A curious look at: "The Gongfarmer's Almanac 2018 - Issue 1" [1/2]

Writing a critical look at something free might see redundant to some. Everyone can check it out as they please so why should someone try to analyse something like the Gongfarmer's Almanac? 

The 2018 GFA is packed full with amazing, community created content for DCC RPG and every player and judge will find something interesting in there. Many people committed hours upon hours of amazing work to get this thing done and the labor and love involved in this project is hard to grasp for someone not involved in the making of the GFA. And while the GFA gets regularly praised it never get's a critical look. There is much to dig through and Ravencrowking regularly provides a great content overview. What you don't find there is critique for the writers to improve even further. So this is why i am about to dive into the 2018 GFA, starting off with "Issue 1 - New Class explosion" and want to give it a curious examination.

The Gongfarmer's Almanac is a free FanZine for DCC RPG. It is made by a big community with lots of authors, artists, editors and layout masterminds involved. This years Zine is divided into 7 Issues, with six of them providing approximately 60 pages of new content each and the seventh being the famed "Master Zine Index", providing a conclusive list of which fan creations can be found in which FanZine.The First Issue is called "New Class Explosion" and contains many new classes, which I will now examine closer.

Bias warning. I wrote a class for this Issue. I won't discuss it in this post, but yeah... i'm involved.

A quick rundown of DCC class design

Classes are a core Concept of DCC. And whilst nearly every character can be realized with the 4 core classes (and 3 races) provided in the DCC RPG Book, there are still many concepts which thrive with their own rules. A Interesting DCC class should have a nice core mechanic and should with increasing levels, only increase in quality of their abilities not quantity (except for known spells). Also every class interacts with Luck in some way. This at least is how the Core classes are designed and it works incredibly well. I will thereby look for a discernible core mechanic in each class and how their abilities scale with level. 

The quality of the class is highly dependent on how intuitive and versatile the class's mechanics are. While not every class should be able to solve every problem (quite the opposite is true), mechanics should always serve more than one purpose. The Deed die is a great example of a versatile mechanic, as it lets you execute nearly any combat maneuver you can think of and increases your combat prowess in general. The limits of this ability are often the limits of the players imagination.

Magic wielding classes are quite different. Since magic is a core mechanic in itself the class should give a theme or a special twist to the magic wielder. But let's not dive into that and get started.

Let's begin our curious look

Bardic Rocker by Jason Morgan. 

 

Illustration wise we are off to a great start. The mix of a classic fantasy tavern with an excitingly metal flying V e-guitar and a quite metal looking bard let's you immediately know whats up with this class. The introductory text paints the same picture. It's a bard with a sub tone of heavy metal and hard rock. Mechanics wise this is a bard. There is not much more to say about it.

The class table is fine. Using Crit Table III makes him martial and bad ass, when crits occur and a decent attack bonus, associated with a d8 HD causes him to be the man every rocker wants to be and stand his ground in most combat situations. I don't get why he has flat (thief) skill bonuses that don't increase with level. They just seem tagged on and for me, personally, work as a dnd Bard, but not as a crom-damned DCC Hard rock god. We don't pick locks. We kick doors in. Spellcasting is decent and relies on the disapproval mechanic, but with song requests added to it. Thematically nice but there are no real consequences except for those at judge's discretion.

There are many nice touches, like Spells working with luck as your main attribute and the iconic bardic performance working with a performance die, but in the end this is just one of many Bards, who has a Hard Rock theme associated with it. Don't get me wrong. I like it. The theme is fun, with a great selection of 80s rock artists referenced, but there are many DCC Bards out there and this one does not stand out. It is incredibly competent and the writing is evocative and top notch, but for my personal taste the Rock Theme is only suited to more light hearted rounds.

If you want a fun bard with some nice mechanics and a hard rock theme this class is for you. If you were looking for a completely new take on the bard as a class, then this might disappoint you. 

Berserker by José Luiz Tzi. 

 

I can't say how much i love the cover illustration. There are no words to describe it. The intro text offers a lot of backgrounds for such a character and paint a nice contrast to the fighter. While the fighter class allows for chaotic and wild characters, the deed die mechanic is a mechanic of calculated intend and this class is quite different.

