Dungeon Denizens KS

[Finarvyn]

I'm thinking of supporting the "Dungeon Denizens" kickstart that Goodman Games is launching. It's a book with 500 monsters in it.



The problem I'm having is trying to decide if I want to back it in DCC format or 5E format.

(1) My group doesn't play much DCC, but I'm thinking that the statblocks from DCC most closely match many of the OSR games on my shelf. I suspect that the smaller statblocks will make the book thinner, which might explain why that version is $10 cheaper than the 5E one.


(2) My crew currently is almost exclusively playing 5E, which makes it seem more useful than DCC to me, but the monster entries are likely to be more complex and I'm not certain that I want to use all of the detail. (When I run 5E I often OSR-ize it.) Also, the hardback is $10 more expensive than the DCC version.

[geoffrey]

DCC, hands-down.

1. According to the kickstarter page, it is about 100 pages shorter. I hate stat bloat.

2. While I have never played either DCC or 5th edition, I have looked through the rulebooks, and I would far rather play DCC.

3. Ten bucks cheaper. If in doubt, go cheap. Why pay for an extra 100 pages of padding you'll probably never use?

[chicagowiz]

Maybe for yourself, DCC. Point your crew to the 5e one, that way if they want it, they can get it and maybe share w/you? Or everyone could chip in as a group for the 5e one?

[hamurai]

DCC.
Since you prefer the small stat blocks and often cut the 5E stats to OSR size anyway, it makes most sense to me.

I've run DCC adventure modules with other OSR systems, and they hardly need changes. And mayyyyybe with that new shiny tome of adversaries on the table, your group will be tempted to play DCC

[Finarvyn]

I should have mentioned that I had started to pledge this kickstart DCC and got to the "add on" part and saw that I could get a DM screen designed for DCC or one for 5E and they noted there special rules for the new monsters. That's where I stopped backing and decided to go for some feedback from posters here. I wondered if the 5E DM screen would be more useful if I'm actually using 5E rules but then wondered if I might mess myself up by going DCC but buying a 5E screen because the two might not match well. Indecision hit me hard at that moment. I suppose I could have just decided not to get a screen at all, but it sounded like the screen would be handy in play.

Feb 24, 2023 22:33:57 GMT -6 geoffrey said:

DCC, hands-down.

1. According to the kickstarter page, it is about 100 pages shorter. I hate stat bloat.

2. While I have never played either DCC or 5th edition, I have looked through the rulebooks, and I would far rather play DCC.

3. Ten bucks cheaper. If in doubt, go cheap. Why pay for an extra 100 pages of padding you'll probably never use?

1. I missed the part about the 100 pages. Wow.

2. I have played both and I enjoy both. The problem my group has most with DCC is that my wife loves to play wizards and 5E is her ultimate magic system. She doesn't like DCC's elaborate spell charts.

3. I'm cheap as well, so it's a good fit.

Feb 24, 2023 23:24:18 GMT -6 chicagowiz said:

Maybe for yourself, DCC. Point your crew to the 5e one, that way if they want it, they can get it and maybe share w/you? Or everyone could chip in as a group for the 5e one?

Most of my crew is "player only" so they hardly ever buy DM stuff.

Feb 25, 2023 0:37:44 GMT -6 hamurai said:

I've run DCC adventure modules with other OSR systems, and they hardly need changes.

Agreed. My current 5E campaign is based on running them through several DCC encounters from various modules and I just "wing it" and convert on the fly. My group doesn't know they are DCC adventures.

[waysoftheearth]

This looks like a pro kick starter. They've already gone past a quarter million dollars, which shows they know exactly what they're doing.

But, I guess I'm baffled as to how another 500 monsters will really be useful. I am somewhat reminded of TSR's four volume encyclopedia of magic items (one of my many dust collectors).

