Tag Archives: RPG

Rise of the Runelords Unboxing

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I was a bit of a latecomer to Pathfinder Adventure Paths when they started. Well, more accurately, I was one of the ones thinking no way will this ever work. Of course a couple of years later as I start getting into the Pathfinder ruleset and checking out the Adventure Paths I realized the error of my ways. By that time however, Rise of the Runelords was already getting slightly more difficult to track down.

So when Paizo announced they were doing a Rise of the Runelords anniversary release to celebrate ten years in business and the five year mark of the Adventure Path product, I knew I had to get that book. Today my pre-ordered book arrived!

Technically the Rise of the Runelords Anniversary book is a hardback, not a boxed set. But the book arrived in a shipping box, so this post gets the title of unboxing! Plus I was excited to see it arrive!

Before I move to the pictures, here is what the book contains (from the Paizo product page):

  • All six chapters of the original Adventure Path, expanded and updated for use with the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game.
  • Articles on the major locations of Rise of the Runelords: sleepy Sandpoint, the ancient Thassilonian city of Xin-Shalast, and others.
  • Revelations on the sinister magic of Thassilon, with updated spells, magic items, and details on tracking sin points throughout the campaign.
  • A bestiary featuring eight monsters updated from the original Adventure Path, plus an all-new terror.
  • Dozens of new illustrations, never-before-seen characters, location maps, and more!

And now the unboxing!

DCC RPG: The Thief

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This is the second post in my weekly series of looking at each of the Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG character classes. Last week I looked at the Warrior class and some of the unique ideas it brought to the table. This week I am taking a look at the thief character class.

The thief character class in DCC RPG can take the shape of the small, wily thief or the bigger, brute type of thief or anything in between. The thief will need to rely on their cunning though as their hit points are determined by a d6 at each level. Their trained weapon list is much smaller than the warrior I looked at last week as one would expect. Choice of armor will of course affect the skills of the thief as well.

The thief can choose one of the three alignments in DCC RPG. This choice will affect how their skills advance as their levels increase in the game.

Thieves’ Cant makes a welcome return in DCC RPG. The cant is spoken only and not written. I always liked thieves cant for those thieves in older editions that were members of a guild.

The thief class also comes with a more extensive list than the “your occupation determines your skills” methodology. We see 13 skills added to the thief class and include many of what I would call traditional thieving skills.  The list includes skills such as Backstab, Hide in Shadows, Pick Lock, Find Trap, and more.

The modifier progression for these skills are determined by alignment. A table outlines how much the modifier increases at each level for each of the three alignments. For example, a chaotic aligned thief has a Backstab skill that increases faster than either a Lawful or Neutral aligned thief. Whereas a lawful aligned thief has a find and disable trap modifier that increase faster than a chaotic aligned thief.

Finally the thief has a different luck mechanic than a typical character class. When a thief burns a point of luck they get to roll a “luck” die for each point of luck expended. The luck die increases as the thief increase in level, so from a d3 to a d4 to a d5 and so on. A thief can expend more than one point of luck to gain additional dice on a roll.

A thief also has the ability to recover luck. Each night the thief is able to recover a point of luck, not to exceed their starting luck score. This allows the thief character to rely on their luck and wits to make those crucial rolls due to the enhanced recovery of expended luck points.

The thief class in DCC RPG fits right in with my view of what a thief is. Surviving on luck and wits, access to thieves cant and a skill list that truly makes them the most skillful character class in the game while supporting traditional thieving roles, the thief in DCC RPG hits all the right notes for me.

The skill list helps boost the thief and make them a more skillful class than other character classes in the game. This skill list also gives the thief the ability to do the things thieves are known for – pick locks, pick pockets, move stealthily, and more.

The modified luck mechanic for the thief gives them the chance to use luck more frequently to boost an attack roll or make sure they succeed at a particularly important skill check. Due to their recovery of luck points they are able to do this just often enough to reinforce the notion of a lucky thief.

The last DCC RPG session I ran had a thief in it. The character seemed to work out pretty well in the party. I think the biggest adjustment for a player coming from 3.x/Pathfinder to DCC RPG is that the backstab skill does not quite equal sneak attack.

Backstab means you have to attacking with the target unaware. Simply flanking someone does not mean you are going to get the backstab bonus. The thief in the game I ran did work himself into positions where he could gain backstab, but after that initial attack, the opponent was obviously aware of him. I do not think this is a bad thing, but it is different from how sneak attack works in 3.x/Pathfinder.

