DCC vs. Shadowdark

I like Shadowdark. It is the ultimate "pick up and play" version of 5E. I can be online, in a chat room, in an MMO chat window, at a convention, and invite someone to play a fantasy game with me, and be playing in 5 minutes. They can only casually know 5E, and I can hand them a character sheet and go.

No D&D Beyond is needed. No hours-long character creation. No starter set.

Shadowdark replaced 5E entirely for me. I don't need all those books and all that complexity. I can mod Shadowdark to be more pulp-action and heroic. I can keep it a deadly, horror-adjacent game as it is. I can create new classes and a new game from the core set.

And I don't need all these "big book" 5E Kickstarter games. Shadowdark can be sci-fi, modern horror, game-world specific, cowboy, historical fantasy, or anything else you want to mod the game into. All you need is a class that fits your genre, some gear, and monsters, and you can start playing anything.

If I want a quick "Star Trek" game, I can hack up some command, engineering, sciences, medical, and security classes, and we can play using the Shadowdark rules. Or I can use the Shadowdark classes and re-flavor them.

For me, Shadowdark is my 5E game.

Tales of Argosa sits on the shelf, waiting, saying, "I can do you one better..."

I will get to that game.

Dungeon Crawl Classics is pure randomness and fun. This is a heavily modded 3.5E, blended with the best of the OSR, and the game embraces flavor and randomness rather than exponential power gain. At the heart of this game is a thematic risk-versus-reward concept, and the game does not care to protect a player's ego.

DCC borrows and hacks, mods and twists, changes expectations, and does a lot with a little. The book is enormous, but the system is as easy as Shadowdark. I initially dismissed this game as "being too much" compared to OSE and other systems, but I love the game's attitude and style.

I love DCC; this is my home system, and I mostly play solo. For solo play, it has a high degree of unpredictability and randomness, which always keeps it interesting.

The dice are amazing. Every d4 is rounded and easy to pick up. There is no advantage or disadvantage; you just go up or down a die size, up for bonuses, down for penalties. You apply this mechanic to any die in the game. If your d10 polearm needs to be bumped up two levels of "damage advantage" because the dragon flew into it on an ambush, it goes up to a d14. Is your longsword worn and unsharp? Lower the d8 to a d7.

But why play DCC over Shadowdark?

Shadowdark has a very tight focus, almost like a board game. You play turn-to-turn, never leaving initiative order. There aren't "exploration turns," but you can play it that way. It is best in that turn-to-turn style, almost like a "dungeon creep" playstyle. The rules are minimalist, and the game is very "live or die" in its terms of the definition of success. Shadowdark is home to dungeons, caves, and caverns under the world's surface.

Shadowdark is also "instant play" with others. This is a killer feature—the simplicity that D&D does not have, nor has it had since the 1980s. Wizards' D&D have been these overcomplicated character-builder games for which you need computer programs to design characters. The company does not "get it" and is notorious for overdesign, broken high-level play, and bloat.

I can play Shadowdark with anyone at any time. I point them to the free starter set and a character from that, and we can play over a chat window. It is easy to a level that D&D will never have.

DCC is a love letter to the times when none of us knew what to expect. Playing it makes me feel like a kid again, seeing a beholder and saying, "Whaaaa...?" These days, the beholders and mind flayers are the overused, tired, worn-out shoes of corporate IP. It is time to retire them and put them in the Monster Hall of Fame.

DCC is expansive in scope and feeling. It is more about the sweeping saga of a band of heroes, live or die. The game embraces and celebrates change. It has a high risk-to-reward system built into almost every game aspect. DCC is home on the tops of floating mushroom isles, exploring the tear ducts of a long-dead titan, in an ancient starship lodged in a glacier flow, and in the strange and marvelous places of dreams and nightmares.

I like DCC for its craziness and over-the-top feeling. The dice, random charts, emphasis on unique monsters and adventures, and the imagination poured into all the books and adventures keep me coming back. You look at the adventure covers, saying, "What is this?" and "That looks cool" simultaneously.

Shadowdark is tight, well-put-together, mod-able, and a beautiful game that shows respect for everyone who plays it. It pays tribute to the old school while embracing enough of the new. Shadowdark can be taught and played instantly with others. At this point, Shadowdark is D&D, and the king has been replaced.

I like them both.

DCC does the big and crazy well.

Shadowdark does the small and terrifying well.

If I had to have one? It would be DCC.