Who here has played Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG (DCC RPG)?

[Rhedyn]

Is it as fun as it looks? Has anyone tried it and just found it not fun and why?

[BradB2]

I've played it on and off for several years now, and yes it is very fun. Leveling up can be slow and usually the PC death rate is high. I don't have a character to 2nd level yet, but that's mainly because I don't play on a regular basis, or I don't run the same character.

:)

[Illogictree]

It looks like fun, but I think I'd have to set player expectations appropriately for it. It would take a certain type of player, and/or players in a certain type of mood, for it to work. So far that hasn't happened for me yet, though I remain hopeful. Maybe not for a full campaign, but a one-shot or short campaign. Preferably one ending in the brutal maiming or death of all characters involved.

I'm curious, though. What is it about leveling up that takes so long? Do you mean the accrual of XP, or the actual process of leveling the character up?

[Thrudd]

Like most games, how fun it is will depend mostly on the GM (called the Judge). I think that setting players' expectations is easy, you just have them read the rules, or even just the introduction and character building part. They will read how the game embraces a specific take on old-school D&D while at the same time entrenching a picaresque/dark pulp fantasy tone into the mechanics. They should get the idea that many things are intended to be determined randomly, including the race and background of their character, the spells their spell-casters start with, all sorts of injuries and critical spell-effects. Magic is supposed to be risky with unpredictable elements. Life is cheap and characters can be expected to have a Cugel/Conan/Fafhrd and Grey Mouser-like attitude about things, for the most part.

The rate at which characters gain levels is also entirely up to the GM. The recommendation is for 2XP for an average encounter, with a max of 4XP for nearly deadly encounters. Escaping the level-0 "funnel" to get level 1 is only 10 XP, so that should be around 5 encounters, and should probably be in the first session. To get to level 2 is 50 XP - so that could be as many as five or more sessions, or could happen in one or two adventures if the GM is very generous with additional sources of XP beyond combat.
Also note that character levels only go up to 10, and that power advancement is much lower than what modern D&D players may expect. You should expect to spend multiple sessions at each level, and consider yourself very lucky and/or skilled if a character survives to level 10 (which should be expected to happen only after a year or more of playing weekly, imo).

This game is fun for players who like a challenge - who like using random tables and wild magic-like elements - who think a fun part of the game is seeing whether or not their characters can survive - who enjoy playing along with crazy random events, like their wizard growing lizard scales all over their body and slowly mutating into a horror, or someone accidentally being turned into a newt (he'll get better), or their deity becoming displeased with them for asking for too much power and cutting them off from spells for a bit. If you can't enjoy the ignominious deaths of half your starting characters to spiked pits, being swallowed by snakes, rocks falling, and being stabbed and bludgeoned by average sorts of monsters - then this game probably isn't going to be fun for you.