As with the warrior I looked at last week, I think Dungeon Crawl Classics has again found the essence of the Appendix N thief and done a wonderful job emulating it with this ruleset.

What are your thoughts? Does the DCC RPG thief let you play the style of thief you would want? A brute? A skillful individual?

Review: Attack of the Frawgs

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Author:  Stephen Newton
Publisher:  Thick Skull Adventures
Price: PDF $4.99
Pages:   9
Tankard Rating:  4/5

Attack of the Frawgs is the most recent adventure from Thick Skull Adventures for the Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG. The adventure is designed for 8-14 0-level characters, but can be adapted for a party of 1st level characters. The adventure is a locale based adventure and can be played as a standalone adventure or used as part of the Princes of Kaimai adventure series.

The adventure starts in a remote location in a small village nestled at the base of a mountain range. When reports of walking frogs the size of men start passing about the village followed by a wounded trapper returning to the village the people need heroes to learn the fate of his partner.

As noted this is a locale based adventure and allows the characters to investigate the fate of the lost trapper in whichever direction they choose. The detailed encounter areas are all centered about Dead Goblin Lake once the character leave town. There is a map of the area around the Lake and two additional maps of areas of the adventure that require additional detail.

I thought the encounters within the module all fit well together. They also meshed with the environment of the adventure quite well, while still offering an interesting variety of encounters.

The adventure also includes two new monsters for judges and one new item of magic.

The layout of the module is clean and well organized. I did notice that the module was a bit slow scrolling on my iPad (using Goodreader) and even a touch slow on my laptop. That is a minor complaint, though I am curious why it is a little sluggish even compared to much larger RPG PDFs.

This is my first look at a Thick Skull Adventures product and I was quite impressed with the offering. The module was easy to read and the way each encounter made sense in the larger scope of the adventure gave it a quality feel. While written as part of a series of modules, a judge could easily drop this into their own campaign world with minimal effort.

I look forward to reading future adventures from Thick Skull Adventures!

Tankard Rating
4 tankards out of 5 tankards

Note: The Iron Tavern was provided a review copy of this book.

The One Ring Extended Index

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Last week Cubicle 7 announced the release of an extended index for The One Ring RPG. This is not just any index though, this is a 19 page index that was created by a team of volunteers.

One of the complaints frequently levied against The One Ring was that while an index was included it was not entirely useful during game play. This prompted Cubicle 7 to form this volunteer team to create this extended index for The One Ring RPG.

The extended index has been posted in full color version and a printer friendly version and placed on The One Ring downloads page.

Even after a brief look at the extended index it is readily apparent how thorough this index is. The index contains extensive cross-referencing to ease finding the information you seek. It clearly denotes which book the information you seek is in, the Adventurer’s Book or the Loremaster’s Book and it highlights the pages with the most material by underlining the page number.

It is wonderful to see such an index released to such quality post-production. Cubicle 7 and the community support that went into this via volunteers deserve to be applauded for this effort.

RPG publishers should take note of this. Gamers value their indexes! Wizards of the Coast used to take flak for leaving out indexes several years ago from some of their source books. This should have been the indicator smaller publishers needed to realize indexes are needed. Not only are they needed, but they also need to be good indexes that are actually useful.

There are many RPG books that are released with inadequate or even without any index! (DCC RPG, I am looking at you!) While creating a good, useful index can be time consuming, please do not shortcut this area in your book.

DCC RPG: The Warrior

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I thought it would be interesting to take a look at some of the character classes in Dungeon Crawl Classics. Each week I am going to choose one of the DCC RPG character classes and take a closer look at it. This week I am going to start with the Warrior class.

Many people new to an RPG system take a look at the fighter class or equivalent of that class to get a feel for the game. The primary melee class of a game can tell you a bit about combat and comparing fighter’s from one system to another can be a little simpler than comparing some of the magic using classes who may have vastly different systems of magic from one RPG system to another.

In DCC RPG the primary melee class carries the name of warrior. The warrior entry in the rulebook only covers three pages including the tables that cover level advancement over the course of the game.

The warrior gets the highest starting hit die of any class, which should come as no surprise. In addition the warrior has the broadest choice of trained weapons at their disposal.

The warrior class also has a higher chance of scoring a critical hit, starting at 19-20 and then increasing that threat range as they advance higher in level. In addition, when a warrior does score a critical hit they get to roll on a critical table that has effects of greater impact.

