A fanzine dedicated to the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game.
 |
| Screenshot of the Goodman Games Online Store |
PRINT+PDF: https://goodman-games.com/store/product/crawl-fanzine-no-13-deathmatch-print-pdf/
PDF only: https://goodman-games.com/store/product/crawl-fanzine-no-13-deathmatch-pdf/
 |
| Friday Nov 24th 2023 |
I'm broke, need to pay bills, and to be straight up honest...
I'm not the biggest fan of Black Friday. I personally can't take advantage of the "fun" sales. In fact I usually boycott Black Friday, and support a little counter event called Buy Nothing Day. Here's a fun video. It has little to do with Buy Nothing Day, but still a good song.
So this year, over at Itch*, I'm gonna do the opposite and hold a reverse sale. Let's mark up all the prices by 100%! Save negative 100% and pay double instead!
One day only. FRIDAY NOV 24th, 2023!
It's also Creators Day at Itch, so Itch doesn't take a cut of any sales. Which is really cool of them.
Especially on Black Friday.
Crazy.
Support small press, developers, and other creators.
Hugs and Kicks,
Rev. Dak
ps. I also set up a GOAL of $2023. Do you think you can help do it? I also realize I need to pay for car registration, insurance, an oil change, and smog by the end of the month. Ugh.
*I really like Itch. The RPG community over there is pretty cool, and the site works well, and if you don't have my zines over there, this is your chance to change that and support a weirdo like me.
If you're in the LA area, Beyonce is in town until Monday. Oh, and so is LA's oldest gaming convention series, Strategicon. This one is Gateway 2023. Goodman Games is there, and they like to showcase the fan based and community created books from 3rd-Party Publishers, like myself.
You can visit Brad (Crawl! editor) who is also the Goodman Games convention rep for the area. While you're there, you can pick up Crawl! no.13. Free stickers and bookmarks!
A Portal
OLD SUBSCRIBERS
Print copies have shipped to all faithful subscribers that have replied to either my email, seen this post, or otherwise contacted me directly. PDF codes have also been sent to the same people. If you didn't contact me, assume your zines were not sent. My subscriber list is seven years old, and I don't trust to blindly ship to those addresses that haven't been confirmed or otherwise verified. If you're not sure, just send me an email [rev.dak_AT_straycouches_DOT_com] or hit me up on a social platform [reverenddak or reverend_dak].
ITCH_DOT_IO
You may have noticed that I have opened shop over at itch.io. I like the gaming community they're creating there, and I like the way the store operates. If you're interested in "transferring" your PDF collection over to there, let me know. Itch is great because you can interact with your fans and comrades really well. Their dev_log feature is really good. You should check it out. I have a few dev logs already posted for Crawl! no.13: https://straycouches.itch.io/crawl-no13-deathmatch
NEXT UP
Strategicon/GATEWAY 2023. I plan to be at Gateway this weekend, but it'll depend on how I feel. I got a bug, and it's possibly COVID, but so far I'm testing negative. We'll see. I want to run some DCC After Dark style sessions, either off the book or as a demo at the Goodman Games booth.
Deathmatch Cards. If you visit the dev log, you'll see I mention these "deathmatch cards". I plan to make a whole set that coincides with the Deathmatch dungeon in Crawl 13, CRAWL DM1. If you missed it, check it out: https://straycouches.itch.io/crawl-no13-deathmatch/devlog/579998/more-cards. My prototype deck is very cool. It consists of 63 cards, and will make running my deathmatches easier. My plan is to finalize the Print & Play version of the deck, and then get a set printed out professionally. Maybe, hopefully, have the set available, possibly throw them up on DriveThruCards.
Crawl! no.14! The actual title hasn't been settled yet, but it may be Domains and Downtime!, or just Downtime!, or even Dominion! I'm leaning towards Dominion! because it sound bigger and badder. I'm sure you can tell what it's about. It's my take on how to handle downtime and a domain, this includes followers, hirelings, and mercenaries, and the problems and responsibilities that follow high-level characters. It'll feature two new mechanics. One of them will be built on the gambling game Rat Snake called the Downtime Gambit. The other will be a Domain Die, which will be based again on a loaded encounter die, i.e., the Hazard die. I'll be posting more on this soon.
