Tell Me About DC20

Some of the Youtubers I like are positive about this, so I've seen a fair bit about it and these are my impressions. The Dungeon Coach is a charismatic and dynamic personality. He's built a good relationship with a lot of people so there is a huge buzz. He's also done a lot of content people like for 5E

But, he doesn't seem to have much of any experience with anything outside of 5E. And this is his first attempt at game design on this scale. I think the game is going to reflect a new designer, with limited experience who is overdesigning things. The "hit by 5, hit by 10" and so on is great in theory. Believe me, I have designed with it. The problem is that even simple math is hard. Especially with a lot of fiddly modifiers like this game has. A solid play test would show this. That's the game's core mechanic!

And there's a lot of stuff thrown in that really seems cool. Too much. I think there will be too much going on in the game to make it newbie friendly, and there will be some experienced players who get tripped up on it.

I'm not here to yuck anyone's yum, though. I think this will be just the thing for people looking for more detail and crunch in a 5E adjacent product. It will have a niche. And it is truly different. So if you like it, I'm not trying to disparage that like in any way. Just giving my $.02.

mamba said:

there is always some interest in more drastic change, just do not expect that from WotC at this point in time. For them drastic change has mostly risk / downsides right now. They will look at changes when the game has run its course in its current form, not near peak popularity.

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They are done with 2024's version but my feeling was they could have had an Advanced 5e without any risks/downside.

As for the creativity I was referring to - DC20, Shadowdark, MCDM, Daggerheart, A5e LevelUp, Five Torches Deep, Black Flag etc
I'm hoping the above with PF2 sees some sort of knock to WotC. But to be fair the RPG business seems to be currently growing so its likely those leaving WotC are being replaced by newer players to the hobby.

I can't wait for the DC20 Kickstarter to be over so that my YouTube algorithm can move on to something other than D&D Influencers shilling for DC20.

AnotherGuy said:

They are done with 2024's version but my feeling was they could have had an Advanced 5e without any risks/downside.

As for the creativity I was referring to - DC20, Shadowdark, MCDM, Daggerheart, A5e LevelUp, Five Torches Deep, Black Flag etc
I'm hoping the above with PF2 sees some sort of knock to WotC. But to be fair the RPG business seems to be currently growing so its likely those leaving WotC are being replaced by newer players to the hobby.

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Some of those were already published prior to the OGL fiasco, others were already in the works but not announced, of those listed…only Black Flag was a direct response to the OGL fiasco.

AnotherGuy said:

They are done with 2024's version but my feeling was they could have had an Advanced 5e without any risks/downside.

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I would have liked more drastic changes, not to the point of DC20, but the early playtest proposals, unified subclass progression, everyone on long rest, etc.

The risk with straying too far is the loss of compatibility and potentially fracturing your player base the way 4e did. I do not believe they could have gone much farther than the early playtests, and WotC believes they could not even go that far given the feedback they got.

There just is no way that WotC would have innovated at all, that is not their role these days. Others have to, to find a niche they can hang on to, WotC cannot, at least it in no way is worth the risk for them right now. Once sales slow down that will be different, until then...

Yeah, another so called DnD "Influencer" or "celebrity" ... I guess it shows how important networking and creating your own community is if you want to be successfull with your KS. So I guess he certainly did something right...and for that I applaud him.

...what i found most funny is this: he wants 30$ for his corebook pdf (which is quite the price for the "electronic tier"...I for one only pay that, if at all, to companies that have a long track record of quality output) AND claims that the 30$ on KS gets you a 40$ savings on the price of the pdf. Is he really believing that he can sell his pdf for 70$ after the KS is over? If so, he's delusional.

Eilathen said:

...what i found most funny is this: he wants 30$ for his corebook pdf (which is quite the price for the "electronic tier"...I for one only pay that, if at all, to companies that have a long track record of quality output) AND claims that the 30$ on KS gets you a 40$ savings on the price of the pdf. Is he really believing that he can sell his pdf for 70$ after the KS is over? If so, he's delusional.

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yeah, that savings made no sense for me either, I can see it being 29.99 once done, if he pushes his luck maybe even 39.99, but more than that?

Maybe the Monster Starter Set and 5e Conversion Guide cost some money past the KS, and the same for beta access if you are late to the game, but I have a hard time getting to 70 even with these unless you double count for beta and final PDF…

Eilathen said:

Yeah, another so called DnD "Influencer" or "celebrity" ... I guess it shows how important networking and creating your own community is if you want to be successfull with your KS. So I guess he certainly did something right...and for that I applaud him.

...what i found most funny is this: he wants 30$ for his corebook pdf (which is quite the price for the "electronic tier"...I for one only pay that, if at all, to companies that have a long track record of quality output) AND claims that the 30$ on KS gets you a 40$ savings on the price of the pdf. Is he really believing that he can sell his pdf for 70$ after the KS is over? If so, he's delusional.

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There's a little chart at the top of the page that shows what the savings are from.

It's not that the price will go up after the fact, it's that there are add-ons. You get free supplements with your purchase, and the higher tiers get more free supplements. The first two appear to only get a monster book, and a conversion guide, and then when you go up it looks like they start throwing in adventures and other GM-minded content.

Meech17 said:

There's a little chart at the top of the page that shows what the savings are from.

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I am only seeing one that shows me how much I presumably save


but no explanation how this is calculated beyond saying that this includes the savings from unlocked content and a bit further down the following

• Free Beta Access: ALL Kickstarter Backers get access to the Beta of DC20 that they will receive IMMEDIATELY when the Kickstarter ends.
• Lowest Price: During the Kickstarter is when you can get the PDF and Hardcover at the lowest price.
• Free PDF w/ Hardcover: During the Kickstarter the PDF comes with the Hardcover for FREE.

Placing a value on beta access is already dubious to me. You get access with all KS, almost none sell that access separately however, so it has a value of $0 for those KS, and I am reluctant to allocate a higher value here because ultimately people buy the final product and do not care about not having been in the beta once it is released. I see this as a perk of backing, but a $0 value in the end.

The second point I very much doubt, at least for the PDFs. It implies that the price does increase (contrary to you expecting it to stay the same) because eventually there will be some sort of discounted sale, and in my experience eventually those discounts exceed the savings you had as a backer.
I would not even rule out seeing a bundle of holding with the entire KS PDFs for $25 a few years down the line.

Finally, to give you an idea of what is included in each tier there is a longer chart near the end



For simplicity let’s just focus on the $30 option. I very much doubt the two books sell for more than $15 combined. Let’s say the PDF increases in price by $10, that leaves $15 for the beta access (without access to the final book).
I do not see those two items turning into $15 books in their own right, with the beta access being a $0 perk for backers.

To me that overinflates the savings however, as I consider beta access a perk with $0 value since that is how any other KS I have seen treats it. Pretty sure the DungeonCoach will sell beta access however, he has already done so, and therefore assigns a $15 or $20 value to it here that bumps up the savings. I see no other way to get to $40 in savings

EDIT: many KS have no savings at that level or maybe $5 compared to the later price of the book (or addon that was unlocked during the KS), so I am not knocking the Coach for having too small savings, I am only wondering how he arrived at that $40 value.

I see a LOAD of YouTuber/twitch buzz on it. Some cool ideas. I thought up a "unused actions for reactions" idea and a Prime stat before

But it's really in the honeymoon stage and no one is criticizing anything.