Greetings everyone! Thanks for another amazing day. We've passed $130k and the Stretch Goal Book of Tables just keeps getting bigger.

For today's update, we'll discuss the look and feel of Dungeon Crawl Classics, and yet another insider tale of gaming industry lawsuits!

Let's start with some eye candy. If there was one thing we got right about the early DCC modules, it was the blue maps inside the cover. Showing off those inside covers at cons just made gamers’ eyes light up! Maps like this one from DCC #2:

It took a couple iterations before all the other aspects of the “old-school look and feel” lined up perfectly. Right off the bat, the interior art was spot-on. Like this piece by Brad McDevitt in DCC #1:

The first covers had the right graphic design – aka vintage TSR – but the art was still “too digital.” These were the first two covers for DCC #1 and #2:

(Some of you may notice that this DCC #1 cover is blue, instead of the purple that it was actually printed on. That's due to a technical issue with the printing process. Long story short, that was when we learned the difference between RGB and CMYK files!)

Then, for #3, we had our first Erol Otus cover and it worked perfectly:

Stu tells the story of this first cover in the chapter 9 excerpt on the front page of the crowdfunding. DCC #1 sold well and we had to reprint it. We quickly aligned the cover art to the old-school look, first with a new Jim Holloway cover, then with a new William McAusland cover on the next printing. And Jim Holloway also graced the reprint of DCC #2! Check out those covers:

Here is how Stu describes the origin of the look and feel - along with another insider tale of gaming companies suing each other:

Amidst all the uncertainty of the uncertainty of 2003, Goodman Games finally found its niche. The inception happened the previous year, when Joe saw the HackMaster adventure B2: Little Keep on the Borderlands (2001) which, in clearly parodying B2: The Keep on the Borderlands, also embraces some elements of its aesthetic presentation: the pink window-style border, the central art box with text and logos above and below, the little yellow banner across the top left corner, the art itself referencing earlier styles (though in an ultra-violent fashion).

While at home among the third edition D&D products, HackMaster isn’t a d20 System game, nor does it make use of the Open Game License. Rather, it’s a version of the first and second Advanced Dungeons & Dragons rules, streamlined and overhauled with an eye towards maximum humor. The publisher Kenzer & Company were allowed to do this thanks to a settlement with Wizards of the Coast. Back in 1999, WotC published the Dragon Magazine Archive on CD-ROM, collecting PDFs of all the issues to that date, but without securing reprint rights for any of the material that was not theirs. That included Jolly Blackburn’s Knights of the Dinner Table comic strip, the publishing rights for which were held by Kenzer. Whoops! Kenzer filed suit and the out of court settlement resulted in a deal that allowed for the creation of HackMaster and the use of D&D material otherwise only available to Wizards of the Coast, so long as it was (arguably) funny.

The merits of HackMaster aside, Goodman credits their aesthetics as providing the foundational moment for the so-called Old-School Revival, which would grow over the next few years and advocate a return to older modes of play. More importantly, seeing that cover inspired Joe to create a new product line. He didn’t know it yet, of course, but the Dungeon Crawl Classics adventure series would become a pillar of the Old-School Revival, even though it wasn’t really old-school at all.

Among the treasures found in searching my storage unit: this invoice from the very first DCC #1 print job.

And THAT is how the look and feel of early DCC came about!

P.S. If you will be at Gamehole Con in Madison this weekend, please come by and say hi! Joseph, Mike, Brendan, Harley, Doug, Matt Hildebrand, and Chris Lindsay are all here. And we brought the Doom Gong!