DCCRPG Playtest at GenghisCon 2011

[Geoffrey]

FWIW, I like the idea of higher-level magic-users NOT getting more control of their spells. Instead of more control, they simply get more raw power.

[mntnjeff]

* And finally, on his fifth casting, after I had warned him that his demonic patron was growing weary with his constant requests for aid and he could only cast this spell once more today, he rolled a 1 on his spell check. Spell failure! His roll for the specific result of spell failure: natural 20 - highest (worst) result on the table! The result was epic, and classic: a demon (in this case, Bobugbubilz) claimed his soul. He took 3d6 damage, a -2 penalty to all ability scores, and a -2 penalty to Luck. A gigantic devil-toad mouth burst forth from the earth, grabbed his character, and dragged it down to Hell where his soul was claimed.

Patron invocation is powerful...but don't go too far...and don't roll a "1"!

Keep in mind these 5 results were all from casting the same spell (with spellburn aid, as is common in one-shots of this game).

Uh...wow.

So is this a "school" of invocation that a mage chooses at the beginning? Or can they call upon a diety at any given time?

And not to be persnickety, but why would you deal 3d6 damage, -2 to all ability scores, including Luck, and THEN drag them to Hell? Hell's not bad enough?

An observation: While this stuff is fun to play and hear about in the format of short one-shots, does anyone here have doubts about the life expectancy of spell slingers in a longer campaign setting? I'm curious if anyone thinks (or has experienced) that a spell slinger has a slim chance in hell of making even medium levels.

[mshensley]

And not to be persnickety, but why would you deal 3d6 damage, -2 to all ability scores, including Luck, and THEN drag them to Hell? Hell's not bad enough?

An observation: While this stuff is fun to play and hear about in the format of short one-shots, does anyone here have doubts about the life expectancy of spell slingers in a longer campaign setting? I'm curious if anyone thinks (or has experienced) that a spell slinger has a slim chance in hell of making even medium levels.

Lol... I believe that kodt had a comic where the damage from something was instant death + 1d6. That stuff sounds awesome!

Actually this sounds a lot like how magic works in wfrp 2e. Magic is dangerous and isn't used lightly. I ran a one shot game once where the mage gained an insanity from using his magic too much and he didn't even make bad rolls.

[smathis]

An observation: While this stuff is fun to play and hear about in the format of short one-shots, does anyone here have doubts about the life expectancy of spell slingers in a longer campaign setting? I'm curious if anyone thinks (or has experienced) that a spell slinger has a slim chance in hell of making even medium levels.

So now we finally find out why Gandalf carried a sword and cast Light like it was something "special". Ha. He was in it for the long haul...

"Dude! You're a Wizard! Can't you do Fireball or something?!"

"Fireball! Pshaw! What crude barbaric magic! Have a look at this... Prestidigitation!"

Yeah, that guy gets to be the Raistlin of the setting. Lol.

And please don't mistake my amusement for disapproval. I love this. Perfect!

[Black Dougal]

As the mage who took out his party with color spray, I agree. The suggestion I had is to allow you to choose lesser effects within a range of your roll equal to your caster level minus the spell level. Taking color spray as an example, if the spell(level 1) has 8 ranks of magnitude and as a level 3 wizard you roll to get the the 6th rank then you would get to choose from ranks 4-6. I think this would be a simple model for spell mastery. When you are first able to learn spells of a certain level they can be unpredictable. As you gain experience they are easier to control.

Trust me, I can sympathize with the spell check results that take out parties...I have seen similar results.

Tavis Allison ran a game where a wizard cast Ward Portal and got the result where the portal is not only held shut, but it actually VANISHES. Unfortunately the wizard had cast it on a door that was the only escape route, and the duration of the spell result exceeded the party's food supply...

Noted that the variability can create problems sometimes. Part of me likes it, part of me acknowledges there are situations where some resolution may be needed, part of me takes the Gygaxian Tomb of Horrors approach of, "Well, sometimes your characters simply die..."

I really like it that magic is dangerous and deadly. It is the perfect counter to the "caster dominance" problem from 3.x and Pathfinder. That, however, is only a beneficial side effect. I find the magic system to be really fun. You could make quite an adventure out of spell research. Think about what it would take to create a new spell.

[SgtPepper76]

I really like it that magic is dangerous and deadly. It is the perfect counter to the "caster dominance" problem from 3.x and Pathfinder. That, however, is only a beneficial side effect. I find the magic system to be really fun. You could make quite an adventure out of spell research. Think about what it would take to create a new spell.

