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Boing
Jul 12, 2005

trapped in custom title factory, send help

rhoga posted:

Analysis seems like trouble. I get why the move is in there, but the GM would have trouble showing the downside of the character since it explicitly overrides him, and this sort of character is known for plans that look an awful lot like bullshit. Is there a way you can keep that idea in there, but tone it down a bit?

I get what you're saying. I think the move belongs, since the Sherlockian slo-mo analysis is a key thing to have, but you're right that there probably needs to be some limit to it. I'm loathe to tack on a hold system like the Slayer's Readiness since I don't think it really fits, but I'm not sure what other ways there could be to tone down the move. Could the trigger be made more demanding?

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Error 404
Jul 17, 2009


MAGE CURES PLOT

Boing posted:

I get what you're saying. I think the move belongs, since the Sherlockian slo-mo analysis is a key thing to have, but you're right that there probably needs to be some limit to it. I'm loathe to tack on a hold system like the Slayer's Readiness since I don't think it really fits, but I'm not sure what other ways there could be to tone down the move. Could the trigger be made more demanding?

Maybe you can introduce a 'Bond Burning' mechanic similar to Worlds in Peril?

When you [MOVE TRIGGER], you can sacrifice one of your bonds (burning it)
On a 10+.... and so on and so on

thus the player can exercise increased mental acuity, but it comes at the expense of your interpersonal relationships. also, since you don't have that many bonds, it has limited uses per session built right in.

I'd say this matches Sherlock pretty well, he's often brilliant and also a massive douche to the people he cares about.

rhoga
Jun 4, 2012



mon chou

Maybe make it so on a 9-, the Genius is shocked that his plan could fail and he takes -1 ongoing INT for a while? It would discourage the Genius from undercutting the GM for every Defy, since things could start snowballing badly for him, but he could still pull a spectacular plan out of nothing when things got bad.

I'd personally be much more comfortable running him with that change, and he'd fit right in with the Victorian sci-fi characters I'm working on at the moment. It might not be much help, but here's a Defy Danger move I've got for the Gentleman.

quote:

A Knack For Getting Away
When you narrowly escape any danger by clever use of your gear and a little luck, reduce your adventuring gear count by one and instead of rolling Defy Danger, roll 1d6+1d8. On a 7+, you very narrowly escape the danger, but the GM will offer a worse outcome, hard bargain, or ugly choice. On a 6-, you weren’t as clever as you thought.

EDIT: ^^^Is pretty good too!

Yalborap
Oct 13, 2012

Countblanc posted:

Anyone have any recommendations for an easy to run one shot scenario? I'll be GMing a game this Friday for a bunch of people who have never really roleplayed (they're all big board game people though), and I'd like something that errs more on funny than political or dramatic. The last time I ran DW it was the labyrinth of the minotaur or whatever the one is where players kill a minotaur and maybe become one themselves at the end, it was alright but sorta dry.

Last time I was in a similar patch, I ran a holiday game in which the players quested to kill Santa Claus. Obviously that wouldn't work so well in late May, but it might give you something to work with.

Alternatively, it's hard to go too wrong with a good ol' fashioned wizard's tower just outside of town. Maybe start them in a portal room that somehow got opened to the plane of fire and now the room is ablaze and the door is barred, how're you gonna get out?

DirkGently
Jan 14, 2008

Countblanc posted:

Anyone have any recommendations for an easy to run one shot scenario? I'll be GMing a game this Friday for a bunch of people who have never really roleplayed (they're all big board game people though), and I'd like something that errs more on funny than political or dramatic. The last time I ran DW it was the labyrinth of the minotaur or whatever the one is where players kill a minotaur and maybe become one themselves at the end, it was alright but sorta dry.

I've run 'The SlavePits of Drazu by Jason Morningstar before and it was pretty nice. It isn't really funny but it does have the advantage of being very doable in two hours since it was originally a convention piece and gently easing people into the nuances of DW without lengthy rules explanations.

