Dungeon Crawl Classics: more 0-level funnels

Nihilistic Mind · June 19, 2017, 03:15:48 PM

I purchased a copy of the book on Saturday, ran a game on Sunday (the one out of the book for 0-level adventurers).
My family and I had a lot of fun with it and I'm looking for more 0-level funnel adventures.
We especially enjoyed the fact that the rooms were deadly, had deadly puzzles or traps that could be avoided through being clever rather than brutal luck.
Any recommendations?

Bonus points if you can link to an adventure available online, and if it's available for free, even better

Otherwise, advice on creating my own, what makes a good 0-level funnel adventure, etc, is greatly appreciated!

Headless · June 19, 2017, 03:21:20 PM

I am unfamiliar with the system. What is a 0 level funnel

Just Another Snake Cult · June 19, 2017, 04:28:50 PM

In DCC you generate 4-8 "Zero Level" illiterate peasant shit-shovelers with 1d4 HP. They then go through a meat-grinder adventure, and out of the poor slobs who survive you pick one to graduate to first level and get a real character class to become your character.

It's a fucking blast. Seriously.

I played the "Sailors on a Starless Sea" one. We fought a bunch of Warhammer-ish beastmen. It was groovy.

darthfozzywig · June 19, 2017, 05:51:27 PM

That sounds fun.

Dumarest · June 19, 2017, 06:01:40 PM

Sounds like fun but I don't know what DCC means. Unless it's Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders. Which would be an interesting setting for an RPG.

Edit: Duh. Missed the thread title. Color me embarrassed.

Larsdangly · June 19, 2017, 06:56:01 PM

The 0-level funnel idea is brilliant because it provides you with a light hearted encouragement to play a roleplaying game in a way that is actually fun. Games that are not actually dangerous to the player characters are just boring. And the way you know something dangerous and exciting is happening is that one or two or eight PC's get butchered. This is essential to what makes lots of old games fun - Boot Hill, original Gamma World, early D&D played without training wheels, etc. DCC's designers are just re-introducing the world to how fun it is to play with something at stake.

Psikerlord · June 19, 2017, 07:02:23 PM

You can use pretty much any 1st level adventure for a funnel, just triple the number of monsters and sprinkle in a few extra traps. The real funnel magic is that players have 4-5 PCs and it's expected that most will die, so you just need enough monsters (or higher level ones) to make that happen.

Dumarest · June 19, 2017, 07:02:33 PM

If no PCs get butchered as a result of poor decisions, I'm not interested!

WanderingMonster · June 19, 2017, 07:29:16 PM

As far as free 0-level funnels available online as pdfs are concerned, look for Tomb of the Ghast Queen
http://rpgknights.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Tomb-of-the-Ghast-Queen-DCC.pdf

The Hypercube of Myt
http://www.goodman-games.com/downloads/DCCRC1-%20The%20Hypercube%20of%20Myt.pdf

Death by Nexus
http://www.goodman-games.com/downloads/RC2_Death_by_Nexus.pdf

There are also a number of decent-to-good adventures (funnels and otherwise) available on DriveThruRpg for dirt cheap. Scroll down this list and you'll find several available for a few bucks at most. "Prince Charming, Reanimator" is available in a "pay what you want" format and it's pretty weird and fun.
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/browse.php?keywords=dungeon+crawl+classics&author=&artist=&pfrom=&pto=&x=0&y=0

Madprofessor · June 21, 2017, 10:50:50 AM

I'd like to find some more funnels as well. They are great for a one-off or even to start a campaign, and a nice change of pace. The dark humor of watching characters die through a combination of bad luck, grizzly traps, and incompetence is hilarious. It's sort of D&D meets Paranoia. I rate "Sailors on the Starless Sea" as one of my top 5 published adventures of all time.

Larsdangly · June 21, 2017, 12:21:26 PM

You could just play 1st level characters in any pre-3E edition of D+D; played BtB it is basically a funnel. Unless the DM is a total wus.

Dumarest · June 21, 2017, 12:35:24 PM

Quote from: Madprofessor;970331The dark humor of watching characters die through a combination of bad luck, grizzly traps, and incompetence is hilarious.

This is one of the great pleasures of being the GM. I've heard cautionary tales about players who are very precious about the PCs they've arduously crafted and created 20-page backstories for (at 1st level) who then fall face-first into a spiked pit, but fortunately I only play with people who can laugh at what predicaments they've gotten themselves into.

RPGPundit · June 23, 2017, 05:28:19 PM

I sometimes get the feeling that 90% of DCC gamers never do anything other than 0-level games, which I think is a stupid waste of such a great system.

Technically, I've only ever run ONE 'funnel', which was the very first adventure of my DCC campaign. Since then, that game has been going for like 4 years now, and new characters just jump in the deep end to try to survive whatever the party is going through.

Edgewise · June 23, 2017, 11:44:28 PM

Quote from: RPGPundit;971032I sometimes get the feeling that 90% of DCC gamers never do anything other than 0-level games, which I think is a stupid waste of such a great system.

It's true, but it's partly because DCC adventures can be pretty lethal. At least that's true for the way most of the Goodman ones are written. Of course, in the end it ultimately depends on the GM and players. The Funnel is great, but what brings me back to DCC are the classes, the magic, and the tables.

But as to the OP, I've had a great time with The Hole In The Sky. I even reviewed it on this site...here.

daniel_ream · June 24, 2017, 12:24:19 AM

Quote from: Larsdangly;969978DCC's designers are just re-introducing the world to how fun it is to play with something at stake.

Except nothing's actually at stake. Those 0-level NPC's aren't real, and nothing that happens to them really matters. They're indistinguishable, so it doesn't even matter which of them survives to the end to be promoted to 1st level. You could treat the entire group of them as one character with 3 "extra lives", video game style, and it wouldn't make the slightest difference.

The funnel's fun, and it's a great tutorial for new players, but let's not pretend that a bunch of arbitrary numbers and random die rolls constitute "something at stake".