Additional perks of the warrior class include getting to add their class level to the initiative roll and getting to apply their Luck modifier to one weapon type that is chosen at first level.

The piece that really makes warriors (and dwarves which we will talk about in another post) is the Mighty Deed of Arms feature of the warrior class. But lets back up a step before we get into Mighty Deeds.

A warrior in DCC RPG does not get a static modifier such as a Base Attack Bonus we would see in D&D or Pathfinder. Instead they get an extra dice called a deed die. When a warrior makes an attack roll they roll their action dice (typically a d20) and a deed die, which starts as a d3 and then increases as the warrior increases in level. This deed die determines the warrior’s bonus to hit instead of a static BAB mechanic. This roll also determines extra damage.

I find the deed die mechanic interesting as it shakes things up a bit for the warrior. One attack may find you only getting an additional +1 to hit and damage, while the very next round the warrior might get a +2 or even +3 to hit and damage. It is a small detail, but one that keeps things a little different from one round of combat to the next.

Now, back to the Mighty Deed of Arms. The Mighty Deed of Arms mechanic is what lets a warrior do cool stuff! There are not complex trip attack, disarming rules, or combat maneuvers in DCC RPG. Instead, the player can be creative for their warrior and come up with the action they want to attempt and then use the Might Deed mechanic to determine success.

To succeed at a Mighty Deed the player only needs to roll a 3 or higher on their Mighty Deed roll. If they meet or beat that target number their action succeeds. Want to disarm someone? Declare it your Mighty Deed action and roll away. Want to jump from the balcony down into the theater seats below? Declare it your Mighty Deed action and roll away!

This one simple mechanic gives no one a reason to declare a melee only class boring. You are only limited by your own creativity. Come up with something out of the ordinary and you have the chance to try it with an easy to remember mechanic to determine success. To make it even better you can use a Mighty Deed of Arms every round if you wish.

This is the mechanic that really stands out to me in regards to the warrior class. No more memorizing complex rules or only having a short chart of options to see what your fighter or warrior can do. Now a player is only limited by their imagination as the rules provide the mechanics to resolve these creative actions.

During a DCC RPG session earlier this week that I ran on Google+ one could see Mighty Deeds in action. I was running for a group of 2nd level characters and they had encountered what was essentially a swarm of rats. The warrior in the group wanted to attack one rat and then use a Might Deed to knock that rat into another rat, either in attempt to knock the second rat off course or outright damage it.

As the judge I only had to say go for it and watch what the deed die came up as. The warrior was rolling really well that night and he managed to take more than one rat this way to great success. I felt the mechanic allowed the player to get creative and rules wise still have an easy way to resolve the action.

Overall I really like the warrior class in DCC RPG. It is not hamstrung by a lot of complex rules and keeps the warrior from being limited by some set of tables declaring what special moves they can make. Instead the player is given creative license to have fun with the class and an easy to use mechanic to back it up. The warrior is finally heroic again!

What do you think of the warrior? Have you liked how it has played? How do you think it compares to primary melee classes from other systems?

A Look At Roll20

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A couple of weeks ago I took a look at Tabletop Forge, a VTT for use in a Google+ Hangout. I used it to run a Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG one-shot game. One of the comments on that post asked about Roll20, another VTT that has the ability to be used within a Google+ Hangout. I had glanced at the Roll20 VTT prior to that comment but that spurred me to take a closer look.

This week I ran another Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG game over Google+ Hangouts using the Roll20 application. Roll20 is in open beta and has a good sized features list. Roll20 can be accessed via a web browser and includes its own voice and video system. It can also be integrated into a Google+ Hangout as an application. The testing I did with it was as a Google+ Hangout application, so this commentary will not cover the integrated voice and video chat of Roll20.

Roll20 has several other features including a searchable art library to allow easily dragging tokens and such to the map, a jukebox to play background music to the players, built in text chat, dice rolling, macros, fog of war, turn tracker, drawing tools, health bars and more. Roll20 also allows you to prep a campaign file prior to the game and it will be there when you connect for your actual session.

For the game I ran I did some pre-game prep. Roll20 let me prep multiple map pages before the game. So on the first map I just dropped the module cover into the map. As players assembled in my Google Hangout and launched Roll20, they saw the initial opening image.

On the second map I used a player copy of the map from the adventure I ran and applied the fog of war to it. Since DCC RPG is able to be played gridless, I dropped a single token on the map to indicate the party’s location, but did not represent each character. I tested the revealing of the fog and it seemed to work great during my prep.

