Free TTRPG Day Experience

This was my second year participating in Free TTRPG day. Last year I was in New York at the time and visited a shop in Brooklyn. This time I was home and decided to visit on of my local shops, Games and Stuff. The line had been long in 2025, but the shop in New York was tiny so I assumed the line, if one manifest would move rather quickly.

However, the line had to pass by the giveaways, so it still took quite a long time. If I go again next year, I’ll be sure to arrive early instead of right at opening time.

I was able to get all the givewaways I expected, although I did have to ask someone later if they would part with the Tales of the Valiant giveaway because it ran out before I could get to the freebies table. The store, despite being huge, was pretty crowded for a few hours. By the afternoon, however, the crowd had thinned to a normal-ish crowd equivalent to any given weekend at the store.

Dungeon Crawl Classics Game

Like many shops do for Free TTRPG Day, Games and Stuff had games you could sign up to play. Looking over the list of games, I decided that I would try out Dungeon Crawl Classics. I had the rules PDF from a Humble Bundle, but I wasn’t sure how the gameplay compared to D&D or Tales of the Valiant. Rather than guessing, I wanted to experience it myself first. We played Pretenders to the Rat King’s Throne and had some level 1 pregens available. I sat at a chair that had a former Potato Farmer Wizard and decided to name him Rincewind. I loaded up the rulebook on my phone and noted which pages had my spells. I knew that Dungeon Crawl Classics uses Zocchi Dice, but I didn’t have any. I couldn’t find just Zocchi dice in the store and I didn’t want to spend $30-ish for a whole set if I wasn’t even sure I would like the game. The judge (Game Master in this game system) said I could borrow his if needed. (Spoiler: they were not needed) Then I waited for the game to begin.

The game was a lot of fun. We started off in a tavern (where else?) and overheard someone asking for folks to investigate a supply wagon that never arrived in town. We did a bit of roleplay around whether to take the task and what weapons and items we should buy, but the judge kept things moving along. We were on a clock because they had to run anoter game after ours. The party started to investigate and eventually came upon a cave (the dungeon). We fought some bats that gave some of our players vampirism. Our cleric tried to cure it and, I think because the characters were incompatible with his goddess, ended up making her mad. After a few tries one was cured and the other decided not to worry about it; I believe that was our rogue, but I can’t remember with certainty. The rogue was also our leap before looking character, which made for some fun scenarios. For our map, the judge had some graph paper and he would add a few more squares based on which way we went and what we could see. We had a few interesting fights, including against a pretty huge creature. Eventually we fought against a humanoid rat, the final boss. Our cleric burned all his stats to essentially spontaneously combust, but guarantee he could kill the bad guy.

Although I enjoy the superhero feeling of D&D, Tales of the Valiant, or Pathfinder more than a game like Dungeon Crawl Classics, it was still a lot of fun and something I’d like to dip my toe into here and there. The fact that any of my spell rolls that fell below 10 (50/50 chance!) could fail, erase themselves for my mind, or backfire changed the calculus of spellcasting compared to those more superhero-like TTRPGs. It was a fun challenge and I am definitely hoping that I can play again and even run a game or two for my friends/family. In fact, I enjoyed it enough that I ended up pledging to the Book of Funnels backerkit campaign (still on-going on the day that I post this). Funnels are a very interesting idea that I would love to explore a bit more - instead of starting as a level 1 character you are a level 0 normal person. It is through the actions that occur in the funnel that your character becomes a hero. (Essentially, it’s the part of your D&D character sheet that is backstory) The player also typically starts with a few characters and not all of them will make it through the funnel.

Also I was really lucky to win the door prize of the Dispel d20 by rolling highest at my table!

• Dice
• Dungeon-Crawl-Classics