Help! My paperback DCC book is too floppy to use

[Thoughtbot360]

So, I was really interested in running Dungeon Crawl Classics, so I bought this big, enormous, heavy floppy paperback in my local game store. However....

...Its so heavy that its hard to just sit down and read this thing. I also can't help but think that it will be problematic to reference it at the table.

The primary problem seems to come from the spell descriptions, which each have a random table the caster has to roll on to determine, adding considerably to the weight of the book (the monster, patron, and example adventures in the back don't necessarily help. That means that either the wizard learns so few spells that we learn the effects by heart, or we have to flip through this behemoth everytime (bookmarks might help, but once again PCs learning too many spells will cancel out the convenience handily...)

The rules are otherwise fairly simplistic. If I was running a no-magic campaign, then I could just keep a copy of the critical hit/failure tables nearby, but that would kill off two out of four "human" classes and one out of three race-as-class!

What do I do? Is the hardcover easier to use? How do I actually play this dumb game when I hardly read this giant, cat-crushing book for two minutes before my arms start to collapse in on themselves like a dying star?


Its frustrating because every OSR youtuber out there talks up this spellcasting system. "Hey, even if you don't play DCC, just import the way they handle spells into your 5e game!" THANKS! HOW DO I DO THAT!? THE BOOKS PAGES ARE TOO BIG, HEAVY, AND STICKY TO USE!

Now, to be fair, the book did come with a free download of a pdf. But, the pdf is also kind of large and don't think that viewing the spells on a tablet would be much better. Have I mentioned? The document is big.

Has anybody out there played Dungeon Crawl Classics? How do you handle spellcasting at the table? I need some guidance, badly.

[Grod_The_Giant]

I'm not familiar with DCC, but my first thought is to give each player a physical spell book. Whenever their character learns a new spell, print out the relevant page(s) of the PDF and give it to them to stick in a binder. They're in charge of keeping it organized and on-hand--if they can't produce the information they need within a given grace period, the spell fizzles and they lose the action.

Or, if you feel generous, defaults to some sort of generic table or an effect of your choice. I ran Exalted 3e (which also has a ginormous honking rulebook) for a while, and I wound up actually banning books from the table. If we weren't sure about about how a mechanic worked or a Charm functioned, I'd make something up on the spot and look up the actual rules after the game. It could get a bit chaotic at times, but there was a very noticeable increase in gameplay speed.

[Telok]

Looks like casters get relatively few spells and have to find them during play. Not bad, the player has to keep track or get skipped.

Also can try https://purplesorcerer.com/grimoire.php

[Thoughtbot360]

Looks like casters get relatively few spells and have to find them during play. Not bad, the player has to keep track or get skipped.

Also can try https://purplesorcerer.com/grimoire.php

Huh. I knew you could make character sheets with purple sorcerer, but I forgot about the Grimoire.

I understand that DCC is trying to um, "make magic mysteeerrriiooouuussssss again", but I just feel utterly overwhelmed by the amount of detail. I would be happy with just each spell doing its bog standard, midline effect, and if the caster roll fumbles, you just roll off of a SINGLE "wild magic" chart. (Higher level spells get worse results.) The writers of this system clearly put a lot of pride in the spell's variability....but why do I want things like the maximum range and duration of a spell changing when a PC casts it, just for rolling high? I suppose that I could pre-emptively WANT to use a high-end spell effect, but when happens when a player just wanted to do something small and simple, and then they roll extra "goodies" that they have to make more tactical on-the-spot decisions over?

Mercurial Magic is another thing to worry about, its some weird side-effect from casting the spell. Every spell you copy into your grimoire has its own weird birth defects. Bah! It just seems like more pointlessly spilled ink in the name of adding very little value. If DMs are too intimidated to run the game, then all. that. work. was. pointless.

Don't forget that DCC is a death heavy game and all of the energy spent making your character's very special individual way of casting Magic Missile and Write Magic will just make the parting more painful. It's funny because any Warrior, Thief, Halfling, or Dwarf are very simple and similar, differentiated mostly by their inventory and ability scores, making them more cookie-cutter and less special snowflake. You'd think that the system would be on board with making the spell lists more uniform.

That's also why I don't particularly want to give the players custom physical spellbooks that they have to update themselves. Similar to printing out the statblocks of every single monster you could summon with 3e's version of Summon Monster I-IX.

But, I guess I'd like to know how other GMs have run this system without losing their minds.

Right now, DCC feels more like a bunch of house rule suggestions (The Warrior's "Mighty Feats of Arms" class trait is really cool. Fighter types in general are appropriately deadly.) to steal for other systems than a steady standalone game system, and yet people apparently navigate its clunky rulesbook well enough to play it.

