Dying Earth for DCC is the most classically weird fantasy setting you’ll never play | RPG Review
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- čas přidán 11. 12. 2023
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Dying Earth #0: The Black Obelisk: bit.ly/DyingEarthBlackObelisk
Dying Earth #1: The Laughing Idol of Lar-Shan: bit.ly/DyingEarthLarShan
Dying Earth #2: The Sorcerer's Tower of Sanguine Slant: bit.ly/DyingEarthSanguineSlant
Dying Earth #3: Magnific Machinations at the Grand Exposition of Marvels: bit.ly/DyingEarthMagnificentM...
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Dying Earth #5: Penumbra of the Polar Ape: bit.ly/DyingEarthPenumbra
Dying Earth #6: The Great Visp Hunt: bit.ly/DyingEarthGreatVisp
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The living embodiment of Frank Reynolds’ maxim
“I don’t know how many years on this earth I got left. I’m gonna get _real_ weird with it.”
You describe DCC's spell system as an Achilles heel, but fans see it as the biggest selling point. Cumbersome on the page, but exhilarating in practice. It's a tough pill to swallow, but man is it a feel good drug if you can get over that gag reflex
I think one thing that is in many of the Dying Earth. stuff that is not mentioned by you explicitly is the humor. The names, locations weird people are funny. Cugel is a self absorbed ne’er do well who is funny, pathetic and brave. He is the poster boy for “Oh no! The consequences of my choices.” but sometimes he is forced to make horrible choices to survive to further his travels or schemes. There’s the tone of pointless over sophistication, and self awareness that echoes the very weary bones of the world through the dialogue.
There’s also a ton of beauty in Vance’s description of the world’s locations, sunsets and twilight which are truly evocative and stir the heart with a weird nostalgia
So cool! I'm a data engineer and I use the word concatenation almost everyday. I bet many of his fans were working on computer languages in the 70s, there is an major overlap lol.
"Dying Earth" of Jack Vance is a classic no matter if you are into TTRPGs or not. Thank you for this review.
I just got into the Dying Earth books, literally halfway through the first book. I didn't know it had so much influence towards ttrpgs. This looks interesting and, despite not knowing the DCC books existed, my first thought when reading Dying Earth is how it fits the DCC aesthetic.
Really enjoy that Cugel fella
18:57 - Intimate Anatomy of Several Creatures and Personages of the Twenty First Aeon's cover artist is Erol Otus. Keep up the good work!
That's right. And Otus also wrote a Dying Earth module, The House on the Island.
@@robdoole9969 And it's the bomb.
You really have consistently maintained a very very high standard across all of your reviews. Hats off to you!
Thanks!
Yeah! It doesn't cease to amaze me!
Seconded
Two other Jack Vance settings that deserve an RPG are Blue World, and Big Planet.
Great review.
Anything by Vance is worth a gander, imho.
The Cadwal Chronicles: ARAMINTA STATION, ECCE AND OLD EARTH, and THROY
@@JayAr709
Also excellent choices.
The whole Gaean Reach would be awesome.
Peter Mullen is just the best hipster rpg illustrator. Hmmm great to see some of his work here.
I've always felt like the Dying Earth books is where the soul of the adventure in D&D came from. It visits some crazy places with some crazy stuff going on - in some ways the books feel like a tabletop game translated into literature.
Without Jack Vance, I highly doubt D&D would ever have happened. Vance created the most gorgeous prose, most original stories with details that never get old. I have no idea how many times I've read the Dying Earth books over the past 45 years, but it's a LOT. And it gets me every time.
I've been reading a lot of the inspirational material for old D&D. Conan the Barbarian, Fafhrd and The Gray Mauser, Elric, Poul Anderson... I still have to read Jack Vance but it is on the list. I don't know why I'm putting it off it almost feels like it's the end of a journey or something.
Jack is the Epitome. He is the Splendour at the End of the Rainbow. The good news is that he is an excellent re-read. I have probably re-read "The Dying Earth" books a dozen times.@@Maxx64266
I'll always give time for Mr Vance and his stuff. I wished he lived long enough to see how much he's appreciated.