Fenarisk
Oct 27, 2005

I've been working on expanding Black Stars Rise and basically made a Walter Bishop playbook, I'll see how well it can translate to dungeon world/fantasy.

thespaceinvader
Mar 30, 2011

The slightest touch from a Gol-Shogeg will result in Instant Death!
Hey all

Ran my first game yesterday in which the players killed off a hive of parasites infesting a giant snail in which a city was built and may have woken it up a bit...

One of the players, though, had real trouble with the concept that he couldnt make his character good at a particular mundane task (i.e. in danger hes going to be just as good at swimming as climbing if they're both STR based danger defiance). I tried to discuss with him that... if his character is bad at swimming you describe him failing to swim, and if hes good at climbing you describe him succeeding at climbing, but he just wasn't buying it - he fixated hugely on the stats being key to this.

What's the answer for people who want D&D-style skill lists?

Tollymain
Jul 9, 2010

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS
tell him to stop thinking so hard about it


alternatively tell him to think a little harder. dungeon world doesn't do high granularity; if the adventurer dude is better at one task involving strength than another, it's not gonna matter unless it's a big thing in the character's fiction. if it's a big thing in the fiction, then it'd be something that you swap the racial/origin move out for, or pick up as a compendium class, or have as a result of a magic talisman that makes him the best swimmer in the kingdom, or something idk

thespaceinvader
Mar 30, 2011

The slightest touch from a Gol-Shogeg will result in Instant Death!
That's basically what I said, and initiatied a ten minute 'but no but yes' conversation. He's incredibly fixated on it.

Tollymain
Jul 9, 2010

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS
3.5 causes brain damage

Lemon-Lime
Aug 6, 2009

thespaceinvader posted:

That's basically what I said, and initiatied a ten minute 'but no but yes' conversation. He's incredibly fixated on it.

Hit him over the head with a rulebook until you hammer the D&D Brain Damage out of him.

Or give him a custom move that gives him +1 to swim and -1 to climb or whatever, if he just won't shut up about it and refuses to understand how DW works.

thespaceinvader
Mar 30, 2011

The slightest touch from a Gol-Shogeg will result in Instant Death!
That's pretty much where I'm going.

It was all 'but if my character was forced to choose between dancing and juggling how would i know which he was best at aaaaaah'.

You. Decide.

Jeez how hard is that.

Fortunately, he didn't cause poo poo with it in the game.

DirkGently
Jan 14, 2008

thespaceinvader posted:

Hey all

Ran my first game yesterday in which the players killed off a hive of parasites infesting a giant snail in which a city was built and may have woken it up a bit...

One of the players, though, had real trouble with the concept that he couldnt make his character good at a particular mundane task (i.e. in danger hes going to be just as good at swimming as climbing if they're both STR based danger defiance). I tried to discuss with him that... if his character is bad at swimming you describe him failing to swim, and if hes good at climbing you describe him succeeding at climbing, but he just wasn't buying it - he fixated hugely on the stats being key to this.

What's the answer for people who want D&D-style skill lists?

If he is really fixated on stat-wise, getting bonuses for nitty gritty skills, I'm not sure there is much that you can do (this is a pretty difficult D&D hurdle to break). Some people just really like number crunching, increasing numbers, and system mastery and DW is not a great system for that.

With that being said, beyond that, I see two reasons people generally need the +bonus to things... first, they want their character to be 'better' than other characters at things and they need an explicit numerical recognition of that fact. For that type of player you could easily let him buy custom moves for some mundane skills --

When you attempt to scale an obstacle -- *on a 10+ pick 2, *on a 7-9 pick 1
--You scale it faster than everyone else
--You are able to help a weaker friend up
--You are not exhausted when you reach the top

If he is super psyched about this, you could let him take +1 to this move as an advance. Or if he is a fighter, you can just make it clear that 'Bend Bars/Lift Gates' could be used for any physical task.

The second reason is that it might break his 'immersion' for his awesome character to fail at a mundane task -- which is totally fair. The problem here is that he is thinking of rolls in DW like a binary 'success or fail' state. It sounds like you already talked to him about this a bit but for this type of player, maybe you should take failure off the table. Have a conversation with him about what his character is good at. Then let him pick 2-3 mundane tasks that his character (as opposed to the player) cannot fail at. When he gets a 6- on these things, make clear that his character still 'succeeds' at the task -- and you always narrate that fact -- but you are still able to make one of your other moves against him.