I think the most difficult part is balancing the awesomeness and needed balance of dangerous/deadly magic with making the deleterious effects happen just enough to be a fair risk yet not impact the party to the point that anytime the wizard starts waving his hands around the first swordpoint pressed to his neck is from a fellow party member who is tired of being blown up by the wizard's careless actions. Based on what we saw in our playtest though, it sounds like most times the "misfires" just effect the caster themselves. What happened to the Elf, he grew six inches one time and devil horns the next?

The way it worked out during the playtest seemed to be a perfect blend. There were enough successful casts to showcase a caster's power and enough "mistakes" to illustrate that if you're going to play with fire, you're going to end up burned, or at least with scorched fingertips. Will that happen everytime? Of course not, it's up to the randomness of the die.

[Black Dougal]

I really like it that magic is dangerous and deadly. It is the perfect counter to the "caster dominance" problem from 3.x and Pathfinder. That, however, is only a beneficial side effect. I find the magic system to be really fun. You could make quite an adventure out of spell research. Think about what it would take to create a new spell.

I think the most difficult part is balancing the awesomeness and needed balance of dangerous/deadly magic with making the deleterious effects happen just enough to be a fair risk yet not impact the party to the point that anytime the wizard starts waving his hands around the first swordpoint pressed to his neck is from a fellow party member who is tired of being blown up by the wizard's careless actions. Based on what we saw in our playtest though, it sounds like most times the "misfires" just effect the caster themselves. What happened to the Elf, he grew six inches one time and devil horns the next?

The way it worked out during the playtest seemed to be a perfect blend. There were enough successful casts to showcase a caster's power and enough "mistakes" to illustrate that if you're going to play with fire, you're going to end up burned, or at least with scorched fingertips. Will that happen everytime? Of course not, it's up to the randomness of the die.

Agreed. I wouldn't want to see a party devolve into infighting because the mage had too many mishaps. One of the worst thing I could imagine is the caster causing the death of a party member due to a spell misfiring on a bad roll.

Using the playtest as a metric, it feels like the magic system is working well. It may need a few more tweaks, but I like it so far.

[mshensley]

Agreed. I wouldn't want to see a party devolve into infighting because the mage had too many mishaps. One of the worst thing I could imagine is the caster causing the death of a party member due to a spell misfiring on a bad roll.

C'mon, party infighting makes for the most memorable sessions.

It happens pretty much no matter what game you're playing. A couple of weeks ago, my 4e dwarf slayer got hit by the effect of an attack by the ranger behind him. I promptly turned around and dropped his character to zero. Oops, I thought he was an enemy attacking me. My bad...

[Black Dougal]

Agreed. I wouldn't want to see a party devolve into infighting because the mage had too many mishaps. One of the worst thing I could imagine is the caster causing the death of a party member due to a spell misfiring on a bad roll.

C'mon, party infighting makes for the most memorable sessions.

It happens pretty much no matter what game you're playing. A couple of weeks ago, my 4e dwarf slayer got hit by the effect of an attack by the ranger behind him. I promptly turned around and dropped his character to zero. Oops, I thought he was an enemy attacking me. My bad...

I have been roleplaying long enough to know that, yes, party infighting is going to happen. I just don't want it to happen based on one class of character being seen as defective or too dangerous to have in an adventuring party. No one would play a wizard if they knew that at any moment the rest of the party might turn on them just because they flubbed too many spells and injured the party. That is a situation which I think could cause problems outside of the game.

I like the fact that most of the spell misfires which I have seen affect the caster alone, not the whole party. I am sure that there will be some misfires which do AoE damage. I just think that AoE misfires should be the exception not the rule.

[Fullerton]

I just don't want it to happen based on one class of character being seen as defective or too dangerous to have in an adventuring party. No one would play a wizard if they knew that at any moment the rest of the party might turn on them just because they flubbed too many spells and injured the party.

But isn't that part of the allure? To me it is.

That is, I think there's some intent that people will *want* a wizard in the party *because* it's dangerous to have in the party. Compared to other fantasy rpgs, DCC RPG seems to foster a somewhat tragic feel, and that's part of the allure (to me, anyway). If that means the party turns on my wizard, or my PC gets accidentally killed by party wizard, all the better! I will play this game because I *want* to be part of the occasional train wreck, and I think that's part (but certainly not all) of the intent.

I like the fact that, unlike many other versions of D&D, this game leans more toward an experience of "oh wow that was an awesome experience, with fantastic & bloody consequences that none of us could have anticipated!" and less toward the experience of "we've steadily rose to 10th level, we're continuing to steadily rise to 20th, and we should be there in another 20 sessions."

