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Ilor posted:Honestly, I question the need for Dungeon World at all. I've had no problems running Apocalypse World reskinned for a medieval fantasy setting. Mostly theme, and stated purpose of the game. Yes, you can run a fantasy reskin of AW. But AW, comes with some assumptions about the world that are built into its moves and playbooks. That isn't going to appeal to everyone. I love the pbta system. But I've never liked AW. But I do like Dungeon World. Or to put it another way. Honestly, I question the need for Apocalypse World at all. I've had no problems running Dungeon World reskinned for a post apocalypse setting.
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Mar 21, 2017 16:00
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There's Fellowship which is essentially a simplified version of DW. It condenses the stats down and just uses modifiers. It also does away with hit-points - you take damage to one of your stats, and once all stats are damaged you're out. Works the same way with enemies - a giant spider would have stats like "Climbs on walls, Spits Poison, Spins Webs" and you'd have to take out each stat in turn to defeat them. Was quite cool in giving you the feel of systematically overcoming your enemies' abilities, but I did kind of miss being able to straight up stab a dude.
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Mar 21, 2017 16:25
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Arashiofordo3 posted:Mostly theme, and stated purpose of the game.
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Mar 21, 2017 16:28
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Apocalypse World: Dark Ages uses a cool system for HP that we adapt for almost all our games now. I've found World of Dungeons to be my comfort zone in terms of having the freedom to do what we want. We just pull what we need from other PBtA games.
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Mar 21, 2017 21:30
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The main thing I'd change for 2e would be Hack and Slash, it's a straight numbers move without a strong connection to the fiction. At least a harm move or making it a seize by force style thing.
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Mar 21, 2017 22:30
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Jimmeeee posted:What else would people want to see out of a 2e? One-stat Defy Danger seems to be a very common request. A rework to ability scores would be nice too, six seems like too many and needing both a score and a modifier feels sort of archaic. I would want to see it designed around telling the particular kind of story they associate with D&D instead of trying to emulate D&D itself, because that's not really what the Apocalypse Engine does and it makes Dungeon World kind of awkward.
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Mar 22, 2017 01:13
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I just made my first set of video game classes PWYW on DriveThru, it comes with 3 playbooks, The Hack and Slasher, The Mimic and The Vampire Killer. I posted these ages ago and they were kinda ropey and bad but I updated them recently, put them in a better template and fixed a lot of their guff.
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Mar 22, 2017 16:15
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Hey thread, Cease sent me here. I'm kind of curious about the chargen of this RPG - is there a specific resource I can use for designing classes in a more classless style of chargen, rather than using pre-existing types of classes so I can learn how this all works? There are some cool hybrids in the playbooks link in the OP, and I was hoping to see how things like that get made so I can learn more. Cheers!
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Mar 22, 2017 16:57
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mcjomar posted:Hey thread, Cease sent me here. you might be interested in Class Warfare, which (i think) covers exactly that
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Mar 22, 2017 17:14
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Mr. Glass posted:you might be interested in Class Warfare, which (i think) covers exactly that Yeah I think this answers my questions, thank you!
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Mar 22, 2017 18:53
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Just a heads up, when designing *World classes, you're much closer to designing the actual game. The playbooks are a much larger portion of the rules that a given player will interact with than say, a D&D class, given the page count of D&D's combat and spell rules, etc.
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Mar 22, 2017 20:16
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Yeah, this is important, and it's why "Cast a Spell" and "Shapeshift" look the way they do. Also be aware that the *World games are generally predicated on much stronger boundaries around player roles. There might be multiple PCs that can swing a sword, but there's only one Fighter, for instance. When designing a playbook, it's good to keep this in mind, as you don't want to create a playbook that steps into another playbook's sandbox too heavily. A little overlap is OK, but it's easy to screw this up. As an aside, if you wanted to create a "jack of all trades" playbook, an interesting way to start would be to create a playbook where your three starting moves all have to come from other (different) playbooks, with the proviso that none of those playbooks can be in use by other players. So for instance, if your party was a Thief, a Paladin, and a Mage, your starting moves could come one each from the Druid, the Bard, and the Fighter. Substitute all "take another Jack-of-All-Trades move" advancements for "Take a move from another playbook" advancements. That might be kind of funny, actually.
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Mar 22, 2017 20:44
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The main issue with that idea is that not all moves are created equal (and they aren't really supposed to be). And like, it's not even close. Wizards have three separate moves dedicated to just how their spellbook works, and a fourth that does nothing unless you have those other three moves, because it's basically the entirety of their character. They don't really function without having all those moves work together. That's a particularly extreme example, but not a unique one throughout the playbooks. Classes need to be designed as a whole package, because their parts add up in different ways.
