Dungeon Crawl Classics: Built for Fun

There is no "off the shelf" with DCC; it is still firmly "on the shelf" for me. This is a game built for fun; it feels like a heavily modded 3.5E, but does things its own way, drawing on old-school tropes while taking them to crazy places. This game took all my shelf space for D&D 3.5E and Pathfinder 1e, and it proudly sits as the most gonzo and insane game I have, filling that power fantasy need, while still delivering loads of unpredictability.

Note, this does not replace 5E for me. 5E and I are complicated. Currently, C&C is replacing 5E for me while 5E and I work it out. My 5E books are in the closet until they can find an answer to the character sheet problem they have.

I wish 5E were better.

But, at this time, I can't support a game that forces me to do more work and flip through pages of a character sheet every round. It is in the closet until I want to fight with it again.

DCC is my 3.5E replacement, and it sings as that.

DCC drives the engines of many games, most of which are built and played out of zines and strange books that clutter my shelves. It is a crazy existence, one moment playing what feels like traditional fantasy, while the other powering a science fiction game. It really is more of a "game engine" driving any type of game you can imagine, with whatever random character classes you find being "tonight's entertainment."

Veer off into mutants and mahem? Fine. Bug hunts? Great! Surviving on strange alien-filled worlds? No problem. Crawling through the esophagus of a sleeping giant to rescue a singing parakeet? Sure! Fighting marshmallow goop creatures from a random gate a mad wizard opened? Works here! Playing "Keep on the Borderlands?" Why not?

DCC is the role-playing game equivalent of a Sharpie pen. A million and one uses, and it leaves a permanent mark on your psyche that makes all other games seem boring.

And the game isn't complete! You can pull in monsters from other editions, steal treasure tables and magic items from other games, pull an equipment list in from over here, use an adventure from over there, and generally mish-mash whatever you have lying around into your DCC game.

This one is sticking around, and it displays amazingly well.