From what I know, Jack lived a long and rich life, with many friends and family around him. He wrote for publication for six decades! Fandom loved him - of course, smaller numbers than he'd have today, but I think he knew he'd done well and been well loved!
Fun to see how Gene Wolfe turned this idea into a post modern masterpiece (Book of the New Sun).
NEW SUN GANG NEW SUN GANG NEW SUN GANG
Man I love these type of settings, I frequently play a rogue-like game called Caves of Qud that’s heavily inspired by an older ttrpg called ‘Gamma world’ which was also inspired by another ttrpg called ‘Metamorphosis alpha’ and the settings/themes are really similar. I recall watching another CZcamsr that was explaining Qud’s setting and they started mentioning the Dying Earth series, so I’m curious if the Developers checked out other cool source books and series like this to get inspiration
I feel like I watch a lot of videos like this and just think "wow this is really cool and has interesting mechanics but I'll never play it because everyone only ever plays D&D in the most generic setting"
Have you talked to your DM about that? If they don’t know what you’d like in a setting, they can’t help create it for you. I think a lot of both players and DMs of D&D think that the others only want the generic fantasy stuff, so they keep quiet about what they’d actually like to play. I myself don’t enjoy D&D as a system much, nor the setting, but I love playing and running roleplaying games and love weird and unusual settings.
@@Trassel242 I appreciate what you're trying to ask but I am the DM %95 of the time (by preference). I do try and ask my players but many times I've gotten them saying they just want generic. I also have been just feeling like people of a lack of enthusiasm and a lack of willingness to take the game seriously, it has caused me to take a hiatus from trying to get a group together for a bit. I'm getting tired of running silly stupid games, I want a deep immersive experience and I find that doesn't happen when someone is constantly doing weird things. I've tried finding good groups and being open and honest about what I want but I just keep getting disappointed, hopefully it will be better when I try again next time.
I know what you mean. Tried talking my players into trying Lancer, and there was just no interest.
@@Some_Average_Joe I'm glad someone gets it. There is so much creativity in RPGs that is wasted on players that don't want anything but the most vanilla of settings and rule system, only 5E in Forgotten Realms and honestly I hate both. The lack of enthusiasm or sense of exploration is on another level and it's just depressing.
I get your problem but you going about it wrong. The real meat of it is this. DND People aren't actually interested in rpg as a hobby they are interested on DND as franchise/brand and the game itself is just a vehicle for doing quasi-furry escapism (that's why human fighters are considered boring, and people want to do silly things or smut). That's been true since my adnd days.
What I learned is that if you want to play another genre of RPGs you need to change the crowd you invite for them.
For example if you down to play Lancer you need to get a group of people really into mechs, probably already engaged with gandam or battletech.
Same with say Vampire the Masquerade, you gotta knows some people really into it for the game to even be worthy.
But in general asking DND people to change brands and genres is just a waste of time they are way too invested on their respective favorite brands.
If you can get a group for those other games you want to tried my honest recommendation is trying out online engines public games and if you don't enjoy playing online perhaps engage on the other genres you want by means of another hobby like figure painting or solo games (those are fun)
I would feel really tempted to run Dying Earth DCC if I wasn't already wrapping up a well over a year long DCC Lankhmar campaign and want to run my own setting for a while in the next one.
Jack Vance is hands down my favorite author, not just for the stories but also for the way he uses language. His language isn't at all flowery, it is very spare and to the point. Take for instance the pale Leukomorph standing in the glade. Leuko means white, morph means shape; so we, the reader, instantly know we don't want to be anywhere near this pale, white thing. Writers who try to emulate Vance end up being too flowery and verbose.
Incidently, Vance has science fiction settings and fantasy settings in his novels, but they are never entirely separate. The fantasy elements in his science fiction novels are neither overt nor obtrusive but they are there and lend an air of mystery to them.
If you can create an original, immersive setting in 300 pages, you're a good writer.
If you can do it in 150 pages, you're a great writer.
If you can do it 50 pages, you're Jack Vance.