I just wish I knew how.

[Grod_The_Giant]

It's an OSR game, right? Could you keep the base rules but patch in spellcasting from 2e D&D or Lamentations of the Flame Princess or something?

[Telok]

Don't forget that DCC is a death heavy game and all of the energy spent making your character's very special individual way of casting Magic Missile and .

Its been a good long while, people here are alleegic to non-wotc play, and I don't have access right now... What makes you say its a death game? I often see ad&d & similar characterized that way but back in the day I never had issues with classic style being lethal. Well, short of the **** ambushes like triple fireballs from invis mages or 4 vampires teleporting into rooms at night, and the regular module jank that was explicit or implicit to kill a pc "for teh dramaz!" ****. But those were like, four times in fifteen years of ad&d? And the last 20 years of 3e+ have seen way higher death rates even unto numbered characters by our "that guy" for a while.

[VoxRationis]

I suppose you could always just make a hard cover and glue it to the paperback.

[Thoughtbot360]

I would like to take a moment just to say that I appreciate your time and advice. You are trying to be helpful, I just don't know if you picked up on what the problem really is. And I fear I'm just going to come off as pointlessly negative while we talk past each other.

I would like to play the game "vanilla" first before replacing anything.

My problem is that the book is an overstuffed reference tome that is, as far as I can tell, too clunky for helping new players learn the game. too heavy for reading its adventures at the table. Useless for finding a monster to be a random encounter in a reasonable amount of time. And useless for looking up spell effects when the player rolls high in anything like a quick moment. And impossible to just leaf through.

Apparently, I'm supposed to read the Judge's advice in the free pdf that I got a download code for with the book. Then I use pre-gened characters and the separate quick start rules to get the players started before they occasionally open the book to level up their characters.

Maybe I should try to find a DCC-oriented forum and see how they do it...


Its been a good long while, people here are alleegic to non-wotc play, and I don't have access right now... What makes you say its a death game? I often see ad&d & similar characterized that way but back in the day I never had issues with classic style being lethal. Well, short of the **** ambushes like triple fireballs from invis mages or 4 vampires teleporting into rooms at night, and the regular module jank that was explicit or implicit to kill a pc "for teh dramaz!" ****. But those were like, four times in fifteen years of ad&d? And the last 20 years of 3e+ have seen way higher death rates even unto numbered characters by our "that guy" for a while.

Well, in a few ways, it is forgiving. There's a stat called "Luck" that you can use to modify rolls, but its primary use is to survive disasters that should've killed you. You can expend luck as a sort of "death save", but you cannot regain it once you lose it....well, you could use a halfling to donate luck. People can donate luck to a character, and if they happen to be a halfling, the halfling's luck will "recharge".

DCC's deadliness comes from not just its wild magic effects, but it also has mages suffer corruption from backfiring spells, and high level warriors, dwarves AND monsters can potentially decapitate enemies with no saving throw if they just roll high enough on their crit tables.

Also, DCC has certain types of campaign-starting adventures called "Peasant funnels", where each player controls 3-4 "0th level characters", ordinary people who are braving a dangerous adventure site for some reason or another. The idea is that some of them will die, but the survivors will level up into a real character class, and you will become more invested in the ups and downs of their story because of all the close calls and murdered friends that they lived through.

It IS the dice that kill your character, however. Its just that DCC's RNG-ness is slightly infamous. I'd love to see the game in action to report on how deadly it actually is, but...



It's an OSR game, right? Could you keep the base rules but patch in spellcasting from 2e D&D or Lamentations of the Flame Princess or something?

Sure...that would work. Heck, I even have an optional magic and spell-crafting system for D&D that I like that I could probably adapt to DCC. (https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/2554/Elements-of-Magic-Revised)

The system isn't the problem, not really*.

The fattened up 500-page GIGATOME of a rulebook is**.

The solution, it seems, is to simply RIP OUT THE PAGES from the book and make a "Book of Spells". That would decrease the book's mass down to 300-ish pages and possibly allow me to put it down without placing something across the pages to prevent the book from shutting.

....


(removes PC controller from on top of table of contents)

(book closes instantly)


It isn't just that the spells and their tables are too complicated, they just add to the sheer pointless page count and make it difficult to look up monster stats or magic items or something. Rather than replace the spell system, I might as well replace the whole game and imports. Run Delta's Whitebox house rules (https:/www.oedgames.com/) or something (the book of spells has all 1st level spells AND descriptions on one page! You know, instead of thirty!)

This book is too fat. It needs to go on a diet. Either that, or it needs to be exclusively hardcover. (And even then, I doubt that will ballast the weight enough.)

