Of the two games competing for my time, Dungeon Crawl Classics and Adventures Dark and Deep are my favorites. DCC is designed in the typical 3.5E style: Give the players toys, silly powers, and lots of funny dice, and watch them cause havoc and panic while trying to avoid dying. The whole design theory of "classes give the players table toys" is embraced by this game, and this is a classic 3.5E design style.
Is DCC a serious game? It can be, but for the most part, it is embracing the mantra of old-school gaming while standing on the back of a pterodactyl while shooting a las-rifle at rampaging muck men. DCC is always supposed to be over the top on the player side, and also how deadly the dungeons are. Forget a poison needle on a treasure chest; a swarm of flesh-devouring beetles comes out of the chest; save or be left a kneeling skeleton with lockpicks still in your hands.
ADAD hits differently. I sit here in front of giant tomes of knowledge, like fate has bestowed two mighty spell books into my possession, letting them rest on the table before me, and it is up to me to unlock their secrets. Characters don't get toys; they have tools. You are judging your weight allowance. You are kitting out your equipment. You don't have a "class toy" that will kill those goblins on the road ahead; you have limited resources and the choice to wade in and fight, avoid them, or deal with them another way. Spells are to be saved as a last resort, and magic is not used flippantly.
If there is one thing about D&D 4E and 5E that ruined gaming for me, it is those "infinite use" powers and spells that trivialize magic. I imagine a "Street Fighter" character infinitely casting fireballs or Hadouken, summoning forth "fire fist magic" with no cost or care. You could use this power at a restaurant to open a ketchup bottle. Cheap and easy magic ruins the magic, the world, the characters, and the game.
I don't know what those "always on" powers are, but they ain't magic. They are VFX, CGI, fake and dumb-looking. It is "empowerment" minus the power.
Magic assumes something is mysterious, has a price to pay, and is not well-understood.
DCC gives me that with its unpredictability.
ADAD gives me that with its scarcity.
Especially if you play "the spell game" in ADAD, where spell scrolls are not free, easy to find, buyable in shops, and freely traded. A fireball scroll? Spells and that knowledge locked in them are power, and wizards will not "pass that around" freely. There are no "public universities" with "free spells" to walk in and copy into your spellbook. If you find a rare and unique spell in a dungeon, you can trade that for something you want (if you can find someone to deal with), or you can keep that spell for yourself.
Imagine a world where anyone can buy a fireball scroll. Magic is power. Power is not handed around freely. Kingdoms, wizards, magic orders, and every other group would horde scrolls and spells to control these powers for their benefit. Just like today. Power must be tightly controlled and doled out to advance the group's aims, goals, and control of the world.
Even clerics should not be given the whole spell list for which to pray. You find a temple, serve them well, and then are granted access to the fonts of knowledge on how to pray for a new power or two. In every prayer, you need to learn to receive the blessing. A temple may be small and not have higher-level powers locked away; you need to seek a larger one. You may be given quests or expected to give tithes. Clerics learn their spells, too. There are pecking orders and hierarchies of the faithful in churches. Prove your faith in your god.
The whole assumption spells are like MMO powers and given to you when your character "dings" and levels up is another stupid trope of modern gaming.
The "video-gamification" of D&D has been going on since D&D 3.5E, and it sucks. I will play video games to get that hit, not tabletop games. Putting the rules before your world is lame, and it is another power grab by game designers away from referees, placing that power in a book and set of rules instead of a story and a world a group creates together.
"But the book says I get all these powers for free!"
Beware of those games. They take power away from your characters, referee, and group. They make every character in the world the same. That is real power if my wizard is the only one in 500 miles with a fireball scroll. If every wizard gets "fireball for free," there is no power or ownership of something unique or rare. For clerics, your faith may not be large enough to have powers above level 5, so you must help establish temples, seek ancient knowledge from similar lost gods, and build your church among people of the land.
Modern games divorce your character from the setting and story of the world. You are married to the rules and the game designer's whims. They take power away from you by pretending to give it to everyone for free.
ADAD is the real thing, where part of your character's story is acquiring knowledge, wealth, and power. None of this is given to you for free. You may have a few spells or a good to-hit, but most of your decision-making is driven by the story versus what you feel you are capable of, minus any notion of turn-based abilities or encounter powers that require short rests.
My ranger has no spells, just a sword and a limited quiver of arrows.
My fighter is a high AC and has a ton of hit points.
My magic user and cleric have a few spells saved for the right moment.
My thief is skilled, and those come up when I need them.
I am not thinking of feats, subclass powers, cantrips, short rest powers, or looking through my character sheet to "find something to do" on a turn. In DCC, I am sort of doing that at a lower level, like my fighter's "mighty deeds" die, but I prefer that "mighty deeds die" to anything that 5E offers me since it is designed as a "fun old-school themed mechanic" instead of a "character sheet lock in" one. DCC is very pulp and action-oriented, which appeals to me.
With ADAD, I have very little of that "character sheet interference" in my thoughts and actions. What I do is almost entirely controlled by my character and their motivations. This is a much more serious and gritty mechanic, harkening back to the days when rules were not as important as they are today.
DCC is my 3.5E game. It is also a direct replacement for 5E.
And ADAD is my 1e game.
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