DCC RPG and TQB

Recently, Ben Milton of The Questing Beast made a video with this spicy thumbnail right here. There's usually a tagline like "we need to talk about Goodman Games" or something.

Ben looks like he tried to read a stereo manual from 1984.

I had to watch it. I love DCC! I ran several excellent campaigns years ago and have always found that game to be supremely entertaining, massively charming, and just a heller good time.

TL:DR: Ben feels DCC is too wordy, not useful at the table, and is stuck in the past. There's more to it, and Ben isn't entirely negative. Watch it yourself. Here's Ben responding to some of the criticisms.

Plenty of folks have responded to this video. Many have said things similar to what I'm about to say. But I wanted lay down my own take because Ben touches on some points that are pet peeves of mine, and I feel like there are some blind spots in his treatment.

1. THE TABLE ISN'T NECESSARILY THE ONLY PLAY SPACE

Ben's laser-focus has always been on an emergent, on-the-fly gaming style. I like this a lot. Many of my own game ideas are in this vein because I'm also an adult with other responsibilities and if I get a chance to run a game it's very nice to have something easy to just pull off the shelf and run with zero prep.

But zero prep is not the only way to play. And the prep phase of a game is still part of the game. Call it a pre-game if you want. It's not only a valid approach to game design, but one that many players strongly prefer.

If you have ever been a GM, then you remember what it felt like reading your first adventure module or scenario, understanding what the story was about, and then making plans for how to run it. For some, this is a chore they no longer savor. They want the bullet-point style. "Just give me the room contents in a list and shut up". I get it.

But for others... no. They want to read the adventure, then they want to sit with it, make notes, change some things, add new things... do the prep work. This, for them, is a fun part of playing the game.

2. THE LATEST WAY ISN'T THE BEST FOR EVERYONE

Ben assumes his gaming preference is - by default - the latest and greatest advancement in RPGs and older approaches are somehow outdated. I think it is because he is an educator and he absolutely loves emergent game play, not game prep. I really do understand this, and I enjoy that style too. But man I hate the attitude and the concept.

This isn't aimed at Ben... I enjoy his videos. They are super helpful and fun. He was very positive about my Black Pudding Heavy Helping and GOZR books, which was a big confidence boost for me.

No, this is aimed at the idea that old is badder and new is gooder that many in the RPG spaces seem to assume. I'm here to put into the public record that newer does not equal better. Innovation is super important, and new modes of play keep the fires burning. But unlike computer software, games from 1979 are still very playable, just as they always were. You might not enjoy them, but someone else damn sure does and they probably don't want you to bullet-point them.

Some GMs love to savor a meaty game text. Read it, understand it, then prepare to run it... that is fun for them.

If you don't enjoy prep work or reading wordier adventures... don't. It's fine. But if you do... then the advice that games should always embrace the bullet-point style is bad advice, isn't it?

3. THE SUGGESTED CHANGE COULD DESTROY DCC

Finally, I wanted to say that DCC RPG has a robust and rabid community of fans. If Goodman Games switched their approach to bullet-point adventures, I suspect no new players would give a shit and all the old fans would be turned off by it. Because that's not what DCC adventures are.

We have this baseline assumption that everything must evolve or die. I don't entirely agree. Change can be good, and necessary. But we're talking about hobby games here. This is comfort food for the soul for many, many people, myself included. I'm not into RPGs because I want to be on the cutting edge. I'm into them because they are part of my soul. And sometimes my soul wants to read flavor text and chunky adventures. DCC's style feeds that need. Sometimes I want something fast and emergent to run. OSE's style feeds that need, for example. We want both and all things in between.

GOZR ACTs

Follow up to this post...

An idea I have for the inevitable GOZR revision or supplement is to change the Action Classes to Action Class Targets. ACTs rings better than ACs and is more direct. The definition is in the term.

For these kinds of revisions, I'm trying to avoid changing the game rules. I like the rules as they are. My main priority for any kind of revision or supplement is clarification with as few changes or revisions as possible.

For example, I have an idea to expand page 2 of the book to two pages (it's the first page of character creation). I have a fondness for that page but I recognize it is a bit scrunched and not quite as clear to new eyes as it is to mine. I'll rearrange it, expand the starting weapons table and symbols table. And so forth. Much of that work is already done, just needs cleaned up.