[geordie racer]

I agree with Fullerton, it's not about 'career' dungeoneers, more about the unpredictable, so I have no problem with high stakes spell use - after all, you could roll a Critical Success and save the day for the party. Just don't rely on using your favourite spell all the time (which is what spoils low-level OD&D spell use for me).

keep magic dangerous !

[mntnjeff]

I like the fact that, unlike many other versions of D&D, this game leans more toward an experience of "oh wow that was an awesome experience, with fantastic & bloody consequences that none of us could have anticipated!" and less toward the experience of "we've steadily rose to 10th level, we're continuing to steadily rise to 20th, and we should be there in another 20 sessions."

Agreed... The more I think about it the more I see this as an opportunity to take part in a cool story that we're all "helping" to write, but no one, including the DM, really knows where that train is headed. Which does make it exciting.

One of the coolest "endings" to what we traditionally call "fests" is one that was run in the Dark Sun setting, which is pretty bleak overall. Turned out that the party succeeded, but not one character survived to tell of it. At the end we all sat there, looked at one another and said "Cool!". Even the DM wasn't expecting that ending. But the tragedy of the TPK seemed to fit right in w/ the setting. Perfectly.

So yeah, those in-game, dice-driven occurrences certainly do add to the drama and overall story. Good call Fullerton.

[Black Dougal]

I agree with Fullerton, it's not about 'career' dungeoneers, more about the unpredictable, so I have no problem with high stakes spell use - after all, you could roll a Critical Success and save the day for the party. Just don't rely on using your favourite spell all the time (which is what spoils low-level OD&D spell use for me).

keep magic dangerous !

I agree with you and Fullerton that magic should be dangerous, deadly, and unpredictable. I don't get a tragic feel from it, by the way, just gritty and dangerous.

I am not arguing against high stakes magic. I believe that most of the risk should be assumed by the caster, not the entire party. 8 times out of 10 a spell misfire should impact only the caster. There should be the possibility of harm to the entire party, but not on every spell misfire.

Another way to say it is that I like the current mechanic. From the little that I have seen it is just deadly enough in that most of the misfire effects happen to the caster with the occasional full party effect.

[Black Dougal]

I like the fact that, unlike many other versions of D&D, this game leans more toward an experience of "oh wow that was an awesome experience, with fantastic & bloody consequences that none of us could have anticipated!" and less toward the experience of "we've steadily rose to 10th level, we're continuing to steadily rise to 20th, and we should be there in another 20 sessions."

Agreed... The more I think about it the more I see this as an opportunity to take part in a cool story that we're all "helping" to write, but no one, including the DM, really knows where that train is headed. Which does make it exciting.

One of the coolest "endings" to what we traditionally call "fests" is one that was run in the Dark Sun setting, which is pretty bleak overall. Turned out that the party succeeded, but not one character survived to tell of it. At the end we all sat there, looked at one another and said "Cool!". Even the DM wasn't expecting that ending. But the tragedy of the TPK seemed to fit right in w/ the setting. Perfectly.

So yeah, those in-game, dice-driven occurrences certainly do add to the drama and overall story. Good call Fullerton.

Agreed. I just think that making spell misfires impact the entire party could easily change the dynamic from "Oh wow that was an awesome experience" to "*&^*% &^%&^$$# The stupid #$*&ing wizard killed the entire party again!" There has to be a balance. So far the balance is good, in my opinion.

[mshensley]

Agreed. I just think that making spell misfires impact the entire party could easily change the dynamic from "Oh wow that was an awesome experience" to "*&^*% &^%&^$$# The stupid #$*&ing wizard killed the entire party again!" There has to be a balance. So far the balance is good, in my opinion.

Now you know why they burn witches.

[Harley Stroh]

Agreed. I just think that making spell misfires impact the entire party could easily change the dynamic from "Oh wow that was an awesome experience" to "*&^*% &^%&^$$# The stupid #$*&ing wizard killed the entire party again!" There has to be a balance. So far the balance is good, in my opinion.

Now you know why they burn witches.

I laughed out loud at that.

//H

[goodmangames]

Agreed. I just think that making spell misfires impact the entire party could easily change the dynamic from "Oh wow that was an awesome experience" to "*&^*% &^%&^$$# The stupid #$*&ing wizard killed the entire party again!" There has to be a balance. So far the balance is good, in my opinion.

Now you know why they burn witches.

I laughed out loud at that.

//H

So did I.

To answer the question on "long-term effects of playing a wizard": that's exactly why I am running a long-term home game in addition to the con playtests! So far the dynamic in a long-term game is very different. The wizard players seem to be more cautious. They definitely use spellburn less often -- I think it's been used once or twice in three sessions, compared to multiple time per session in every one-shot I run.