DCC Witch is similar in nature to Palladium RPG Witch and Summoner (Magic Circles User), both requiring sacrifices, the former at the creation of the character, and the latter when drawing his magic circles.
That's the Dying Earth book collection I have as well. I read it prior to getting the DCC boxed set. It's a weird ride, for sure!
Yeah it really seems like this could have benefited from being in one book. But this looks really cool. Ive been a fan of the Dying Earth genre ever since I read Gene Wolfe, which eventually turned me onto Vance. This seems right up my alley. Just need to find people to play it with 🙂
Very rare to get reviews in this hobby space of this quality - really appreciate it. There is part of me that is both attracted to and vaguely frustrated by box sets. It's hard to explain. I think the idea of a box excites me because it makes me feel even more like I'm holding an actual game. I think the negative is it feels kind of annoying to pull the box off my shelf, open it up, take stuff out of it, set some of it aside, put it all back, close the box again, and put it back on the shelf. I ended up reading a lot more of the DCC Empire of the East book because I could just pull it off my shelf, browse through it, and put it back spontaneously when I needed a five minute break. Boxes are just less casual.
Great video, Dave! Yeah DCC DE is a bit of a rough one. DCC Lankhmar was such a slam dunk and my preferred way to play DCC and DCC DE has a lot of great stuff but it's way less usable. The adventures that came with it are however still awesome for usual DCC fun. Always nice to see DCC getting more coverage! ❤
Liane the Wayfarer is probably the finest fantasy short story ever writen.
Love the verbosity! The art makes me want to break out my crayons and colored pencils. I'm going to check out the Jack Vance's novels.
I salute you
The Dying Earth stories are just wonderful. If I remember right "The Primer of Practical Magic" was a book mentioned in one of the stories.
I was pretty burned out on fantasy for a long time. Dying Earth really sparked my love for it again. I really want to run this game!
Yay! Was hoping for this review. Thanks!
I need this! This is amazing. I love the art style and the general approach. ❤❤
The potentially fatal flaws that Vat Things can start with make complete sense in the context of normal DCC character creation. It's not as though players are choosing to play Vat Things and then rolling a bad flaw for their one and only character. In the RAW the players would be rolling D100s for 3-4 PCs each, and those D100 rolls would potentially give them a character that was a Vat Thing that had a fatal flaw. As with all DCC funnel play, bad stats? Huge problems? Have those PCs take the crazier risks during the funnel, as plenty of PCs are going to end up dead. If you did end up with a survivor with a hugely problematic flaw that you wanted to play on in the campaign beyond I would hope that any Judge worth their salt could come up with a quest to ameliorate the issue to make it manageable.
Great video, I really like Goodman games and think their more oddball style fits the Dying Earth perfectly. Keep up the good work!
Masterfully interesting video AND review. Another excellent piece of content Dave, thank you.
Great review! Thanks very much!
Dying Earth is such a weird setting. This seems to do it justice. Thx for the video!
A stellar review! Thank you!
I just watched a play report of a Dying Earth adventure so happy to say someone out there is actually playing this
Came for the wild weirdness, subscribed for the insightful and balanced review 😊
I'd love to see you do a review of the Pelgrane Press RPG!
Good news: it’s available on Amazon uk! Bad news: it’s £88! Can I resist!? Should I even try!?
Hi! I just found this video, as I’m a bit of a Dying Earth fan, as I think Vance had some pretty cool ideas.
Very good rundown and detailed review. This is an interesting product, but seems to require a huge commitment on the players and GM. I think this is something I might buy and leave laying around, and take ideas, but unlikely to be played as is. I got a lot out of your video - and basic things like "clarity of voice, audio" is good, as well as presentation and topic flow.
9:25 I want to play those really high result vault-things right away!
That map is right out of the Jack Vance books. Very nice.
Oh thats kewl the dying earth books were the inspiration for original D&D.
Excellent book, a lot of great stories and the magic system was the cornerstone of dnd magic casting through 3.5
I love the spell book giving set spells. The thing I dislike about most modern casting systems is that wizards end up min-maxing their spells. A set book with a list makes it far more restrictive and sets out goals for players to find other sources to cast from.