Thankfully, unlike so many other attempts at a competent martial class, this class did not get a deed die tagged on to make him competent. The Berserker is different. There are many barabarian classes out there but this one is by far my favorite of the bunch. There are two savage mechanics at the core of the character. Cleave and Frustration. As long as the Berserker kills his target in combat he can continue attacking targets. This is brutal. The berserker can tear through weak foes completly lost in blood and rage. It's a great core mechanic. You could over think it but mostly squishing weaklings will be the way to go. 

Frustration is the other core mechanic. Everytime the Berserk misses he becomes more and more frustrated and gets a extra die (d3 and increasing) to his attacks and damage, until he hits. This is close to the deed die mechanic but it just suits the class incredibly. You want to attack and nothing else. If you hit, you wreak havoc, if you miss... you will hit sooner. In addition savage instincts help the character build anger and frustration by experiencing triggers like fighting weaklings. This mechanic is nice in concept but i don't like the execution. It's not bad, but not as stellar as everything else. The list of triggers increases with level and get's harder to keep track of. This is either challenging for the Berserker or for the judge. 

All in all this might be my favorite class from this years GFA and my favorite barbarian in DCC. The class has flaws but they are minor and nitpicky.

Faerie Class by James A. Pozenel, Jr.

 

Not only offering a new class, but also a new race, this article is just packed full of stuff. It originally appeared in Angels, Daemons & Beings Between, Vol. 2: Elfland Edition. Since i don't own this book i can't say if it was reworked or revised since it's first appearance. 

The Cover Illustration paints a malevolent picture of faeris, with a grim looking faery wielding a sharp and pointy knife. The introductory text is long and offers a detail of the faery race along with their two factions. The seelie and unseelie court. This, combined with the half letter sized format, makes for a not so easy to digest introduction, but the information in there is worth a lot. It's well written and well spaced out, but the level of detail might be too much for someone giving this a first read.

Faeries are fragile, low damage dealing, spell slinging, sneaky beasts. And they excell at this. Their abilities are quite befitting for the small folk, although they play it safe for the most part. They have their own spell list and can turn into a normal sized humanoid for a while to compensate for their martial flaws. Their most unique ability is the ability of flight, which not only makes them quite fast and mobile, but also predestined for exploring those nasty shafts in the ceiling. Their stealth abilities help to further this. Faeries have unique optical features, dependent on the court they align with, but those sadly have no impact on their abilities. One missed opportunity is their use of the luck attribute. It is simply added to their AC and Ref save. I was hoping for something more mythical, unpredictable and weird for those.

Then there are the other additions. Amazing new spells for faeries, faerie occupations, known languages and a new deed to use against fairies. This is just amazing and just fills in all the blanks for this class to be the most complete of them all. Making new DCC races is not as easy as making a new class, but James pulled it off. 

Whether you like this class or not depends on your enjoyment of fairies in general. I am not a huge fan of faeris and while i can see how well those core concepts were executed here, but this is no highlight for me. Its competent and well put together, but i think it could have gone weirder in some places.

Goat'O'War by Randy Andrews

 

Goats have been getting a good bit of love within the Gongfarmers Almanac. With two goat classes within the last few years, the aspiring bringers of chaos have more options than elves at their disposal. 

It's a goat illustration... and a quite goat one. There is a disturbing lack of intro text, which is quite sad. The introduction only outlines how to become a Goat'O'War and adds no flavor to that. But then again... it's a goat. What did you expect? This class is not meant to be taken serious but can do wonders if it is. Goats speak abyssal, naturally, and have the innate ability to headbutt the living shit out of everyone crossing their way. They can climb and bite but fail to offer anything else. 

While this class could have been a nice, fun class, it has shaved of too many words. Natural weapons, secondary attacks and the use of the deed die are all hidden within the "weapon training" section of the class and while i guess it's not the case, it is never explicitly stated that they can't perform mighty deeds of arms. But that's just one of the many problems with recycling the deed die to attack. Also some things get flat bonuses at levels, for example the charge bonus turning into a +2 at level 5. I strongly dislike this because it's a missed opportunity. One could have done more with the charge and the flat bonus increase is hidden within the text and not represented in the table.

