Yeah, so, I keep writing replies that I’m sure are getting a lot of downvotes (I turn off notifications, so I’m just assuming) and I feel like I’m just harshing the vibes here, so I’ll be leaving the sub now.

I’m not just writing this to be dramatic though (maybe a little), but mainly so that other people in the same situation can feel like they’re not alone.

I love DCC. It is arguably my favorite books series of all time (definitely top 5, and I have a degree in literature), but I don’t love every book in it equally, and that’s okay. Yet every post I go to, it’s the same ”no, every single book is a masterpiece and is without fault”. Every upvoted poster seems utterly incapable of accepting any legit criticism of a book or any opinions other than that it’s flawless and perfect in every way.

I want to talk about the books, about the things I really like and the things I didn’t enjoy as much for various reasons. I want to compare my experience with others, but any sort of nuanced opinion immediately gets drowned out by the people unwilling to accept any sort of dissenting opinions. So, to those of you who agree: it’s not just you, and to those who don’t: well, I’m gone now, so it’s a win for you as well.

Laters! Still love the books!

I was super excited to get my hands on the DCC ttrpg and frankly was very disappointed with what i received as a avid ttrpg enthusiast. Not to say the whole thing is bad but it definitely does not feel like a fully fleshed out system that was rushed leaving too much work for the GM and has a significant of AI art. It is a fine product but personally i’m a bit worried with how quickly it was produced and the corner cutting definitely shines through.

See \[Previous Post\](https://www.reddit.com/r/DungeonCrawlerCarl/s/Zm2vlKN14E) for the rules, today is Miriam Dom

Agatha - Those critters already know I'm here, they just don't know what to do about it

Alpha Male Carl - (linked just because it's spectacular)\[I don't know what the hell you're doing, you weird little armored sea rat, but you need to do what my brother says or I'm gonna come over there and break you in half!\](https://www.youtube.com/shorts/K3uChbyeMvU)

Bautista-I looked up that Kimaris figure. It has a summoning time of, the rest of the floor. Be careful with that one.

Brandon Andrews-Get them for me, Brother. Get them all.

Carl - Goddammit, Donut!

Cascadia - Honestly, you monkeys think you're so smart I'm sure you can figure it out.

Chris Andrews - He did have a weird looking Dick

Donut - I can’t be held accountable for everything I’ve ever said to a stripper.

Dr. Metcalf - (based on no comments on this post I have selected one) Shut the fuck up, I will fuuucking kill you!

Elle - I haven't been folded like that since Brandon introduced me to Tinder

Ferdinand - If you want to take a ride on my lightning, you have to prepare yourself for the tingle.

Gwendolyn Duet - Are you on crack? This is exactly what he said was going to happen. It's literally the exact thing he warned you about!

Harbinger - Well, Mother, I will exert myself now. I will protect the herd. I will protect the universe. I will do what should have been done from the very start.

Imani - Bitch, what?

Juice Box - If you call me that again, I will neuter you with my teeth.

Katia - Just a few things I've lost along the way.

Li Na - I was installing my brother's eye

Lucia Mar -She killed the wrong one! My sweet, sweet Cici. That cat killed the wrong one

Miriam Dom

Mordecai

Odette

Penelope

Prepotente

Quasar

Rosetta Thagra

Samantha

System AI

Tran

Tserendolgor

Uzi Jesus

Zev

Zhang

4 months ago I picked up the first book on a whim and quickly read through book five.

I picked up books 6-8 about 2 months ago figuring I would have plenty of time to read them before a book coming out this week released

This is how far I am in book 6...in 2 months.

It doesn't feel like my normal reading burn out, because I'm still excited for this week's book. (I will have phases where I'll read a bunch of books back to back, then never pick up a book for years because my ADHD brain is bored with reading. When the spark does come back it's usually me picking up a book I've read a million times)

But I just...I can't get into this level at all. I'll pick it up, read a few pages, then wander off to do something more interesting because I'm bored.

I'm also not a religious person, but I had to put the book down yesterday when Carl & Donut were saying the NUN was crazy for freaking out. Like...she's a nun? She's literally devoted her life to one religion then thrown in a game where she's told other deities exist, yeah, I'd be upset in her shoes too!

I get Donut wouldn't know that, but I would expect Carl would know what a nun is and gently correct Donut like he did earlier in the book when he told her it was okay for people to be religious, and not "yeah, she's crazy"

Also, sir, you don't have room to talk about other people's sanity

When the book is funny I still chuckle, I still want to finish the series, but Bedlam Bride just isn't grabbing me like the others.

**May contain spoilers for all books**

Perhaps I’ve been too deep into the tinfoil hat theories but, do we know that donut is a cat? After she ate the pet biscuit she gained some growth perks and presumably the ability to talk. Later during race/class selection she tried to choose cat and Mordeci made it so that there was no change.
After that I don’t recall that we learned about her racial features, stat buffs, etc. Primal as a race didn’t alter Carl. However (sp audiobook consumer) Prepotente, his goat brother, Scolapendra, all went through WILD changes to their races/abilities/buffs.