So... will I have have to sift thru the chaff to find the gems? Or are we looking at 500 scintillating, mind blowing, game-changing new monsters?
I see some of the monsters will be written by backers. I'm sure there are some amazingly imaginative backers out there, but that feels a tad like quantity over quality. Exploring a bit further, some of the stretch goals include the abhorrent toad (at $150k), giant lizards (at $275!), cockatrices (at 400k!!). C'mon guys. I guess this is why i'm a rubbish at business.

Are they going to provide encounter tables filled with the new (and old) monsters for dungeon levels 1-20 across terrain/climates/culture/setting types, and unique treasure tables for the new monsters, so I can use these monsters in my game right away? Or will i (as usual) have to do that?

I guess this book is primarily for referees but as a referee myself, I can't say I'm in the market for another two foot thick monster manual. I'd far prefer a concise "monster factory" type toolkit to gen my own monsters over a massive tome of "stuff" that might only rarely scratch a specific itch

I love their enthusiasm, but i wish the market would get this excited about more useful stuff. Sigh. Wjat can I say? I'm a fossil

[bobjester0e]

DCC, because that is what I run now. One of my friends still runs 5e, but he's not into backing projects like this (yet) so even if I told him about it, I doubt he'd be remotely interested.

[geoffrey]

I still can't get over that a book of 500 monsters is 100 pages longer with the 5th edition stat blocks. That is ONE-FIFTH OF A PAGE of additional stat block for every single monster! Holy rusted metal, Batman. My eyes would glaze over just looking at those 5th edition stat blocks.

[tombowings]

Geoffrey proves, once again, that he my spirit animal.

[dwayanu]

Looked at another way, it’s another 2 cents per monster.

Of course it’s not just what “stat blocks” commonly denotes, which is the abbreviated data printed in scenarios. That would be in proportion a bigger difference, as many DCC ones — as with AD&D — are in two-column format just two-liners and change.

(They’re so compact partly because they’re pretty useless for anything but the most common form of combat. DCC’s adoption of some modernization at least adds saving throw data. Morale alone would add a lot more complexity in AD&D formalism than in BX.)

Meanwhile, the 5E scenarios of my acquaintance don’t even in-line stat blocks in the first place but just give names. (E.g., “The enchanter Thuria is accompanied by two dread warriors, eight zombies and his pet black dragon wyrmling.”) If they did use stat blocks, though, those would pretty surely be significantly longer than DCC counterparts.

Monster entries in the DCC core book are, apart from natural-language description, basically just the same compressed stat blocks (so more compact even than AD&D MM entries). There’s a third-party supplement — Critters, Creatures & Denizens — that adds more information, but I don’t expect that’s the sort of thing we’re talking about here.

Setting aside description that could be the same for any system, 5E MM entries not only include more information (e.g., ability scores and action details) — but follow a layout that prioritizes aesthetics and utility over optimized data packing.

It’s easily good value if you’re actually using all that material, not so much if you’re not. There’s less extraneous stuff (from the perspective of using an older rules set) than you’d typically find even in stat blocks for 3E/PF1.

DCC modules from the prior era sometimes irked me by duplicating long stat blocks on facing pages, which seemed to me egregious ‘padding’ even if one were using D&D 3.

[dwayanu]

As an aside, I’d be interested in reading about how Finarvyn — an old hand at OD&D and T&T — “OSR-izes” running 5E.

From my own reading through the books, it seems far from the course of least resistance. Things add up to give me a sense that I’d be better off not fighting against the 5E grain; to retain enough of what “old school” means to me, an actual old or OSR rules set would be much less trouble.

Of course, how much is enough — even the importance of one aspect or another— can vary for different people. The criteria may depend a lot on how one played “back in the day” (or, if younger, have heard of the old style).

[dwayanu]

Given DCC’s emphasis on effectively unique monsters, that fan base itself seems in principle likely to want a lot more novelty than usual in FRP bestiaries. A cockatrice as a stretch goal doesn’t suggest that to me, but to the contrary a lot of rehashing of familiar critters into DCC stats.

