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By the way, what is everyone's opinions on identifying magic items in Dungeon World? Now here and there I've seen moves that go into that but generally how do various GMs involve magic items being unknown or not? Like do you make it some lengthy experimental thing or just straight up tell the players or what?
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Sep 26, 2017 20:01
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I'd say it depends a lot on what your intent with the magic item is, but usually I signpost it beforehand with legends and tales of the magical item, or I have someone use it near them to demonstrate its power at least externally - or one of my players will just push the button asap and see what it does in the most direct way possible.
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Sep 26, 2017 20:10
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You could also just have its effects be a lot more obvious when they're still trying to figure it out. They find a magic sword and just any time they use it tell them how things are getting set on fire. Maybe it first happens when they try to sheathe it.
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Sep 28, 2017 02:00
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me and my crew are starting to play again, so for funsies I'm updating some old custom playbooks. Up first is the Void Herald (previously known as the Cosmic Herald (which I don't think I ever uploaded and showed anyone)), who's archetype is kind of like a priest-hunter/cosmic cult leader/athiest paladin/space mage kind of guy I'll probably update the Prize Fighter next
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Oct 1, 2017 05:35
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I see the Dungeon World book is back in print on burning wheel Anyone know what the print quality is like? I want it, but I'm not spending $25 on it if it's printed on toilet paper
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Oct 12, 2017 10:54
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The copy I have is solid. Pretty much the standard oversized paperback style a lot of indie rpgs use.
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Oct 12, 2017 11:31
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kaffo posted:Flags are a replacement for bonds (which really suck if you ask me). The idea is you come up with two adjectives for your character, and an instruction tied to each adjective telling other players how to use that flag to get them XP. I know this is from months ago, but I'm just catching up on the thread. Holy drat I like this idea a lot. Back when I ran DW regularly I always had trouble getting my players to really interact with the bonds system beyond the initial setup, but something like flags would almost certainly work. That's a cool as hell idea.
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Oct 12, 2017 15:23
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Comrade Gorbash posted:The copy I have is solid. Pretty much the standard oversized paperback style a lot of indie rpgs use. Awesome, I'll need to consider it, thanks! Harrow posted:I know this is from months ago, but I'm just catching up on the thread. I'm just about to finish the game I mentioned in the post around then, so I can kinda post mortem it now The bad stuff first: My players quickly worked out which flags were easier to get due to the flag condition or the player who's flag it was. This meant some where basically ignored, and I would have got folks to change them if I didn't know the end game was coming. One player in paticular was a real pain in the arse even though his flags were good, he seemed to expect the other player to work really hard to hit it. Even when I reminded him "you get XP from this too you know, it's mutual that you hit it" he'd give the whole "Yeah sure, but I want it to be worth it for both of us" Not once that campaign did anyone hit his flags, because they gave up since he was being like that. Not really a flag fault but thought I'd mention it When they didn't come up, due circumstance or just because everyone forgot, it was a bit of a bummer all around. Not really sure how to fix this, maybe a custom move for not hitting any flags in a session? Speaking about forgetting, having 2 per player got pretty confusing, even with 4 players. We regularly forgot one or both of someone's and there's no real easy way to write two whole sentences down somewhere public for each PC The good: There were a good handful of moments in those 11 sessions where we'd be in the middle of something, then one player would grin ear to ear, look at another and say "Hey, your flag is 'Use my religion against me' right?" "Yeah...?" "Great  "And it was worth it just for them When people hit flags they felt good, like they'd achieved something, and they almost always felt natural. Unlike when we played bonds and players were trying to activally resolve them, my players would bring them up like above and slot them into the action nicely I'll be using them again for sure, but I think next time I'll spend some more time with the whole party discussing what we want each character's flags to be and how achievable they'll be during play
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Oct 12, 2017 15:43
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Remember with flags that the XP comes only once in the session, not each time. Helps break people of that "hit the bell for XP" instinct that seems to come to the table
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Oct 16, 2017 01:51
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RedMagus posted:Remember with flags that the XP comes only once in the session, not each time. Helps break people of that "hit the bell for XP" instinct that seems to come to the table Yeah, exactly I'm a big fan. I still personally don't really get how bonds got past play testing. I've never heard of a group who's used them as stated in the book without the GM bullying the players into social situations
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Oct 16, 2017 08:15
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kaffo posted:Yeah, exactly Well, you can't just ignore the bonds as a DM and expect them to be relevant to whatever you have in mind. You need to ask after, you know, what the Wizard saw in the future, what con the Thief has going, and work that into the proceedings.
