Review: The Inaugural Issue of Crawl!, a Dungeon Crawl Classics Fanzine

Yesterday I received my copy of Crawl!, a fanzine for Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG. In a surprise move the fellow behind the zine, Dak Ultimak, mailed out limited edition copies of the zine to people like myself who pre-ordered. The cover of the zine mimics the cover of the limited edition DCC RPG book: it’s black on black, with a little gold foil sticker. It was a pleasant surprise.

The zine is 20 pages long, and features 4 articles filled with new ’crunch’ for your DCC RPG game. The opening article discusses tweaks to the character creation rules that will help create a more traditional sword and sorcery feel for your DCC RPG campaign: dropping demi-human classes, and moving the skills and features of the cleric and thief classes elsewhere. This article is followed by one about a new patron for wizards. Apparently this character came about from Dak’s actual home game. The third article presents rules for variable DC: easy ways to randomly make a mundane task difficult or a difficult task easy. The zine ends with some rules on converting OSR material to the DCC RPG system. Subsequent issues will expand on some of the material presented in this issue. I thought the articles were all quite enjoyable. The article about the new patron really stood out. It features a great backstory along with some humorous wizard corruption descriptions.

For a bunch of paper and cardboard, the zine’s actually very well put together. Running contrary to the classic zine aesthetic, Crawl! is a well designed little book. The layout is quite well done. The articles are laid out neatly, and there are lots of great little illustrations throughout the issue. For a DIY publication it feels pretty professional. Well, except for the fact it’s cardboard and folded paper, I suppose.

The zine is $3.50. How have you not ordered it already?