Hello everyone,

Work continues on our TTRPG adaptation of Elric. The design team has started thinking about the rules structure as well as the setting. Here are a few more words from design lead Michael Curtis on the process...

As The Clash once asked, “Should I stay or should I go now?” As we develop the Elric RPG, one of the major steps is looking at what mechanics we have already in DCC RPG, so as to decide what’s applicable and what’s not when it comes to our favorite pale Eternal Champion. Any DCC RPG fan knows that the game’s inspirations come from the old Appendix N that helped inspire Dungeon & Dragons, drinking from the same headwaters as the original fantasy role-playing game.

Luckily for DCC, the Elric stories played a role in the game’s base mechanics, so we’ve already got some foundation to build an entirely new RPG around. Patrons obviously owe a debt to the relationship Moorcock details between Elric and Arioch. The Law vs. Balance vs. Chaos struggle is 50% inspired by the Elric stories (Poul Anderson’s Three Hearts and Three Lions is the other 50%). And the DCC elves share a few similarities with the Melnibonéans. Those aspects of DCC will certainly be elaborated upon and tweaked to fit the Elric stories perfectly. We’re going to definitely keep those.

But what to discard from DCC RPG? We must both strip away mechanics that don’t fit thematically with the Elric stories and pare down DCC mechanisms that would detract from a stand-alone game. In some cases, these are easy calls. Don’t expect Bobugbobilz to show his warty face in the Elric RPG, for example. Other mechanics require more consideration. Take the Fumble table as an example. One can argue that the fumble mechanic in DCC RPG felt appropriate for DCC Lankhmar and DCC Dying Earth with the table’s effects aid in evoking a grittier, more down-to-earth role-playing experience. The Elric stories, however, evoke a much different feel. After all, while there is humor in those stories (mostly from Moonglum), in the end, nobody makes it out alive. Would anyone expect Elric to accidentally entangle himself in his own armor while fighting a clakar? Not likely. What about cutting himself with Stormbringer because he stumbled? Certainly not! (Although Stormbringer herself might not mind taking a bit of the White Wolf’s blood…) 

It’s a bit of tightrope walk to best balance what exists in the rules, what’s not needed from them, and what entirely new rules will need to be developed to make the Elric RPG feel like a Moorcock story, but I’m confident the design team can negotiate that high wire successfully. And, because we’re using DCC RPG as the engine to help power Elric, if you feel like one of the missing aspects or rules would fit in with your home version of the Young Kingdoms, you’ll be able to port it over from the big blue DCC rulebook and easily slot it in. We promise we won’t even get mad about it.