I will probably be starting up a new campaign for my group in the next week or two and I've been trying to decide what system I want to use. I'd love to be able to start running the DCC rpg but apparently that won't be possible for some time now. So the next best thing would be to run something that would be the easiest to convert over when the rules become available. I'm trying to wean them away from 4e and so I've been considering using a retro clone like LL, OSRIC, or S&W Complete. Which of these would be the easiest to convert to DCC rules or is there an even better choice (C&C, microlite d20, 3e, etc.) that I'm overlooking?
Right now from what I've read here, I'm thinking that LL is the way to go seeing how there are supposed to be races as classes like in basic D&D. Speaking of which, what classes and races are supposed to be in the new game?
I's run 3.X without feats or skills. For thief skills, I'd use the option from Unearthed Arcana, where the player made half of his skills Level +3 & the other half 1/2 that value.
Unless somebody wants to give us a preview of them
Magic will have to be different, unless you want to make up the tables.
Yeah, I'm not going to worry about spell tables and crit charts. I'm mainly just concerned with classes and races. I don't want to start a game with someone running a half-elf magic-user/thief or a halfling ranger and then find out later that it would pretty much impossible to convert.
Last edited by mshensley on Thu Jan 20, 2011 9:22 am, edited 1 time in total.
I still own WFRP1 and I have noticed that the DCC game has some sort of career thing going on. I remember something about halfling gypsies for one. The bad thing is that WFRP1 is in no way mechanically similar to a d20 game. No classes, no levels, and everything is a d100 roll under. So I really don't think using it would be a good idea. I do really like WFRP though.
Geoffrey wrote:I would consider running Castles & Crusades with only the following character choices allowed: human clerics, human fighters, human magic-users, human thieves, dwarf fighters, elf fighter/magic-users, halfling fighters
Not a bad idea, Geoffrey.
Since C&C is also 3E-based, it possibly is similar mechanically to what DCC will look like.
We "know" (or think we do) that DCC will be based on the "big four" classes, and when you add "dwarf" (historically fighters) and "elf" (historically fighter/MU) and halfling (historically fighters or thieves) you get a list which is probably similar to the choices we'll get when the game comes out. I'd ponder substituting halfling thief for your halfling fighter option, however.
If anyone has WFRP spell failure tables they could share, that would be neat. I don't have that game, but it does sound like those charts would be a wonderful thing to use for a while.
The OD&D magic item charts might be good for a low-magic game since they "top out" at +3 weapons and the like. Might be a good resource in the short-run.
Any other ideas anyone?
Marv / Finarvyn DCC Minister of Propaganda; Deputized 6/8/11 (over 11 years of SPAM bustin'!)
DCC RPG playtester 2011, DCC Lankhmar trivia contest winner 2015; OD&D player since 1975
"The worthy GM never purposely kills players' PCs, He presents opportunities for the rash and unthinking players to do that all on their own."
-- Gary Gygax
"Don't ask me what you need to hit. Just roll the die and I will let you know!"
-- Dave Arneson
"Misinterpreting the rules is a shared memory for many of us"
-- Joseph Goodman
mshensley wrote:I still own WFRP1 and I have noticed that the DCC game has some sort of career thing going on. I remember something about halfling gypsies for one. The bad thing is that WFRP1 is in no way mechanically similar to a d20 game. No classes, no levels, and everything is a d100 roll under.
The dirty little secret is that WFRP 2 is the D20 system in drag. The percentile system can be converted to D20 in about two seconds. Bonuses acrue in 5% increments, which is equivelant to a +1 on a D20. And the percentile makes it a breeze to calculate your to hit. Just roll the dice, if it's lower than your attack percentage, you hit. The block and parry rules are what makes combat in WFRP annoying. You hit! Except that you didn't.
I'd use the Critical Hits and Fumbles tables from the C&C-based Tombs & Terrors by Simon Washbourne.
Awesome! I bought the PDF of this just the other day. I hadn't had a chance to read much of it, so it's great to hear that there are some critical hits & fumble tables waiting for me there!
By the way, Simon does a great job with his PDF games. I loved "Go Fer Yer Gun" and bought "Tombs & Terrors" mostly on the strength of his other stuff.
Marv / Finarvyn DCC Minister of Propaganda; Deputized 6/8/11 (over 11 years of SPAM bustin'!)
DCC RPG playtester 2011, DCC Lankhmar trivia contest winner 2015; OD&D player since 1975
"The worthy GM never purposely kills players' PCs, He presents opportunities for the rash and unthinking players to do that all on their own."
-- Gary Gygax
"Don't ask me what you need to hit. Just roll the die and I will let you know!"
-- Dave Arneson
"Misinterpreting the rules is a shared memory for many of us"
-- Joseph Goodman
JRR wrote:WFRP 1 or 2. The spell fail tables are similar to what Mr. Goodman has outlined here. And magic is ultra rare. And dangerous.
I think I may have a friend with WFRP, or if not I may hit e-bay to look at the spell fail tables.
Can you tell me the difference between the spell fail tables of 1E and 2E? Is one "better" than the other?