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Mar 22, 2017 21:00
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Oh, for sure. And because of that structure, it would be extremely difficult to duplicate the way a Wizard works - which is as it should be. The Jack-of-all-trades should never be as good at casting spells as the Wizard. But having access to a single-move magical ability (like Shapeshift) would be pretty cool.
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Mar 22, 2017 21:32
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Expanding on the "not all moves are created equal" thing, there's a reason why multiclass moves are generally pretty restricted: taking a starting move from a class can often be a major boost. Starting moves are usually some of the most powerful and wide reaching. Imagine someone doing that Jack of All Trades class thing and taking Shapeshifter, Signature Weapon, and Animal Companion.
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Mar 22, 2017 21:32
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ImpactVector posted:Imagine someone doing that Jack of All Trades class thing and taking Shapeshifter, Signature Weapon, and Animal Companion.
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Mar 22, 2017 22:23
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Okay so this is only based off a very first skim, but to create a fair chunk of the Arcane Trickster from PF, I'm thinking combining Thief and Shadow from the Rogue section, with Prepared Caster from the Magician section? (this fulfills the two rogue, and one other specialty chosen, but reduces the damage die right off the bat?) And then work from there? I presume that the Prepared Caster part of the template would then probably use Illusion, Movement, and Evocation to get the rough flavour of a wizard-based Arcane Trickster. This then turns the rogue from a relatively high damage class into a more flexible scout class which ends up relying on magic for a degree of stronger damage dealing when it gets into less sociable situations? Or am I doing it wrong? E: probably doing it wrong - this stuff about compendium classes vs specialities is kind of strange to read. mcjomar fucked around with this message at 16:04 on Mar 23, 2017 |
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Mar 23, 2017 15:47
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ImpactVector posted:Expanding on the "not all moves are created equal" thing, there's a reason why multiclass moves are generally pretty restricted: taking a starting move from a class can often be a major boost. Starting moves are usually some of the most powerful and wide reaching. This is why, when the Princess jacks of alls trade, they get a specific start move, and it's often not the main event of a class.
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Mar 23, 2017 17:42
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try just playing the thief skin and saying his poo poo is magical first. you'll still be able to do everything you want to do, without the hassle of needing to rewrite a game you haven't played yet.
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Mar 23, 2017 18:13
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I've been running a Dungeon Worlds campaign on Roll20 and it's been great. The ease of DW's system translates really well to Roll20 as you don't have to delve into more advanced stuff and pretty much all enemy abilities are just descriptions of what they want to do to someone rather than an actual action with rolls and saves and mechanics, making whipping up macros incredibly easy. I'm playing with a couple of people who are used to the system and one brand new player, and he picked it up right away. Previous campaigns in meatspace didn't get very far (not because it went badly, just scheduling issues), but I'm two sessions in on this one and I love how the game writes itself. After a fairly shaky start in a tavern where despite my best efforts I couldn't fully establish a threat, I manged to pull off a good ol' "Kobold in the bushes" gambit and it's paid off. The players butchered all but one, took the last kobold hostage until he told them he'd lead them to his boss, "The Red". They were beset upon by spiders in the forest after making camp, have uncovered the cave system from where the kobold hails, and are discovering there's a lot more to the events unfolding than meets the eye as spider-vomiting sorcerers and explosive acolytes are coming to the fore. Perhaps the proudest I've been with them is during the start of the game, where I threw them some questions and they all gave really cool answers. I love bringing up their responses from time to time, reflected in the world. For example: Everyone: You start in a tavern in the small village of Etterbrook. Name one fact about the village each. Friend 1: All the rooftops are made with purple slate to show their allegiance to my family line. (His character is former royalty who abandoned his family due to unjust rule) Friend 2: Elves always benefit from a 50% sale on everything in town. Friend 3: If you want to deal with beer in any way, you have to be a dwarf due to unions (Dwarf Beer Union (DBU) ) Friend 4: The town is very protective of animals. So in Roll20 I recoloured all the buildings so they had purple rooftops, the human-ran inn they started the game in no longer served beer (Much to the friend's irritation, as he is a dwarf), the druid uses his animal form to get favours from townsfolk, and there's now discontentment from the humans of the village about elves getting special privileges. It was great seeing their responses and having that "Oh poo poo, we get to impact the world?" moment from them, as previous campaigns I ran didn't really have that element.
