YouTube: The Best Solo RPG Experience? (DCC)

This is a fun video that I just stumbled upon. A solo playthrough of DC from Legends & Dice Cafe. The video has this rough-cut charm with pauses, delays, random comments, laughs, and a raw, unedited format that is just like being in the room with someone.

"The art in here is super sick. I enjoy it a great deal." - video, 16:50

It's a lot of fun to listen to in the background, and it's also a positive, refreshing experience of listening to someone learn and play DCC solo. Even filling out the character sheets by hand is fun to listen to. Please like and subscribe! I'm always on the lookout for under-the-radar videos that offer a more positive perspective on the hobby than the constant Wizards drama we see on D&D YouTube.

The highlighting in that book drives me crazy! To each their own, your books are yours to do what you want with, and I love it.

We need more of this positive, fun content in our hobby.

Making the Most of the OSE Advanced Fighter, part 2

So, the OSE fighter class is still not doing it for you, even after the optimizations in article one of this series? Well, let's keep looking for some more official inspirations and options published in the official 'zine publications, in this case, Carcass Crawler Issue One.

In this issue, we get the gargantuan player race (CC1, p21), and when used as a stand-alone character option, can level to 10th level as a fighter. This race can also wield two-handed weapons with one hand, using the OSE "attacking with two weapons" rule (OSEAFP, p236), for a -2 on the primary weapon and a -4 on the secondary, and two attacks a turn total.

Combine that with the high strength to-hit modifiers of the gargantuan, the high damage of two-handed weapons, weapon proficiencies (OSEAFP, p23), and you will have a beast of a half-giant character who is a literal wrecking machine in combat, even at level one. This is one of the most potent melee builds in the game, and you do not need to mod the game to have it with official rules sources.

There are other races here that make for some excellent fighter options, such as the goblin getting a +2 AC versus large creatures (CC1, p22), making them an excellent choice as a defensive "nut" versus dragons and other large beasties, especially in plate mail with a shield. The goblin can get to 8th level as a fighter, which is good given the scope of most campaigns.

The infravision and detection options of goblins are also convenient, along with a high CON-based resistance save modifier. With a CON of 15-17, they get a +4 to all saving throws versus poison, spells, and magic wands, rods, and staves (CC1, p22)! That is a crazy good saving throw modifier, one of the best in the game. Do not sleep on a goblin fighter; they can be lethal and highly survivable.

We have rules for black-power weapons in this issue, too, perfect for high-seas swashbuckler and pirate-themed games, along with early colonial horror gaming settings, like Lamentations of the Flame Princess. OSE has you covered if you want to use this system with Renaissance and Colonial-Era gaming.

We have something for any type of fighter, too, even our brute or any other fighter in the game! We get Combat Talents (CC1, p28), which give our fighters new abilities at level 1, 5, and 10! We can select cleave, which provides us with a Swords & Wizardry-style ability to strike a second opponent when one is defeated. There are leadership, defensive, two-weapon, and other options here that beef up our fighter and make them feel like other old-school games in the OSR genre.

We have some great thief options here, too, but I may make a series devoted to thieves and making the most of those. We're focusing on fighters in this series.

The fighter in OSE was one of the weakest points in the game, with the base class feeling so basic and lacking options and abilities. I was so wrong about this! Even in the core rulebook, there are optimization options that can make you stand out as the party's front-line warrior. With this 'zine, the options get even better, and what was once a simple class has new races to add to the mix, along with selectable talents to give our fighters that extra flair they need to stand out in a crowd ...or a party of adventurers.

Highly recommended, and this makes an optimized build from the core rulebooks even better, and it gives players some of that customizability we have in other games like 5E, back to the player. It lets them specialize and tweak their builds to their playstyle.

Shipped: Ashes Without Number

I have the Ashes Without Number PDFs, and wow, what a fantastic game. This is also up on DriveThruRPG now, so you can order, too. The books are on their way from Kickstarter.

I love old-school gaming; everything works so well together, and you can focus on playing and having fun. There isn't any drama here, and we can all have fun and focus on our stories, characters, and worlds.