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Oct 16, 2017 08:50
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When I say force, I mean "Hey Vildamir, remember that Ulrist stole something of value from you and you hold a grudge" "Oh right that thing, Um yeah, sure... Can't we get back to killing stuff now?" "No, talk to Ulrist" Dunno, I feel they are annoyingly detached from the rest of the game and they require quite a lot of player and GM input to get anything out of. Even the temptation of xp doesn't seem to draw people to resolve them Flags just seem to slot into game play much better and reward players for interacting Of course this is all personal opinion, I bet some folk have a great time with bonds, but it isn't anyone I know
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Oct 16, 2017 12:32
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I think that bonds as basically a descriptor of history and relationship between characters makes sense. It helps keep prevent the incongruity of new groups being a bunch of strangers with nothing in common. At the same time, the RAW for how to use bonds in play are really clumsy and ham-handed. Personally I think flags are an amazing idea, but rather than throw out bonds, use them differently. Every PC should have a bond with every other PC, and at end of session have them read them again and decide if what's written down is still the best encapsulation of their relationship. If it's not, if something has changed, mark XP and write a new one. kaffo posted:Speaking about forgetting, having 2 per player got pretty confusing, even with 4 players. We regularly forgot one or both of someone's and there's no real easy way to write two whole sentences down somewhere public for each PC If it's in person, I'm a big proponent of physical and visual aids. Put a little stand in front of each player with relevant info on it, including flags. This is especially good for PbtA and Dungeon World since you can cover a ton of info in a small space. Alternatively, hand each player a card listing the flags of the party on it. If possible, collect and redistribute them each session. That way they're reminded to look for them every time. Maybe hand out some kind of token so that players can have a physical idiom to represent when a flag is hit. If you're playing over the internet, it's a good idea to have a shared notes file; a Google doc works well. You can include reminders for this stuff there. If you're on a VTT, see if if you can set flags as part of the tool tip popups for player tokens. For things like flags, it's not just a matter of having the information available, it's about making it available in a way that prompts players to use that information. Comrade Gorbash fucked around with this message at 17:08 on Oct 16, 2017 |
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Oct 16, 2017 13:59
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RedMagus posted:Remember with flags that the XP comes only once in the session, not each time. Helps break people of that "hit the bell for XP" instinct that seems to come to the table That reminds me of how my players first reacted when they learned they got XP on failing a roll: just try frivolous poo poo to trigger moves so they could roll all the time. It took me a few sessions to really figure out how to respond to that. Other than being clearer about when and why you roll in Dungeon World and actually enforcing that (including being a stickler for the wording for move triggers), I also needed to make the consequences of their failures, y'know, matter. As soon as they realized that their failed rolls were going to cause something to happen that behavior stopped really quickly. I didn't even have to be cruel or anything, just follow up on the fictional set-up in a way that made a failure really feel like a failure.
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Oct 16, 2017 14:52
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kaffo posted:When I say force, I mean The GM should never, ever, under any circumstances or in any system, try to force PCs to interact with one-another about their backstory. If this exchange above ever happened in a game I was playing in, I would give that GM a "are you loving serious?" look, and if they were, I would calmly get up and leave without another word.
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Oct 16, 2017 17:41
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Blasphemeral posted:The GM should never, ever, under any circumstances or in any system, try to force PCs to interact with one-another about their backstory. If this exchange above ever happened in a game I was playing in, I would give that GM a "are you loving serious?" look, and if they were, I would calmly get up and leave without another word. Eh, I agree that the DM shouldn't try to force it, but in that situation as written I'd be solidly on the DM's side up until the third line. It's not unreasonable to expect players to refrain from no-selling character hooks that they themselves came up with, IMO. I do have to say that a similar sort of situation is responsible for the fastest I've ever left a game group, but in that case the problem was that the DM didn't take into account how I'd fleshed out my character-- he started  ing at me about how an individual of my character race would respond in a given situation, taking pains to DMsplain right over my signals that I was not trying to play my character to stereotype. (It wasn't in DW, for the record. Just a similar experience.)
