The Dungeon Crawler Carl RPG is more than a D&D reskin

In the world of Matt Dinniman’s hit Dungeon Crawler Carl book series, Earth has been turned into the site of an alien reality TV show with rules similar to Dungeons & Dragons or Pathfinder. But neither game serves as the basis for the Dungeon Crawler Carl Roleplaying Game that has already raised more than $8.4 million since launching on BackerKit April 14.

“We didn’t think any existing systems would work well to turn this into a role-playing game,” designer Kevin Schluter told Polygon in a video interview. “We didn’t think that people would appreciate a [D&D fifth edition] reskin on this particular property. That would have been a lot easier if we could have made that work, and I sometimes wonder if we should have pursued that a little more than we did.”

While players will still be trying to roll high on a d20, the Dungeon Crawler Carl game will be more of a hybrid of D&D and Call of Cthulhu. A character’s rank in their five stats is important, but the skills they have can play an even bigger role. Characters will start with some skills based on who they were before they entered the dungeon, even if they might not seem especially useful, and will have the opportunity to gain new skills based on how they approach challenges.

Carl primarily adventures with his ex-girlfriend’s cat, Princess Donut, and the Dungeon Crawler Carl Roleplaying Game is also playable with just two people. One of the game’s main designers drew on his experience with co-op board games for inspiration, balancing fights based on the number of players at the table to accommodate larger groups. The game is designed to let GMs craft stories in Dinniman’s world rather than replay the novels.

“Adventuring in the shadow of Carl and Donut might not be as fun,” Schluter said.

Schluter’s goal was to hit all the highlights from the books, though he had to make some concessions to ensure that the information players need to track is manageable. Competitors in the games – called crawlers – try to attract the attention of viewers and followers. Those numbers have been compressed into a popularity mechanic, and the many crafting materials Carl collects have been reduced to broad categories. Renegade Game Studios hired author Ben Wolf to try to replicate the tone of Dinniman’s books, where Carl battles drug-addicted llamas, is given a toe ring by an AI with a foot fetish, and unintentionally blows up goblin babies.

“The humor kind of comes in with the situations more than the actual text itself,” Schluter said. “There’s quite a bit of over-the-top and gonzo elements, but there’s also this underlying horror to the novels. We definitely wanted to make sure that it’s this combination of over-the-top weird shit plus fucked-up shit.”

While he anticipates most people interested in buying and playing the game will have already read Dinniman’s novels, the products are divided to make it easy to know where the spoilers are. The starter set covers the first novel, while the core rulebook spans elements from books two through four. Future expansions will continue to build on the series, which currently spans eight novels.

Like in the books, all player characters start out as normal people with their own past traumas, loose ends, and regrets. The Borant Corporation is trying to make good television, and likewise, the GM should use the choices players made about their characters’ past to shape the plot and even what loot their characters receive.

“They’re not flaws in the sense that they should be detrimental to you, they’re flaws in the sense that they tie your character to the world with old romantic interests or dreams of motherhood, the sort of things that the dungeon can then use to put an item in front of you that’s really going to needle that,” Schluter said.

Once a crawler makes it to the third floor of the dungeon, they can change their race and gain a class. The RPG also provides rules for starting the game at higher levels.

Image: Renegade Game Studios

“Your second time playing a Dungeon Crawler Carl campaign, we kind of expect maybe folks are just going to want to skip to the third floor and start with the race and a class and a cool character backstory, and maybe you just can just leave it up to some rolls on some random tables as to what you experienced on the tutorial floors,” Schluter said. “We’re kind of expecting character death to be rare in most games of Dungeon Crawler Carl, but it still ought to happen, and you’re going to need that player to come in with a new character.”

The game offers rules for crafting dungeons with their own neighborhood bosses and quests for players to pursue, along with ideas for coming up with loot boxes and achievements. Groups can lean as hard as they want into the roleplaying as crawlers try to improve their standing in the dungeon, by fighting monsters and appearing on alien talk shows to earn fans who can send them loot.

“You might want to just start with doing it in a little abstract way, and just roll a few dice and call it good,” Schluter said. “Other people will probably be happy to spend two- or four-hour sessions just doing one of these talk shows, or getting each character onto their own talk show. We give situations and advice that the GMs can use, and then we have to kind of trust that the game master will adapt these things for their table.”

The Dungeon Crawler Carl RPG BackerKit campaign runs through May 15.