Maybe he climbed so fast that he outpaced the rest of the group and is now vulnerable to a monster attack. Maybe he lost some items in the current. Maybe he is winded when he gets out of the water -- etc.

thespaceinvader
Mar 30, 2011

The slightest touch from a Gol-Shogeg will result in Instant Death!
The other big point in the argument against 'just narrate it' was 'to make myself better at something I therefore need to actively penalise myself at everything else'.

The weird thing for me was that he was playing The Mage, it's not like this stuff EVER really came up, except when he was reaching his rear end off trying to Defy Danger using INT every time rather than saying what he was doing and letting the move come naturally. He never really tried to run, jump, balance or anything else of the like, and solved his problems (also caused them) using spells, just like the Mage is supposed to do.

We're a recovering D&D group so it will probably take quite a lot longer to get everyone into the right headspace. And he's a recovering 3.5 player who continues to insist it was both better written and on occasions less broken than 4th...

The weird thing is we played Fiasco the other day, and he both really enjoyed it and was really good fun to play with.

:iiam:

The Supreme Court
Feb 25, 2010

Pirate World: Nearly done!
It's a hard mindset to break. Not having ridiculous lists of superfluous skills is one of Dungeon World's real strong points.

The Supreme Court fucked around with this message at 23:53 on May 21, 2014

EscortMission
Mar 4, 2009

Come with me
if you want to live.

Fenarisk posted:

I've been working on expanding Black Stars Rise and basically made a Walter Bishop playbook, I'll see how well it can translate to dungeon world/fantasy.

If Dungeon World doesn't have room for a brilliant, damaged scholar-scientist who has peered at what lies between the realm of man and the realm of the gods, so help me god I will build a new Dungeon World around this class.

NinjaDebugger
Apr 22, 2008


I don't know who maintains the Slayer, but in the cat piss thread, someone suggested a death move for it, and the version I have, at least, doesn't have one, so I made a thing.

Mr. Maltose posted:

That needs to be a DW style deathmove for somebody.

The Slayer should get as its death move:

Dead Man's Trigger: In one last spiteful blow to your chosen enemy, your death triggers the widespread publishing of a comprehensive manual on precisely how to go about killing a monster species of your choice. It won't be immediate, but in the long run, the complete exposure of all their dirty secrets dooms them to death as a species.

Lemon-Lime
Aug 6, 2009

The Supreme Court posted:

It's a hard mindset to break. Not having ridiculous lists of superfluous skills is one of Dungeon World's real strong points.

This. Giving him a custom move or a -1/+1 is a bad idea because it encourages this kind of bad behaviour. You should really tell him to just focus on the fiction instead of the stats.

ZypherIM
Nov 8, 2010

"I want to see what she's in love with."

I think lemon has it right in this case. Try to get him to realize that if he wants his guy to be bad at other things, he just needs to narrate that. Go over some dice probability and explain that 7-9 is going to be the most rolled area, and how he is describing his action really informs the kind of move you (as a GM) make when that roll happens.

rhoga
Jun 4, 2012



mon chou

I did another edit on the starting moves of my Victorian playbooks, and I think I'm ready to get some new perspective on them. I want to get the core down before I get too deep on any one of them, so don't worry too much about any Advanced moves that are there. Some of them have been done before, but the archetypes are still too good for me to pass up.

A DARK AND STORMY WORLD
The Occultist is a collector of the strange, and always has some useful relic in their collection. They've also got a little Vampire Hunter thrown in there. Inspiration - The Belmonts, Van Helsing

The Gentleman is the respectable, charismatic Adventurer, who has an unusual skill with guns and a unreal knack for getting into and out of trouble. Inspiration - Alan Quartermaine, Laurence Stanninghame

The Chemist may have gone too far, using his intellect to brew both strange concoctions and a special tincture that allows him to transform horribly. Inspiration - Dr. Jekyll, Dr. Griffin

The Simulacrum is an unnatural man, formed by the mad creator who accompanies him. His monstrous form gives him unmatched strength. Inspiration - Dr. Moreau's Beastmen, Frankenstein's Creature, Automatons.

