DCC: game systems and the show¶

Written 2026-10-27 from a fan research log; sources as labeled.

The rules crawlers live under in the books (stats, skills, classes, loot) and the show around them (viewers, sponsors, the leaderboard, and the AI that runs it all). Researched 2026-10-26. The strongest evidence is readers' highlighted quotes on Goodreads, which are verbatim book text; most other detail comes from one fan wiki. Book 8 is thin. Labels are explained on the overview.

Stats and levels¶

• Five visible stats: Strength, Intelligence, Constitution, Dexterity and Charisma (multi). A sixth, Wisdom, exists but is hidden and locked (multi).
• What they do (DB only): Strength covers athletics, lifting and melee damage; Intelligence covers spellcasting and the mana pool; Constitution covers health, recovery and potion cooldowns; Dexterity covers agility, balance and stealth; Charisma covers influencing people and monsters, pets, and charming bosses.
• The human baseline is low: most adults start at 3–5 in each stat (DB only).
• Displayed stats are base plus gear, shown line by line on the stat screen (multi).
• Three stat points per level, banked until race and class are picked on floor 3 (multi), and spendable only in a safe room (DB only). Stats also grow from permanent potions, quest and event rewards, skills and gear.
• Experience comes from kills, quests and milestones [S]. Party sharing exists but isn't specified.

The Crawl takes the same five attributes as "law" and the "no spending points until level 3" rule (Characters and progression), and treats them as generic enough to use freely.

Skills and spells¶

• Skills are separate from stats. A related stat strengthens a skill but doesn't raise its level (DB only). Crawlers start with skills from their life before the dungeon, often jokes.
• Most skills cap at level 15, or 20 if your race or class allows it (DB only; a spell's "(Max)" display backs it). Skills train mostly by use, with training rooms, guilds and gear multipliers helping.
• Spells are learned from tomes, sheet music or guilds; everyone gets a basic heal in the tutorial (DB only). Spells cost mana and level by use. Items can grant spells that cost no mana but run on fixed cooldowns (multi).
• Classes bundle many kinds of modifier: stat bonuses and penalties, flat skill levels, training-speed multipliers, spells, immunities, damage modifiers, mana-cost modifiers, and access to clubs (DB, consistent with quoted class text).

That last point, a class as a bundle of modifiers to numbers, lines up with The Crawl's own principle that everything is numbers and modifiers.

Races and classes¶

• Chosen on reaching floor 3: race first, then class, then spending banked points, with the crawler's guide walking them through it [M].
• Races number in the hundreds and are roughly balanced to a net of about +10 stat points, or compensated with a skill or trait instead. About 80% of crawlers stay human [S].
• Classes are tailored: the AI offers 30+ options based on a crawler's stats, race, gear and history, recommends three, and judges only on skills, not on how a pick would play with viewers (DB, with corroboration). Some classes require a view count, an achievement or a minimum stat.
• "Earth classes" are inspired by human culture and grant a hobby skill (multi). The Crawl's "gamified professions" (Combat and items) are in the same spirit, though named independently.
• Floor 6 brings specialisation into subclasses (DB). Some classes change every floor, which the research log flags as an interesting design.

Loot¶

• Loot boxes come in six tiers: Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Legendary and Celestial, across dozens of box types (multi).
• Boxes can only be opened in a safe room, all at once, in tier order (DB only). Unopened boxes can't be sold, traded or looted from a corpse.
• Box sources: achievements (the AI's default reward), bosses, sponsors and fans. Fans vote on a fan box's contents, and trolls often make the winner useless (DB only).
• Celestial boxes are extremely rare, and the AI on its own can only award up to Platinum (DB only).
• Inventory is unlimited for crawlers this season, and time stands still inside it: food doesn't spoil, but a lit fuse stays lit (DB only). Exploits like killing monsters by stuffing them into inventory were patched out.
• Crafting is barely documented beyond one character's bomb-making workbench, which levels up each floor (DB only). This is a gap.

The show¶

• Ratings run on four metrics (DB, with a second fan site agreeing): views (about eight seconds of someone watching), followers, favourites (each viewer has a limited number of slots), and patrons or sponsors.
• Views unlock things. Some classes require a minimum view count, and view milestones trigger fan boxes.
• The audience builds up over floors: no live viewers on floor 1, highlight reels from floor 2, and the show fully live around floor 3 [S].
• Sponsors: up to three per crawler, one slot auctioned on each of floors 4, 5 and 6. A sponsor's box holds an item the sponsor chooses, usually far stronger than normal loot. Crawlers can message sponsors, but not the reverse (DB only).
• The leaderboard shows the top ten crawlers by ratings, each carrying a bounty that grows with the floor. Killing a ranked crawler pays the bounty and is announced dungeon-wide; surviving a floor while ranked pays out part of your own (DB).
• Player-versus-player incentives: the first party to kill another crawler gets PvP rewards, and safe rooms punish fighting with escalating penalties (DB, with a quote backing the coupons).
• Talk shows pull popular crawlers out between floors for interviews (multi).
• Gods appear from floor 4, sponsored by wealthy citizens. Worshippers follow each god's commandments and rise through devotion ranks (DB only, thin).
• Audience-voted rule changes: on floor 9, factions propose rule changes and the audience votes on them (multi). The research log calls this a ready-made live-operations mechanic.

The AI's voice¶

• The dungeon's AI is petty, snarky and fixated on getting a good show, and it grows more openly rebellious book by book [M].
• Achievements follow a recognisable shape: a pop-culture or crude title, one dry sentence describing what you did, then a reward line that's either a box, a hint, or a snide non-reward. The joke is the gap between bureaucratic notice and vulgar commentary.
• Rules are literal, and the AI enjoys loopholes. Crawlers win by exploiting rules (setting monsters against each other, physics tricks with inventory), and the AI often rewards it before the show patches it out.
• The tone underneath: the comedy sits on top of real horror and grief, since the show is a genocide broadcast for profit. The research log's warning: a game that gets only the jokes right will miss the series.

The tabletop RPG as a distilled rule set¶

Renegade Game Studios' official tabletop game boils the books down (from a credible but secondary forum post and a fan site):

• A d20 roll plus stat modifier plus skill ranks against a target number, with the floor number added to the target. The game master never rolls.
• Five stats (no Wisdom); two actions per round with no initiative; cooldowns on attacks, abilities and potions; almost anyone can cast spells.
• "AI Favor" is a spendable resource for a reroll or an extra action: a way to turn the AI's whims into a mechanic.

Design translation notes (the researcher's own analysis, not sourced)¶

• Two currencies: combat experience builds power; views, followers and favourites build access. Players should be able to raise ratings through spectacle.
• Generate achievements from verbs. That needs a big library of event conditions (kills with X, using Y, while Z) plus a writing layer for the snide reward line.
• Opening boxes in a safe room, all at once, makes a ceremony, and making unopened boxes unlootable protects that moment from griefing.
• Top-ten bounties are self-balancing PvP targeting: fame paints a target on you.
• Ship deliberate loopholes: discoverable, rewarded, and eventually patched inside the fiction.
• Problems flagged: unlimited inventory and sponsor gifts break an online economy unless items are bound to the receiver; permadeath is central to the books and hostile to player retention (The Crawl's answer is the B-Roll); and the reality-TV frame needs real spectators, which is a big separate product.

Gaps¶

• Item rarity beyond box tiers isn't documented in the sources.
• General crafting, god mechanics and the floor 9 war's army rules are thin or unreachable.
• Book 8 mechanics are an outline from reviews only.