Marv / Finarvyn DCC Minister of Propaganda; Deputized 6/8/11 (over 11 years of SPAM bustin'!)
DCC RPG playtester 2011, DCC Lankhmar trivia contest winner 2015; OD&D player since 1975
"The worthy GM never purposely kills players' PCs, He presents opportunities for the rash and unthinking players to do that all on their own."
-- Gary Gygax
"Don't ask me what you need to hit. Just roll the die and I will let you know!"
-- Dave Arneson
"Misinterpreting the rules is a shared memory for many of us"
-- Joseph Goodman
finarvyn wrote:By the way, Simon does a great job with his PDF games. I loved "Go Fer Yer Gun" and bought "Tombs & Terrors" mostly on the strength of his other stuff.
You should absolutely check out Atomic Highway (if you haven't). Well worth the $$$.
JRR wrote:WFRP 1 or 2. The spell fail tables are similar to what Mr. Goodman has outlined here. And magic is ultra rare. And dangerous.
I think I may have a friend with WFRP, or if not I may hit e-bay to look at the spell fail tables.
Can you tell me the difference between the spell fail tables of 1E and 2E? Is one "better" than the other?
I'm in luck. My son has a copy of WFRP 1E. I looked at the "magical disadvantages" tables (which I assume is the one that JRR was thinking of) and they all seem negative (I didn't see a "magical advantages" table. ) but Joseph's example showed at least one beneficial side-effect.
1. I'd still like to know the differences between 1E and 2E for those tables, just so I know if I should be tracking down the other edition.
2. Anyone want to suggest some potential advantages I could add in?
Marv / Finarvyn DCC Minister of Propaganda; Deputized 6/8/11 (over 11 years of SPAM bustin'!)
DCC RPG playtester 2011, DCC Lankhmar trivia contest winner 2015; OD&D player since 1975
"The worthy GM never purposely kills players' PCs, He presents opportunities for the rash and unthinking players to do that all on their own."
-- Gary Gygax
"Don't ask me what you need to hit. Just roll the die and I will let you know!"
-- Dave Arneson
"Misinterpreting the rules is a shared memory for many of us"
-- Joseph Goodman
JRR wrote:WFRP 1 or 2. The spell fail tables are similar to what Mr. Goodman has outlined here. And magic is ultra rare. And dangerous.
I think I may have a friend with WFRP, or if not I may hit e-bay to look at the spell fail tables.
Can you tell me the difference between the spell fail tables of 1E and 2E? Is one "better" than the other?
I'm in luck. My son has a copy of WFRP 1E. I looked at the "magical disadvantages" tables (which I assume is the one that JRR was thinking of) and they all seem negative (I didn't see a "magical advantages" table. ) but Joseph's example showed at least one beneficial side-effect.
1. I'd still like to know the differences between 1E and 2E for those tables, just so I know if I should be tracking down the other edition.
2. Anyone want to suggest some potential advantages I could add in?
Its been a while seen I've read them, but iirc wfrp2 has the magic mishap charts which sound most like dcc. Every time you cast a spell, you roll for a mishap and it can be from anything from your hair turning white to a major demon appearing and carting you off. I don't remember getting any advantages.
To be honest the closest in feel would be 1st edition Rolemaster used as an AD&D supplement. You can get reprints on RPGNow or at the company website. For AD&D you can use OSRIC. You may be able to merge Rolemaster Arm and Spell Law with 3.X.
While much of the mechanics plays similarly to d20 the specific changes introduction by Joseph Goodman and his team make the game feel far different than any d20 based game I played.
robertsconley wrote:To be honest the closest in feel would be 1st edition Rolemaster used as an AD&D supplement. You can get reprints on RPGNow or at the company website. For AD&D you can use OSRIC. You may be able to merge Rolemaster Arm and Spell Law with 3.X.
Good lord, I hope it's not that complicated.
I tried to create a character in RM once. It was more fun to do my taxes.
finarvyn wrote:
I think I may have a friend with WFRP, or if not I may hit e-bay to look at the spell fail tables.
Can you tell me the difference between the spell fail tables of 1E and 2E? Is one "better" than the other?
I don't have V1 handy, but here's a couple of examples from WFRP 2:
Minor: Unnatural Aura: All animals within 10 yards become spooked and flee the scene.
Major: Daemonic Posession: You are posessed by a daemonic entity for one minute.
Catastrophic: Rageboil: Everyone within 10 yards tries to kill you for 1d10 rounds.
These are some of the more interesting results, but they vary from your hair standing on end to being forever lost in the void.
robertsconley wrote:To be honest the closest in feel would be 1st edition Rolemaster used as an AD&D supplement. You can get reprints on RPGNow or at the company website. For AD&D you can use OSRIC. You may be able to merge Rolemaster Arm and Spell Law with 3.X.
Good lord, I hope it's not that complicated.
I tried to create a character in RM once. It was more fun to do my taxes.
I doubt it will be anywhere near that complex. I have a lot more experience with MERP (which is sort of RM-lite) than I do actual RM, and I agree that RM characters can be pretty exhausting. Everything I've read from Joseph seems to imply that character generation will be much more streamlined and simple.