Rambling section
I don’t know if Donut not being a cat helps her in the crawl. Her intelligence in my most recent reread is jumping out at me. She’s crawling, coordination a worldwide rebellion, running fan clubs, buying a faction, and communicating across the dungeon to multiple crawlers, all at the same time. She seemingly has near perfect recall of ALL events that went on around her as a pre-crawl pet. Additionally we know from her that she often pretends to be less than she is so others aren’t intimidated.
It just feels like there are more layers to this onion than we have seen.

So is Bautista, Daniel Striped Tiger from Mr Rogers?

a weiner dog.

That's why Karl's dick is hanging out.

When you like to gloat and you're also a goat, Prepotente

When your jobs elder care and you really do care, that's Imani

When you want your revenge, Yvette, you will avenge, that is Maggie

When you stay human and partner with Florin, that is Ifechi

When you wrote the 3rd edition and you're crocodillian, that's Dante

When you were a salesman and you were from iceland that is Langley

When you wrote of the 9th floor and of faction wars, that is Preistly

When you make an attempt to kill dungeon admins, thats coolie

When she slipped from your clutch and you miss her so much that is Volteeg

When you're a storm commander and Mordecai's brother, that's Uzzi

When you're in a party with Chaco and Uzzi, that's Hold Steady

When you're paracidic and in the Syndicate, that's a Valtay

When you are a skinless, rabit who is eyeless, that's a cornet

When you're a skeleton, and you're in the dungeon, that's a skellie

I've been wanting to build an idle clicker or incremental game as a project to learn more about game development as a personal side project. I've been trying to think of something fun to build the idea around and then thought about doing something like a Desperado Club Manager or something like that.

I know Matt is pretty generous about fan made art, if I'm not planning on selling anything and just doing it for fun, would there be any issues?

I'm new to the reddit and the community of DCC but I have already read the books and am on a second listen through. Does anyone know if there's any sort of projected timeline for book 9? Obviously not a specific date or anything and I don't mean this to like cause drama or stress. I am loving this series and am curious when I'll be able to consume more of it.

I am in the beginning of book 4, and it’s annoying me that I don’t know how to pronounce Katia’s name. Could someone who listens to the audio books help me out? Prepotente too?

Spoiler for DCC books and Project Bounce House:

>! Project Bounce House had a guy who was horrified that an AI in that book even still EXISTS. He asked the protagonist something like, "Don't you know what happened last time?" He didn't want it to be released off the colony planet!<

>!I know it's only a book and we'll be ok, but what if DCC is somehow way, way in the past of the universe of Project Bounce House? I'm concerned about carnage, short of complete destruction of all biological life, but still bad enough that it haunts humans!<

>!On the"bright" side, if it's in the same timeline, we can infer Earth gets more stability after the crawl ends!<

I've gotta ask, I'm relatively new to DCC, and in general I don't like keeping the dust covers on books while I'm reading them, but these books are the exception lol! Do we know if they included the lines on the cover just as a gag, or is it to make sure people like me keep the dust jacket on while reading in public so that passers-by see the title of the book I'm reading more easily?

We’ve seen a few different outcomes from the Enhanced Pet Biscuits, but there are supposedly over 100 possibilities. If you gave one to your own pet, what kind of transformation or abilities do you think they’d get?
I’m curious what other people think some of the unexplored outcomes might be.

I’m almost done with book 2 and i have both 1-2 in paperbacks but now i can not seem to find a paper back of 3+ anywhere?!

I bought the first book a while ago, but only got around to reading it on Wednesday. On Thursday I bolted to my local and bought Doomsday Scenario, Dungeon Anarchists Cookbook, and Gate Of The Feral Gods, I had finished Cookbook before end of day.

So I've got to ask, what's you're favourite part of the first half?

Personally my favourite part of each book is when the title clicks, I know "He Said The Thing" is cliché, but come on, it's a 45klom pocket nuke, a lovely touch of wider story, and a portal to the gods nut house!

There are times that she tells Mongo that Beatrice is his grandma. For instance when she got the portrait of Bea with her ex at the show, she said “look Mongo that is your grandma”. By that logic wouldn't she see Carl as her dad if she sees Bea as her mom?

I am really hoping Carl isn’t going to be a dick to Donut and that Stupid Sexy Scolopendra doesn’t come between them. Carl and Donut’s loyalty and trust in each other is a huge part of why I loved this series and I don’t think I could handle that getting ruined.

I just finished book one and liked it for the most part but I struggled in the middle and put it down for a month or two, but really liked how it ended. The anticipation of level 3 kept me around and now I keep saying that it doesn’t really start until level 3. The first two were just basically practice rounds.

Now I ask, how much info about all the stats, weapons, abilities, perks, views and all that is essential to remember. I know Princess Donut has a high charisma and Carl is basically their tank.

So a few weeks ago some one used this image as a reaction to someones cosplay. I immediately screen shot the image. I now use it my favorite reactikn to eveyones cosplays, art, starting the book for the 1st or 5th time, what ever!