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Mar 24, 2017 04:57
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Songbearer posted:...from where the kobold hails... Also, your game sounds like fun!
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Mar 24, 2017 06:22
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Cease to Hope posted:try just playing the thief skin and saying his poo poo is magical first. you'll still be able to do everything you want to do, without the hassle of needing to rewrite a game you haven't played yet. If you're dead set on making a class, poaching moves isn't necessarily a terrible way to do it as long as it's done with purpose. You'll just want to make sure they all fit together into a cohesive theme and that you don't just take a bunch of classes' aforementioned "power" starting moves.
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Mar 24, 2017 12:57
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I made a pretty cool half ghost, half necromancer style class. You're incorporeal and so you don't really have gear, but you can summon hordes of the undead to do your bidding, its fun and spooky! Here's a link to get it half off What do you guys think about moves that use non-standard resources for rolls? Like the necromancer up there uses "Spend up to 4 HP and roll+HP spent" for a handful of moves to manage the whole, summoning of a bunch of ghouls thing, and I've written moves that spend XP in the past. I kinda dig making players spend unexpected resources and having to manage that sort of thing.
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Mar 26, 2017 15:01
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Chalk up another "Let's jump ship to The Mage" for the list, I had to offer my group's Wizard an alternative after writing up a game session and realising that most of the things I had to write for ended up being "And the wizard cast magic missile again... and again. And again". It's a real slow burn and I guess it relies heavily on Ritual for anything cool but after seeing him trudge through Magic Missile, Charm and Invisible with the occasional Prestidigitation and Light while people were bodyslamming, skull crushing, bear mauling and wallrunning their way to victory, I snapped and went through the guide with him. Looking forward to our budding new Clock Mage doing wacky poo poo with the time space continuum. Can't wait for him to flub a roll so I can rewind him to the start of a dungeon with no memories of what he's done, uncovering the chaos along the way 
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Mar 28, 2017 23:57
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From the core set, which ones are regarded as being bad and good?
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Mar 29, 2017 17:35
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Depends on who you ask really. The Druid gets called out as being pretty bad pretty often, the Fighter could be better, I've never seen anyone pick Immolater irl. I kinda like the Thief but I've heard complaints there too. The Wizard is, at least for me, one of the better ones but I feel like I'm in the minority there. Frankly I think all the core books are really good,
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Mar 29, 2017 17:44
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I don't think any of the core books are particularly good (except the Ranger), although none of them are particularly bad either. They all have some issues, but none of their issues are so bad that they don't work when you're playing them all together. They have the general shared flaw that a lot of their level up moves give them +numbers and do nothing else, which are generally boring and unsatisfying moves to take, even if they are functionally pretty good. Advances that give you a new thing to use or a new way to play are always preferable to something that just makes you better at doing what you did in the same old way. The Barbarian's only Race move option is boring, and a lot of their level up moves are flavorful but weak (level up moves that mark XP are traps, no matter how fun What Is Best In Life? is to read). They're one of the better playbooks, though. The Bard's signature move, Arcane Art, is fiddly and weird in play. It works, but I've never liked using it. Charming & Open is one of the best moves in the entire Dungeon World book, though, so Bards are cool in my book. The Cleric is fine. The ability to customize the nature of your religion is really good. I don't like Vancian Casting much, but it works well enough and that's an opinion thing. The Druid's shapeshifting move has been talked about for the last couple pages. Otherwise the playbook's one of the better core playbooks, with lots of neat things they do. The Fighter has only one real move, with Bend Bards Lift Gates. Armored and Signature Weapon are really nothing-moves - they don't do anything, they're just kinda there. Everything else they get is +numbers, which are boring but effective. And that's basically the playbook in a nutshell - boring but effective. I haven't played with The Immolator but it seems fine. I'll probably never play with the Immolator because the Dragon Mage exists. The Paladin is the strongest core class and it isn't even close. Fighter HP, damage, and armor, but you also get the Quest move, a healing move, and a move to command NPCs to do what you say. Paladins are Fighters But Stronger And With Cool Moves. The Ranger is fine, I like it a lot actually. They have a minor issue within the set of core books where they lack focus, so all of their moves are new things for them to do, but that just falls within my design philosophy and IMO makes the class work way better than the rest of the core books do. The Thief is also fine but has the issue of having no stealth moves at all, which is weird. The poison mechanic is cool but should probably have been put