Love to see some more stuff from classic fantasy, like to see the irreverent tone that you take towards it
It's hard for you to find a group to roleplay morally dubious characters? what kind of bizarro world do you live in?!
I guess what he means is that it’s hard to roleplay morally dubious characters taken seriously. It’s one thing to kill a bunch of goblins, another thing to learn that they’re just like humans so you just killed a bunch of dudes who happened to live in an inconvenient spot and didn’t do anything wrong, you know? It’s also extremely tricky to handle well as a GM, and if you screw up, you can make something extremely bad and stupid without meaning to.
Dying Earth is kind of weird and scary and it’s clearly a setting where life is cheap and death comes easy.
I'm always surprised by how morally dubious my otherwise upright friends become at the game table.
The flavor of these is great and you can clearly see the creators love the material. But it proved just too much for my players and I'm only a casual Vance reader myself, so I ended up selling my Dying Earth stuff to a friend. And DCC has other settings and supplements that offer the Sci-Fi vibe without quite so many extra moving parts.
I would play this just from this review.
the art for the third book looked as if it was done by Erol Otus
If you like jack Vance also check out book of the new sun by gene Wolfe. An absolute classic series that is also in the “dying earth” sci-fi subgenre that is my personal favorite.
I would call this art-style/genre “naïve,” in all the best ways.
Primer of Practical Magic is a grimoire from the novels.
Do you think you going til review The Electric State Roleplaying Game Alpha PDF, when its comes out?
Haven’t heard of it. If it comes out in a final form, I’ll take a look.
Okay, I hope freeleaguepublishing sends you a copy.@@DaveThaumavore
Awesome!
h yes, the origin of the Vancian Casting System. Such a depressing setting, but so interesting!
I put this video in my watch later list and finally watched it all because of how ridiculous I thought the female character looked in the thumbnail from the book cover. Like “planet’s dying and I’m completely emaciated, but I still need a boob job.”
I love how weird this is. I want this as a show….. or movie franchise. It’s giving Garbage Pail Kids mixed with Dune with some Warlock (1989) thrown in lol
I was the author of Pelgrane's D20 crossover "Primer of Practical Magic" back in 2004. I have a 'OSR' historical TTRPG game called Stara Szkola. Would you have any interest in reviewing that?
Dying Earth looks like Adventure Time on acid.
I don't know how many people play TTRPGs, have read the Dying Earth and are quick enough to use these words. But I can safely say that it's less than it should be
Hehe, I noticed "chicanery" is in the list of unusual words, that one needs little explanation nowadays.
Seems Chicanery made its way into the general lexicon. Ive heard it used once or twice
I only read Vance's Cugel books and while I was individually entertained reading them as 60's camp of The Appendix N... it is a world that is really hard to explain and doesn't benefit from explanation because it is so bats***.
The world itself and the 'logic' it is based upon is so mercurial that I can't imagine playing a game in it although I would jump at the opportunity.
Yeah this is the problem I had with the Pelgrane Press Dying earth game. It tried to turn the world into a concrete place with consistent mechanics which the world of the books utterly defies. Vanilla DCC already brands itself as weird fiction as it is quite convincingly so this feels much more worth a shot to me, but I'm not convinced they pull the utter chaos off.
I wasn't really familiar with DCC so I just watched a few minutes about it. And yeah, it definitely seems gonzo enough to take a stab at the IP and pull it off. At the same time I think the only way that it could really be pulled off would be in Dungeon World (not the biggest fan) where everyone has read a couple of books.@@gonzoengineering4894
I wasn't really familiar with DCC until a couple of minutes ago (I.e. I clicked for the mention of Dying Earth not DCC) and it is gonzo enough to take a stab at it but I wouldn't bet on them pulling it off either.
I only see a Dying Earth setting being pulled off in Dungeon Worlds (not a fan) by a group of players who have all read a couple books and have a mutual understanding of the high level of absurdity that is supposed to depraved but cheeky... with somehow an underpinning of 'logic.'
