I have run two open DCC games now at the Randolph campus of Vermont Tech.  Each game has a unique set of players so I did the Portal Under the Stars for both games and ran a level 0 funnel.  Fair warning: I will be mentioning some Portal Under the Stars spoilers.

Game 1

The first game was with some people in my 5e D&D group who have played together for a long time.  They enjoyed the simplified DCC system and really like the idea of the funnel and disposable characters.  The first fatality was met with laughter as a blacksmith decided to force the very first trapped door and then failed their saving throw.

This team found more death along the way and eventually fought the big bad boss successfully.  In the treasure room there was a PvP event where one of the players who had managed to keep all their lvl 0s alive was mercilessly assaulted and lost 2 characters in the brawl.

Game 2

Game two was a smaller event and with people completely new to each other and the system.  My intro for Portal is slightly modified from the text as written.  I usually have the old man in the tavern with the lvl 0s telling a tale of how is older brother went into the portal and returned with enough gems to move away from the farm and live a life of luxury in the big city and how that was 40 years ago to the day.

Some of the players, used to modern games, started to question the start more deeply and they wanted the old man to tag along or though about doing something else (aka not going into the dungeon)  I had to peek around the curtain a little and let them know that in DCC this was the hook and the game is inside the portal.  Mulling around town would result in a game of fetching firewood for the blacksmith, emptying chamberpots, and mucking out horse stalls 🙂  They got the idea and the game moved along.

This team worked out a whole scheme for the statue room and had things timed out for when someone should run and which direction to go.  A few players were stuck in the side rooms and the skulls in the burial chamber did manage to bring down a player.  The fractured party made it to the throne room and fled after the first two rounds of combat.  Of course the troops pursued the players and caught up with them in the reflecting pool as the carefully planned exit scheme fell apart.  A luck spear (pitchfork) throw ended the life of the general and saved the party from an almost total wipe.

There will be a game 3 in November and we will most likely play level 1 characters since we’ve had a bunch of people get through the funnel.  Now everyone wants to play someone with a class.