This class has fun aspects, but i prefer the Doom Goat from a few years ago over it, as is relies on fun, new mechanics instead of putting a warrior on four legs. It's quite goat, but i hoped for more. 

Gongfarmer by Reece Carter

 

The Gongfarmer is a class now. You now have the ability to be a travelling night soil digger, solving problems with your own might, skill and the feces of others. The illustration is funny, as it perfectly depicts what the class does. This one is not meant to hang out with the cool guys. The gongfarmer is lacking an intro text and delivers all its "charm" through it's mechanics. 

The gongfarmer is not a good class. Not if good means well balanced and heroic. It's just the natural extension of the gongfarmer concept. He is not good at fighting, but can deploy some quite shitty (pun intended) tactics to deliver tons of damage to a single foe. He is not likely to ever puke or feel ill. He does that for a living. He regenerates luck. But far to few. Only a legendary gongfarmer (if something like this exists) will ever run around with a comfortable luck stat. That's it for this class. And it's fine. It's really fine the way it is. 

This one is hard to judge. It's a gongfarmer for crom's sake. He is not meant to be competent or fun to be. He is the butt of many jokes and a quite shitty companion. But he could be far, far worse. And i'd love to see him once thrown into a normal, regular group of DCC typical cutpurses.

So far and till next time.

I will spare you from the wall of text associated with me going through all the classes. I'll simply outsource the remaining ones into the next blog post. Stay tuned and feel free to discuss my curious look. It's just a opinion and observation from a biased standpoint.

The Elven Strider - A DCC Character Class

You are an outsider to most. Growing up as an elf, a long living demi-human, whose ancient civilization indulges in crafts and arts, magic and mundane, your lack of connection to the arcane world ensured, that you never quite felt at home. Traversing the thick elven forests you found your fulfillment in the martial ways, training in combat and patience alike.

Today's post is about a new character class for DCC RPG

The elven Strider

[If the link does not work try this one: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1ZzOxw1JOwTl2vDziYnAUycg0GN_hKXzC]

Character classes are a stable of fantasy role playing games, ever since D&D introduced them into their game along with them. DCC uses a old school line-up of character classes and with those, classes and races are indistinguishable. Being a dwarf apparently is a full time job.

This system has many perks and one of them is streamlining characters and play as well as setting expectations to judges and other players. Character and personality in DCC are not about what is written on your character sheet, but what the character experiences and how the player expresses him, anyway.

I am normally not a fan of elves. I just don't want to play them most of the time. But DCC made quite interesting elves by combining them with patrons and making them into long living vessels for some of the most powerful entities out there. While i liked that concept i felt like i wanted to give elves another option. 

In the long run i am planning on giving all races (elves, dwarfs, halflings) a second class option, just to give their players some choice and make them compensate for the "wrong" stats better. I have not settled for a second dwarven and halfling class yet, especially as there are some amazing ones out there on the Internet and in Fanzines.

The elven strider is a elf whose focus lies more on physical and martial combat and who has only small arcane capabilities, granted through his patron. His defining class feature, the Aim Die came from a Discussion on G+ on a similar class. The Outlier by Nick Baran. Check it out. It's quite cool. I just wanted to have a combat capable class who does not use the deed die in the typical fashion and wanted to give it a unique spin. 

This is not the first character class i ever created. For this years Gongfarmers Almanach i wrote a Lycanthrope class. Feel free to check it out. I am quite proud of it. It can be found in 2018 Gongfarmer's Almanac Volume #1. Huge thanks to my friend Maike Gerstenkorn who contributed the amazing Werewolf Artwork for the Front page of this class. 

Did you know that the consolidated Version is out? No? Go buy it! Its only printing and shipping costs. Literally the cheapest option possible. Gongfarmers Almanach 2018

Please feel free to leave any feedback for the classes, along with fun anecdotes that arise from playing them. I plan on writing a more general post on class systems and am even working on some exciting alternatives to use with DCC. Until then. Have a good time

 

Curious Dungeon #2 - Cave of The Moths

It's been a while. Not only since i posted a Dungeon, but also since i posted in general. So here is the second Curious Dungeon. 