That's it for the near future. I laid out other future plans on this post, go check it out:
https://crawlfanzine.blogspot.com/2023/01/crawl-to-future.html.
PREPARE TO FIGHT!The really, really, long awaited return of Crawl!
PRINT+PDF at the Goodman Games Online Store:
PDF at DrivethruRPG:
It's Creator's Day at Itch.io, and to celebrate I put all the original zines on sale, and if you buy the bundle you'll save even more. Go check it out:
https://itch.io/s/101450/august-2023-creator-day-and-sale only a few hours left!
One of the things that you're going to get when Crawl! no.13 is released are printable and VTT friendly assets, which include all the maps and icons. You'll be able to play online with the official maps, and they're player facing, so there won't be spoilers. Also then the icons can be placed separately. You can also print out the maps if you desire. The icons are also available so you can make your own custom maps with icons representing all the nifty deathmatch toys.
But that's not all! Brad had the idea of making tokens or cards for the items. Which makes sense with the fickle nature of artifacts in the deathmatch. They'll be handy to give out, or take away if you roll a 3 on the Danger die. They look good.
 |
| Artifact Cards |
After making those Artifact cards, I got obsessed and made cards for almost every random thing, including hazards and traps. The idea is that I can randomly stock a room or deathmatch arena on the fly. There is a "d666" table in the zine that can do this for you, but the cards are so cool. I have a 63 card deck designed with a nice ratio of traps, hazards, weapons, and power-ups. I tried to get to 54 or 55, but it wasn't quite right. I could separate the "artifacts" and that'd get me to 51 or 52 but the deck ratio is wrong. Which might mean I have to bump the deck up to 72 cards. Not sure what those extra 9 cards are gonna be. Of course I have ideas, but it's looking like a whole expansion set.
 |
| Deathmatch Cards and Notes |
I hope to have a print-play version available soon. It'll have a bonus item, but I have to get a few icons made. Right now I'm looking at The Game Crafter and DriveThruCards to get them printed. If you have other suggestions, let me know. But I really want to get a nice set of cards made, even if they're just for me. I'm stoked about them.
That's all the news I have for now, I hoping for a general release of Crawl! no.13: Deathmatch! next week.
Visit https://straycouches.itch.io/ to join the scene.
Crawl! no.1 is PWYW. The other 11 issues are available as a bundle for the price of 10 zines.
Crawl! no.13 will be available soon!
I kind of got caught up finishing up the editing for XCrawl Classics RPG, some modules and other Goodman Games stuff. [Kickstarter Live Now!] Sorry about that.
 |
| Crawl! no.13 is sort of compatible with XCC RPG, sort of. |
With that done, I was able to turn all my attention to Crawl! no.13: Deathmatch! When I left off (part 3) I was talking about maps, and 3rd or 4th drafts. It was confusing because I'm not really sure. I think 3rd draft is when I started re-writing. There was lots of cutting and pasting with the stuff I was keeping. What I'm calling 4th now, is really the 3rd with the final map design. In part 3 I shared remnants of when no.13 was more of an arena room toolkit. The reasoning behind the simple, bullet-point-heavy area descriptions, was that the adventure was really about a bunch of adventurers running around in a hazard filled dungeon trying to kill each other, and the map pieces were designed to be quickly referenced, modular so you can switch up the map quickly, and make random rooms and corridors easily, possibly create a whole dungeon on the fly. So the original map design made a lot of sense (to me). When I changed the random deathmatch arena toolkit to a more conventional adventure, I never stopped leaning into the "your adventurers have been sucked into a realm where the hosts want you to kill each other" story. I elaborated on the story more. I wrote a standard Introduction, Adventure Background, and Ending the Adventure sections like your standard DCC RPG adventure. That, to be honest, was the easy part (and also easier when you have a good editor, thanks Brad!). But I really liked the modular maps, and the use of a pointcrawl maps design. So I kept it, but also wrote the areas in a more traditional manner, but really hybrid of the bullet points with some box text---basically I did both. The dungeon map became fixed (for the most part).