The Rascal is the boss of a small gang that look up to him, but whether they're rodents, crows, or urchins, they prove to be valuable aids. Inspiration - Dickens (And Glazius's Princess book! I borrowed more heavily than I'd like to admit)

The Poet is proving a little more difficult, and I wanted to get the others testalbe in time for the weekend. He'll be showing up later.

rhoga fucked around with this message at 04:13 on May 22, 2014

Xiahou Dun
Jul 16, 2009

We shall dive down through black abysses... and in that lair of the Deep Ones we shall dwell amidst wonder and glory forever.



Needs more Richard Burton!

Man spoke 20 languages, fought a dozen duels, took a spear to the face and was the first non-Muslim to visit Mecca.

His lack of inclusion is criminal.

Xelkelvos
Dec 19, 2012
So I did a first "session" of a campaign just explaining the game and running a small scene on improv. It's harder than I thought trying to keep everything at a decent pace while giving everyone some time to do stuff. Between the Wizard, the Muscle (a Gladiator) and the Cleric, I was struggling to keep all of them interacting with the scene at hand all at once. I'm also trying to adjust to the system myself as I try to remember what Basic moves are available to the players at a given opportunity.

Even worse is that one of the four players, our Face character (a Noble, I think?) was missing for the first session. Next session, the Cleric will be missing and the session after, the Muscle will be missing. While obviously I need to keep their sessions disconnected so there's no large continuity problems, I didn't really set the stage for why they'd be working together for the most part and I'm not sure how to handle the next two sessions.

rhoga
Jun 4, 2012



mon chou

Xiahou Dun posted:

Needs more Richard Burton!

Man spoke 20 languages, fought a dozen duels, took a spear to the face and was the first non-Muslim to visit Mecca.

His lack of inclusion is criminal.

I've got a degree in lit, so my real-people examples are lacking. I brushed up on his history (read his wiki page), and you didn't even mention his penchant for scandalous literature! :heysexy:
I'm sure he can fit in, he might not get a basic move, but he'd be perfect for an advanced move. I've even added him to the name list, just for you.

wigglin
Dec 19, 2007

Is there a playbook that the character Arya from GoT would fit into? I'm thinking Thief comes the closest. I've looked at a lot of the ones listed in OP but I'm not sure any of them hit the mark.

Sanglorian
Apr 13, 2013

Games, games, games
Hi folks,

I'm looking for feedback on these compendium classes. I wrote them a few years ago, before DW was publicly released (perhaps before the term "compendium class" had even been coined, because I'd originally called them "mini-classes"!), and then revised them a couple of years back when DW was released as CC BY.

Now that Grim Portents will be publishing regular content as a blog, I wanted to clean them up, polish them off and put them on the blog.

Because they've already been shared in a few different forms over a few years, I'm not precious about them. Feel free to be brutal - if a whole compendium class needs to go, I can accept that.

Thanks.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/117NnkfaUJ_X0yWCvJbVqXC4Fov-zKGcad1_4OKOUOuo/edit?usp=sharing

ZypherIM
Nov 8, 2010

"I want to see what she's in love with."

Xelkelvos posted:

So I did a first "session" of a campaign just explaining the game and running a small scene on improv. It's harder than I thought trying to keep everything at a decent pace while giving everyone some time to do stuff. Between the Wizard, the Muscle (a Gladiator) and the Cleric, I was struggling to keep all of them interacting with the scene at hand all at once. I'm also trying to adjust to the system myself as I try to remember what Basic moves are available to the players at a given opportunity.

Even worse is that one of the four players, our Face character (a Noble, I think?) was missing for the first session. Next session, the Cleric will be missing and the session after, the Muscle will be missing. While obviously I need to keep their sessions disconnected so there's no large continuity problems, I didn't really set the stage for why they'd be working together for the most part and I'm not sure how to handle the next two sessions.