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Oct 16, 2017 18:22
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Harrow posted:That reminds me of how my players first reacted when they learned they got XP on failing a roll: just try frivolous poo poo to trigger moves so they could roll all the time. It took me a few sessions to really figure out how to respond to that. Other than being clearer about when and why you roll in Dungeon World and actually enforcing that (including being a stickler for the wording for move triggers), I also needed to make the consequences of their failures, y'know, matter. As soon as they realized that their failed rolls were going to cause something to happen that behavior stopped really quickly. I didn't even have to be cruel or anything, just follow up on the fictional set-up in a way that made a failure really feel like a failure. Now that you’ve brought this up, I wanted to throw in an observation I’ve had when running DW for the past few months. My players, coming mostly from DND, used to do this same bit...trying to roll for everything. I took a few steps that, while subtle, seemed to correct this behavior:
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Oct 16, 2017 18:40
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Being strict about triggers is one of the most important shifts in mindset for PbtA games. Also, N0data is right; "I try again!" is almost always the wrong answer in a PbtA game. the consequences of a failure (or even of a partial success) should change the fictional situation such that simply attempting the same thing over again isn't even really possible.
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Oct 16, 2017 23:07
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Comrade Gorbash posted:I think that bonds as basically a descriptor of history and relationship between characters makes sense. It helps keep prevent the incongruity of new groups being a bunch of strangers with nothing in common. At the same time, the RAW for how to use bonds in play are really clumsy and ham-handed. This is pretty much what I mean I think bonds are great during gen, gives the players some tangible links between each other that are interesting, and then the players can choose to play them out or not depending on the players themselves Tying that into the level mechanic (while I understand why they did that on paper) doesn't work very well in play. Even during gen, players can't tell the GM "yes sure, I'm in with this mechanic" because 30 seconds later most of them forget about it, or realise it actually doesn't fit their character I like your quick fix idea here, I think it works out better actually. But I can still see "oh I forgot that was a thing" every second session... Also totally up for the player aids, I already do it with names/classes but I have noooo idea how to format all that text in a readable way across a table without printing it on like an A1 billboard As for the other discussion, I had a similar problem once my players worked out the "roll to get xp" thing. But they quickly worked out that bad poo poo happens when they do My favourite is the wizard's cast spell partial success "draw unwanted attention" Every game I was a player in previously saw a player go "seems like the obvious choice really" pick it then run away/beat up/deal the resultant danger I had a long discussion with the GM of that game about it and we both agreed that as a GM the scale of "draw unwanted attention" needed to be drastic enough a player actually thinks twice about it I think I succeeded a little too well, because all my players are terrified to pick the option, since the first time they did it I introduced a hydra to a fight with some frog men then I dropped a magical eldritch horror on them in the middle of conversation with some NPCs It was hella fun though, and they cherish those moments. I hope the wizard picks it during the final fight on Thursday just so I can really make poo poo hit the fan Fake edit: I'd like to clarify I'm not one of those GMs who does the old "do your bond Dan" but I've been in a game where that happened and heard it happen from other people kaffo fucked around with this message at 07:29 on Oct 17, 2017 |
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Oct 17, 2017 07:24
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kaffo posted:Also totally up for the player aids, I already do it with names/classes but I have noooo idea how to format all that text in a readable way across a table without printing it on like an A1 billboard
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Oct 17, 2017 14:29
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kaffo posted:Also totally up for the player aids, I already do it with names/classes but I have noooo idea how to format all that text in a readable way across a table without printing it on like an A1 billboard Do you do name tents at the table? Normally I have markers and index cards available, and have everyone write up a little name tent (helps everyone call each other by their char name), and if they have flags, they can write something on it to help give everyone a note about it.
