-level adventure for one campaign, a high-level adventure for another, and be able to use each and every one of them as a stand-alone ... but it seems that interconnecting them - esp. with them all being in the same city - makes sense as well. Virtually all the gamers I talked to at GenCon about Castle Whiterock were ridiculously geeked out about the fact you could play it from 1-15, and there was a way to connect everything.

[Mike_Ferguson]

Two other things Rick and I have been discussing off-and-on about the DCC/UCC project:

1) Ideally, I think we need a section detailing to the DM how adventuring in a city is different than a "standard" dungeon crawl. When you go into an orc's lair, there's no repercussions for slaying the orc tribe leader and his minions. If you kill a town guardsman, though ... there needs to be consequences. Same for just hurling fireballs down the dusty streets of the city - sounds cool, but not exactly ideal for the constables to maintain law and order. I think we need to lay out some guidelines for how the "authorities" (i.e. nobles, Wizard's Guild, Thieves' Guild, and so on) view certain activities, and what might happen to the PCs if they rely too much on brute force istead of stealth and guile. Probably 'Old West' rules would best apply for the DCC-style of city adventures - violent behavior is permissible provided that it's justifiable.

2) Cillamar. One tricky thing we figured out is that we're going to have to make these new city adventures at least slightly compatible with Castle Whiterock, which adds another level of complexity to creating them. For example, we don't want a UCC adventure contradicting something that's in Whiterock, or provide a magical item in a UCC adventure that just makes a hard level in Whiterock suddenly very easy. Also, I think we need to consider how we can get the Gazetteer-type material from Whiterock to gamers buying the UCC book. I'm already envisioning a scenario where there's folks who don't buy Whiterock because it's 3.5, and then start complaining that they can't access the Gaz. information. (And if we include it with the book ... then we get the 'reprint' complaints from the Whiterock folks. "Hey, I already paid for this!")

DCC fans seem to eat up new Gazetteer-type material, so there's a part of me that would like to set the UCC-city adventures in Archbridge, or Kassantia, or another big DCC World city ... and do another Gazetteer for the surrounding area (say, the Criestine Empire). But on the other hand, Cillamar is beautifully detailed, and does seem the perfect place to set these adventures. It's very much like Lankhmar.

I'm good with whatever choice gets made (and expect that it'll be Cillamar) - just wanted to toss out some thoughts on this.

[Harley Stroh]

Design note: In addition to the various hooks on getting the PCs involved, there will also be a block of "different locations to place the adventure in." As in, how to set the same urban DCC in ...

*A seaside town.

*The heart of an empire.

*A frontier city-state.

Slowly, slowly, this is coming up to speed. Let me put a project to rest this week and I'll try to come up with a rough list of design notes we can build from.

//H

[Rick Maffei]

Glad to hear our patient isn't dead, but merely shrugging off a limited coma.

Thanks for doing such an excellent job of summarizing the ideas we discussed Mike.


Mike & I also discussed a few "extras" that might appear in such a tome, including:

1) General GM city campaigning notes
2) A detailed city "safe house" or "home base" type location for the PCs
3) City NPCs (which presumably would all appear in at least one adventure)*

*As Mike said, the basic DCC tenet of "no NPC who aren't meant to be killed" almost certainly must be adjusted here. There are old modules in the DCC vein (the work of Lakofka, Niles, and Gygax comes to mind) that do introduce NPCs; I think the key is focusing on keeping the "dungeon" (which here could be a sewer, arena, building interior, etc.) front and center, and not letting the NPCs (Elminster, anyone?) steal the show.

[Rick Maffei]

Re: meta-plot. I'd like to think of it more as a "meta-place," sort of like the old Thief World stories (before they became a game setting). Things like you mentioned --- the key being useful dozen of sessions later, peripheral NPCs showing up as major villans later on, etc. ---- these are fine so long as they don't upstage the _adventure_.

No argument here. Again, I definitely want somebody to be able to pull out a mid-level adventure for one campaign, a high-level adventure for another, and be able to use each and every one of them as a stand-alone ... but it seems that interconnecting them - esp. with them all being in the same city - makes sense as well. Virtually all the gamers I talked to at GenCon about Castle Whiterock were ridiculously geeked out about the fact you could play it from 1-15, and there was a way to connect everything.

Exactly!
Think of this concept as ultra-utility for the purchaser/player/GM.
They want to pick out a certain level adventure to drop in their campaign? No problem.
They want a city campaign with pre-linked adventures? We give them that option and logical reasons why it all fits together.

It will be work, but I truly believe adding a meta-plot option (and I stress option) will add depth and utility to this product.