Remember that people shouldn't be doing moves, they should just be talking about what they want to do. Then you keep an eye on the move list and if something applies then they roll. The first couple of sessions I did the party wasn't really in dire threat because it took me a bit to figure out what the party could handle. Feel free to introduce more enemies on bad rolls, or new types of hazards in the environment to see what they try to do. Set the place on fire, or have the cave start collapsing, or the town watch shows up with an arrest warrant.

Once you've got some stuff a bit fleshed out and have some fronts and stuff that really helps to give you ideas on what sort of complications to have in mind. Have an idea of what the adventure is going to (at least initially) be, and think of a couple ways it might go. Don't try to force any of those into the game session, but if the opportunity arises throw them in, and if it doesn't play out the way you had in mind that is when you adjust on the fly. It isn't always easy, and some people need to do more prep even with a system like dungeon world.

If you know when certain guys are going to be missing, it should be pretty easy to do a little setup for a scenario where they wouldn't be as used. So you're missing the muscle, but have cleric/wiz/noble, so perhaps a more investigative or social thing going on would be better.

Lemon-Lime
Aug 6, 2009

Xelkelvos posted:

It's harder than I thought trying to keep everything at a decent pace while giving everyone some time to do stuff.

Here's a good tip for that: every time one of the PCs does something, turn to the others and go "okay, while Jimmy is doing his thing, what do you do?" That will keep the ball rolling.

Evil Mastermind
Apr 28, 2008

Countblanc posted:

Anyone have any recommendations for an easy to run one shot scenario? I'll be GMing a game this Friday for a bunch of people who have never really roleplayed (they're all big board game people though), and I'd like something that errs more on funny than political or dramatic. The last time I ran DW it was the labyrinth of the minotaur or whatever the one is where players kill a minotaur and maybe become one themselves at the end, it was alright but sorta dry.

I'm going to second Slave Pit; I've run it dozens of times as a demo and it works really well. I recommend making the following changes:

Give the characters a chance to get their stuff back. I always put everyone's gear in the lead orc's bedroom, if there's a fighter the Whipmaster is using his weapon, and if there's a Ranger his animal companion is chained up in there. That way you're not screwing over the players who are more gear-dependent. Plus the fighter's reaction to seeing the orc using his signature weapon is always great.

Say that any class that gets inherent spellcasting (bard, paladin, casters) is fitted with a collar that prevents them from using their magic, and the keys are on the goblin. That solves the problem of "wait, why didn't I just magic us out of here?".

Just before the players bust in to fight Drahzu, I like to give them a free level up just to show how it works.

Don't use the slave pit playbook. It's not fun.

Ettin
Oct 2, 2010

Evil Mastermind posted:

Don't use the slave pit playbook. It's not fun.

You know what is fun though? The Edgy Designer playbook.

quote:

Starting Moves

Keeping It Real
You begin your first session with 1-Relevance held. Relevance is a measure of how notable you are in the gaming industry. The most Relevance anyone can have is 10. The most you can have is 4. When you post your nightly screed onto your blog, you hold 2-Relevance.

Notable Blog
Your blog posts will make them tremble. When blogging before a battle with your adversaries, spend 1-Relevance and roll +WIS. On a 12+, you realise this is stupid, delete the post without publishing, and gain 2-Relevance. On a 10+, choose three. On a 7-9, choose two. On a 6-, choose two, but people notice your post and shun you for it, and you lose another 1-Relevance.

• Your weapons and words gain the Forceful tag, and strike fear into the hearts of your foes.
• You become certain that everybody who opposes you must be a social justice warrior.
• You get supreme confidence. You are immune to fear and can shake off one debility.
• Some of your enemies realise literally anything else is a better use of their time, and don't show up to the fight.
• Your fans decide to harass one of your opponents, and you're totally not responsible for their actions. What's the big deal? Take +1 ongoing to Volley against them.

Stop Censoring Me!
When you deal damage to someone you have reason to believe is a social justice warrior, ignore armor.