And the games are simple, allowing you to focus on fun instead of the complex action types, rules, death saves, multiclass combos, and the next player trying to break the game rules. The games here are fun, easy, and drama-free.

And in this case, completely amazing.

Comic Crawl Classics

I like Comic Crawl Classics. 

This game doubles as a pretty handy generic universal system using the DCC rules, if you ignore the superpowers and just use the "power dice" to increase ability scores, weapon skills, or general skills. You can use this for modern-day, science fiction, or even non-powered fantasy settings pretty easily.

This is also a pretty fun DCC compatible game as well, where you can run superheroes through DCC adventures. One "hero class" does it all, and you do not need character archetypes.

This lacks vehicle combat and rules, so that is one weakness. The equipment and armor is also pretty generic, but it is really all you need. The powers are rated on effects, ranges, and damages - so a lot is left to common sense and judgment calls. This is pretty standard for DCC, since there is no need for a science and physics based simulation for these types of things.

The power level goes up to 14d6 damage for direct damage energy blasts, which is pretty hefty for a hero in a B/X reality. You don't really want to say, "well, 4d6 is a shotgun, so that is only a few times more powerful." This is on-average about a 50 hit-point strike, which is enough to blast a dragon out of the sky. In a comic-book sense, this should knock out a tank. If "tank equals dragon" you could rate vehicles on a B/X scale and just give them a high AC and a ton of hit points pretty easily.

• Car = 10 hp, AC 12
• Jet or Truck = 20 hp, AC 14
• Large Plane or Tractor-Trailer = 30 hp, AC 16
• APC = 40 hp, AC 18, 7d6 damage auto-cannon
• Tank = 50 hp, AC 20, 14d6 damage tank gun

There, this is DCC, this stuff is NOT hard. This is what I love about this game, I could hack together a starship combat system in five minutes. With other games, it is a year of waiting, eighty dollars, tariffs, and a Kickstarter project for a 300-page book that sits on a shelf and rarely gets used.

This is B/X and a little bit of 3.5E, this stuff isn't hard. You don't need to live in Seattle or be a game designer to figure this stuff out. We love to over-complicate things when "good enough" is actually "great."

Comic Crawl Classics is a great generic system for DCC, and a pretty fun set of superhero rules. Recommended, and it can act as a "glue" for characters you want to play, but really don't have a DCC system to cover them.

Video: Bankruptcy SCANDAL rocks TTRPGs!

Professor Dungeon Master is a great channel. Please watch his video all the way through, like, and subscribe. This one is good information on the Diamond bankruptcy and how it will devastate some companies. What can we do?

For the companies affected, now is the time to step up and buy direct from them. Pre-order any of the affected releases from them now. If you see cheap books being liquidated, do not buy them, regardless of how great a deal they are. They were wrongly taken from the publisher, so blacklist them from your purchases. As a community, we don't buy stolen books. I can wait a few weeks or months if the company that makes the games I love pulls through this mess.

This is not about getting a great deal.

This is about helping the companies we love survive.

If you're interested in other books from these great companies, purchase them now. Support those you love. Every direct sale helps. Do not purchase through Amazon or any other seller, except on the company's website or at your local game store.

Step up.

Now is your time.

Video: Alignment Isn’t Outdated. It’s at the Core of D&D.

Alignment is not in D&D 2024 or Tales of the Valiant. They removed this concept from the game. Today's video discusses this topic, and it's a good one. Please watch it all the way through, like, and subscribe to this channel.

If anything will be the nail in the coffin for "new 5E," it will be this one fact. Classic fantasy worlds do not work without alignment systems. They become modern, nothingness, relativism, and mush. The concepts of good and evil disappear, and the call for heroism is silenced.

Once you remove alignment, there is no reason to play these games.

Shipped: Caverns of Thracia Legendary Adventure DCC

I finally got my shipping notification for Caverns of Tharcia! That took a while. Goodman Games appears to have been overwhelmed by the shipping of so many books, which is a good problem to have, and I am happy for them.

These adventures and DCC itself are just fun, and nowhere can you get so many tributes to the old-school, recreations, and re-published classics in one place.