*-The class tables and basic rules, equipment, etc. take up 126 pages. And then add the DMG-esque Chapters six through eight, which are another 60 pages. I've also purchased the "quickstart" rules as a pdf, and if I print that out, that's a more convenient to reference at the table.

**-The Wizard spell descriptions start on page 129 and end on page 255. That's (way) over 100 pages. And then the Cleric spells go from 255 to 303, almost fifty more! There's also Monsters for 60 pages, two short adventures for 15 (!), and then another 50+ for indexes and appendices. Its the whole system in one book for $28, but at what cost? At. What. Cost?

[Grod_The_Giant]

The system isn't the problem, not really*.
For whatever it's worth, I'm horrified at the thought of attaching unique random tables to every spell. Hell, I coined an internet law about that kind of crap.

[Telok]

For whatever it's worth, I'm horrified at the thought of attaching unique random tables to every spell. Hell, I coined an internet law about that kind of crap.

Honestly it depends. If you have maybe four or five powerful spells max on a character and maybe a d6 or d8 table at most, then its not so bad. If you have 30 spells or d20 tables each then its a bugger outside a computer game.

Sounds like the issue isn't so much the rules but putting everything in one book and presenting it as a massive... thing. Its too much content to swallow at once and unweildy in physical play. The quickstart cheatsheets, searchable &or linked pdfs, and a trimmed down list is probably quite doable and no more actual data & choices than most crunchy games.

[Mutazoia]

Take it to someplace like FedEx Office and have them cut the spine off and coil bind it. Standard coil binding is about $5. Or you can have them cut the spine and 3-hole drill it to fit in a 3-ring binder.

After they do whichever method you choose (or rather while they are doing it) head over to their retail area and buy some stick-on tabs, such as the post-it tabs. When you get your new and improved easy-to-read and leave open without closing on you by itself book back from the nice people behind the counter, sit down and go through the book and use the tabs to mark important sections for quick reference (you can write on those).

And be sure to fill out the survey at the bottom of your receipt and give them a high score, their raises depend on that crap.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Take it to someplace like FedEx Office and have them cut the spine off and coil bind it. Standard coil binding is about $5. Or you can have them cut the spine and 3-hole drill it to fit in a 3-ring binder.[/SPOILER]
Oh, that's clever. You could even break it down into multiple binders to keep them at a more manageable size.

[Mutazoia]

Oh, that's clever. You could even break it down into multiple binders to keep them at a more manageable size.

Just keep in mind that when you cut the spine off you lose a bit of the margin (They have to cut in far enough to avoid cutting into the glue holding the book together). The holes for a 3-hole punch are further in from the edge than the holes for a spiral bind so they may end up punching a hole through some of the text.

[Thoughtbot360]

Well, that's actually a really smart idea, Mutazoia. Thanks, I'll look into it!

...although now I'm curious about that survey at the bottom of the receipt. Its not an online survey, is it? I don't truck with those as a general principle. Or offers of discounts at stores. I've been burned before and now I don't trust anything online.

Zaxby's kept offering a chance to win $1000 on each of their receipts for several years (until the pandemic, actually), which soundeded to my ears like they were fishing for information to me. I can see it now. "Oh sure, its SUPPOSED to just about the bog-standard fast food chicken sandwich you got, but while you're here (youmustcompletethewholethinginordertoMAYBEgetthem oney-youdon'twantthiswholeactivitytobeaWASTEdoyou) ...."

I don't know, maybe I'm too negative.

[Mutazoia]

Well, that's actually a really smart idea, Mutazoia. Thanks, I'll look into it!

...although now I'm curious about that survey at the bottom of the receipt. Its not an online survey, is it? I don't truck with those as a general principle. Or offers of discounts at stores. I've been burned before and now I don't trust anything online.

Zaxby's kept offering a chance to win $1000 on each of their receipts for several years (until the pandemic, actually), which soundeded to my ears like they were fishing for information to me. I can see it now. "Oh sure, its SUPPOSED to just about the bog-standard fast food chicken sandwich you got, but while you're here (youmustcompletethewholethinginordertoMAYBEgetthem oney-youdon'twantthiswholeactivitytobeaWASTEdoyou) ...."

I don't know, maybe I'm too negative.

lol you can do it online (choose ratings from 1-5) or call an 800 number. The offer is usually like $7 off your next order (so if you do the survey while you are waiting for your order you can use the coupon immediately)

You don't provide any details other than your receipt number (if you have one or store location if you don't) and that's it.

[Thoughtbot360]

lol you can do it online (choose ratings from 1-5) or call an 800 number. The offer is usually like $7 off your next order (so if you do the survey while you are waiting for your order you can use the coupon immediately)

You don't provide any details other than your receipt number (if you have one or store location if you don't) and that's it.

Good to know! Thanks!