in their advances instead of their core moves. Also Flexible Morals is stupid, alignment is a bad mechanic and basically meaningless in this game, I don't know why Flexible Morals exists. And last, The Wizard, the other really strong core class next to The Paladin, but for a different reason. And that reason is Arcane Ward and Arcane Armor, the single most broken Advance moves in the entire game. +4 Armor that stacks with all other sources of armor, including Spell Defense which they have as a core move, is a thing that should not really exist. Also their Vancian casting is kinda clumsy and they don't have cool flavor stuff to fall back on like the Cleric, so they just cast the same couple spells over and over every time their turn comes up. I'm not a fan. So now that I've organized my thoughts: Good: Ranger. Fine: Barbarian, Bard, Cleric, Druid, Immolator, Thief. Bad: Fighter, Paladin, Wizard. gnome7 fucked around with this message at 20:16 on Mar 29, 2017 |
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Mar 29, 2017 20:13
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gnome7 posted:Good thoughts on the core books Are there any other non-core books you consider to obsolete the core ones? (as you do with Immolator vs Dragon Mage)
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Mar 29, 2017 21:02
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If you want to do a straight replacement of some of the core playbooks, I'd do something like this: Replace Barbarian with Dashing Hero. Replace Bard with Artificer or Collector. Replace Cleric with Lantern. Replace Fighter with Spellsword. Replace Paladin with Templar. Replace Thief with City Thief or Walker. Replace Wizard with Witch. Keep Ranger, Druid, and Immolator. These three playbooks could be replaced, but they're perfectly good as they are tbh. And that should give you a pile of playbooks that keep the same feel as the core dungeon-delvers, while generally being better designed. This is usually how I do it when I play DW these days - I compile a list of 10-12 playbooks I like that feel good together, and present those to the players to pick from.
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Mar 29, 2017 21:45
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I really like the Dashing Hero, except for the Lover in Every Port move. Because whenever you enter a civilised area, barring any sort of sudden emergency, the plot pauses and the game becomes about the Dashing Hero for a while. I've been able to work them into the plot so far ("ahhh it's your old-flame, the trader in magic weapons and plot relevant artefacts") but the nature of the move means it's primarily the Hero who gets to respond and make decisions.
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Mar 29, 2017 21:53
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I have a friend who plays druid exclusively in any game or RPG that allows it, and he seems to be having a great time as Dungeon World druid. I followed the Druid Shapeshifting FAQ from earlier in the thread, gave him a token which he can change into different animals in our Roll20 campaign, then wrote up three example moves he can make as each different form so that if he could think of nothing else to do that might spend his Hold, there'd always be options for him. Horse form can deliver a forceful kick, bear form tear down most things weaker than stone, owl form can immediately consume a Vermin creature, dog form can command other friendly dogs in the vicinity to do something for it, and so on. If your druid misses having traditional spells like D&D, you can create magical items for him to find which have spell-like effects and so on, but I really enjoy how Dungeon World's druid really relies on your player having an active imagination and using their pretty massive versatility to come up with creative animal-based solution to otherwise mundane encounters. In every P&P session I've played, my druid player has been an extremely passive person as that's just his personality, but with fleshed-out moves and options for him he can't wait to try things out. I think a big problem is that the druid's mechanics aren't the clearest thing in the world. Wizard on the other hand seems agonisingly limited, even if you're a creative person you're pretty hamstringed in the Doing Cool poo poo department early on if you don't start breaking the rules of your own spells, and that way lies madness for the poor GM who doesn't want their wizard to snowball into "Performing magical feats that really should require a Ritual". The Fighter's toolkit is pretty drat basic, but it's really cool to have your own custom weapon, be the heaviest hitter in the group, and a creative fighter can come up with different ways to gently caress up people with their weapon without it needing any additional stat adjustments. I don't know if Escortmission still roams this thread, but I'm using a slight flavour modification of his Punk custom class for my team's rogue-alike. He didn't want to play as a thief, and ranger didn't really suit his character's style (A former member of the elvish noble caste who rebelled against them because they operate in a disgusting, mafia-style way, and lived on the run ever since). It's working great as it lets him be a smooth-talking, wall running, risk-taking renegade with a dangerous amount of charisma, and it's a lot of fun to see him dashing around the playfield. Songbearer fucked around with this message at 22:11 on Mar 29, 2017 |
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Mar 29, 2017 22:03
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Songbearer posted:If your druid misses having traditional spells like D&D, you can create magical items for him to find which have spell-like effects and so on, If the Druid really misses having spells, they can take the move "Hunter's Brother" to take the Ranger move "God Amongst the Wastes", to get Cleric spells.