Do a campaign with this based on the 1970s movie wizards
Yhe map looks like a early album cover of the band YES
Seems very loosely similar to Planescape:Torment in tone. The edginess combined with the goofyness, with elements of alien things in the fantasy. Maybe it would be easier to convince some Planescape fans to get in on it.
Kind of confused why players would be aggrieved to get the weird defects for the vat thing. Those all sound great. But I like imperfect characters with odd traits and am a big fan of random tables to push me out of my likely choices.
D & D Characters are Super Heroes these days. Unless it's a dump stat, players will be aggrieved if they are forced to accept any penalties.
@@yzfool6639 I miss when taking almost any of the non human races gave both boons and penalties to abilities
Super tangential, I suppose, but what's your opinion on MUDs?
Municipal Utility Districts are the only MUDs In familiar with. They’re annoying sometimes but the alternatives can be annoying too.
@@DaveThaumavore Haha, sorry, MUD = Multi User Domain/Dungeon, they're like ascii based RPGs. If I was to make an assumption as to why I asked, it's bc Discworld MUD reminds me a lot of Dying Earth DCC--probably could've used that context!
Ioun stones are in D&D as well just so you know. Also I've made multiple comments tht I've separated this is to help le algorithm. I know its weird but I felt my thoughts should be separated anyway.
do they really not mention that much of gygax's original D&D magic systems are inspired by tales of a dying earth?
I think they have the impression that their audience already knows well. They sold the old books alongside their own works at conventions for years
Cugel is a bastard, but the world is so brutal and cruel he is forced to be that way
I also love that most wild animals have been replaced by magic created hybrids and monstrosities like deodands. Magic and the experimentation of wizards has really changed the world for the worse.
Cugel doesn't quite HAVE to be the way he is. He's really pretty bad.
Well as a elder brothers I would say 60% of the original ad&d
I have an unearned feeling of defensiveness when it comes to this setting. I listened to the audiobooks when I was a teenager and before I'd ever played a TTRPG. I hold this setting near and dear to my heart. It has been a great disappointment to not yet find a group willing to learn the Pelgrane Press adaptation (it matches the feeling of playing out a Dying Earth novel unlike any other system out there...)
Something negative jumped out at me with this adaptation. As I paused to read descriptions for various events, I saw that some, (possibly most, or all, even?) of the descriptions for the various historical events are ripped whole cloth from the books, and/or lightly paraphrased. Quotes that are actually dialogue from specific characters, now wholly divorced of context. I find this lazy and misleading.
The Cutz wars for example-- one of the two descriptions is taken from Iouconu, a tricksy old wizard who in that scene was flaunting his power and knowledge over our captive protagonist. He wasn't trying to make sense, he was boasting like a nerd would to the school bully before the algebra exam. And they left out the complete quote, further obscuring this context.
Vague and evocative is great, but we already have the novels to do that. So like, write something concise and use your own words this time, please... I happily accept artistic license for this setting given the paucity of concrete world building. And, I don't know what sort of licensing surrounds this adaptation, but there is something off-color about ripping from the novels like this and not "quoting it like you would in any other professional setting." That rubs me the wrong way.
I just read the Dying Earth book 1. It was very different from most of what I've read. Very cool though. I think the idea of Dying Earth and being squeamish about brutality is kind of antithetical. But it's a game here, so do your thing.
I absolutely love the descriptions that are in that third book, effectuate an apocryphal imprecation. Learning this game is vocabulary building, that's fabulous!
I mean, when you write it out like that it actually sounds serious and menacing, whereas if you wrote 'You say _such_ a naughty no-no word that it deletes a small chunk of reality from having ever existed', it would sound silly. Or horrifying. Or both.
So to your point on the strange words:
Who would use them? Huge fans of the Dying Earth. My roommate and I are massive Jack Vance fans and often weave his archaic language into our DnD play, or even just shitty jokes about wizards. From the sounds of this, it seems like a loveletter to fans of the Dying Earth, which is pretty neat. I wonder how interesting it would be for folks who are unfamiliar, though.