In my first Curious Dungeon (The Temple of Oyraka) i tried myself at drawing and designing Dungeons by making a map without concept and filling it with life after wards. This time i took a similar approach. 

I always wanted to try isometric dungeons. I love isometric dungeons. They look awesome. So i went out and tried it for myself. I was quite happy with the result and decided that i need to use it for more than just drawing practice. So as with the previous Curious Dungeon i turned this map into a full, system neutral, fantasy Dungeon along with Plot hooks and room descriptions. Enjoy

The Cave of the Moths

The Design Ideas for this one came fast. At the moment i started drawing the long staircase i noticed that i was making the stairs quite irregular. I was thinking of fixing it but then decided to completely roll with it, which gave the dungeon a crumbled and dangerous look. 

So the structural damage plays hugely into exploring the dungeon. Every step might bring the building to a collapse. 

Filling the Dungeon was not too hard. I started of with an excuse to visit it. As always, obtaining an artifact was enough of a reason for me. Since i just ran a quick, improvised session in which beings of darkness, hiding in a cave, impenetrable to normal light, were the main danger, an artifact to counter the light was necessary. So i created a lantern, bright enough to vanish all darkness. Instead of a well rounded Dungeon i decided that home of this artifact was the Place where it was built. Crumbled and long abandoned the light unfortunately does the same thing what my light in my room does in these short summer nights. It attracts pesky insects. And so the Cave of the Moths was born.

I am quite happy with this one. Creating a smaller Dungeon is just a fun experience. The first Curious Dungeon with it's 18 Rooms was quite tedious to write down, but this one was fun from start to finish. I always intended curious dungeons to be a series and i want to continue with them. Currently i feel more inclined to create short ones but feel free to tell me what you prefer!

Tell me how you like it. I'd love to hear of someone who incorporated this dungeon (and my other creations) in his campaign and if you just want to use the map, feel free to do so. I'd love to hear how other people fill these maps with life.

On a personal note... I'm back. I had exams in the beginning of august and despite my intentions to write something i just could not get things done. Holiday soon followed and i collected many ideas and began fleshing them out. I will keep a bi-weekly postsduring the summer and hopefully the entire autumn with posts occurring on Fridays. At least that's the plan.

When Magic goes critical - DCC Rules

Magic in Dungeon Crawl Classics is awesome. It really is. And one of the most fun aspects of magic is never knowing exactly what happens. Therefore DCC wizards are among the most fun classes to play in all of fantasy roleplaying. There is just one thing that has always bothered me.

One of the most important things about d20 Systems is, that when the dice come up with a 20, then something awesome happens. This is true for Wizards in DCC to some extent. The rules say that when rolling a natural 20 you get a even higher spell bonus than you already got. So you are incredibly likely to cast the best spell of your life. That's good. But not as fun as rolling a 20 for any other class can be.

To make this more fun for myself and my group i did the most DCC thing i could think off and crafted a new set of random table to roll on. Critical Tables for spells. All spell casting classes can use these tables to determine more awesome results should a natural 20 come up. The tables work incredibly similar to the way mundane critical hit tables work. 

Critical Magic

[If this link is not working try this one: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1cLvLnwdeSFyaCSfz6qPVC2nTYe57vgDb]

Those tables have not yet been playtested extensively, but my players like them this far. Feel free to leave Feedback as a comment or on G+

I can't guarantee that I'll keep a bi-weekly update schedule for the next few weeks but I'll try my best. I am definitely not running out of ideas. Just out of time.

Tzashazul - The Dimensional Terror - A DCC Patron

The Dimensional Terror is an ancient beast of magic. Not born, neither created it mindlessly traveled through dimensions, devouring mind after mind to fill its shell with thoughts. The pure basis of its existing was madness. Thousands of minds, living in a immortal body, struggling against each other, trying to seize control or escape this torturous state. As eons passed these minds slowly merged into one twisted, mad, but at the same time genuinely brilliant beast, which calls itself Tzashazul. 

