Dungeon Crawl Classics

This is another game I just keep coming back to.

Timeless comes to mind.

The game is what it is, a core set of rules that sets up infinite gonzo Appendix N adventures. The core of the rules is simple, on the same level as Castles & Crusades, but instead of modifiers or an advantage/disadvantage mechanic, they use a dice chain of all sorts of funky dice.

And the game has this carefree style and attitude about everything, even the rules, and the game does not set you up for this endemic "character and plot protection" you get in many of today's games. The game does not care if your character lives or dies or if the "please don't damage the walls" dungeon goes up in a massive underground implosion. The game doesn't care if your character ends up siding with the evil mastermind of the module and turning on the rest of your party. The game doesn't care if you put on speed death metal and slice your way through Keep on the Borderlands in a rage-induced opera of slaughter.

The game does not care.

Carefully crafted campaign setting with history, invulnerable solve-everything GMNPCs, be-there-forever iconic places, iconic story paths, kingdoms set in stone, and a feeling you can't - and shouldn't - change things? It takes the precious stack of fine dinnerware and drops it on the floor to shatter it into a billion pieces.

Play.

And play now.

Not even the world you have matters. Dream up something epic; your island hometown is the only place unaffected by a mass apocalypse of demonic insanity and planar alien invasion. That sounds cool; now start playing. Every game world can be a one-shot; you don't need a 50-dollar gazetteer and a few weeks to read through it to get started.

More one-shots? Your 0-level funnel is 18-year-olds on a field trip bus sucked through space and time to Death World. You are cowboys or World War II soldiers (grab a B/X source for this gear) pulled through to the Crypt of the Necro Lord. You are a pirate ship crew stranded on a living island of Maza Thul. You are a steampunk airship crew crash-landed in the Purple Volcano of the Ape Clan. You are the sample characters from an old AD&D module, and suddenly, the module has gone crazy with DCC rules.

Toto. I don't think we are in Kansas anymore.

Oh wow, that is another good start. You are the characters in the Wizard of Oz. Wonderland. 50 Shades of Gray. Harry Potter. And you are thrown into...

No metaplots, adventure paths, careful consideration of where your party fits in, or any other thought or structure is required to play. And the one-shot has every chance of turning into a campaign, which the system also does well.

In a sense, this game feels a lot like the classic Paranoia in terms of the reverence it gives to the roleplaying tropes, which is little to none. The game is a refreshing dose of "be fun or be dead" or even "be fun and be dead"; it just doesn't care.

Which is why I love it.

It is a game that breaks through the ice and gets you playing. It is a game where if you are sitting there with a system, game world choice paralysis comes along and breaks you out of it. As role-players, we want to carefully craft stories and experiences, and we can get too "into ourselves" and end up not doing anything. We don't want to make a wrong choice, so making none is the safest.

And then we never play.

Dungeon Crawl Classics breaks you from that prison, puts a sword in your character's hand, and tells you to go out and conquer.

And before you know it, the Dark Fortress you busted out of was one you realized existed only in your mind.