Fog of War in Action.

I also took advantage of the macros and setup attack rolls and damage rolls for each of the encounters in the module. This was a nice feature as when combat occurred I could just call my macro and get the roll I needed. It was relatively simple to setup.

Come game time I went to the Roll20 website and chose launch the campaign in a Google+ Hangout. That launched the Hangout, I invited my circle of gamers for this game and the Hangout was live. As players connected I had them go to the apps tab in the Hangout and launch Roll20 from there. All save one connected with no issue. The player with problems launching the app did need to reboot, but quite likely not fault of Roll20.

Page Selection in Roll20

Once the players were connected I moved the player ribbon from the start page with the module cover to the map I had prepped. The fog of war feature worked great and we used the chat based dice roller for our rolls. All seemed to work well and a good time was had.

I followed up with my players this morning and asked them what they thought of the setup and had overwhelmingly positive reactions from them. The fog of war received good reviews. Some thought the dice rolling was a little complicated for doing some of the multiple dice rolls needed in DCC RPG. Some of these issues could be minimized with a little more time with the tool I think.

Overall as a GM I found the Roll20 app a really solid product offering. The application easily integrated with Google+ Hangouts which is nice as Google+ provided me with the tools to meet gamers, schedule the games and then a place to play. The fog of war worked well for me to show a map as the players moves along and the macros were quite useful as well for pre-prep. I could easily see myself running more games over the Roll20 application.

VTTs have come a long, long way in a few short years. With a lot of my online gaming happening over Google+ Hangouts it is great to have two very strong VTT contenders. At the moment I probably give Roll20 a bit of an edge. But with Tabletop Forge’s kickstarter complete I expect them to close the gap in very little time.

I will be keeping a close eye on both Tabletop Forge and Roll20 going forward.

DCC Funky Dice

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One of the unusual facets of Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG is the use of “funky” dice. Now for the established RPG gamer, the concept of “funky” dice can be unusual. After all we already play with d20’s, d12’s, d8’s, d10’s and the beloved d4. We already play with funky dice, right?

Nope! Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG brings us some more unusual dice, including the d3, d5, d7, d14, d16, d24 and d30. This set of dice is also known as the Zocchi Dice. Some people find this an attraction to the game and others find it as a detriment. I fall into the former camp and enjoyed hunting down the new dice and rolling them during the game.

Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG uses an improved die and reduced die mechanic that moves you up and down a dice chain when rolling. For example, bumping up from a d20 with an improved die roll would be a d24 and a reduced roll from a d20 is a d16. There are also some other charts and mechanics that make use of the funky dice to determine certain results during the course of a game.

When Joseph Goodman was asked about the inclusion of these funky dice in DCC by Suvudo he replied that he simply liked funky dice. In the interview he goes on to say that part of the nostalgia surrounding old-school gaming is related to the unusual dice of the time. Back when the d20 and d4 were unusual to the old-school gamer. As time has come on those types of dice have become “normal”. DCC RPG attempts to bring some of the nostalgia back by using these funky dice that are even new to a lot of us long timer gamers.

While some dislike them, I think Goodman Games really succeeded with the use of “funky” dice in the game. I haven’t been that excited about dice for a long time. But with DCC RPG I enjoyed reading up on just what dice I needed and hunting them down on the Internet. I found the experience enjoyable and not all that difficult to do, despite what some folks seem to be saying.

For those that really want to try DCC RPG, but do not want to hunt down dice, the rulebook describe ways to emulate the “funky” dice with normal dice. We used this way of rolling for the first funnel adventure I played with my son. It worked well, certainly well enough to get a feel for the game.

Over on the Goodman Games forums for DCC RPG someone has shown a way to use only the d8, d10, and d12 in using this method:

  • d3 = d12 divided by four
  • d4 = d8 divided by two -or- d12 divided by three
  • d5 = d10 divided by two
  • d6 = d12 divided by two
  • d7 = d8 re-roll 8’s
  • d8 = standard
  • d10 = standard (I’m old and remember when it wasn’t)
  • d12 = standard
  • d14 = same as d7 but with a control die (high is +7)
  • d16 = d8 with an control die (high is +8)
  • d20 = d10 with a control die (high is +10)
  • d24 = d12 with a control die (high is +12)
  • d30 = d10 with a control die (middle is +10, high is +20)

While I prefer to roll the “funky” dice the above methods work as good substitutes as folks decide whether to purchase their own sets of “funky” dice.

