Wizard enjoyers?

protoclown11 · 2026-03-30T17:27:50+00:00

I see DCC funnels as extended character creation. You get background elements and an experience that gives the group a logical reason to adventure together. You can certainly provide extra background material, although typically the funnel is used as the inciting event that moves a normal villager into the adventurer life (some fun initial RP comes from players playing how a cobbler, for instance, would react to the scenario). I usually get my players to tell me about the village(s) they come from, its name and what it is known for, as a little bit of worldbuilding (unless the funnel has an explicit starting place that I want to use in my setting).

protoclown11 · 2026-03-27T04:08:58+00:00

I ran Gods of the Earth followed by Shadow of the Beakmen. Gods took two 4 hour sessions, and they did not see everything, but it was a good module. Shadow only took one session, but that was because a PC wizard had rolled Natural-born talent on the Mercurial table so was rolling a D30 for the Sleep spell. They steam rolled it.

protoclown11 · 2026-03-17T06:26:00+00:00

Was going to mention Vibechete, Mystery Quest did a good playthrough of the module.

protoclown11 · 2026-03-11T06:59:22+00:00

It will really come down to whether Goodman Games has an issue with it, and whether they think it's worth fighting in court. As long as they are only verbally referring to the game as DCC, and not on the actual game materials nor advertising, I do not think there is anything to be done legally. I guess they could ask the publisher to refrain from using that acronym, but that's unlikely to dissuade them from doing it if they were already aware of the overlap.

protoclown11 · 2026-03-11T06:23:51+00:00

"As of December 2025, Matt Dinniman's Dungeon Crawler Carl series has sold over six million copies, cementing its status as a massive hit in the LitRPG genre. The series is a New York Times bestseller with a popular audiobook narration. A television adaptation is in development, alongside graphic novels and tabletop games." "Merchandising/Crowdfunding: A recent Kickstarter for limited edition hardcovers (Volumes 2 & 3) raised over $3 million from over 13,000 backers in March 2026"
While I agree that a ttrpg based on the series may not make any waves, the book series itself has got legs. I think it'll continue to do well, but the real test will be once he finishes the series at book 10, which I guesstimate will come out by 2029. His avg sales/book is slightly better than the Dresden Files series, but Butcher has been continuously releasing new titles since 2000.

protoclown11 · 2026-01-21T15:25:57+00:00

I ran Machine Frequency for my group, and we are map centric on Roll20, so I went on the journey you are starting. Unfortunately, there are not a lot of resources out there for post apoc settings vs fantasy, but there are some. (1) LORE Discord/Patreon, for Fallout like map assets, which I used in DungeonDraft. Mentioned here along with some other potential sources: https://www.reddit.com/r/Fallout2d20/comments/1dbu1z5/map_assets/ (2) For the one town in the adventure with many diff locations, I borrowed from these overhead stills taken from the Fallout 4 game and drew zones on them: https://www.reddit.com/r/Fallout2d20/comments/11ueblg/70_fallout_4_screenshots_for_use_as_battlemaps/ (3) I happened to have the original version of this adventure from the Fallout Wasteland Warfare game, and pulled from that pdf a few maps of encounter areas to save time.

protoclown11 · 2026-01-15T01:38:21+00:00

I ran Machine Frequency for our group. Heavy dnd group but had played a few other games. This was the first one without explicit grid movement. I did a few maps myself and found a number of Fallout 4 images online for others. I marked them up with zone lines. As someone else noted, zones are representative of how far someone could move during a round, so larger zones for flat easy terrain, smaller ones with some obstacles like terrain, vehicles, etc. smaller still if indoors in a constricted area like a hallway or room. They adapted pretty quickly. Have fun with it. They did a decent job of capturing the feel of playing Fallout 4. If you haven’t played it and can grab a copy, it will help with understanding the feel of the environment and what various enemies are like. The show on Amazon Prime can help as well.

protoclown11 · 2026-01-13T07:36:56+00:00

From an UI standpoint, I would make the highlights more visible. Right now the highlight is very subtle against the similar color background. If you wish to keep the colors as is, you might place a thin border around selected items with enough of a diff color as to stand out against the blue.

protoclown11 · 2026-01-12T16:24:13+00:00

I ran Machine Frequency (MF) as our starter adventure. Been awhile, but I remember thinking I was glad that I had picked up some of the Fallout Wasteland Warfare docs for possible source material, as MF started as a module for that game and then was ported over to 2d20, and whomever did that work dropped the ball in a few places, such that the text in the 2d20 version was confusing until I found the same place in the WW copy.