Tzashazul - The Dimensional Terror

[If this link does not work try this one: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1S8qJnzcz43vwsYMgRhOKWkCBqyPPgkVR]

I hereby present to you Tzashazul. A DCC Patron for those seeking madness. I have to give credit, where credit is due. This Patron is inspired by one of the finest DCC adventures i ever had the pleasure of running. Of course i am talking about the magnificent Sailors on the starless Sea by DCC legend Harley Stroh. If you don't know this Adventure skip the following paragraph.

Spoilers ahead. It is no secret anymore that one of the deadliest beasts in Harley Strohs adventure is a giant leviathan living at the bottom of the starless sea. During one of my playthroughs a character began, driven by madness, to cut out his enemies and allies hearts to pacifiy the beast. The elf took such pleasure and fulfilment in the task that it was only natural, after he sacrificed the hearts of the enemy shaman with a combination of suicidal stupidity and unjustifyable luck, to make this beast at the bottom of the starless Sea his Patron. 

Spoilers end here. The Patrons design changed a lot over the course of the last weeks as i was never happy with what i got so the final version has only small resemblence to what Harley Strohs Adventure suggested. The theme of madness and tentacles stuck, though. This is all for those familiar with DCC. I am quite happy with this patron, but i'd love any type of feedback on this one as it is my first Patron write-up ever. To all those who don't know what a Patron is let me explain it to you

Patrons in DCC

Wizards in Dungeon Crawl Classics are fun! DCC is one of the best fantasy systems to be a wizard in. It perfectly fits the theme of wild, unpredictable, yet powerful magic. And the constant struggle of wizards to push their power and knowledge to unprecedented hights is omnipresent within the game. 

Patrons are one of the best implementations of this idea. By learning the spell "Patron Bond" a Wizard can strike a deal with a Patron. A being of vast arcane knowledge and power. The character offers up his wealth, services or even his soul in order to gain more power from his Patron.

In game terms, when a character bonds with a patron they strike a deal. The character gets the ability to invoke his patron for help and might, over the span of his adventuring life learn new spells from his Patron, which are superior to most normal spells. But every request comes at a cost. The character has to carry out quests for his Patron or has to sacrifice his wealth, his allies or himself to the Patrons cause. The Patrons influence taints the character over time, as he uses his masters service more and more. 

There are many types of Patrons. Some are powerful, formerly mortals beings who achieved near immortality through arcane skill and knowledge. Some are gods, supporting their followers with powers beyond celestial magic. Many are demons, abusing weak mortals for their own goals by pretending they could achieve greatness. 

One last note: Check out the amazing Knights in the North Blog, if you don't know of it yet. They post tons of amazing DCC stuff and have recently posted an amazing additional system to further improve upon Patrons in general. I highly recommend using it! Seriously. Take a look at their Patron and Deity Demands!

Until next time, where i take another look at the Wizard Class in DCC!

Out of Curiosity: Designing One-Shots

Not every story has to be an epic. Sometimes a short story can be as exciting as a lengthy novel and a short 20 minute video can be more captivating than a feature length movie. Role Playing is no different. While many people want to play lengthy and epic multi-session campaigns, lasting months or even years. But there are more ways to play then this. One-Shots are roleplaying stories and adventures, play- and completable within a single session. But how do you design a One-Shot? How should you approach running a One-Shot? Is it even different from your regular campaign session?

What is a One-Shot?

One Shots are single role playing sessions that feature a story designed to conclude in the very session it started. One could also call them single session adventures. They are not built around weeks of character progression or complex, open ended, narrative structures. One-Shots have to rely on the strength of their story or gameplay in order to deliver a compelling experience. 

Does this mean that One-Shots have to be completely self-contained? No. Not at all. Some One-Shots rely on knowledge of the world, where they take place or the games systems they use. And this can be good. One-Shots in a familiar setting require less introduction and explanation, therefore leaving more time for the playing itself. 

One-Shots can easily be integrated into a campaign, if the premise is not too far off in order to spice things up and some campaigns might consist entirely of One-Shots. Every session tells its own story and a overarching theme, maybe a villain, brings everything together. But the focus always lies on the single sessions, not the bigger picture.

