Quote from: Joethelawyer;462959Maybe I should have said bad cartoonish?

You obviously have poor taste, whereas we have awesome ones.

Quote from: Benoist;462963You obviously have poor taste, whereas we have awesome ones.

that wouldnt be the first time i've heard that...this week even  

I like the art. There is such a thing as an old school style, and there are such things as good old school art, and bad old school art. And I do like the art presented in the DCC beta.

The "character funnel" looks fun, I'd love to try it, but I don't see the problem with rolling a 1st-level PC, or rolling 4d6-drop-lowest and arranging to taste, etc. I'm not impressed by the "do it exactly RAW or you're doing it wrong".

Speaking of which, to me it's crystal-clear that the heavy-handed authorial voice is a deliberate imitation of the "High Gygaxian" style characteristic of AD&D 1e. Bad idea, Goodman. I'm not sure whether this is a sincere tribute, or caricature, and I don't know which would be worse.

I am also ambivalent about Mighty Deeds of Valor. Like thief abilities, I feel special maneuvers, tactics and stunts in combat should be every character's prerogative, with one class (Fighter for combat stunts, Thief for thieving abilities) doing these things better than others.

I don't care either way about the Zocchi dice. I don't have them, but they look easy enough to simulate with different dice.

Generally speaking, though, I really enjoyed reading the beta. I really loved their takes on the Cleric, Wizard and demihuman classes. I love the result charts for each spell. I like their orcs:

Quote from: DCC Beta p. 155Orcs are brutish humanoids created in magical cauldrons by a long-dead wizard. They are a product of dark sorceries and sutured body parts. Once commanded by a great general, orcs now wander the wilderness in small bands, raiding and squabbling, never settling. They have piggish faces with tusked mouths and green or grey skin.

Looks like a clever and fun game, and I'd love to give it a try, if and when I have the chance.

The idea of starting at level 0 actually seems more 'epic fantasy' than 'sword and sorcery' to me.

For example compare Luke Skywalker and Bilbo and Frodo Baggins on the one hand, to Conan, Fafhrd & the Gray Mouser and Elric on the other.

I also think "you start at level 0 with minus 100 XP" could sound like it's encouraging abusive DMing. It would have been better to call your starting point level 1, and 0 XP. I get that they do it to show that you're starting from an earlier point than in other games, but still.

I like the idea though.

Quote from: Joethelawyer;462953No one really likes reliability in their spellcasters anyhow.

Arguably, unreliable spellcasting is more like fiction. That seems to have been the intention anyway.

Quote from: Joethelawyer;462953Ask  yourself this:  Is the game just overall neat on some indescribable  level?  Reminding you of good times in the past?  Will you just be  stealing stuff from it?  Using it as inspiration? Or will you actually  play the thing?

I suspect most people will take ideas to use in their existing games. That's what I intend to do. But I don't agree that this counts as 'not playing it'.

Quote from: The Butcher;462971I am also ambivalent about Mighty Deeds of Valor. Like thief abilities, I feel special maneuvers, tactics and stunts in combat should be every character's prerogative, with one class (Fighter for combat stunts, Thief for thieving abilities) doing these things better than others.

+1. I agree with that as well, actually. I don't know how I'd houserule this away either, since the deed rules work off the bonus +d3-d7 fighter die that only fighters get to roll.

Not sure about the cleric's penalties for healing those of different alignments, either. I imagine the full cleric rules will have more alignment-specific stuff that might balance this, but as written the Neutral cleric just gets better healing than anyone else.

Quote from: Age of Fable;462977The idea of starting at level 0 actually seems more 'epic fantasy' than 'sword and sorcery' to me.

For example compare Luke Skywalker and Bilbo and Frodo Baggins on the one hand, to Conan, Fafhrd & the Gray Mouser and Elric on the other.

Epic fantasy where Frodo and Sam die when Father Willow sucks their brains out, and they are replaced by Bromwine the Hobbit and Sam's Cousin. Then Merry and Pippin steal a cache of magic items from Tom Bombadil, and so decked out, breeze through the wilderness to Bree. There, Sam's Cousin and Bromwine are killed in an ambush where lowlives try to get at the magic items, and they are saved by a mysterious man named Strider, who is added to the party. Sam III joins a bit later. They set off towards Rivendell at a leisurely pace.

Mind you, I would play that game.

Quote from: Joethelawyer;462953Ask  yourself---is the artwork good in its own right?  Or is it good because  it just reminds you of happier more carefree days of playing  DnD all weekend with your friends in the 80's?

Nice line of reasoning. Why don't you come to Japan and ask people if rice and miso soup is good in its own right, or if they just eat that stuff because they were spoon-fed it when they were kids and it reminds them of happier days...?

I can see the charm in the randomization of the characters, but it seems to me, that the demi-humans really get the worst deal. If you are a roll a human occupation and survive to level one, you can pick the class that fit the stats of the character best. If you roll a demi-human occupation, you are forced into the demi-human class, no matter what your stats say, and end up with a really whimpy dwarf or an elf with bad spellcasting abilities.

Yes, this of course more fun-with-randomness, but it will end up making the demi-humans suckier than their human counterparts most of the time and seem a bit dodgy, and stupid, to me.

... when I first thought of this, without checking the rules, I imagined the 0-level characters "coming out" as Halflings/elves/dwarfs when reaching level  1... "yes, you know me as Harvey the Ditch Digger, who fought side-by-side with you in the dungeon of the Kobolds, but all along I was actually... a Halfling!"

Quote from: Windjammer;462932Just a quick reply to those wondering why the game starts off with 0 level characters (no idea where the idea with having 4 of them comes in). It seems to be a nod to one of the best loved DCC adventures in the 3E era:...

This goes back WAY further than 3E! There was a goofy ass rule in Unearthed Arcana that had Cavaliers starting at 0 level (-1 level really) and there was a 1E module that started characters at 0 level called Treasure Hunt that was the obvious 'inspiration' for the Goodman one.

Here is a great demonstration about why forums will continue to be superior to this "blogosphere" bullshit. Seriously, the fuck?! :duh:

EXCELLENT review/critique of the DCC Beta rules:

http://www.rpggeek.com/thread/662022/not-really-very-impressed-and-heres-why

excellent except for the minor bit about  "this is based upon a two readings of the beta DCC rules and no game play as of yet."

also don't care for the "it's not what Gary would have done.." bit.

Quote from: The_Shadow;462991Nice line of reasoning.

And probably pretty accurate. I can't imagine someone who has never seen a red box or first edition book seeing much of the DCC art as anything particularly good or special. The DCC is nostalgia product - that it's art is and is meant to call up nostalgic feelings isn't strange or out of place.

Myself, I looked through the PDF and I'm sure I'm passing on this one. I thought I might, but special dice, loads of characters, complicated magic...meh. I have many copies of the boxed sets of my youth in my basement.

Seanchai