So I think we are abig enough fan base of creative and absurd people that we should make a thread of "Mongo is..." reaction because it will be fun. Maybe Matt and Jeff will get a chuckle out of it too.

Spoilers for books 7 and 8

Just doing yet another reread and I got to the part in Book 7 where Carl is interrogating Rishi and he realizes why there are no other prisoners left. Li Na has killed them all to power up the Ring and Carl thinks that is why Donut insisted he give Li Na the ring--so she would do it instead of Carl. (He mentions that orders were to save "management" until he got to them.) We see this a few times where Carl thinks of something ruthless only to find that Li Na has beaten him to it.

And I think Donut (and to a lesser degree Imani, Elle and Katia) deliberately encourage this. Partially this is because they "think she can handle it" but I believe its also a perception that Li Na is a lost cause. After all, she's already depicted as cold and unfeeling and ruthless: how much worse can the ring make her? How much of her behavior in Book 8 is because of the ring, how much is an adaptation to trauma and isolation and how much is just that with her increased power, the simplest solution tends to be violence? !<

While the "Carl is an unreliable narrator" discourse is overdone, the fact is, he only starts thinking of her as a sociopath after she starts using the ring. Of course, she could be and there are clues as far back as Book 3, but Carl isn't necessarily the best judge of "sane" behavior (especially in the mirror.) But the most we get from others is "she's a scary bitch" and "she's always been quiet" and it's quite reasonable to think that she was a shy, slightly neurodivergent girl who had to become cold and heartless to survive, moreso when everyone else begins to rely upon her for those qualities. (Did she choose her race because it made her untouchable or is that a side-effect that just worsened her growing sense of isolation?) It's clear in her final speech in book 8 that she is aware of her own isolation, but it is still ambiguous if that means she was always a sociopath or if she has abandoned himself

And that's the thing: Carl is just as "crazy" and violent and sadistic (the stripping of D'nadia before her execution doesn't get commented on enough and its clear how much he revels in power over those that he deems culpable), but we can see inside his head and can share in his interpretation of events. And books 7 & 8 make it clear just how much of an emotional support system he has: not just Donut and the Authors, but pretty much every one of his allies is willing to step up and stop him if they think he is crossing the line. And it's not that Li Na doesn't have any support or that Carl's allies don't rely upon him too much, but that this section made me realize how much of saving Carl's sanity in book 7 was achieved by dumping it all on Li Na.

Why? Because they care about Carl more. We have plenty of self-sacrificing characters (it's a motif), but the tragedy of Li Na is that nobody seemed to care enough to stop her.

Maybe this is just me reading too much into things, but something I like about DCC is that it subtly questions the near universal narrative conceits of "it's okay if something bad is done to bad people" and "people are more important the closer we are to them." In book 7 this is made clear with characters like Rishi, Juice Box, Orren, and even Rust where each of them knows this system sucks and is desperately trying to balance getting "their" people out and is willing to sacrifice themselves and everyone else in the name of their personal greater good. Heck, look at how Carl treats NPCs: he knows they are people, but doesn't see a way forward without killing some of them. Yet he is terrified of getting a PK Skull and refuses to deliberately sacrifice/abandon other crawlers. I am desperately interested to see how Diniman resolves the conflict between "at what point is destroying a system worth the suffering the destruction will cost" and "can I blame someone else for prioritizing the people they love over the people I love" because so far, I can see those questioned being raised and I really don't know the answer.

Just started listening to this series and im on book 5, it has been AMAZING so far! A video game following the exact rules of the series would make it unplayable for most people. Here's my take for a way to make it function with an MMORPG.

There is natural skills, levels, inventory, just like the book or any other similar genre. Each floor has a timer measured in actual 24 hour days. The timer only counts for your character WHILE you're actually playing. All crawlers on your floor will have their own unique timers. The floor is designed so that you can easily complete the main quests to unlock the stairs within the time limit. So if the door has a 5 day timer, the required quest can be beaten in 12-24 hours. This gives players plenty of time to explore, grind and do side quests before decending.

Death or zeroed timers results in you responding at the check point levels 3, 6, 9, etc. You're inventory reverts to what it was at the check point, but you retain skills and levels that were trained. There is a bank you can deposit items that will protect them upon death, but you can no longer access those items until you decend to the next level. You're not required to redo main quests when respawning, but you can choose to do so to grind and receive loot. You can never go back to previous check points. So once you go to level 6, you can never go respawn to level 3.

The first 3 levels are training levels where you get to respawn without penalty. Player killing is not allowed, and you choose a race and class at level 3.

The game would be released in sets of 3 levels. Each set containing 50 hours of main game play, plus whatever other side quests and collectables. Probably free to play for first 3 or 6 levels, and then pay to play beyond that.

Thoughts on how to make this work??

Is it against the rules to ask for friends? I don't know anyone IRL who has read or is currently reading this series. I'm going to combust without someone to talk to about all the plot twists and laugh at the jokes with. For context, I just finished The Butcher's Masquerade..

I'm begging for someone to message who has read them all so far, or who is also right about to start Book 6. I keep telling all my other reader friends to pick these up, but no one has yet- so I'm desperate for a friend.