I'm pretty sure there was a gurps 3rd edition or 2nd book for this setting too
It was actually a touch TOO weird for me. I just couldn't get into the setting at all.
I definitely see where you’re coming from. Not that I take particular issue with it, but over the years I’ve noticed a pattern (particularly in the OSR sphere) of weirdness for weirdness’ sake. Sometimes it feels less-so like some creators out there are designing games and settings they intend for people to actually use and play in, and moreso them just on a competition to out-weird each other and provide nothing tangible to the audience in return.
Not saying that’s necessarily the case here-especially since Vance and his setting long predate the OSR and TTRPGs in general-but I certainly see where you’re coming from.
Personally I found this one unplayable because the rules are so overly complicated, and the language is so hard to read.
It’s a very specific product for a small subset of gamers.
Awesome video. I love DCC, but this is not for me. I´ll pass.
I love you
More terrible pulp novels for me to read thanks guy
:{ D
I'm not sure Vance made up a lot of those word
Yep. A lot of the words on the list would be in a good dictionary, and some of the rest are compound words that could be decoded. I think the creature names are usually original.
you mean dark sun?
I strongly disagree that DCC's elaborate spell descriptions are an "Achilles heel". Each spell is like a map to explore, with worlds untold to unfold.
D & D players don't like spells. They like easily replaceable resources that can be used like arrows to affect the game. Sleep, Charm, fireball, etc. are sufficient terms to tell you what those arrows do. Each spell is like an arrow, not a map or musical power.
@@yzfool6639 There are many motivations and inclinations among the D&D player population. Some have the inclinations you refer to, and DCC is certainly too chaotic for such players. Others are coming at the game from narrative influences where magic is unpredictable and dangerous, which is captured wonderfully (imo) by DCC.
Granted, *more* people come to the game these days with expectations about magic systems neatly laid out and consistent. Mastery of video game magic would be impossible with a DCC style!
If you read Joseph Goodman's writing on his motivations for creating the game, he speaks to going back to the Appendix N "recommended reading" list of the original DMs Guide and re-reading *every* book on the list and then creating a system to capture the "feeling" of living in the worlds of 1950s/1960s (mostly) fantasy, as Gygax/Arneson originally did. Magic in the literature was very chaotic and involved bargaining, compromise, and unintended outcomes, which is in contrast to the miniatures wargaming "wizard as a powerful artillery unity" that G/A went with for D&D based on the chainmail system.
Obviously folks need to find the game that works for what they want. My point here being that I don't consider the DCC system implementation to be an "Achilles heel". Rather it's a core reason for some folks (like me) to embrace the game.
Opinions may vary! Have Fun!
If you're going to run the Dying Earth, you really ought to use D&D. Mainly because the spell system of D&D was originally derived from Vance's work. The concept of only being able to memorize X spells per day comes directly from the Dying Earth, as do the flowery names of some of the spells and artifacts. Sometimes D&D spells are lifted directly from Vance, like the "Excellent Prismatic Spray."
I suspect it'd be difficult to run a Dying Earth campaign unless the players were all thoroughly familiar with Vance. I've noticed a tendency for some players to jam everything into a Tolkein-type pigeonholes, even when it decidedly does not fit, like Vance's work.
Also probably a good idea to get rid of Wizards and Sorcerers if you take the DnD route. Have casters basically run as warlocks, but open up the spell list. Never having more than 4 spells, but always casting them at max power is very on brand for the setting.
@@AndersonKeim - I think I'd probably also fiddle with the rule system a bit to make it conform. I'm mainly thinking about how Vance's magicians relied an awful lot on spell components and equipment. Not typical D&D components, Vance components like Sandestin scales.
This was largely for plotting reasons, I think - there was always some greedy mage who wanted some artifact he shouldn't, or went searching after IOUN stones, or journeyed into another plane to collect stuff for working magic. These were McGuffins to motivate the main character to do whatever interesting thing Vance wanted him to do.
Not all the words were 'made up' that Vance used. Some where just uncommon.