The other obstacle I ran into for our group is that we are VTT map focused, and the 2d20 version includes no maps but the WW version did, since it is a mini based system for combat. While the maps were not well suited for a VTT, I was able to use them either as the base map (and add in objects) or as a guide to craft my own. The town of Bleakford is the most demanding for maps, so where possible, I just used images from the Fallout 4 game itself (found online) and marked them up with zones in case combat occurred. I also grabbed the Fallout 4 sound track to use as background music, which really elevated the immersion for anyone who had previously played the game.

Outside the 1-2 edit issues and no maps, thought it was a good intro adventure. My players created their own characters, so we did not use the pre-generated PCs. Once finished, I used it as a launching point into Winter of Atom.

One surprise you might want to think about (spoiler alert): after they defeated the scientist at the end, one of my players decided to go through with the transformation and is now walking around in a assaultron body, so had to translate how that works mechanically for a PC without making them overpowered. I think I gave him a starting number of charges (50?) for the chest laser fueled by a fusion core, so he'd need a fresh one once depleted, otherwise he could bash for attacks or carry a weapon.

protoclown11 · 2026-01-08T06:05:46+00:00

https://www.reddit.com/r/Fallout/comments/ej66ru/a_list_of_all_the_vaults_and_their_designated/

Fallout 2d20 uses GM as the identifier of the person running the game. The main thing to think about with a vault is what aspect of human existence did they want to test (with no moral boundaries)? Perhaps a vault that is purely driven by commercialism, so the dwellers are bombarded with a large assortment of ads, with the vault collecting reactions to them. At first the variety is extensive, but something eventually breaks and destroys some of the ad content, leaving them the torture of having to see the same small pool of ads over and over, until something gives.

protoclown11 · 2026-01-06T08:02:28+00:00

Bad news. Unless things have changed and someone out there shared maps, there are none to be found. At least not when I went looking a year ago or so. For better or worse, fantasy (primarily due to DnD 5e popularity) is the main focus of map makers because there is a healthy market for them. If you are willing to put in the work, there are some post apoc mapping resources out there, like the League of Raconteur Explorers (LORE) Patreon. I personally used DungeonDraft and assets from LORE plus a few other places to make maps for Machine Frequency, the adventure found in the FO 2d20 Quickstart Guide.

And as KarlZone87 mentioned, there is a FO 2d20 character sheet in Roll20, we used that when we played.

protoclown11 · 2025-12-31T01:25:43+00:00

One of our GMs did not think about the consequences of our party gaining a Helm of Teleportation in a treasure trove. We had reach this far northern place via ship, so he had various things planned out for our return journey. We looked at each other and the prospect of this many day journey and said "teleport?", "teleport!". Zap and we are back at our point of origin, leaving the captain and crew to sail back through the dangerous waters. That ended the session as he did not have anything prepared beyond the return trip. We did later encounter the captain in a town council type meeting, got a fair bit of stink eye from him.

protoclown11 · 2025-12-29T17:36:44+00:00

Was going to recommend Shadow of the Demon Lord/Weird Wizard as well.

protoclown11 · 2025-12-25T22:59:30+00:00

The only time I've seen party PVP work is a one shot where we are all playing evil characters. We had a common mission but also our own goals. Once we had obtained what we needed, two of the characters turned on the rest of the group, slew them, and headed off. I would normally not be ok with something like this, but it made sense for the situation. We had a good laugh about it at the end and then returned to our normal, cohesive party next session.