Evil Mastermind
Apr 28, 2008

Ettin posted:

You know what is fun though? The Edgy Designer playbook.

Already making waves...

quote:

Please keep the witchhunt out of this community... :(

NuclearPotato
Oct 27, 2011

So I'm going to be running my first online session of Dungeon World tonight. I want to get some feedback on this session opener I whipped up yesterday:

quote:

The PC’s find themselves in a large lake, hunting down a creature that’s been preying on local fishermen.
Questions:
• Who was the person who hired you on behalf of the village, and why did he/she seem skeptical of your ability to do the job?
• Are you searching for this thing in a boat, or are you diving underwater to face it head on?
• Multiple boats, or just one?
• You’ve been underwater for quite some time; what are you using to survive? Where did you acquire this?

Ancient Lake Beast:
Solitary, Huge, Stealthy
Bite: d12+3 dmg; +1 piercing, Messy 20 HP 1 armor
Instinct: To feed on large prey.
Weakness: The soft spot below the jaw.
• Devour boats and their contents.
• Move swiftly back into the dark depths.
• Use its body to send attackers flying.

Custom Moves:

When you attempt to ride the Lake Beast, roll+STR. *On a 7+, you grab on, and choose 1. *On a 10+, choose 2:
• The beast doesn’t notice you grabbing onto it.
• You don’t end up between a rock and a hard place (the Lake Beast).
• It’s moving slow enough that you can make a climb towards its head.


Ettin posted:

You know what is fun though? The Edgy Designer playbook.

This is wonderful :allears:

Evil Mastermind
Apr 28, 2008

NuclearPotato posted:

So I'm going to be running my first online session of Dungeon World tonight. I want to get some feedback on this session opener I whipped up yesterday:
d12+3 damage looks a little high to me, especially for a "campaign opener". You might want to kick that down a die type.

ZypherIM
Nov 8, 2010

"I want to see what she's in love with."

How many players do you have, and have they picked their playbooks yet? Do you know the other players at all? I aimed a question at each player, and did some follow-ups on anything they said that was interesting. A lot of your questions are leading them to be using boats, this is fine if that is what you intended to go for. How you phrase questions can let you lead the narrative. For example, you can ask "How are you hunting for this beast?" or "Where did you get the boat to hunt this beast?" can lead to the same end result but the second is going to get them thinking boats.

Another good question would be something about knowledge of the beast. If there is a ranger he'd be a good target for something like "What legends have you heard about this beast?", or something like "What stories did the villagers tell you about the beast?". You could throw in some questions about the lake itself, how the people dealt with the beast in the past, or if something has changed to make the creature attacking. Or did the creature come out of nowhere, and if so how did that happen? Play off of answers they dish up to you to really make the scene come alive.



Agreed with EM on the damage. I can't find it, but I recall seeing a table of the die sizes and narratively what that potential damage might be, with d10 being maybe lethal to a normal person. That d12+3 is 4-15 damage with 1 piercing so he is potentially killing a lot of the lower hp playbooks in one, maybe two hits.

That leads into your custom move, which others will probably have good advice on how to improve. If you keep the beast as dangerous as it is, avoiding attention is something you basically want to always do, while being in a hard spot is also pretty rough. However to take both of those you make no progress towards the head (I'm assuming you're wanting them to move up and attack the weak point). So even on a 10+ you either make no progress or are in danger of very quick death.

Personally I hate underwater stuff, so I would be hesitant to have it so geared towards underwater. If everyone is on board for that it could be great though.

Evil Mastermind
Apr 28, 2008

ZypherIM posted:

Agreed with EM on the damage. I can't find it, but I recall seeing a table of the die sizes and narratively what that potential damage might be, with d10 being maybe lethal to a normal person. That d12+3 is 4-15 damage with 1 piercing so he is potentially killing a lot of the lower hp playbooks in one, maybe two hits.
Yeah, something doing that much damage should be an "end boss" or something they have to work up to fighting. You've already got a "devour boats" move so, instead of making the fish a bucket of HP and damage, have the fight be more of a situation where the boat the PCs are on gets swallowed whole and they have to fight their way out past the parasitic things that live in its stomach.