In either case – do not let the “funky” dice or Zocchi dice keep you from trying out Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG. Even if you do not feel like purchasing new dice for the game (and come on, what gamer doesn’t like to buy dice!), there are ways to play the game with “normal” dice we RPG gamers all used to.

The Jeweler That Dealt in Stardust

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On Monday night of this week I ran a Dungeon Crawl Classics one-shot via Google Hangouts and Tabletop Forge. I ran The Jeweler That Dealt in Stardust written by Harley Stroh from the Free RPG module this year. The adventure is a city based adventure and is for third level characters. I had the players pick from the six pregens posted on the Goodman Games forums.

Note: There might be slight spoilers below.

The adventure takes place in the city of Punjar, but could easily be dropped into any major city in your campaign setting of choice. The adventure centers around breaking into a house in the city of a known fence that worked out of a jeweler’s shop. He has not been seen for the past month and the underlife of the city are starting to think there might be untold riches within – should the fence not still be within.

Of the pregens, we ended up with a cutpurse wizard, scribe cleric, mercenary warrior, outlaw warrior, and the slave thief. There was no love for the Halfling vagrant. The group decided on their character names and quickly assumed the identities of their chosen characters.

Since this was a one-shot we cut right to the chase with the party assembling outside the jeweler’s shop in question. The night was dark and the rain was pouring down. With a brief look from outside the shop (a handout is included in the mod which helped in planning), the group decided to send their thief over the garden wall. He did not get far, the rain soaked wall proving to be quite the obstacle as he failed a check to get over the wall. With a little more planning and some rope and grappling hook the party was able to clamber over the wall into the garden beyond.

The group was forced to deal with a threat in the garden, which felt to me just the right level of threat to the five party group. A somewhat tough, but not over the top encounter. Once the party found a way into the jeweler’s shop a screaming trap that went undetected surely alerted any that were within the shop of their presence.

The group explored the first floor before working their way up. The thief proved his worth, though I won’t spoil too much of the module here. Let us just say if you happen to be playing this it is good to have a thief along!

The group continued their exploration of the house which went fairly smoothly. The module had just enough details and description to make it easy on the judge without overwhelming the judge with superfluous information.

The group reached what was the pinnacle encounter for the module and again, the encounter felt like it hit just the right spot. Players were able to play with their might deeds to try to accomplish their goal. It played out pretty well, though the group lost Randolpho, the mighty cutpurse wizard to this encounter.

It took about three hours to run this module over Google+ Hangouts. I rushed it along a bit towards the very end after the pinnacle encounter, but that was simply because it was getting late and folks had to work the next day.

This was a great adventure to run as a one-shot or drop into a longer running campaign. I had a lot of fun running it and I had positive feedback from all of the players.

Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG is really hitting a sweet spot with me right now. The old-school feel with what feels like new and fresh rules has been great. The adventures I have read so far have been easier to pickup and run than a lot of the Pathfinder modules or PFS scenarios I have run in the past. With The Jeweler That Dealt in Stardust I was able to spend a fairly short amount of time reading it over, getting a feel for it and running it successfully for a group.

I am looking forward to running and playing some more Dungeon Crawl Classics!

A Look At Tabletop Forge

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I have been following along with the development of Tabletop Forge since its early days when Joshuha Owen first started posting on Google+ about it. Tabletop Forge is a Google+ Hangout application that assists with playing tabletop RPGs via a Google+ Hangout. It includes mapping functions, whiteboard, dice rolling and integrated chat that allows aliasing and whispering.

I have played with several VTTs over the past few years. In the past I have tended to default to using MapTool and pairing with Skype for the voice end of things. MapTool is a fully featured VTT that when coupled with a framework for your system of choice is a pretty powerful VTT. Using a framework brings some complexity with the tool of course. Another possible con to MapTool is that one needs to host a server that the clients of the other players connect to over the Internet. For the technically inclined this is not a major issue, but for others it does cause troubles.

For those that are not aware, Google+ is haven of gamers. Do not buy the media headlines that Google+ is a ghost town, tap into the right circles and RPG gamers will find Google+ a wonderful home on the web for gamer discussion and meeting other gamers. Add in Google Hangouts for group communication and you start to have the makings of easy online gaming and an easy way to make connections with people that want to game online.

Then enters Tabletop Forge. As mentioned, it is an application that can be used from within a Google Hangout. There are not any servers to configure and setup and open holes in firewalls for. The application runs from within the Google Hangout and provides all the basics of a VTT application. It turns Google Hangouts into a one-stop shop for gaming online.