Here's over half of the adventure on one half-letter page:
Here's a full write-up of the first room, R-1: The Gates, p. 19:
The writing the updated maps took me the most time to finish. I used a public tool to make the conventional maps (honestly there weren't even going to be traditional maps). We only had a few weeks, and I was settled on the text, it just needed some fine tuning and helpful editing from an English major. Just waited for some art from Mario (the artist for the past few issues), he was onboard to crank out a few pieces, and Brad was ready for the final draft. I got started on the layout while they did their parts. Several days of full of pixel fudging and eyestrain it was done, approved, and sent to the printers.
In the end I was able to squeeze in 99% of the original random tables (the toolkit stuff) AND have a complete stand-alone adventure. I'm proud of it. Is it perfect, haha, no.
I'll have some final thoughts for Part 5, and I'll elaborate on the stuff I eluded to in Part 2, the Hazard die, which I renamed to the Danger die and what became of all the Cosmic Pressure/Stress/Tension stuff (I simply simplified it).
Until then, see you at Gen Con.
Initial Release: Gen Con 2023, limited to 100 copies.
That's it. I've committed 50+ to the Goodman Games booth. There will be 30 on day one, 20 the next, and then we'll see. About 20+ copies are reserved for original remaining subscribers, trades, and gifts. Joseph will be the first to get one. Whatever I have left after Sunday will go to Goodman Games for sale on their site, I doubt there will be any though.
Subscribers First: When I get back I will prepare for the next round. I have a list of people that I still owe zines to through #18. I'll be reaching out and sending them theirs first. So if you're a former subscriber, and I still owe you zines, feel free to hit me up. Not sure? I have a list, and I will be contacting you soon regardless. If you're going to Gen Con, you have a subscription, and you want to grab one of these Gen Con editions, find me. I'm with the band.
General Release: Once I send subscribers their copies, I'll be prepping all my sites and contacting my resellers. If you're a reseller, feel free to get a head start and contact us at crawl@straycouches.com. So plan for an August release.
I'll be at the LA's Strategicon Gateway 2023 in September. I'm sure to have copies there.
 |
| Display Purposes Only |
My continued deep dive in the making of Crawl! no.13: Deathmatch!
I took a good look at my 2nd and 3rd drafts and the stuff I really like was how I was going to do maps. I say "was", because I've changed my mind a tiny bit. I was going to lay heavily into using just point-crawl style maps, with rooms and corridors. If you're not familiar with the mapping style, it is a simple map style found in Mothership RPG and other new-"old school" games and adventures. It's an easy way to do dungeons. It works really well with "Theater of Mind" style playing because the rooms don't have to be completely detailed or even drawn. The problem with that is some people still want maps, and I recognize that. So I decided to make traditional maps, and that's a complication in itself. I still haven't decide the exact look of these maps so this is one of the main reasons Crawl! no. 13 got stalled. But a point crawl design helped me get to playtesting faster. I created tools (tables really) to quickly make deathmatch rooms and corridors, and the first map was designed using these tools. Each room had basic features that matched the "theme" of each room, and each corridor was also random. I really like these tools, I'm keeping them and they'll be found in the issue. Here's a sample of the "first" map:
CRAWLDM1 - The GatewayPreparation: These areas can be static, or randomly determined as they are discovered.
Area 1 - The Gates: Hexagonal, 60’ across
Feels deep underground. Are those voices in your head?
Cake, slice 3 each
P1: Teleport Pad 25’ from one wall.
C1.1: Archway
C1.2: Archway
C1.3: Archway
Area 2 - Grand Hall: Rectangular, 60’ wide, 100’ long.
Cracked windows to a stormy pink sky.
Cake, slice 4, 1 each corner
Throne at one end.
Random weapon [ ]
Shield, yellow +2 behind throne
P2: Teleport pad at opposite end.
Fountain in the middle---Water
[Possible Secret Exit (see point 5)]
C [ ] to 3
C [ ] to 4
I have a small, 6 room arena completely designed like this, and started a 2nd one. It worked great, and it was the testbed for the playtesting. But somewhere along the way I decided to expand on the maps a bit further, which you'll see in the final product. I had a change on how I wanted to do each of the rooms, and that's basically the biggest change across the whole project, and the meat of the 4th draft.
