Comic Crawl Classics Review

Comic Crawl Classics as a DCC and MCC compatible set of superhero rules. Having read through it a couple of times, I think technically you don't need any other books, though I'd recommend a copy one of the previously mentioned games (particularly MCC).

If you've played DCC, this is going to look familiar. Character creation is similar in a lot of ways mechanically. However, there's no 0-level funnel and there's a lot more background and story involved in character creation. You need to name your superhero, come up with an alter ego, and choose a background. It doesn't matter if you're an alien, a mutant, or gained your powers accidentally, your powers work the same. 

Fame and Wealth are new character traits for CCC. Instead of keeping track of every dollar your character has a wealth score and needs to make a role when making some purchases. Fame starts at 0 and can rise and fall based on deeds. Fame can be used as an ability score or skill when interacting with the public. 

There are also no classes in Comic Crawl Classics. Everyone uses the same level advancement table. If you would like to add classes, I think you could easily layer True Vigilante on top of these rules. The game includes mental combat and in addition to HP, characters have MP (mind points). These can be lost because of psychic attacks and stress. They can potentially cause mental corruption.

You're probably wondering about powers. A majority of powers focus on them. Each character has a number of power build dice. These are used to increase a power score, up an ability score, or increase a skill (weapon or general). There are 40 powers includes. Twenty-four are active and sixteen are defensive. The power entries look a lot like DCC spells. Also like spells, you roll the dice when you use them and that determines the effectiveness. Treating powers like spells just makes sense for DCC inspired supers. The mutations presented in MCC are done the same way. The powers cover all the common ones you'll find in comics and quite a few uncommon ones.

After powers there's a page and a half of equipment and a page giving basic rules of sidekicks and superpets. The book ends with an eight page level 1 adventure set in the exciting metropolis of... Canton, Ohio in 1988. The time frame and location is odd, but the author Ed Stanek is from Canton. A team of level 1 heroes is presented after the adventure. 

Visually the book is kind of plain. The text looks like open sans. There are no borders and the layout is very old school. This also means the text is very tight. Personally I find this distracting. Just adding a space between the power entry results would have helped. There's not a lot of art, but the art that's included is good. Nearly all of it is from JE Shields and Inspector97.

While it's not as flashy as I like, this is a very solid DCC supers game. Other than the adventure, there is no setting which has advantages and disadvantages. The pdf is $15 and print is $25, which also means this is the most affordable DCC supers game (not counting True Vigilantes because those characters are unpowered vigilantes).