Tabletop Forge might not support all of the features that MapTool does, but it makes up for it in its simplicity and integration with Google Hangouts. The feature set for Tabletop Forge is growing and even in its current state provides everything to run games online.

I have toyed with Tabletop Forge a reasonable amount and found it easy to use and fully capable of running games via Google Hangouts. Most recently I played a game of Dungeon Crawl Classics over it. We primarily used it for display of images and for dice rolling. It handled the “funky” dice DCC RPG is famous for with ease. It did the job quite well and did not get in the way of the game.

I am prepping for a one-shot of DCC RPG which I am running via Google Hangouts which I will be using Tabletop Forge for. The game will primarily be Theater of the Mind, but I will also be using it for image display and dice rolling as well. The ability to draw up a few images if room descriptions are unclear will also be useful.

While I have talked about playing DCC RPG on Tabletop Forge, one of the things about Tabletop Forge is that it is system neutral. Choose your system and you have the basics to play a game on Google Hangouts with it.

Tabletop Forge currently has a Kickstarter running with about two weeks left to go. While Tabletop Forge is going to remain free, the Kickstarter will help enable the team to add some features and include some art packs with the tool. Plus it helps pay back the free time the current developers have put into it.

So swing on by Google+ and try out Tabletop Forge and see what it can do for your virtual gaming.

Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG Actual Play

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On Tuesday night I was able to play in my first Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG game. Carl Bussler of Flagons and Dragons fame is the Judge of the game and we have several fine Google+ acquaintances playing. We are playing Sailors on the Starless Sea. If you don’t want spoilers you might want to skip this post. I do not intend to go into extreme detail, but I cannot guarantee no spoilers at all.

We are playing via Google Hangouts for voice and video. We are making light use of Tabletop Forge. We use it primarily for some overview maps and to handle our dice rolling. I have toyed with Tabletop Forge a bit on my own, but this is my first actual game with it. It seemed to work very well for our needs and its integration with Google+ is what makes it the perfect tool.

We had four of our five players for our game this week. We had a timely start and soon we were off to investigate some ruins to the south of Honningstad, the town we were based out of. Each player had three 0-level characters, save for the youngest player who we had agreed the session before could have four characters going into it. We are a generous group!

Our characters were the winners of a lottery, well, that is what we were told. Some of the unlucky characters were a bit skeptical and some of the others thought their fortunes changing.

The task was to travel south to investigate some troubles that were believed to be originating from Talonsgate Ruins. Our lucky (or is that unlucky) lottery winners head south to find out what they can about events.

My characters were Tanor the Healer, Sogan the Unlucky, a dwarven miner and Cam the Quick, an orphan. The group of twelve reach the ruins and one of the group circles the ruins and finds what might offer a way into the ruined keep without using the main gates.

We reach the area of tumbled boulders and begin to carefully make our way up. A loose boulder is knocked loose and sends a boulder cascading down the hill. Unfortunately the boulder manages to hit three of the party, sending them to their deaths! Taron the healer was no more along with two other party members.

In many games of the day, a death is disappointing, especially when it happens in the very first encounter. It simply wasn’t the case in this game. It was great fun as the dice fell the way they may and I lost one character and another player lost two of their three characters – in the first encounter! It was great fun!

We managed to move the massive boulder off of the dead and retrieve the valuables from the dead – save for the breakables!

From there we moved on with exploring an opening the movement of the boulder had opened. We found a door with a pentagram on it which spooked all of us. So we did not try to enter the keep through that portal, but moved up to the opening in the keep wall.

We explored several areas in the keep proper. At one point two of the characters decided to retrieve a pony we had left outside the keep to help open a door. So Cam the Quick and another character headed out the front gate of the keep. A portcullis came crashing down killing one character outright and wounding Cam the Quick.

We retreated quickly from that and back into the keep. We went to a ruined tower and explored that area as well. We encountered an ichor of some sort which began attacking our party. After several rounds of combat we finally managed to kill it.

This brought us to the end of the evening, we will be continuing next week.

My initial actual play impression of Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG is very positive. There has been something very liberating with running characters with completely random stats through an adventure. Knowing that there is a good chance a character might die is also a nice change. Looking forward to our next session as we see who survives to actually move on to being heroes!

If you are looking for something with an old school feel, but not quite with old school mechanics – take a look at Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG. It is a very solid offering from Goodman Games, my only regret is it took me so long to check it out!