For the record, the only monster in the core book that does a d12 is the Apocalypse Dragon, who does b[2d12]+9. Everything else tops out at a d10.

madadric
May 18, 2008

Such a BK.

Evil Mastermind posted:


For the record, the only monster in the core book that does a d12 is the Apocalypse Dragon, who does b[2d12]+9. Everything else tops out at a d10.

Holy crap that is terrifying.

I can just imagine telling one of my players

"Okay, the mighty creature's head whips down at you, and it's powerful jaws snap shut around your torso. Roll 2D12, take the highest one and add 9. you take that much damage. And it seems that some of your insides are now outsides..."

slydingdoor
Oct 26, 2010

Are you in or are you out?
It's your game, if you want to throw a huge monster at the players then you've written a fine one that's in line with a bulette, girallon, or purple worm. Not many players expect to be able to fight something like that without being high level and feeling powerful but in DW it works whenever. So go for it.

I'd go vaguer and more open ended with the question prompts. "Ask questions and use the answers" isn't much use if they're either-or's. Those are also the kinds of questions that raise the hackles of D&D players because they'll think there's a right and a wrong answer, and that will get them playing with the wrong mindset. Finally, I'd feel a little patronized if I were asked "do you plan on hunting a boat eating creature with one boat or multiple boats?"

I like to ask stuff like "Why do you want to fight a man eating, boat destroying lake beast? Have any secret doubts? What's the plan? What do you think of that character's plan?" etc. That shakes out bonds and characterization better.

You met the person who posted the bounty, what were they like? is a good question.

The custom move is fine as is, but I'd make it a no-roll, choose 2 move because I'd want everyone crawling all over the thing, not gate that behind strength. Defying the danger of falling off is already baked into 2 of the choices, and picking both means they can't get to the weak point.

NuclearPotato
Oct 27, 2011

See, this is why I post these things before running them! ;) Already downgraded the damage die, which was one of the big reasons I posted this here (the last major campaign I ran before switching to DW was a Dungeon Crawl Classics campaign, so I tend to deal out a lot of punishment to my group, and I needed to make sure if I was going a bit overboard with this).

ZypherIM posted:

How many players do you have, and have they picked their playbooks yet? Do you know the other players at all? I aimed a question at each player, and did some follow-ups on anything they said that was interesting. A lot of your questions are leading them to be using boats, this is fine if that is what you intended to go for. How you phrase questions can let you lead the narrative. For example, you can ask "How are you hunting for this beast?" or "Where did you get the boat to hunt this beast?" can lead to the same end result but the second is going to get them thinking boats.

Another good question would be something about knowledge of the beast. If there is a ranger he'd be a good target for something like "What legends have you heard about this beast?", or something like "What stories did the villagers tell you about the beast?". You could throw in some questions about the lake itself, how the people dealt with the beast in the past, or if something has changed to make the creature attacking. Or did the creature come out of nowhere, and if so how did that happen? Play off of answers they dish up to you to really make the scene come alive.



Agreed with EM on the damage. I can't find it, but I recall seeing a table of the die sizes and narratively what that potential damage might be, with d10 being maybe lethal to a normal person. That d12+3 is 4-15 damage with 1 piercing so he is potentially killing a lot of the lower hp playbooks in one, maybe two hits.

That leads into your custom move, which others will probably have good advice on how to improve. If you keep the beast as dangerous as it is, avoiding attention is something you basically want to always do, while being in a hard spot is also pretty rough. However to take both of those you make no progress towards the head (I'm assuming you're wanting them to move up and attack the weak point). So even on a 10+ you either make no progress or are in danger of very quick death.

Personally I hate underwater stuff, so I would be hesitant to have it so geared towards underwater. If everyone is on board for that it could be great though.

