I have failed my Fortitude save check couple of times recently, therefore since 3 weeks, I was unable to run my unexpectedly regular Burning Wheel game. It was supposed to be the 5th session but feeling like a zombie I’ve announced I won’t GM that Sunday.

One of the players – a veteran GM, Drachu (Dra-Who) – saved the day though. He proposed to run a game new to both him and us – Dungeon Crawl Classics.

I did a quick research and decided to muster all my reserves – I may not be in my capacity to GM a game, but I had to play it!

So what is this game about? It’s all the name promises – a game that looks back on the days when the D&D games had a less epic more dire end. They say it’s the OSR, but I must admit I am a bit lost with that term. Or maybe the old school part makes me feel old when I start counting years from the first Eye of the Yrrhedes session somewhere in 1994. Of course, it was a dungeon crawl. My first thinking was that old players first outgrew the dungeon crawls for the sake of refined intrigues and moral struggles of the characters, then grew up, got families and found they have less time for the hobby they love and have returned to it’s less glamorous roots.

Doesn’t sound like a recommendation, does it? Bear with me!

In the first game, you create 2-4 characters. Character creation is quick even when you do it for the first time and gets lightning fast with the second, third etc. No classes are chosen. You just roll 6 stats, birth augur and occupation and get your 0-level peons. But why 2-4 characters? Because they are gonna die quickly and miserably. Of my 4 characters, 3 had 1 HP, so any accurate hit was a killing blow. Only survivors will be worthy of choosing a class for them. Tajfun (Typhoon) – another player and veteran GM – mentioned that in BECMI some teams even had a house rule of not naming characters until they have reached 4th level.

This approach from DCC bought my heart – just look at the picture on page 23 where you have a dungeon corridor with a cook, ropemaker, blacksmith soiling their underwear while a farmer keeps a skeleton at the pitchfork distance. How cool is that!

We have rolled our four characters each – mine were:

“Razor”, barber

Birth Augur: Four-leafed Clover

STR 10 AGI 10 STA 6 PER 14 INT 13 LUC 16 | HP 1

Hodor, ostler

Birth Augur: Fox’s Cunning

STR 13 AGI 11 STA 8 PER 11 INT 6 LUC 13| HP 1

Old Myth, elven sage

Birth Augur: Born under the loom

STR 12 AGI 11 STA 11 PER 8 INT 10 LUC 14| HP 4

“Birdie”, orphan

Birth Augur: Birdsong

STR 10 AGI 16 STA 11 PER 17 INT 13 LUC 6| HP 1

And you can notice my first mistake – I’ve given them names. Even those 1 HP cannon fodder. I’ve approached these characters like my other characters. And don’t get me wrong. I’m fond of this mistake, as it has lead to the following issue.

The second “mistake” was the outcome of the above – I’ve got attached. Even though Hodor had no cool stats, when he lost his single HP for the first time, I felt a bit sad for him. And it wasn’t even his fault – someone else triggered the trap. Fortunately, this ox of a man was lucky. He may have now some headaches for a few weeks, but apart from that, he left the dungeon unscathed.

Playing multiple characters was a bigger challenge than I expected. My reasoning was – hey, I’m a game master, I play multiple characters ALL THE TIME! But not all of them are on the screen all the time. So I did what as a GM I do for my NPCs – I’ve tried to imagine what they are like in thick strokes, give them a quirk. Instead of fancy names, give them saying-all nicknames. So Hodor was speaking only “Hodor” of course (yeah, I know, 6 is not THAT dumb, but remember I was using thick strokes). Birdie being a smart street child, more acting from the shadow and behind of the rest of the team. I’ve even startled the GM when he has discovered that the old man’s voice was my elven sage – “I have never seen an old elf …”. Well, me neither – thick strokes, remember?

Screen time each player, not to mention character, could get was a noticeable issue. 4 players times 4 characters – a band of 16 villagers got into The Portal Under the Stars. Of my characters, the most visible was Old Myth, even though he had not fought at all – his mayfly reference to shortlived humans set the mood of the evening. Although I remember all of my characters, I barely remember any of the other 12 – Mary the Mad urchin, Wolo the halfling mariner and his halfling boyfriend Merry of forgotten occupation, Jackson Stonewall of also forgotten occupation (was it cooper?). But isn’t it how stories are built? Only the survivors are remembered, never those who found their unpleasant fate in the first room of the dungeon (Theodore is an exception). And it’s by design. You are not supposed to develop deep personalities for these characters. Even giving them names might be a waste of time. Having 1 HP means that falling off stairs can kill them. Literally!

The game was fun. It was far from stupid charges (well, there was a reason why Mary was called Mad) and plenty of creative thinking – did you know one can use a grappling hook to nail with a hammer fire throwing hole in a statue? It almost worked out well for us. Almost. There were also scenes when only one or two players could have acted – do you remember these 16 villagers in the dungeon? They had to wait in line to get their snake demon beating.

Contrarily to what one may think, the worst of this is that all of my characters survived the first dungeon, and I am going to have a way of a problem whom to pick for the next adventure. I love the mediocre Old Myth, quiet Birdie, even stupid Hodor. But better stats have Razor and Birdie, with potential for future Wizard and Thief respectively. Or Thief and Cleric … (Drachu is going to let us swap 2 stats as a house rule, it’s not part of the DCC canonic rules)

Nevertheless, I am impatiently looking forward to next meeting with DCC and adventures of the unlikely heroes. Too bad it’s for the moment going only to happen if we set up our Burning Wheel session and someone will unexpectedly miss the date.