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Mar 30, 2017 08:11
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Slayer is a solid class, right, for a Geralt/Witcher type?
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Mar 30, 2017 21:00
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ShineDog posted:Slayer is a solid class, right, for a Geralt/Witcher type? There already is a "witcher" type class that's about hunting monsters, taking trophies and getting abilities from those. Think it's called monster hunter or something?
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Mar 30, 2017 21:06
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I made one just recently called The Hexer that does a lot of stuff with oils, potions, bombs, slaying monsters and the batman-investigating stuff he does in Witcher 3, there should be a goon discount link if you look through my posts
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Mar 30, 2017 21:12
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Arkanomen posted:There already is a "witcher" type class that's about hunting monsters, taking trophies and getting abilities from those. Think it's called monster hunter or something? I'm fairly certain you're thinking of the same class The Slayer (https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B94zELwEwdHsR3JTX1Vaek1FeHc/edit?pli=1) that Boing and I wrote. I think it tries to be too many different things - It's potion chugging witchers, it's mutated half-demons (notice how none of the moves tie into this), it's blue mages who collect sackfuls of severed limbs, but as long as your player has an idea of how they want to play then it's pretty solid. I've been very lucky, my slayer player just instantly got Dungeon World combat, and was doing all the cool dirty fighting and creative maiming right out of the gate. The Bestiary Knowledge and Exorcist moves are pretty great for building the world, especially if your players have an appropriate sense for the mystical. Grisly Trophies is my favourite move (even though its the least Witchery) because it's a way of introducing new toys and equipment to the team without the ball-ache of sending them shopping. Also I really love scribbling little moves on flash cards for my players.
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Mar 30, 2017 23:43
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quote:Paladins are Fighters But Stronger And With Cool Moves. So, accurate to the inspiration then?
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Mar 31, 2017 01:55
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Hello thread! I have the best problem and come for advice. I recently moved back to my home state and started a Dungeon World game with some old friends. It started as myself and one guy who had played a lot of Pathfinder, and 3 others who were brand new to tabletop RPGs. Had our first game today, and two others (one player's significant other, and one player's brother), both likewise had never touched a TTRPG, were there unexpectedly and asked to join. Hell yeah! It's first session worldbuilding and a little intro combat so no big deal, I rework the fight and we get into it. It went great. Everyone got way into it and I got a ton of awesome character stories and location and potential adventure hooks. They were super pumped and later in the evening I had to dip for like ~5 min to take a call. When I came back they were basically like "hey here are the times and dates for the next three sessions, better show up DM" Everyone was having fun! It was super exciting! Fuckin' Dungeon World! It made clear once again why it is really my favorite game of this sort, ever. It is absolutely magnetic. By the time we ended, the player whose house we were at's wife -- who made it expressly clear that she was Not Into That Nerd poo poo -- wanted in for the next session. Anyway, 1 DM and 7 PCs. That's way more than I expected, and way more that I have experience with managing. As fun as it was, it was pretty rough to manage. It's hard to get everyone into the spotlight in a reasonable amount of time, and combat was kind of unwieldy. IIRC DW is built for a max of 5PCs. We're all working professionals so I assume (/hope) that some people won't be able to make it some weeks, and we can run a solid game with a 5 player average. Regardless I'm going to try to make it work. I really don't want to kick people out, especially as this being their first exposure to the hobby. Does anyone have any experience/advice with games of this scale?
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Apr 3, 2017 04:23
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I need a class reccomendation. Character wields a large twohanded weapon Fighting style can be described as a terrifying dreadnought, combining crude magic and powerful melee attacks. Anything that comes even remotely close to this is useful. Edit: Cursed Knight was brought to my attention and it's perfect. -Fish- fucked around with this message at 05:38 on Apr 3, 2017 |
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Apr 3, 2017 05:16
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Ok so, I'm starting my first game of Dungeon World, and one of my players wants to be a bear druid, that is primarily a bear but can turn into a human. Is there a playbook for primarily-a-bear or is there a way I can make that fit in Druid as written? e: I guess he could use Shapeshift to be a human and have to spend hold to do human things, like: Perform a Task Requiring Thumbs Have a Reasonable Conversation Not About Berries or Fish Pass in Society as a Regular Person while in a Stressful Situation E2: I also worry about this a bit because another player has decided he really wants to be a fighter due to the fancy weapon, but I'm concerned that bear druid would take his only real functionality that isn't combat numbers, which is destroying things gates and stuff. Go RV! fucked around with this message at 16:33 on Apr 4, 2017 |
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Apr 4, 2017 16:00
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