Dungeon Crawler Carl, by Matt Dinniman, the phenomenon of a book series -and so much more- has become one of my favorite things. I gave DCC a try in March of 2026 and I wasn’t a fan at first. The beginning seemed too ridiculous, but going in blind I didn’t realize that was just the tip of the insanity iceberg. After giving the book a real chance and continuing to read, I knew I was in for a good time. Six months later and I’m all caught up (eight books so far!) and am now going through the series again with the audio books. I love Dungeon Crawler Carl. It has really grown on me and I feel like I’m part of a cult- but in a good way! I was thrilled when the RPG was announced and I backed it right away. I’ve had some time to go through the PDFs that were released in late August and I’ve got some thoughts. Some good, some not so good, and some humdingers.

I’ll do my best to keep spoilers of the novels out of here, but this is a warning that there will be some, especially for the first book.

How is this Different from All the Other RPGS Out There?

The World Dungeon is quite the unique setting for an RPG. Taking tropes from video games, other RPGs, and nerd culture in general, Dungeon Crawler Carl does a great job of acknowledging these tropes and using them to satirical effect. As a game, it obviously takes a ton from classic Dungeons & Dragons, but it’s all meant to be tongue-in-cheek. You have Strength, Intelligence, Constitution, Dexterity, and Charisma as your Stats (no, I didn’t forget Wisdom, no one understands Wisdom anyway). To make checks, you add your stat modifier (usually +1 to +3 to start) and your Ranks in a Skill to a d20 roll. Pretty standard stuff. Where DCCRPG shines is the depth of the Skill system and brazen craziness.

While the mechanics are pretty basic, where DCCRPG shines is its setting. If you haven’t read the series yet, do yourself a favor and check it out. If you’re not the reading type, listen to the audiobooks on Audible (not an ad, it’s just the only place they’re available) or the “Immersion Tunnel” at Soundbooththeater.com (not free). [To be clear, neither of these sources are sponsors in any way, I just want to make it easier for people to experience this series!]

So how does the game fit the setting? First, the character sheets attempt to emulate the Heads Up Display (HUD) of the Crawlers (Player Characters- PCs). In the books this is a digital overlay on the person’s vision, where they can interact with the map, their inventory, and more. The Character sheet shows this by displaying the health bar (not simply HP, but a little more to it), Stats, attacks, the usual stuff.

So yeah, as a HUD, it doesn’t really do it, but I’m not sure how they’d go about that any better with paper and ink. I’m expecting them to go a little further with the VTT modules (I got it for Foundry, but they aren’t expected to be released for a few months). Like I said above, it’s not that out-there and conforms well to what it’s imitating.

About the health bar quick: it’s kinda neat that you have to suffer (or deal to Mobs) enough damage to complete a box of the bar (usually 10%) otherwise even if you hit you don’t do damage. For example, if the bar had a 4 in each space (for 40 HP total), you’d check off a box for each multiple of 4 damage you suffer. If you take less than 4 or there’s leftover damage that’s less than 4, then it’s ignored. 16 damage = 4 boxes. 19 damage= 4 boxes. 20 damage = 5 boxes. Get it? If not, read the description in the book.

A few other things I like about the character mechanics are the Hotlist- where you have up to ten of your spells, skills, or items ready to use at a moment’s notice. Other items or abilities take longer to queue up if they aren’t in your hotlist (like hotkeys in a CRPG), which makes those ten spots very important. Another is gear slots. Think Diablo- you can only wear or carry so much gear, and those slots are taken up by your equipment. No, it’s not really all that different from games like D&D or Pathfinder, but I like the specificity of it and the fact that you can wear up to ten accessories!

I’ve Got Skills. Nunchuck Skills. Computer Skills…

Skills are the bread and butter of most Crawlers- I say most because if you’re a mage of some kind, Spells will be your best friend. Skills can improve spellcasting as well. In the novels, there are virtually infinite Skills. Obviously for a TTRPG that has to be parsed down. The Core Rulebook lists at least 114 Skills (yes, I just counted them) and includes rules for creating your own if you can’t find the perfect one in that huge list. Each skill has– let me just show you an example:

Each Skill has its basic ability, but as you Rank up the Skills, they get better and cooler. Ranking up is an interesting system that encourages you to use the Skill to get better at it- like Final Fantasy II, everyone’s favorite FF! Experience is similar: unlike the novels, experience points aren’t given for each Mob killed, but more abstractly. Crawlers gain Levels as they explore the dungeon and not die. Defeating other Crawlers or Bosses are the best ways to Level Up quickly. When a Crawler gains a Level, they gain three points to add to their Stats- but not until the Third Floor! While you’re on the First and Second, all those juicy Stat upgrades are held in reserve. Luckily you can still increase your Rank in Skills on the First and Second.

One of my favorite (at least in theory) is the Grinding system. Instead of playing out every combat against weak Mobs -looking at you, rats- this is done more like a classic movie montage. Grinding costs only time in the dungeon. But that is a precious resource. When you only have a few days, spending five hours at a time Grinding will add up quickly. This isn’t completely without risk, as each Neighborhood that is in the publications has its own Grinding Complication table. Here’s an example:

But I Want to be Gandalf!

Ok, fine, I’ll go over Spells a bit here. First off, Spells spend Mana to cast (again, like Diablo and countless other RPGs). Your Mana is equal to your Intelligence and is restored through potions and resting (and toast…). Spells run the gamut of being as weak as your unarmed attacks to catastrophically ruinous. Spells can only be cast from your Hotlist, so mages need to really make tough decisions when filling that. Luckily they don’t usually rely on potions or scrolls, since their spells can do similar things.