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Oct 17, 2017 15:45
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^^ Yeah we do, they work great I agree, even after 10 sessions. Just trying to find a way to cram on 2 full sentences on there (or shorten them to something memorable) sounds like a pain in the rear endComrade Gorbash posted:Hit me up later on this, I have some ideas. Sure dude, would be interested! I don't really have the time right now to invest in quantum formatting haha
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Oct 17, 2017 16:04
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Double post cos apparently this thread is dead I was thinking about a (slapstick-ish?) comedy Dungeon World spin (not so much a separate PbtA hack) inspired by Konosuba, where the players are seemingly competent and manage to get poo poo done, but are actually almost entirely useless and anything they achieve is either by pure luck or abuse of the limited skillset they have I was thinking of writing playbooks like the Dizzy Fighter who gets his signature weapon, but his other starting skill is something like "When you turn a little bit too fast, roll +nothing" and the 10+ outcome is something like "by a miracle nothing bad happened" The GM principles would need to change a bit too, plus the structure to an extent My thoughts are something like giving the players a quest to deliver some milk to the next town over. On the way they get lost and stumble across the incredibly well hidden BBEG's lair where they discover (after a lengthy monologue about being discovered and his evil plan and how he is going to kill them all, even though the party have never heard of him before now) he's allergic to milk and they just about instagib him Then poo poo gets worse when they need to replace the milk they just lost killing the BBEG and the nearest milk farm is currently under siege by the other BBEG.... Basically kinda Paranoia-ish quests but in a fantasy setting I think the players would have their say though in how the madness unfolds, so everyone gets their chance at being the comedian Any thoughts goonfriends?
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Nov 1, 2017 13:44
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N0data posted:This might be obvious, but for some actions, I won’t let the PC’s roll again. Either the fiction itself prohibits rolling (“The knock spell blew the door clean off it’s hinges...along with every other door on this level of the tower.”), or I’ll require something from them in order to roll again. (“You can’t forge that magical dagger in the heat of the town forge. Maybe you need something...hotter?”). This usually goes beyond expending the player’s resources, and often gets them taking up a quest just to do it. This is a rule I follow in every system, really. Nothing is more boring than players sitting there rolling the same exact action multiple times fishing for a success. In other systems, I either do as you do (the fiction prohibits trying again multiple times), say that a roll might abstract multiple attempts (if you fail this lockpick roll, it means you aren't capable of picking that lock), or, if I think multiple players are going to attempt the same roll, I constantly remind the players that they need to use the cooperative roll/help each other rules instead of just each individually rolling an attempt. In Dungeon World, I think the fact that every roll always changes the fiction helps a lot. No matter what the result of the roll is, something changes, and in many cases that means that trying the same thing again will almost never make sense, or if it does, enough has changed that the stakes have changed, too. kaffo posted:I was thinking about a (slapstick-ish?) comedy Dungeon World spin (not so much a separate PbtA hack) inspired by Konosuba, where the players are seemingly competent and manage to get poo poo done, but are actually almost entirely useless and anything they achieve is either by pure luck or abuse of the limited skillset they have Depending on what you're looking for, you could[ give Dungeon Bastards a try. It's not strictly PbtA, nor is it suited for anything longer than a one-shot, but it is tailor-made for "incompetent, poorly-behaved adventurers blunder their way to success" adventures. Harrow fucked around with this message at 14:13 on Nov 1, 2017 |
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Nov 1, 2017 14:11
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Honestly, I'd do Dungeon World as is and change 2 things: 1) When everyone gets there, explain that you want to go for a slapstick barely competent Red Dwarf style campaign 2) Encourage people to not put their +2 in their primary stat With DW, you get a lot of power in the 7-9 move, and that power lets you setup those slapstick "well we put the fire out. by releasing the water elemental that's tearing up the town" moments. Especially if you're running it this way, give a slice of narrative control to the player for those moments. Setup the scene and go "ok, what's the dumbest yet best way your character would do X, but is going to cause Y to happen thanks to your partial hit/full miss" and let them help you setup the comedy.
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Nov 1, 2017 14:19
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RedMagus posted:Honestly, I'd do Dungeon World as is and change 2 things: Harrow posted:Depending on what you're looking for, you could[ give Dungeon Bastards a try. It's not strictly PbtA, nor is it suited for anything longer than a one-shot, but it is tailor-made for "incompetent, poorly-behaved adventurers blunder their way to success" adventures. 