Back in the day, there was a remarkable amount of novelty in the three volumes of Chaosium’s All the Worlds’ Monsters — but I’m doubtful that I’d find therein a full 500 really worthy entries.

To get a lot of use probably calls for a well developed societal context like that of the Fiend Folio’s drow, kuo-toa, githyanki / githzerai and slaad.

[geoffrey]

Feb 26, 2023 11:53:17 GMT -6 dwayanu said:

To get a lot of use probably calls for a well developed societal context like that of the Fiend Folio’s drow, kuo-toa, githyanki / githzerai and slaad.

Amazingly, this guy converted the entire Fiend Folio to the DCC game:
ravencrowking.blogspot.com/2023/01/lets-convert-fiend-folio-yellow-musk.html

[jeffb]

I don't really understand this product. DCCRPG, at least initially, made such a big deal about not using "canned" generic monsters and encouraged one to create special monsters for your games. And the original corebook had a very small selection of sample monsters. I guess that attitude doesn't make them much money though. Kinda like Gary telling us to do our own thing in the original LBBs vs. Corporate AD&D Gary.

That said, the last project I backed was made available for DCC or 5E. Though I have not run either for years, and no plans to do so, I picked the DCC version. Why? The abbreviated DCC statblock and 3.0-ish scale of numbers is easier to work with for C&C, as well as O/TSR D&D. 5E stat blocks are bigger sure but the contents are either overkill or underkill for older games.

I don't need all the ability scores spelled out as they do in 5E (FRW is still the best system for saves in any D&D or variant, for my money).

Some 5E numbers are heavily inflated (HP) and don't map as well to the T/OSR games.

There is no classic "hit die" listed. This is a necessity for on the fly converting to S&W or C&C which the two OSR systems I primarily use.

And finally, I no longer support the current WOTC/HASBRO corporation, their community, or their D&D game in any way, shape, or form.

[waysoftheearth]

Feb 26, 2023 14:17:25 GMT -6 jeffb said:

Some 5E numbers are heavily inflated (HP) and don't map as well to the T/OSR games.

There is no classic "hit die" listed. This is a necessity for on the fly converting to S&W or C&C which the two OSR systems I primarily use.

And finally, I no longer support the current WOTC/HASBRO corporation, their community, or their D&D game in any way, shape, or form.

These are excellent points of distinction/determination, the last one being a seismic shift for me too.

[dwayanu]

Actually, 5E monster write-ups do give HD but also adds per die for constitution. If memory serves, C&C has a different array of HD sizes by creature type, whereas 5E varies HD size by creature size.

Either way, it’s really the HP sum that’s likely to correlate to relative power (so I’m not sure what purpose varying the size of HD serves).

[jeffb]

Feb 26, 2023 20:09:51 GMT -6 dwayanu said:

Actually, 5E monster write-ups do give HD but also adds per die for constitution. If memory serves, C&C has a different array of HD sizes by creature type, whereas 5E varies HD size by creature size.

My 5E MM is in storage (and likely to stay there until I decide to trash it), but it is a first print so perhaps they changed this in future printings, and if so, that's a good thing and I stand corrected.

That said, I'm not worried about the size of the HD, but the number of HD as this determines to hit bonus, save bonus, check bonus in C&C, and in S&W it determines Hit bonus, and the saving throw to hit number.

[dwayanu]

In terms of saving throws, C&C is more like 5E than it is like S&W. The 1E MM was written in a foggy limbo between OD&D and what AD&D would turn out to be. Quite apart from that, it did things such as boosting the AC of the succubus by 10 points.

Every edition change from 2E through 5E brought more changes in what we’re really talking about, from a typical orc soldier to a dragon or a giant. Monster stats are designed not in isolation but in a larger context that is in various ways different from one edition to another.

I expect there’s now an official 5E write-up of Lolth. Back when I set out to “roll my own,” I quickly concluded that there was little mileage in the comparisons I had available. The relations among other monsters just did not map directly from AD&D to 5E. It would be a matter of assessing the effect I wanted, and choosing 5E particulars on that basis.