If you paid attention to the TOC from part 2, You'll notice I had a section for Hazard and Artifacts. These sections were also complete, and done in the same bullet point style that the maps were done. I have already teased the artifacts with my lone post from 2022: MÆTA: A Postmodern Patron. Go check it out. But here's a sample of the hazards:
HAZARDSHazard Damage Death
TRAPS
Trap DC Damage Death
Nail Trap DC 10+ 1d6 Nails; 1d8 each "PC" was spiked.
Laser Trap DC 12+ 1d4 Lasers; 2d6 each "PC" was spiked.
Lavaball DC 10 Ref 4d4 “PC” ate a lavaball
Spike Varies 1d100 "PC" was squished
Moving Wall Varies 2d100 “PC” was squished
These are from the 2nd draft. You get the idea. Right? There are more bits, done in the same way, but that's when Crawl! 13 was going to be more of a toolkit than an adventure. You get a good idea of where no.13 was at by the "mostly done" 2nd Draft.
This leaves us with the 3rd and "final" draft. Next time!
 |
| Look, there's light. |
Hi again.
It's me, dak. But you can call me The Reverend Judge Dak J. Ultimak.
Reading those old drafts worked to get me motivated and get some writing done for the next issue. The next post will be Part 3 of the "making of", and will focus on the maps. And it happens to be where I'm at on the current drafts. It's all part of the process. So that's what I've been doing the last couple days. Also playing video games, technically trying to finish Cyberpunk 2077 on Stadia, I wasn't able to, so forget that. Let's talk about the future of Crawl! Your favorite RPG zine.
Crawl! no. 13 is the Deathmatch issue which I'm currently working on (again) and I go into more details on the series of "Making of" posts.
Crawl! no. 14 is the Downtime issue. I actually finished the first draft of this, and I rumored that it might come out before 13. Most of it is done, but it still needs some work. and the playtests were positive, but I'm back to focusing on Deathmatch right now. There is possible of room for submissions, so if you have an idea, let's talk. I'll link or share my email, or you can find it all over this site.
Crawl! no. 15 is possibly called Ordem Obscurum. It's on secretive societies, such as thieves guilds and militant orders. Stupid simple idea, I hope you like it. A lot of it is done, the core concepts are there, it will need some fleshing out and some examples. I might share the rules early, and have an open call for submissions.
Crawl! no. 16 is possibly called Nemesis! I have an idea for bosses and rivals. This might not work at all. I'm not there yet. These are mostly notes. I have an idea for reaction rolls, but this might make it into the no. 15, we'll see.
Crawl! no. 17 is going to be called Dungeon! this might bleed into Crawl! no. 18. It's big and ambitious, and I might be breaking rules with this one. Most of it has been "compiled", I just need to work on some details. Expect a ton of public playtesting for this. I've threatened this one for a while if anyone has been paying attention. I think it's a great idea.
That's my plate for DCC, let's see how big these spoons are, and how many I have left.
.png) |
| Fake news. Although I actually tried. |
.png) |
| I played a lot of Quake. Research! |
Intro to Crawl! Deathmatch
Prepare To Fight
Sequence of Rounds
New Action Rules
New Movement Rules
Cosmic Encounters
Hazard die
Pressure
Cosmic Terror
Arenas
Point Crawl
Hazards
Artifacts
Weapons
Power Ups
Variant Rules
Acknowledgement
Maps
INTRO TO CRAWL! DEATHMATCH
You have been summoned by an unimaginable cosmic force into a supernatural plane of existence. The demands are simple, survive. But are you ready... to fight?
This issue of Crawl! is about running a deathmatch. A deathmatch is typically a free-for-all fight-to-the-death in an arena, or in this case, a series of arenas. These rules focus on the basic player vs player, everyone for themselves battle royales. These rules could allow your players to finally resolve who would win in a fight. But also they allow for different play styles, ideas of which can be found in the Additional Rules chapter. Tips for adding deathmatches to your ongoing campaign can also be found there—in fact, the sample deathmatch dungeon provided is designed to quickly get straight to the action.