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Nov 1, 2017 15:02
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So I've been asked to GM another game for some close friends. We ran 'The Haunted' one-shot from the Call of Cthulhu and it was fun, but I spent ALOT of time looking for mechanics involved. The one-shot I ran for Dungeon World was much more smooth in that way, even though it was my very first time DM'ing. EDIT: http://black-stars-rise.appspot.com/ seems to be a great resource along these lines. Are there any specific things I should bear in mind when trying to organise a game which is a little lighter on combat and more heavy on investigation? In CoC most of the investgation was without dice rolling anyway, but I feel that AW/DW's narrative contract would make the subsequent conflicts easier to steer. Southern Heel fucked around with this message at 14:32 on Nov 6, 2017 |
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Nov 6, 2017 11:48
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You might want to consider writing some custom moves for investigating the big important stuff. "When you sift through tomes in the library seeking the creature's weakness, you learn it, but roll +int. On a 10+, choose 1; on a 7-9, choose 2, on a 6-, all 3: - a bad thing - a differently bad thing - a countdown advances" Also think up some countdowns to get going. They're like hit points but for the plot.
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Nov 6, 2017 18:28
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I would also look into Monster of the Week. It is incredibly streamlined for the players and the GM during play but has a ton of "under the hood" mystery development in both the short & long term for you that might allow for the combination of freedom & depth you are looking for. I ran three sessions with my friends before it fell apart and we had great fun with it, lots of mysteries & really awesome moments of character development and the like. I would take a look at the playbooks to make sure your players have the archetypes they want to play there, but I imagine putting some Cthulhu into the game on a regular basis would be incredibly easy.
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Nov 6, 2017 18:41
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I will check out Monster of the Week. This was my post in the CoC thread:Southern Heel posted:As per my post in the DW thread I'm not sure whether to go with CoC or DW as the mechanics behind the game I'm running this week, but one of the things I definitely want to do is something that I can build on. This would be my first "DIY" and as such would like to hear any feedback at all around the story, pacing. Set in the present era, PCs are the only passengers en route on a night bus. It stops off at a bus garage and the driver goes in - after an hour he still hasn't come back, and people are getting antsy. When the street lights start to flicker and dim, our PCs spring into action.... Is there a better way to organise these ideas? I'd hate to get caught up that we end up rolling straight into the netherworld and sealing the rift that allowed the Angel of the Mons to be summoned all in one evening and I feel like there's not a huge amount of 'middle' to the adventure.
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Nov 6, 2017 19:04
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I mean, if they seal that rift, maybe they think they've solved it but that's just one portal, and the real threat is the bad dude who keeps opening them......
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Nov 7, 2017 05:35
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The advice I would give is not to make this about banishing the angel but about dealing with the fallout from the angel showing up. The angel goes away of its own accord -- this time -- and the challenge to the players is figuring out what happened, getting out alive, and not being ganked by the cult members trying to remove witnesses. On the cult: the most important thing in CoC games is that cults have an agenda beyond "1. Summon monster 2. ?????? 3. Profit". At that stage the only way the players can really interact with your plot is by killing cultists. If you figure out what they're up to, and especially why they need a busload of people, then you can play up the investigatory side of the game, which is much better for building tension than out-and-out combat.
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Nov 8, 2017 09:23
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I want to be easy for the DM to deal with but barbarian isn't in the player's handbook. I can find it very easily but is it homebrew? Are all classes that aren't in the basic book homebrew? Are there official extra classes?
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Nov 11, 2017 04:17
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The Barbarian and the Immolator are official playbooks that are not in the core book, and they're both available for free I think.
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Nov 11, 2017 06:07
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Yeah, they're part of the official character sheet bundle.
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Nov 12, 2017 17:38
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Evil Mastermind posted:Yeah, they're part of the official character sheet bundle. You can download it from the official site, so it's fully legit.
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Nov 13, 2017 05:08
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Quidthulhu posted:I mean, if they seal that rift, maybe they think they've solved it but that's just one portal, and the real threat is the bad dude who keeps opening them...... Very "Second Season of TV Show", I like it 
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Nov 13, 2017 09:36
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Just an FYI, your link to Scrape and Evil Mastermind's guide on post 2 doesn't work any more I'm sure you agree it's an utterly fantastic guide, is there any chance you can update it? I found this mediafire link, but I'm not really sure how reliable it is http://www.mediafire.com/view/?ypk10uede2sgri6
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Nov 14, 2017 10:00
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kaffo posted:Just an FYI, your link to Scrape and Evil Mastermind's guide on post 2 doesn't work any more Thanks, updated the post with the new link
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Nov 14, 2017 10:14
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Does anyone have any good drives for the Gladiator class? I've got a Dark Sun game going and I really want to have a Gladiator playbook but I can only find it with alignment options and I don't want it to be the odd playbook out.
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Nov 14, 2017 23:40
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