Ring Side Report-RPG Review of Star Crawl

Originally posted at www.throatpunchgames.com, a new idea every day!

Product- Star Crawl System- DCC RPG Producer- Tuesday Night Fiend Club Price- $10.00 here https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/254637/Star-Crawl?affiliate_id=658618 TL; DR- DCC Starfinder! 88%

Basics- Need some space in your DCC RPG? Want to play Starfinder and DCC? Then Star Crawl is for you. Let’s see what the new things are from DCC RPG.

Basics-Can you play DCC RPG? Then you can play this. Honestly that’s the big mechanics of this. Seriously! That’s not a bad thing.

Races- Star Crawl introduces race templates. You choose a race template that you add to a character at level 1 or 0. It's a few ability changes and a few extra abilities. Nothing too crazy, but some solid additional crunch to the system.

Space ships- You can’t have space opera without space ships. This system adds in space much like Starfinder. Basically, pilot checks determine who goes from low to high as you outmaneuver other ships. It's simple to keep in the flavor of DCCRPG.

This is’t a complete change so much as an incremental change. Let’s look at my thoughts on this.

Mechanics or Crunch-This is both the high point and the low point of the book. Why high? The new stuff is great! I love what’s here. Solid new classes. Solid application of the basic ideas of DCC RPG. Solid new races. Everything here is great. Why low? It didn’t feel like enough. I want more spaceships. I want more space options. It’s kind of a short book. It was great, but I was just left wishing for more to help me build my space world. 4.25/5

Theme or Fluff-I was looking for some Star Wars DCC RPG, and this delivers. You get new settings to play, and the fluff to get there. What I do need more of is world building. It's a solid intro book with the basic ideas of the universe, but I need more. The included adventure builds that out, but I would have liked a bit more history, background, and details to draw me in and help me make it my own. 4.5/5

Execution- PDF? YEP! Hyperlinked? no...I can live without the hyperlinks, but they help, especially for an intro book. The rest of the book is well done. The art is simple, but charming. The layout works well. It reads easily, and is approachable. Overall, this is a solid book, but I still want a few more tech toys. 4.5/5

Summary- My players and I are chomping at the bit to get into this. I like this book and world. The mechanics are good, but I need more toys for the sandbox. The world is solid, but needs more to help me build and expand. All in all, for a small publisher, this is an amazing book that I really recommend to anyone who needs a bit more scifi in their fantasy. If you want some space fun, throw your DCC RPG players into this space opera. 88%

This zine-length PDF is a great addition to the Mutant Crawl Classics/DCC system, with a unique spin on a Mad Max/Car Wars style post-apocalyptic road race. For those familiar with DCC, the play is smooth and intuitive, using the dice chain for negative and positive modifiers. It's run in turns/laps, with a random event each turn, ranging from road obstacles to non-aligned snipers to the dreaded sand worm. Car types and weapons are statted up, as are other possible car mods. This leads me to what may be the best part of the mini-game, which is modding your own matchbox cars to represent the be-weaponed chop-shop vehicles of the post-apocalypse. Played it with a 9 and 11 year old and they had a great time, including modding up their own cars. I will say that, although it can be played with as few as 2-3 players, it plays a lot better with 5-8. Buy it, mod up some cheap toy cars, and spend some time with VEHICLE MAYHEM! You won't be sorry.