You’re probably thinking that anyone can draw up an arena and the characters can just fight. All that is true, and in reality most of you don’t need this zine, many of the rules found within can be found in a lot of other places. None of these concepts are original, or new. But, it hasn’t been done in this way before, especially with DCC RPG.
NEW ACTION RULESCombat actions and movement play out per standard rules. There are a handful of new rules to establish a fast-paced and hectic gaming mode, some changes to the standard rules, and some clarification regarding the interaction between new and standard rules.Strafe Attack: A character can attack and move up to their speed as an action, but with a -1d penalty. A strafe attack can be combined with a charge, multiple attacks, etc. When used in combination with a special move action (e.g. strafe jumping, clearing obstacles, or avoiding hazards), the movement check is also at a -1d penalty. All other standard rules still apply.
The Strafe action was the only real new rule (for this chapter), in this same section there were clarifications on existing rules, and how they worked with any of the new rules.
NEW MOVEMENT RULES
Understanding movement within the map will prove to be the most important skill to have as a player. These new rules will help their characters move faster and further.
Normal movement up to the PCs movement speed brings no risk, so no roll is needed. But strafing, fancy maneuvers, and tricky jumps risk falling, slipping off edges, and fumbles. These moves need checks and thus can fumble like an attack. Also note when when performing a strafing attack, the movement check suffers the same -1d penalty. Combining a strafe jump and strafe attack in the same round is allowed and explicitly encouraged!
//Movement checks. A movement check is a d20 based skill check that's modified by a move modifier, which is based on the corresponding ability modifier, their PC's speed, and any armor check penalties.
Strafe Attack: Usually -1d. See New Action Rules above.Strafe Jump: A character can extend their move by incorporating a jump as part of the move. This jump is a Strength check, modified by any encumbrance or AC check penalties, and the distance is half the total roll. The strafe jump must proceed at least 5’ of movement, but it can be part of the total move. It can’t extend a standard long jump, it’s more of the skip in an olympic triple-jump. Yes, you can attempt a Strafe Jump after each move action. Gravity is strange here, this is a feature not a bug.
COSMIC PRESSUREGods are real, kind-of. Just not the way we think they are. There are cosmic powers that are so obscene and so arcane that mortal minds would never understand. For the feeble mind, even slightest sliver of knowledge would drive them insane. So imagine being a simple farmer minding your business, and suddenly appearing in a realm where the sky cries blood and screams sing through your ears. And the first person you see is trying to kill you--everything is trying to kill you.HAZARD DIECrawl! Deathmatch uses the concept of a loaded encounter roll that adds pressure, triggers hazards, manages time, and keeps the action moving (see acknowledgments for more info on the Hazard System, Stress, and Tension). A Hazard die is rolled for each character upon entering a different area, or if spending too much time in a dangerous one. Every roll is a d6 on the Hazard Die Result table. Note that some areas will have specific results or events that may override or replace “standard” Hazard die results, especially results of 5+. Some “illogical” results can be ignored if necessary, or if something similar makes more sense.
Hazard Die Result
- Cosmic Terror; Surprised if entering combat.
- Tension; gain +1 Pressure
- Area Event; gain +1 Pressure; traps, hazards, encounters, trigger or activate.
- Expiration; runes, temp power-ups, temp hp, etc. fade or expire.
- Cosmic Edge; minor artifact, extra action, move, or spoor.
- Cosmic Influence; major artifact, gain surprise if entering combat, or clue to secret.
PRESSUREPressure is the accumulation of stress and tension in this dangerous environment. It also represents cosmic pressure from the unknown powers that brought them here. It results in the embodiment of control over “Fight or Flight”, it’s the “Zone” of a top athlete, or a “runner’s high” by making them sharper and focused. These benefits stack.
Pressure Level Benefits
EXISTENTIAL TERROROnce overwhelmed with the stress and cosmic horror. They regain half their hit points and roll 1d6 on the following effects table. Unless otherwise noted, these effects last until the character is fully rested, or they die.Existential Terror Effects