I think that the RM references mostly refer to the use of critical hits. I have several AD&D players who wax poetic over the critical hit charts from RM and apparently there is a large faction of gamers who simply love 'em, but I just don't have enough RM experience to really comment on specifics.
My sense in general is that the DCC RPG will be simple mechanically but with some complex "extras" stapled on for the fun value. Critical hits and fumbles can be quite amusing.
Marv / Finarvyn DCC Minister of Propaganda; Deputized 6/8/11 (over 11 years of SPAM bustin'!)
DCC RPG playtester 2011, DCC Lankhmar trivia contest winner 2015; OD&D player since 1975
"The worthy GM never purposely kills players' PCs, He presents opportunities for the rash and unthinking players to do that all on their own."
-- Gary Gygax
"Don't ask me what you need to hit. Just roll the die and I will let you know!"
-- Dave Arneson
"Misinterpreting the rules is a shared memory for many of us"
-- Joseph Goodman
mshensley wrote:
I tried to create a character in RM once. It was more fun to do my taxes.
No you use it as a AD&D supplement i.e. as a combat sub-system and possibly spell. It was how Arms Law and Spell Law were originally presented.
The DCC RPG character creation is simple and straightforward much like older editions of D&D and d20 based games. The main differences are in the critical hits and magic system both which uses charts to give variable results. The closest game that emulates that is Rolemaster. Since the original Arms Law was meant to be used as a AD&D supplement hence the reason I mentioned it.
robertsconley wrote:
The DCC RPG character creation is simple and straightforward much like older editions of D&D and d20 based games. The main differences are in the critical hits and magic system both which uses charts to give variable results. The closest game that emulates that is Rolemaster. Since the original Arms Law was meant to be used as a AD&D supplement hence the reason I mentioned it.
Ok, gotcha. Still I hope that the charts in dcc aren't as involved as the ones in RM (or, even worse, the ones in HackMaster- d10,000 anyone?) The one spell chart I've seen looks pretty easy to use. Although it looks like a fair amount of page flipping may be involved for spellcasters. A good add on product would probably be a set of spell cards with a description on one side and its effects chart on the other.
mshensley wrote:A good add on product would probably be a set of spell cards with a description on one side and its effects chart on the other.
Say ... put 'em in the Deluxe Boxed Set we're all hoping for!
Marv / Finarvyn DCC Minister of Propaganda; Deputized 6/8/11 (over 11 years of SPAM bustin'!)
DCC RPG playtester 2011, DCC Lankhmar trivia contest winner 2015; OD&D player since 1975
"The worthy GM never purposely kills players' PCs, He presents opportunities for the rash and unthinking players to do that all on their own."
-- Gary Gygax
"Don't ask me what you need to hit. Just roll the die and I will let you know!"
-- Dave Arneson
"Misinterpreting the rules is a shared memory for many of us"
-- Joseph Goodman
Ok, I've decided on using LL as my base ruleset and I'll be slowly adding in some DCC elements as we go. Hopefully we'll learn more details about the rules as we get closer to the release of the playtest rules and when that finally happens I'll transition the game fully to the new game. First off, I plan on having everyone roll up 3 zero level characters (1d4 hp, hit as normal human) and have them roll a race/profession on a table based on what info I could scavenge from these forums.
As for zero level pcs, I was wondering how the playtests have explained such large groups of pc's? I mean getting 18 guys (who have almost no skill) together to explore a dungeon seems kind of odd. My solution to this is to use the method from the old FR module N5 Under Illefarn- the pc's are in the army. Zero level actually works better for this although I probably do need to provide them with a higher level leader. N5 actually has some rules for using zero level pc's in it even though it has some insanely tough random encounter tables - 1d4 8HD Ceratosaurs, are you kidding me?
So, the plan is to use Daggerford from N5 as the base area for the campaign and for the pc's to stumble across the coolest of the old school dungeons- The Caverns of Thracia.
mshensley wrote: N5 actually has some rules for using zero level pc's in it even though it has some insanely tough random encounter tables - 1d4 8HD Ceratosaurs, are you kidding me?
My random encounter tables always consist of what makes sense for the world, it's not based on the level of the pcs. If there are T rex's in the area, there are T rex', regardless of whether the pcs are level one or twenty.
Marv / Finarvyn DCC Minister of Propaganda; Deputized 6/8/11 (over 11 years of SPAM bustin'!)
DCC RPG playtester 2011, DCC Lankhmar trivia contest winner 2015; OD&D player since 1975
"The worthy GM never purposely kills players' PCs, He presents opportunities for the rash and unthinking players to do that all on their own."
-- Gary Gygax
"Don't ask me what you need to hit. Just roll the die and I will let you know!"
-- Dave Arneson
"Misinterpreting the rules is a shared memory for many of us"
-- Joseph Goodman
and so I've been considering using a retro clone like LL, OSRIC, or S&W Complete. Which of these would be the easiest to convert to DCC rules or is there an even better choice (C&C, microlite d20, 3e, etc.) that I'm overlooking? 
) but Joseph's example showed at least one beneficial side-effect.