Why play One-Shots?

First of all we need to take a look at the many reasons, why people would even want to play a single session adventure. 

Time might be the main reason. Not every gamer has enough time to spare for a weekly meet up with his fellow gamers and even those who have might find it hard to coordinate this time with their group. It might just be a necessity that leads to playing one-shots on a regular basis, as full attendance is not required for having fun and those missing out don't need to be filled in on any major events.

One-Shots are a natural fit for any story based on mercenaries, so systems like Shadowrun, Cyberpunk or Traveller feel right at home with such a style of play. Characters are not doing things because they want to be heroes, but because they want to get paid. Not everyone is needed for every job and some might need time off to recover. When the job is done and the money is paid, everyone leaves with a nice story to tell. 

There is one place where, over everything else, One-Shots reign supreme. Conventions. There are few people who go to a convention to play their campaign with their friends. At a Convention you want to sit down at the table and jump right into playing. And it does not matter if you play your favorite system, in your own campaign setting or something new: you are there to have fun and you don't want to leave without the story ending. 

How to design a One-Shot

As with everything creative there is no formula for designing One-Shots. I am just sharing some advice from my personal experience and thinking. I don't wanna say that i know how to write perfect adventures. I really don't. But i trust in these advices and most good one Shots i designed and ran fulfilled those rules.

1. Stick to a Theme

Having a singular Theme at the center of your adventure is key to a good experience. Not only does it help yourself design further elements into a short, but coherent story, it also helps your players in getting a feel for the One-Shot. A strong Theme gives the One-Shot consistency and direction.

A One-Shots theme should not only influence the story, but also the gameplay. The players should be able to identify the theme without being told what the theme is. It does not have to be in the foreground. A theme can be as subtle as "Freedom or Safety?", "Vengeful Spirit", "Secret Ingredient" and "Fear of the Unknown" or as obvious as "Religious Journey", "Old School Dungeoncrawl", "Political Murder story" and "Double Agent Drama".

The only important thing is that your stick to your Theme. While a campaign might be fun, when it slowly turns from a political murder story into a hunt for the ancient treasure, this would be too much for your typical One-Shot. While some adventures might work without a Theme or with multiple Themes, fighting to get the upper hand, those will be the exception, not the norm.

While this might be incredibly vague advice, i will give you some practical applications. When making notes for your One-Shot, write the Theme you choose at the top of every page. This will help with keeping the theme in mind. Another idea to keep sticking to a theme would be writing key words, you associate with the theme, down on index cards. Then make sure you include at least half of them in the adventure in some major way.

2. Don't overdo it

Complex scenes and characters are compelling. Complex story arcs are intriguing. Gameplay does profit from depth, most of the time. But within a single session, there is not enough space for everything to be as detailed and complex as possible. If there are many NSC's and they all have tons of depth and complex motivations then players will be confused and are likely not too reach story's climax in time.

This does not mean that you should build a shallow story and flat characters. Quite the opposite is true. Make characters interesting and unique. But don't overdo it. You don't have the space for 20 interesting unique characters. The main characters in the story should be unique, they should be complex and have personal depth. But those characters at the edge of your story won't benefit from such depth. Cliches are great to convey characteristics through expectations and make interactions with side characters quick and intuitive. Those interactions don't distract from the main story and help give the characters a feeling of belonging into the world, as the players expectations of how they should interact were met by the world around them.

When it comes to the story itself, not overdoing it is even more important. Your goals for a One-Shot story are the following. The Story needs to be easy to get involved in, entertaining to play and it should have a achievable conclusion. Everything that distracts from these goals should be closely examined. While, for example, an unexpected plot twist might add to the entertainment value, the second and third twist will just stand in the way of reaching a conclusion. And even the first twist might be unnecessary if the narrative was strong enough until this point. 

3. Less Scenes, more Impact

It's hard to distinguish this one from the second point but the implications are quite different. Don't plan too many scenes. One-Shots often tend to feel rushed anyway, so giving each scene time to breathe and to develop itself is crucial for an amazing Adventure. But its not only about giving each scene time. Each scene has to leave a impact. Each scene has to be important. If you have a scene which does not advance the story or develop the characters, then why is it in the One-Shot?