[mntnjeff]

To answer the question on "long-term effects of playing a wizard": that's exactly why I am running a long-term home game in addition to the con playtests! So far the dynamic in a long-term game is very different. The wizard players seem to be more cautious. They definitely use spellburn less often -- I think it's been used once or twice in three sessions, compared to multiple time per session in every one-shot I run.

Interesting...and predictable I suppose.

So this mechanic that we used in the Denver game (Harley mentioned it was fairly new); Mage-types regaining a lost spell if they burn a point from a physical attribute, is this used in your home game? I could certainly see that being utilized a ton more than burning a point to increase the spell check. If I'm playing a mage and have recently run out of spells due to poor rolls (1-11?), and am still in the thick of things, I'd certainly be willing to burn a point or two in order to regain a spell if the situation calls for it. The trade off is definitely more beneficial in this situation than the other. (burning to increase a check)

Another interesting thing that I found when playing the elf was that the armor absolutely DID make a huge difference when casting. The -4 or -5 (can't remember the exact number) was a big deal when shooting for numbers greater than 11. Now of course, w/ 7 HP and no armor spell, I wasn't about to give it up. But I certainly know I missed a few rolls (and therefore lost the spell) due to the penalty.

Oh, and speaking of armor (I see there's a discussion brewing regarding DR v. AC), I didn't get a close enough look at the cleric, how does armor affect their spell casting abilities? The same way it did the Elf?

[goodmangames]

So this mechanic that we used in the Denver game (Harley mentioned it was fairly new); Mage-types regaining a lost spell if they burn a point from a physical attribute, is this used in your home game? I could certainly see that being utilized a ton more than burning a point to increase the spell check. If I'm playing a mage and have recently run out of spells due to poor rolls (1-11?), and am still in the thick of things, I'd certainly be willing to burn a point or two in order to regain a spell if the situation calls for it. The trade off is definitely more beneficial in this situation than the other. (burning to increase a check)

Yes indeed. In my home game yesterday the magic user had a good run on magic missile before she blew a spell check and lost it for the day. So on the next check she burned a point of Agility to cast it again. Unfortunately the roll came up a 2 so it didn't help!

Oh, and speaking of armor (I see there's a discussion brewing regarding DR v. AC), I didn't get a close enough look at the cleric, how does armor affect their spell casting abilities? The same way it did the Elf?

Spellcasting by mages and elves is affected by armor; cleric spellcasting is not. Clerics get their magic from their gods, where wizards have to contort their bodies and utter strange syllables in exactly the right intonation...

[Hamakto]

So did I.

To answer the question on "long-term effects of playing a wizard": that's exactly why I am running a long-term home game in addition to the con playtests! So far the dynamic in a long-term game is very different. The wizard players seem to be more cautious. They definitely use spellburn less often -- I think it's been used once or twice in three sessions, compared to multiple time per session in every one-shot I run.

I have no problem with Magic being exotic or even a bit dangerous. But if it is too weird, I am not sure that will have a great deal of support in a long term campaign... unless they could fall back on the sword (not fall on the sword) as a viable character option.

For short campaigns, turning colors on a failed random roll is interesting. But in a long campaign over years, will a character lose identity with him if he keeps getting warped by spell use? It is tough to identify with character if you keep shaking your head over how he morphed. Yes, it can be an RP challenge, but sometimes you want to get away from RL headaches and play something in a positive direction.

1e spell casters were somewhat balanced because of the longer casting times on the spells. It was much easier to disrupt them in combat with multiple opponents. If we get back to more disrupt-able spells or more short term side effects, it would probably make it more long term healthy for more players.

I know that the goal of the DCC RPG is to make appendix N a reality AND that the target audience is Joesph Goodman. But even with that in mind, it would be nice if GG could sell this to more people than are on this website. Too much chaos in spell casting is not good. To little (i.e. 3e/4e) is just as bad.

[Harley Stroh]

Stare into the Abyss and the Abyss will stare into you. You can't play with the dark arts and expect to remain unchanged.

Cautious spellcasters can reduce their exposure, somewhat. But true masters of the arcane give up everything for power, including themselves.

[cue melodramatic thunder]

The rest of us become warriors and thieves.

//H

[GnomeBoy]

...The rest of us become warriors and thieves.

Or fodder for strange, cyclopean, tentacled behemoths at the bottom of craggy, fog-shrouded canyons...

[Ogrepuppy]

Or fodder for strange, cyclopean, tentacled behemoths at the bottom of craggy, fog-shrouded canyons...

So you've met my in-laws?

[DCCfan]

Or fodder for strange, cyclopean, tentacled behemoths at the bottom of craggy, fog-shrouded canyons...

So you've met my in-laws?

Yikes!