When is bad luck good? A Kobold class zine crammed with luck flavored items, abilities, & creatures. Introduces Jinxes, a new use for Luck! Also includes alternate subterranean birth augury, a sword & sorcery variant, and more.
I instantly fell in love with the Jinx species of cryptid from Seanan McGuire’s InCryptidseries. These cryptids are basically humans who can manipulate luck; however, balance always restores itself, eventually. A Jinx’s strength determines how long they can put off the bad luck they build up using good luck. A smart Jinx will dole bad luck out slowly, before digging deeper into debt. Once something goes sideways though, it’s all too easy to keep using and building up more than can be handled. This obviously mirrors DCC RPG's Luck score, but I had hoped to model it more closely in a class. I found I wasn't able to without reworking luck at every level of the game. I might as well write an entirely new game at that point, so I moved on.
Eventually Nick Baran (of Breaker Press Games) dropped my favorite bard class of all time, the Balladeer, on his Patreon. That got me thinking about how to use the Luck generated by its capstone ability, which brought the idea of negative/inverted Halflings to mind, and the core the Kobold was born. A few months later, I circled back to the project with the Jinx cryptid in mind again. The Kobold project seemed the perfect place for some of the ideas I had had from the failed Jinx effort. That was the first major revision. The next challenge came in defining done, as more and more ideas bubbled up.
Besides the theme of luck, well... maybe un-luck or bad luck are better descriptors, the Kobold needed a culture and an appearance. I have never much cared for the dog-headed beast-men DCC RPG and other OSR systems use for kobolds. I have a soft spot for the cute homely dragonkin version, such as those seen in Pathfinder. So I went that way, and it allowed me to have them shunned not because they are chaotic unthinking assailants, but because luck doesn't play nicely around them, and people are really good at sensing patterns. Cue the down on their luck, homely bipedal dog-lizard, that civilized society barely realizes it has rejected.
I always wanted one of the life-sized Kobolds Piazo & WizKids released a while back. There was a red and a blue one. My FLGS had them, and I had saved up store credit for one, but my wife always, and correctly, pointed out we had no room for it. But those statues live rent free in my brain and forever set the height of the Kobold in my mind. So beyond not being bestial they are likely looking up at Halflings.
Beyond the core rules, I gravitate towards procedures that are small, easy to remember, and add to without alterations/exceptions to the main game loops. In the many iterations, as more ideas popped up, I attempted to spread the themes of (un-)luck and Kobolds to the wonderful third-party procedures I use most frequently. I hope I did them justice.
Bad luck is only bad for those targeted by it, just as good luck is. Do you dare to adopt a scaled bad-luck charm into your party? Do you think you can point them at your foes?
DCC is my favorite system for many reasons. I lump most of those reasons into three main categories.
Excitement peaks at the table (during play), not during creation.
Goodman Games' support of 3PP, and the players & judges as well.
The system is Chaotic Stupid, so players don't have to be.
Each of these things is doing a lot of heavy lifting, but it is the combination of all three that (in my opinion) makes DCC, DCC. This zine is my attempt to add something to the community (#2) that gives judges and players exciting things to do (#1) while being somewhat crazy (#3).
I could have done this without my wife, Jessie, and her editing prowess.
My son Jameson, for giving me a reason to starting playing again.
Trevor Stamper, "Luau" Lou Hoefer , and Nick Baran for answering my dumb questions graciously. Thank you all for not just answering my questions but telling me what I didn't know I needed to know.
Lastly to Mr. Goodman and all of Goodman Games, for letting me and so many others add to their play awesome ground.
You’re an adventurer: a reaver, a cutpurse, a heathen-slayer, a tight-lipped warlock guarding long-dead secrets. You seek gold and glory, winning it with sword and spell, caked in the blood and filth of the weak, the dark, the demons, and the vanquished. There are treasures to be won deep underneath, and you shall have them.
Return to the glory days of fantasy with the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game. Adventure as 1974 intended you to, with modern rules grounded in the origins of sword & sorcery. Fast play, cryptic secrets, and a mysterious past await you: turn the page…
Rules Set: DCC RPG, an OGL system that cross-breeds Appendix N with a streamlined version of 3E.
Support: Goodman Games supports DCC RPG with an extensive line of adventure modules and select other materials.
This product is based upon the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game, published by Goodman Games. This product is published under license. Dungeon Crawl Classics and DCC RPG are trademarks of Goodman Games. All rights reserved. For additional information, visit www.goodman-games.com or contact [email protected]
I am keeping physical rewards limited to the United States for several reasons. This being my first project I want to limit the complexity and risk to you all. Currently it looks like shipping will be somewhere between $6 and $12 USD.
The zine has been written, the class run, and manuscript reviewed oh so many times (though I am sure there is a typo somewhere). Huge thank you to my wife who does technical writing and editing full time and has to be sick of reading this thing backwards. After the last proof copy I am ready to hit the go button with the printer, I just need the funds. I am hoping to be shipping out a month or two after the project wraps! A few weeks for the fund to clear, a few more for the copies to hit my doorstep, and another week to package everything.