Constructing a good scene can be challenging? What makes a scene great? A great designer or author could possibly write an entire essay about this topic and i am neither, so I'll keep this short. A great scene is driven by the characters. It comes into existence because the characters have something they want to achieve or discover. A scene without urgency won't be interesting to the characters.
The outcome of a scene should be up to the decisions of the players and maybe even chance. This does not mean that everything should be open ended. It is nearly impossible to account for everything in the design stage of a One-Shot, but the story should not have scenes with only one possible outcome. In a One-Shot, every interaction should matter and therefore should be rewarded or punished.

4 Raise the Stakes 

When the story will reach a conclusion eventually, when the end of the story might as well be the end of the characters, then why should there be nothing at stake. High stakes are rare in roleplaying. Too rare. And a self contained experience like a One-Shot might be the perfect environment to reintroduce them into your design. Why sit down to safe a small village from goblins if you could instead safe the entire kingdom from a demonic dragon lord?

What does having high stakes mean? High stakes are a combination of three factors. High incentive, high risk and high reward. A good story has a motivation for the characters, challenges to overcome and a rewarding conclusion. The consequence for success and failure should be big. If you ever revisit this world, then the impact of this single One-Shot might still linger around in the world itself. Not all plots work on a scale like this. Sometimes the consequences have to be more personal and sometimes they won't even affect anyone besides the main character. But they always should be severe for the character. When the One-Shot has concluded, something should have changed. And whether it changed for the better or worse might be up to the players.

In most stories the protagonists don't fail. While failure within a novel or movie is a device used sparingly to convey drama and suspension, it is always constructed. Role Playing is a game. You can't force people to succeed or fail without it feeling cheap. Success must be an achievement and failure a punishment. The risk of failure should always be there, but there are many forms of failure. While a characters death might be the most obvious form of failure, it should never be the only one. There are many interesting forms of failure, that create new scenarios and develop characters. Loss of a NPC, loss of an item, success on the villains part or a setback in progress are all interesting consequences for failure.  Including them in the design of encounters helps in raising the stakes and creates a atmosphere of danger and suspension once the players notice that success is not guaranteed.

 5. Go experimental

A One-Shot is the prefect place to get weird and creative. No matter what you want to try out, be it a crazy story element, a dangerous encounter, a new mechanic or a weird gimmick, why not try it in a One-Shot. You could even build the entire one-shot around this experimental feature and you don't have to smuggle the new thing in. You can put it front and center for the whole experience. Trying new things out is a great excuse to design a one-shot and those that are build from the ground up to support a creative new idea are among the best there could possibly be.

Just... Don't overdo it...

In Conclusion

A good One-Shot is a One-Shot designed around some interesting core ideas, with a good focus on whats important and what isn't. It involves the players and creates a narrative that can easily hook players and characters into it until the conclusion, in which the consequences of the players choices and characters actions finally surface to their full extent. 

But good is not objective and there are many things i overlooked. Take these rules as a inspiration more than a guideline. Not everything works for everyone, but thinking about what might work is never a mistake.

The obligatory house rule post.

As i started this blog i made a post about why i enjoy Dungeon Crawl Classics as much as i do. One of the points i made there was how easy it is to modify the DCC ruleset. I and many other judges out there made house rules to adjust the game to their personal preferences. I wanted to present some of my house rules for a long time and now i finally found the inspiration to do so.

This week the awesome Spellburn Podcast made an episode in which they talked about House rules in great depth and presented many suggestions. Go and listen to the episode if you have not done so already. It's a great one.

Two of the house rules presented here are already featured in the Spellburn episode but were heavily modified since then. I will discuss the reasoning behind every house rule and implications here. If you only want the crunch, then don't worry. I also posted all house rules as a PDF

OOC-DCC-Houserules

Attribute Checks

Instead of rolling 1d20 and adding the modifier of the corresponding attribute, players roll 1d20 and add the entire value of the attribute when making Skill and Attribute checks. All difficulties have to be adjusted by adding 10 to the DC.

Rolling the body is the only exception to this rule. You still need to roll under your luck attribute in order to succeed.

