(Repost from March 22, 2018; text is all new — I’ve changed my tune on DCC entirely since then) DCC is a mix of ’74 D&D, Moldvay Basic Rule and a picked apart 3E D&D, with some other novel things thrown in. Goodman’s primary inspiration is Appendix N from Gygax’s Dungeon Masters Guide, a suggested reading list. Goodman makes the case that DCC aims to be a pre-RPG RPG, a return to an era of fantasy without preconceived notions, before the very RPGs we play cemented tropes and clichés, where possibilities are endless. 

The game’s primary design choice is to embrace randomness. It starts with the character funnel. Instead of one character, you roll up a handful of 0-level characters, trusting the dice to make something that functions, taking every result, even if it doesn’t make sense. Then you march them, along with everyone else’s bakers and stable boys, into a dungeon to mostly get murdered. Your last character standing is the one you play going forward. Randomness also makes the magic system interesting and extremely dangerous — each spell has its own random table filled with various potential outcomes, many of them very, very bad. Most of the book is given over to magic, which also includes rules for burning off ability points to power spells, supernatural patrons and a lovely system for magical corruption. 

All of this fosters an over the top, gonzo tone. And it is vibrant as hell. Born in a time when the OSR was defined by retroclones, DCC represented a new direction. It still does, and as the game has grown, it became one of the first to expand and redefine what “OSR” could be. A lot of weird indie RPG stuff that’s come out since owes DCC for taking the first steps. 

Then there is the art. My goodness. Such joy bellowing out of the pages of this book, all of it in the old style. Much of it is by classic old school artists, and it is nice seeing them! But the stuff I really love is by Doug Kovacs and his merry band of current generation artists, folks whose work seems both old and new. That’s a space that DCC is very comfortable existing in.