Character Creation Challenge 2026 Day 28: Dungeon Crawl Classics Part 1

Dungeon Crawl Classics is the oddball cousin to D&D and OSR games.  You know the one.  Part of the family but kind of askew and random.  But boy can it be fun.

 

DCC was the first place I encountered the character funnel.  Instead of creating a fully formed 1st level character and sending him off to his death, you instead create four of five average schlub 0 level characters and send them off to their (sometimes hilarious) deaths in what is called a character funnel.  Many go any, few come out.  If one of your characters survives, you fully flesh him out and he becomes your 1st level character. 

 

To create a 0 level character, you roll your six attributes down the line using 3d6s.  The Attributes don't match the classic six one to one.  Instead you have:  Strength, Agility, Stamina, Personality, Intelligence and Luck.  (I rolled well for this character!)  You then roll for Hit Points.

 

You then determine your Lucky Sign.  This only impacts your character if your Luck is high enough or low enough to have a modifier.  One of the Luck Signs is The Bull, which affects your melee attack rolls. 

 

You then determine your everyday, normal occupation.  This will also determine your race:  Human, Dwarf, Elf or Halfling.  It also determines your starting weapon.  Usually something like a shovel or a pitchfork..

 

Choose an Alignment.  Law, Neutral or Chaos.  Most people tend to be Neutral.

 

Roll to see how many coppers you have.

 

Get a bit of equipment with your paltry number of coppers.

 

Go off to die.