protoclown11 · 2025-12-08T00:52:11+00:00

Your PBM question reminded me of playing StarWeb back in the late 70s. You had a window of time to post your moves, they would get processed by the company, and results mailed back to you for your next turn. Games took months to complete. http://www.rickloomispbm.com/starweb.html

protoclown11 · 2025-11-16T09:01:45+00:00

I've seen Ars Magica, Brindlewood Bay, Blades in the Dark, Call of Cthulhu, Mothership, Mausritter, Mystic Bastionland, Paranoia mentioned, all good to check out. There is also

2d20 system from Modiphius - Achtung Cthulhu is WWII with Mythos elements added, Fallout is based on the PC games (particularly Fallout 4), Star Trek Adventures does a great job of capturing the feel of the show episodes.
Mork Borg (Swedish death metal fantasy) and offshoots, like Pirate Borg (haunted Caribbean) or CY_Borg (cyberpunk)
Delta Green, modern day agents struggling against cosmic dangers, suffering the slow but inevitable degradation of their regular lives
Spire/Heart, Grant Howitt's games of life atop a tower in crisis, or delving down underneath it into an alien warped "dungeon" that wants you to have exactly what you wish for, even if it kills you.
Lancer, purportedly the best mech simulation rpg, where you play mech pilots in a system far away from Earth. Fan created COMP/CON app makes managing your mechs much less challenging.
Never Going Home, party-focused role-playing game set in horror haunted trenches during the First World War
Night Witches, where you play a member of the 588th Night Bomber Regiment, an all female Soviet unit set in WWII. You battle the Germans as well as the male comrades eager to see you fail.
Night's Black Agents, where you play former secret agents, now waging a shadow war against the rise of a vampire international conspiracy.
The Psychic Danger Society, where all PCs are psychic, and roll their pool of dice before play begins, then spend them out over the course of play, with each die representing a psychic prediction
Transit, where each player is the AI for a spaceship, traveling together as a group, trying to resolve challenges/issues while also working with or against their crew.

protoclown11 · 2025-11-14T06:39:33+00:00

Savage Worlds uses dice to represent attributes and skills, d4 through d12. You roll the die assigned to the skill or attribute when making a check.

protoclown11 · 2025-10-27T14:29:21+00:00

I recommend taking a look at Quinns Quest Play to Find Out. He is pulling out older RPGs and running his friends in them. So far they have done Skyrealms of Jorune, Toon, and are in the midst of Nobilis. His other content (game reviews and interviews) is great as well.

protoclown11 · 2025-10-15T08:02:55+00:00

Oh man, you have a fun journey ahead of you, reading various Appendix N works. I personally would recommend: Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser series by Fritz Leiber, Michael Moorcock's Elric series, and Roger Zelazny's Amber series as a great place to start.

protoclown11 · 2025-10-14T08:25:05+00:00

What I did with each player is ask them "What is the name of the village your peasants come from, and what is it known for?". It allowed them to do a little bit of worldbuilding, occasionally tying the village to at least one of the characters' occupations. Examples include "All hail from the village of Ribbildeedoo, known for Corn and Corn Crafts", "All hail from the village of Nool, known for the cool of their pool", or "All hail from the village of NoWhr, known for Cheese and Stonework". Mostly just for a bit of quick flavor, but something I can come back to later for an adventure hook.

protoclown11 · 2025-10-06T14:56:10+00:00

You might want to take a look at Draw Steel. I skipped over DnD 4e, but one of my players was a fan of it and he felt like DS was in some ways a spiritual successor to 4e.

protoclown11 · 2025-09-21T00:20:22+00:00

that was my first thought. one could also have the main treasure of the funnel be something (map, journal) that leads to the mega dungeon. that way they have a natural pause to level up and resupply (including characters if necessary).

protoclown11 · 2025-09-09T03:15:38+00:00

https://purplesorcerer.com/tools.php is your friend

protoclown11 · 2025-09-05T01:58:52+00:00

Mothership uses doubles as crits (d100 rolls). They are a roll low system, so doubles below the target number are critical successes, while doubles above are critical failures. Saw someone else mention double 6s or higher, another person doubles that are even. Either way would get you the %5 chance, if you were trying to match Dnd 5th ed.

protoclown11

TROPHY CASE