We've got at least two players right now, but we're actually going to delay the game to next Thursday to drum up more, so I'm hoping 4-5. Of the two that we have, one of them is my brother and the other one is a friend of his who runs his own campaign. We haven't really chosen playbooks yet, but according to my brother, the other guy is interested in playing a Channeler from Grim World (playbook choices for this game are the base DW sheets, the Grim World sheets, the Gladiator, the Warlock, the Sorcerer (Grim version), and either the Cursed Knight or the Lantern from IW. I'll probably have all the improved versions of the classes posted here as alternatives to the regular playbooks). My brother is leaning towards something magical, so we'll see what he chooses.

I'll take a look at revising the questions I've got so far, going off slydingdoor's post for those and the custom move. Also:

Evil Mastermind posted:

Yeah, something doing that much damage should be an "end boss" or something they have to work up to fighting. You've already got a "devour boats" move so, instead of making the fish a bucket of HP and damage, have the fight be more of a situation where the boat the PCs are on gets swallowed whole and they have to fight their way out past the parasitic things that live in its stomach.

I'm really tempted to do this. Really, it'll all depend on what the players do.

madadric
May 18, 2008

Such a BK.

NuclearPotato posted:

See, this is why I post these things before running them! ;) Already downgraded the damage die, which was one of the big reasons I posted this here (the last major campaign I ran before switching to DW was a Dungeon Crawl Classics campaign, so I tend to deal out a lot of punishment to my group, and I needed to make sure if I was going a bit overboard with this).


We've got at least two players right now, but we're actually going to delay the game to next Thursday to drum up more, so I'm hoping 4-5. Of the two that we have, one of them is my brother and the other one is a friend of his who runs his own campaign. We haven't really chosen playbooks yet, but according to my brother, the other guy is interested in playing a Channeler from Grim World (playbook choices for this game are the base DW sheets, the Grim World sheets, the Gladiator, the Warlock, the Sorcerer (Grim version), and either the Cursed Knight or the Lantern from IW. I'll probably have all the improved versions of the classes posted here as alternatives to the regular playbooks). My brother is leaning towards something magical, so we'll see what he chooses.

I'm really tempted to do this. Really, it'll all depend on what the players do.

If someone plays the Grim Sorcerer, I'd love to hear both your and their impressions and/or questions!

You could really play the giant fish as an environmental hazard in a lot of ways. When it's thrashing about, describe how the wake crashes over the lakeside village and causes destruction, perhaps even give it parasites that the players can fight as they try to reach it's weak spot. The weak spot might just need a single hit, but getting to it is a monumental effort, perhaps even have the weak spot be on the inside of the creature, and they must go into the belly of the beast to defeat it.

When fighting on or traversing the creature, use it's actions as an ever present danger to draw on for misses and 7-9's. "you can stay safe, or advance/not lose ground"

I like that you've kept a lot of stuff nebulous and open to definition in the game. It will give you lots of leeway to explore the concept during play.

madadric fucked around with this message at 23:28 on May 22, 2014

ZypherIM
Nov 8, 2010

"I want to see what she's in love with."

I asked about the playbooks because I found that an easy inspiration to ask them starting questions. Hey fighter, how did you get your sword? Thief, is there a thieves guild, and are you a member? What does the paladin think about your light fingered ways? Then when they get to bonds, play each person off each other to flesh out the story a bit.

The fighter in my group used the "X owes me their life..", so I asked the other person "DO you think you owe him your life?", which led to some hilarious story, and like 2-3 sessions of the fighter always trying to swoop in and save the day to prove that they do owe him, but the other person always managing to be in the other room or something when his spectacular feat occurred.

Things like that are neat to flesh out characters/the world/bonds a bit more. For my group, bonds and spout lore are probably the two things we're taking the longest to get used to, but we finally had some bonds start resolving and some lore spouted and the wheels are starting to feel a lot more greased. Even with us feeling rough on the system as long as you can get 1 guy in the group doing some sort of crazy awesome thing then it seems to start to snowball. Sort of a "hey he can do that?!" followed by "hrmm, let me try.."

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Handgun Phonics
Jan 7, 2012
I've been wondering lately- is there a way to get the latest versions of the Inverse World character sheets as separate .pdfs, instead of all in one long document? I'm trying to put a specific few on the table for my players, and it's a little troublesome to keep digging through a giant document to find the ones they can use each time.

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