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Friday, August 5, 2011

Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG

http://www.goodman-games.com/5070preview.html

Ok, this looks promising. An RPG based on the pivotal influences of D&D that makes use of modern RPG design. It is about time. One of the things that bugged*1 me about the latest incarnations of fantasy RPGs is the fact they feel to me like they are based only on the prior editions and literature written from those prior RPG editions. Specifically, it feels like the authors of Pathfinder only ever read 3rd edition D&D, Ebberon and the Dragonlance novels. (To be fair, 4th edition D&D feels like the authors only read the The Wheel of Time Novels and Paranormal Romance and they played World of Warcraft.)*2 Think of it another way, say you were writing historical fiction based on Xenophon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenophon). Would it be better to base it on his writings, writings of authors’ contemporary to him and modern archeological finds related to his time period, or would it be better to simply base it on Robin Waterfield’s Xenophon's Retreat: Greece, Persia, and the End of the Golden Age? Well, modern RPGs feel like the second, perhaps the DCC RPG will feel like the 1st.

*1 This has been something the bugged me since 2nd edition D&D. I should say something in the back of my mind bugged me about the fantasy RPGs that were rooted in D&D since 2nd edition. I never really had a good handle on it until reading the premise behind the DCC RPG.

*2 To be fair, I have no idea as to how well read the authors’ of Pathfinder or D&D 4th edition are. My guess is, a lot more so then me. They can write better was well. But they fall short, in my eyes, of Gygax and Arneson. They may be better by the letter of the rule, but not by the spirit.

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