“It was this really exciting period. [Due to 4E], nothing was selling, there was no income coming in, but we were creating something totally new that was unlike anything on the market at that time,” says Goodman. Harley marvels at the risk of it all, “None of us knew if it would take or not. D&D was doing its own thing. Pathfinder had scooped up all the folks dissatisfied with 4E. There was no reason to presume that DCC RPG would find an audience.” 

Joe ran the first public playtest in an over-stuffed game store in San Diego called Game Town, in January, 2011. They had a large back room where they ran a homegrown convention every year. Joe put up flyers and got a small community of players together for regular sessions over several months. The Game Town sessions were the test run for Joe, Doug and Harley bringing the game to Gary Con III that March. 

Back in the fall of 2009, Joe’s day-job at Sears had a mustache contest. “We got little awards, it was just for fun. My dad had a mustache my entire life and this was the first time I ever tried to grow one,” recalls Goodman. His wife hated the mustache, but ahead of Gary Con, he decided to grow it again. “That’s old-school! This is a way to market DCC RPG as an old-school game. Nowadays, they're cool again, but in 2011, it was just fucking weird. Nobody else had a mustache.” 

The mustache gambit didn’t diminish the reaction the Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG got at the show. The difference between the photos from Gary Con and those from the Winter Fantasy in 2009 are immediately apparent. Everyone is smiling (even Doug). Everyone seems to be having a good time. Folks loved the magic system. Rules changed on the fly, but the appeal was there. 

Tomorrow: Doug's cover art for DCC RPG takes shape! See the many sketches never before made public.