Hymla Comic

Just a quick follow up to this post... I completed a 13 page Hymla comic called "Eye Am". Right now I'm not sure where this will end up. I can just post it online, and that's fine. But I want it in print. I'm kicking around ideas such as Black Pudding Comics (various fantasy stuff) or a straight up Hymla comic book. If I manage to do a second story as long as this one, I'll probably just do a Hymla comic book. Time will tell, I guess.

Here's a page from it.

 

Where Do Goozlings Come From?

In GOZR, there is no mention of sex, romance, marriage, or any of that stuff. There's a pronouns table on page 2 and only 50% of the results are male/female. Clearly, gooz don't have the same sex and gender ideas or hang-ups that humans have. It doesn't seem to be much of an issue for them.

The book mentions "delicious gooz babies" in the creature section. The nasty Harawg-Zuul like to eat gooz babies, according to the lore. And in the Recent Events of Some Gravity table on page 26, one entry is "Baby Boom". It says: "Thousand goozlings born one night. In the distance creaking wings, ancient hungry devil!".

So the gooz aren't super hung up about sex and gender, but they do have little goozlings. Where do they come from?

Is it simply that gooz do hook up, bang, and pump out little gooz babies? But they're just not obsessed about it all? Or maybe gooz babies appear spontaneously where someone spilled some milk or honey? Or maybe there's a super-science device deep in Goozer City, built by the long-dead Pretty Ones, and it randomly creates new gooz?

In a little comic, seen below, I have a gooz mention his auntie. This would suggest some kind of familial hierarchy. But then again, one doesn't have to be related by blood to be an auntie. Maybe gooz aunties and uncles are honorary, not obligatory.

I'm just asking questions here. The mystery remains, for now.

Goozin'

File under: A bit of a ramble, isn't it?

Now and then I dust off GOZR and get fired up about it. I love the gooz! I adore them. I love this game. It's a game I created with as few constraints and expectations as possible. It was a liberating experience, and a ton of work.

I saw the ugly bastards in my mind, inspired by so many things I've seen over the years, and they took my hand in their calloused, bumpy hands and lead me into their world of simultaneous ugliness and exquisite beauty.

I wish I could maintain this level of enthusiasm for one thing all the time. I'd have already created a follow up tome and some adventures, at the least. And a comic. But that isn't how my brain works. I do what I can, when I can. I try to strike while the iron is hot. Often I fail.

But I didn't fail with GOZR. I made a good thing and put it into the world.

GOOZ ARE THE OTHER GUYS

Gooz are scum, riff-raff, sub-optimal. According to the lore they inherited, gooz were created by the Pretty Ones to serve them. But the Pretties are all dead (right?). Now gooz are on their own. They are the lowly ones, the ones that didn't have anything.

This is not the same kind of framing as a game about playing hired henchmen or torchbearers. Gooz would be in that category, but the heroes those folks aid are no longer around. This is a game of "what if the main characters all died?".

The gooz become the main characters. What does that even mean? I guess it's up to you.

GOOZ ARE UGLY

Hey, that's a nasty word, isn't it? Yeah, kinda is. But that's how the gooz were seen and that's the idea they inherited. Is it true? Are they really ugly? What does "ugly" even mean?

THE WORLD BELONGS TO THEM

For better or worse, these dinky degenerates run the show. What will they make of their world now? They're not perfect. They're degenerate, right? They have greed, violence, and pettiness just like anyone else. And they were thrust out on their own in a ruined world, quite suddenly it seems. This is a rough period for gooz. A transition. A bumpy ride. Where is it going? That is also up to you, the gamer who chooses to step into their world.

I am not sure what lies ahead for GOZR, for me. I have ideas. I have some new pages for the follow up book, tentatively titled GOZR RISING. Some of those pages have been sitting idle, finished for a couple of years. I'm slow, I tell you.

At this moment in time I am seriously thinking about a GOZR comic book... an obvious direction, and one that I had in mind all along. Hell, the game book itself is in comic book format (American comic book size). A GOZR comic book is not only obvious, it is perhaps inevitable. Unless I die before doing it.