Goodman Games

One of the things I've noticed over at Enworld is that people will dismiss DCC RPG as OSRIC or just another retro clone. To be honest, I don't know enough about those systems to really judge. Is DCC RPG a "retro clone?" My initial reaction is that it is not a retro clone because it does not exactly match the AD&D rule set. Goodman Games have really departed from any previous edition of D&D to be called a retro of anything. It is an Appendix N game in that it tries to emulate the sword and sorcery/Lovecraftian themes that influenced the creation of AD&D, but the system really doen't have much in common. But, I'm also not familiar enough with OSRIC or other retro clones to be a good judge.

What are your thoughts?

My thoughts are split between two particularly potent feelings that I have been experiencing while reading forums and anxiously awaiting my preorder...

Firstly, I feel that too many people are caught up on things like "DCC is my D&D Next," or "DCC is what I want from D&D." DCC isn't D&D - that is its best feature. It doesn't have to be beholden to any standard that qualifies it as D&D, it doesn't have to live up to what our nostalgia tells us D&D was like, and it doesn't need to defended when others say "it's not real D&D.

It can just be DCC, and that alone makes it one of my absolute favorite games ever written.

Then, I feel that people are too caught up on things like "old school vs. new school." They are just buzz words with no genuine meaning - DCC is, according to itself and most fans of it, "old school." How can that possibly be true when there has never before been a game anything substantially like it? We can break it down and say that it has "old school," sensibilities and style since it is meant to be a return to the inspirational materials that inspired D&D in the beginning... but that it is a "new school" set of rules since it only just is being released to the public.

It is my opinion, however, that the most accurate statement on the old or new school status of DCC is this: Dungeon Crawl Classics is a brand new and innovative game inspired by the same styles of fantasy, and science-, fiction that drove the creation of Dungeons & Dragons.

It's not a retro clone... people are just being close minded and making judgements without any actual knowledge of the product, as people tend to do whenever anything they have arbitrarily decided not to like comes up in conversation. The fact that DCC technically uses the OGL, like the majority of retro-clones do, is what has most confused, no doubt.

DCC is retro, in that it looks back to an earlier aesthetic and philosophy of what makes a fun game, but it is not a clone.

I think they're interpreting the "adventure like 1974 intended" a little too literally. They probably think it means it's a throwback to the original D&D. It's not; it's a throwback to the intentions of the original D&D. This is a subtle, and important distinction. In Appendix N, Gygax provided us with a list of books he considered inspirational material. I haven't read enough of Appendix N to comment on whether or not Gygax remains true to it or not, but this post on Grognardia does a pretty good job of articulating that it does not:

http://grognardia.blogspot.com/2012/05/ ... ation.html

DCC RPG is not quite like anything in the D20 gaming market. At the same time, it will not be wholly unfamiliar to anyone who has played any version of D&D. What Joseph Goodman has done, and this is what does not make is OSRIC, is take elements from every edition to create a whole new game. The tone of the game is pulp fantasy culled from appendix N; the character options and creation process are all old school; the greater rules framework is a simplified D20 system. In short, it takes the best elements of each, and leaves the clutter behind.

Let them dismiss this as another retro-clone. There are far worse things in the world than being wrong, like missing out on a genuinely fresh take on fantasy roleplaying games that is DCC RPG.

It's definitely not a retro clone: it's not trying to emulate any of the previous editions of D&D. It's certainly retro in its tone and style, though. (In my mind, rules wise it seems to have more in common with the modern variants of D&D.) Anyway, I wouldn't waste too much time arguing with people on Enworld. Do those sorts of discussions ever go anywhere?

Raven_Crowking wrote:DCC is retro, in that it looks back to an earlier aesthetic and philosophy of what makes a fun game, but it is not a clone.

I usually say it's old-school, but not a retroclone. Just like HackMaster, Castles & Crusades.

For starters OSRIC is really just Advanced DnD 1st ed. If anything DCC seems to build more on ODnD, to me it does anyways.

OSRIC is 99.998% AD&D (i.e. 1st Edition.) It's a Retro-Clone in that it is 99.999889282% compatible with AD&D (1e).

DCC RPG is what some call a 2nd-generation OSR. Which is inspired and influenced by an early edition of D&D (in this case Original Edition and/or BECMI "Basic".) But includes some of the "innovations" of later editions that the developer felt were "good" (in this case d20 core rules.) And a bunch of unique things taht aren't found in ANY edition of D&D (Spells, Mighty Deeds, Luck, etc.)

DCC RPG & OSRIC are 75.8889988723% compatible in that some "tropes" are identical and the power-scales are pretty close.

The short answer is definitely NO, DCC RPG is not OSRIC.

OSRIC was specifically written so people can write AD&D adventures and not worry about Licenses and Trademarks.

DCC RPG was specifically written so Joseph Goodman can share his version and vision of D&D.

It's retro, but not a clone.

funkaoshi wrote:It's definitely not a retro clone: it's not trying to emulate any of the previous editions of D&D. It's certainly retro in its tone and style, though. (In my mind, rules wise it seems to have more in common with the modern variants of D&D.) Anyway, I wouldn't waste too much time arguing with people on Enworld. Do those sorts of discussions ever go anywhere?

No...no they don't...

But, I agree with a lot of the folks here. DCC RPG is retro in the sense that it is trying to get back to the Sword and Sorcery genre that was popular in the 70s and 80s. But, its a new system with little in common with previous systems.

Typically, the term 'retro clone' was used rather dismissively. I would like to think that a lot of that mentality will disappear as the game gets more popular.

Much closer to Labyrinth Lord. That's what I used to patch holes when we only had the beta, the numbers matched up better. It's got it's own thing going, it's remixing a lot of good systems and ideas, but it's a retroclone insomuch as it's forked off the same branch as all the other OSR systems.