I've been thinking about Greyhawk. Temple of Elemental Evil, Against the Cult of the Reptile God, Return to the Tomb of Horrors, mining the Living Greyhawk Adventures from 3rd edition, all of it. Well, set everything in 579 CY ... no Greyhawk Wars, thank you!
But while DCC would be my preferred system to run it, DCC doesn't feel very Greyhawkish. Converting monsters from 3rd edition or AD&D is the easy part, and I've already done many of them, but the feel of the world needs to feel -- well, like AD&D. Now some of my gaming group are Grognards going back to the Blue Box days, and others have only ever played 5th edition or DCC, so I'd need to approach this carefully.
Now the great folks at Goodman Games have put out a number of DCC-adjacent campaign settings -- Dying Earth, Dark Tower, Lankhmar, Empire of the East, etc. Each one takes the base game and tweaks it to feel, well, appropriate to the world that the game is set in. They keep the core rules the same, but approach the world through different classes, different spells, and so on.
So what could we do to make DCC feel like Greyhawk, like from the AD&D days of yore? Well, it would require a slightly lower magic level than DCC, but retain all the grittiness and death lurking around every corner.
My initial thoughts are these:
1) Provide campaign appropriate races (Half-Elf, Half-Orc, Gnome). Maybe tweak elves so they aren't burned by cold iron or automatically get patrons. Dwarves and Halflings are pretty much fine as-is.
2) Provide campaign appropriate classes (Druids, Rangers, Paladins, and maybe Magic-User as something different from the DCC Core Wizard). Warriors, Thieves, and Clerics are pretty good (mostly). No Bards.
3) Limit or remove spellburn for high spell results - if we did create a Magic-User class, it would be easy enough to just limit spellburn to a single 1d6 off a single stat. And likely slow down Ability recovery to 1 point recovered in total per day (not 1 point per Ability per day).
4) Maybe use a simplified Vancian memorized magic system that Dying Earth uses for their spellcaster class?
5) Limit magic corruption - AD&D had withered limbs, premature aging, and banishment to fell dimensions, but it was a lot lower key than the DCC default of growing a sentient lump on your back or a crab claw. DCC Lankhmar has a decent list of examples.
6) More spell choices -- Leomund's Tiny Hut, Tasha's Hideous Laughter could all use a DCC write up. If we limit Spellburn most of the core DCC spells are probably good to fill in the bulk of the AD&D experience, because results of 34+ just won't happen.
7) Expand the alignments -- personally I'm happy with Lawful / Neutral / Chaotic, but some of my old school players lament there's no Lawful Neutral, Chaotic Good, etc. By expending to the nine-alignment system, it's mostly flavorful, and might affect 2-3 spells, but I see an opportunity below in #8
8) Magical healing should be a bit rarer. Not terribly rarer though. Not to nerf the Cleric, but what if they gained Disfavor any time they healed someone not of their alignment? It's hinted at in the Core rules. So a Lawful Good cleric could heal a worshipper of their god (who would be within one alignment step anyway), or a Lawful Good passer-by at no extra Disfavor, a Lawful Neutral or Neutral Good passer-by at 1 extra Disfavor per attempt, a Neutral, Lawful Evil or Chaotic Good passer-by at 1d3 extra Disfavor, a Chaotic Neutral or Neutral Evil passer-by at 1d6 extra Disfavor, and a Chaotic Evil person at 1d8 extra Disfavor per attempt.
9) It's also hinted at in the Core book but not expanded on is sometimes Disfavor doesn't just vanish. I'd change it to gaining back 1d3 Disfavor per day. That will slow down the Clerics a little bit, and pick their battles.
10) Thieves and Halflings can do some crazy things at higher levels. I've seen it -- 7th level Thieves have no issue burning an extra 5 points of luck for +5d12 to an ability check. Change Luck to restore 1 point per day (not 1 point per character level per day). They can still do amazing things, just not every day after second breakfast.
11) Write up the gods -- that's pretty easy. Specialized spells for each god can be done after character's are in mid-campaign, not something to worry about today.
12) Patrons? Well Greyhawk has plenty -- Tharizdun, Igglwiv, Graz'zt, Orcus, Acererak, Kyuss. I'm hard pressed to think of any non-evil ones, but I'm sure we can come up with those. Probably write up 1-2 to start, and work on the others as the campaign progresses.
Everything else is small details -- add Celene Green Wine to the equipment list, add some flavor text for my newer generation of players who won't know what a Sylvan Elf is, or who the heck is St. Cuthbert, and Boccob's your uncle ...
Thoughts? Drop me a note at archadethered@gmail.com
Customizing DCC to reflect classic Greyhawk is like using elden ring mod engine 2 you tweak core systems without losing the original essence.
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