That’s kind of all there is to Spells. Use mana, kill Mobs, restore mana. Repeat. Obviously, once you get into the more expensive spells, they’re going to do a lot more than 1d4 damage, here’s example of a big boy spell:

Oh, and this might seem obvious, but not all spells are about dealing damage. There are tons of utility and support spells. There couldn’t be Bards without dumb spells, right?

What Do I Get for My Troubles?

Increasing Skill Ranks is good and all, but what about the loot?! Many Mobs drop loot when they die, especially in the later floors. They can have stuff, and after the First Floor they almost always drop Gold. This is where we get a bit of a problem though… There are no rules for how much things cost. Shops don’t appear until the Third Floor in the novels, but in the RPG apparently they don’t appear at all! A major oversight by the writers, this is something that needs to be fixed immediately. There’s a chance I’ve missed this, but then there’s the issue of readability and layout. If there are tables for shops and cost of items, it shouldn’t be hard to find, even in a PDF.

Completing Quests and earning New Achievements also often awards Loot Boxes.

While the Loot Boxes are fun, I wish there were more specific items to throw in there. A bunch of rollable tables here would be great. I don’t want to have to pick a spell every time I add a scroll. Tables made for each Floor would be awesome. There are tables now, but… here’s an example:

This might sound like lazy GMing to some, but we have to put in enough work as it is. I want a big list of tons of items. There are examples, but not nearly enough I don’t think. Hopefully we’ll get more of this in later supplements, but a Core Rulebook with over 600 pages should have this already. With VTT packages coming, I’m hopeful they will make this process a little easier for GMs. With how much loot is handed out in the novels, GMs will be spending the majority of their prep time making up the loot boxes!

There are some neat rules for Crafting as well, though you can’t do that until you have access to Personal Spaces and Crafting Tables on the Fourth Floor. This is handled a little abstractly, with “Misc. Junk” carrying the load. Misc. Junk is an item that can be looted from Mobs or found in the Dungeon. This can be whatever makes sense in the environment and what it is exactly isn’t super important. This part is kind of nice. Instead of a GM having to come up with every item in every room, you can just say there’s some Misc. Junk that the Crawlers can pick up. Later, they can use this Misc. Junk for crafting or for having the right items later. It might sound a little contradictory here, but I like the vagueness and ambiguity of the Misc. Junk. For important magic items I want specifics, but here, if you need to randomly have a length of chain, spend one of your Misc. Junk to say you have one! This will keep the game flowing while exploring and won’t fill the character sheet with literal garbage.

If your players want to use the stuff Carl and Donut did (and others from the novels) there is a list of Iconic Gear that you can hand out. I’m not a huge fan of this, if I were a player (which I almost certainly won’t be as a Forever GM) I would want unique gear, not what I already read about. Others won’t think that way though, and it’s still pretty cool to include the rules for these items we know and love from the books.

Ok, How Do I Start Playing?

This is where I run into another issue with the game. The Core Rulebook assumes you also have the Starter Set. I don’t like that. One product here shouldn’t rely on the other. While the Starter Set looks really good for what it is and what it’s trying to do, it shouldn’t be assumed that everyone who’s playing this game has it. The Core Rulebook assumes that you’re starting on the Third Floor and jumping in with a bunch of Stat Points to dole out and a Race and Class to choose. I get that that’s the exciting part- the first two floors aren’t as exciting with just humans (and maybe some Enhanced Pets) running around. But to each their own. I’d rather start at the beginning, entering the Dungeon on the First Floor, but we all know how these games go. You get a couple sessions in and it falls apart. Might as well start with the cool stuff! Ok, so I guess I’m torn on how this is presented.

Not that there is nothing on the First and Second Floors in the Core book, but they’re really fleshed out in the Starter Set. This book instead has about half of it dedicated to the Third, Fourth, and Fifth Floors. Yes, even the Iron Tangle, the lovely Iron Tangle (I loved it as a reader, I had no issues with it being confusing- that was the point!).

I love all the info they give us here. Tons of Mobs, Bosses, Neighborhood descriptions, tables for complications and essentially random encounters, even maps (I LOVE maps!). My biggest issue here is the lack of images. For the Fourth Floor, consisting of nearly 100 pages (I’m not kidding), there are only 19 images (counting the Chapter Header). There are about a dozen maps, which helps, but a small fraction of the Mobs described actually have a picture with them. For a game that raised over $13 million I expected more art. What makes it worse, is one of those images is just a slime, or ooze, or whatever. They look the same in every game! Give us a picture of something unique from DCC- there are so many options!

Ok, I’ll get off my images high horse, many probably won’t care, but it’s frustrating to me as such a visual person.

Great, But Do You Recommend?

With my complaints, I’m still very excited to play this game. The problems here are not insurmountable, and can easily be fixed with some TLC from Renegade. I plan on running a game at some point through Startplaying.games (check here for my GM profile and when I have what games going). Once I get the Starter Set in hand I’m going to be forcing locals to play it as well. I’ll do a separate review of that product, as it has A LOT in it.

So yeah, currently I’d give Dungeon Crawler Carl RPG 3.5 out of 5 Pet Biscuits. There’s certainly room to grow, but the sheer amount of options and information given in this tome makes it worth it. After finding your way around the issues above, this looks like a hell of a time around the RPG table.

Until next time, make sure to check out our Patreon at patreon.com/professionalcasual for all kinds of awesome content.