Reasoning

I never enjoyed rolling for attributes in d20 games. Big dice and small modifiers make your character and his stats feel irrelevant to the outcome of the roll. While DCC fixes this by rewarding creativity over dice rolling i still felt an urge to change the rulings.
My first attempt was, inspired by some AD&D and Cthulhu games i played in, making attribute checks by rolling under the attribute. While i liked it and still think it works fine this ruling had two major problems. First: Calculating Difficulties and factoring in modifiers is a mess. Second (as discussed in Spellburn): Rolling low is not fun. While i might disagree on the second one, the first one always bugged me.
This solution is mathematically equivalent to rolling under the attributes when it comes to probabilities of success. Also you don't have to house rule modifications. They apply per normal rules. Its still not that great to have a result of a 15 be "not that good", but i prefer it widely over a success difference of 15% between the weak wizard and the mighty warrior when it comes to strength checks.

Blocking with Shields

In addition to granting a AC Bonus shields can also be used to block any one melee attacks, which the character is aware of, even critical hits. The blocking of an attack has to be announced after the attack is rolled but before any damage or  critical rolls are made. The shield is destroyed by the attack and no damage is applied to the character.
Magical shields are not destroyed, they are knocked away, cut loose, stuck or otherwise made useless for the remaining encounter.

Shields can be used to attack, which uses the normal dual wielding rules except for dwarves.

New Equipment
Shield	Cost*	Damage**	AC Bonus	Check Penalty	Fumble †
Wooden Shield	20gp	1d3	+1	-2	+1d
Steel Shield	35gp	1d4	+2	-4	+1d
Tower Shield	80gp	1d6	+4	-6	+2d

* for use with base DCC. My Campaign Setting "Thireila" converts all costs from GP to SP
** If used to attack (f.e. by a dwarf using board and sword)
† In addition to any armor worn. 1d equals a step on the dice chain for armored fumbles d4-d8-d12-d16-d20-d24

Reasoning

 As i read through the hubris setting i found this rule and wanted to imply it into my game. The rule as i present were originally found in Crawl Issue 2 , which originally took them from the Trollsmyth blog. I made a way more complicated draft out of this, which allowed to block multiple attacks and tracked shield hit points. Damage overflow from shields could be applied to characters. It was a quite nice system i think. It just did not work for DCC. DCC is focused on actions and reactions, not on bookkeeping. Its inspiration is in heroic fantasy, where taking a hit to the shield is not a tactical choice but an act of desperation. This current draft encourages this epic style of play without complicating gameplay and the new shield types i included offer more choice for player characters.

Combat Actions

Charging grants a +2 bonus to damage (if the attack is successful) instead of the attack roll. As usual it also grants a -2 malus to the charging characters AC

A character may perform a reckless attack. This grants a +2 bonus to the attack roll and reduces the attacking characters AC by 2. This maneuver can be combined with a charge to get +2 to attack and damage at the cost of a -4 AC malus.

Reasoning

An attack performed with high momentum should be impactful. Charging should be awesome. In basic DnD and DCC a charge is just a way to get more reliable damage instead of a maneuver to get one hit of high damage. So i changed this around. But even in a normal fight one can recklessly go all out on the enemy. It won't put more force to your strike, but it will make it more likely to hit someone.
This grants more options in combat which are not hard to explain, don't need any specifications and help create more high risk situations initialized by players. The impact of this additional action will drop off towards higher levels as characters get more reliable results out of their class abilities so it will only increase choice for 0 or low levels characters. I have not yet play tested this enough to see if it makes it too easy for the characters, but mightier characters can easily be countered by mightier foes, right?

No Corruption and Fumble avoidance

Wizards can't burn luck to avoid corruption, Warriors can't burn luck to avoid fumbles.

Reasoning

Corruption is awesome but rare. And avoiding it with one single point of luck makes corruption so rare that its not even worth checking. But as i mentioned, corruption is awesome. So it should happen. Therefore should not be avoidable.
I gave the warrior the same treatment and made them not able to avoid fumbles. I just like rolling on tables okay? Maybe the warrior thing will get kicked out soon, who knows.