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Glazius posted:The Dashing Hero is good, if you lean that way. My problem with Dashing Hero is that the names on some of the moves feel like they should be the other way around, and my Dashing Hero player would constantly try and use the daring plan for any combination of actions. Running over and hitting someone isn't a plan! The Channeler is pretty cool for big flashy spells and creative environmental stuff.
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Jul 31, 2018 21:32
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My players all went with the weirdest loving playbooks and I love it. The Spy is probably the most normal, and then we have The Golem (from inverse world,) The Beast (a giant talking eagle), The Drider, and The Hoard. Conceptually The Hoard is my favorite, and although the rules are a little weird they basically work. Not elegant, but pulling off the idea of the playbook, and since the idea is so goddamn strange that's impressive. The Golem is pretty great, as are most of the inverse world classes. I like The Beast a lot too, it's kind of mechanically a halfway between The Ranger and The Druid - you get Druid style "monster moves" and a lot of Ranger style wilderness stuff. No one picked it, and so I have no idea how it works in play, but there's always been a special place in my heart for The Mastermind, which is a playbook that basically lets you play Moriarty or Dr. Who.
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Aug 1, 2018 15:21
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Tricky posted:The Witch is always a fun one. Which one? There's a couple on DTRPG
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Aug 2, 2018 11:20
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Digital Osmosis posted:My players all went with the weirdest loving playbooks and I love it. The Spy is probably the most normal, and then we have The Golem (from inverse world,) The Beast (a giant talking eagle), The Drider, and The Hoard. Conceptually The Hoard is my favorite, and although the rules are a little weird they basically work. Not elegant, but pulling off the idea of the playbook, and since the idea is so goddamn strange that's impressive. The Golem is pretty great, as are most of the inverse world classes. I like The Beast a lot too, it's kind of mechanically a halfway between The Ranger and The Druid - you get Druid style "monster moves" and a lot of Ranger style wilderness stuff. The playbook is amazing, but I am so sad to learn that this is a typo. BRB, just hacking the playbook so I can play as a giant pile of gold.
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Aug 2, 2018 12:09
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Strom Cuzewon posted:The playbook is amazing, but I am so sad to learn that this is a typo. Yeah I did a bit of a double take too.
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Aug 2, 2018 15:35
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Strom Cuzewon posted:BRB, just hacking the playbook so I can play as a giant pile of gold. 
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Aug 2, 2018 15:52
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Shanty posted:Which one? There's a couple on DTRPG http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/113399/The-Witch--A-Dungeon-World-Playbook
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Aug 2, 2018 18:59
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So, I've got some friends who expressed some interest in playing D&D, and I absolutely *LOVE* being a DM, but don't really have time to design a D&D campaign and learn the 4e or 5e rules (not to mention make all the players learn either one), so I'm looking into Dungeon World as a much easier way to get a campaign running. So far I absolutely love the ease and simplicity of the rules, and how it lets me concentrate on world-building over number crunching. But there's a few things I'm confused about as I read over the rules... I know this is a "turn-less" system, but in combat, when is the appropriate time to have enemies take their moves? Should it only be when a player misses/creates an opening, or should I have them move when there's a natural lull in combat? Should it be both? It seems like that would let the enemies move a lot more times than the players - maybe that's intended in the design? How does the flow go in your games? I'm a DM who likes tactical combat, which is one of the reasons I like D&D 4e more than 3.5e or 5e - there's so many more options for the PCs to choose from, and the enemies have interesting choices baked into them too. And looking at the rules for DW, the freeform nature of the game and definition of moves lends itself well to that - but I feel like I need a LITTLE more structure for the monsters' moves. For instant, Rot Grub has a move that is just "Lay eggs". Ok? What does that mean? Does it pop out a bunch of babies that then do damage? Does it lay eggs ON someone, giving them a bad status effect? There's nothing there other than the name. Am I expected to come up with those mechanics and effects on the fly, or is there some description somewhere I'm missing? The PC moves all have pretty clear descriptions and mechanics, but it seems like the monster moves... Don't. On the flipside, I notice there are some PC moves that are... Overpowered. For instance, the Bard's It Goes To Eleven. Let's say they're facing a powerful boss monster - they would slaughter their allies pretty quick with that move. It seems like there should be some sort of extra defense similar to saving throws for some of these spells/moves for more powerful enemies, but it's all just based on the 10+ system. Or should I just think of the danger of an adverse reaction on failure as the "defense" the monster has? Maybe I'm just stuck too much in the D&D mindset, but I'm hoping I can work some of the issues out with experiences you guys have DMing this. I'm also listening to some actual plays of DW games to see how other DMs do it.
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Aug 2, 2018 19:33
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I'm relatively new at DMing, but I'll chime in anyway.Rotten Red Rod posted:When is the appropriate time to have enemies take their moves? Should it only be when a player misses/creates an opening, or should I have them move when there's a natural lull in combat? Should it be both? It seems like that would let the enemies move a lot more times than the players - maybe that's intended in the design? How does the flow go in your games? One thing to know is that the enemies aren't directly making moves, the GM makes moves. In combat, one of your options is to use monster moves, but you don't have to. If there is a lull in combat (ie "Players look to you to see what happens" trigger) you could make a monster do damage, or you could "Reveal an unwelcome truth" (more enemies arrive, your escape route is blocked off, an environmental hazard is revealed) or "give an opportunity with a cost" (the chandelier is overhead, if only you could cut the rope!). It's up to you to choose what would be exciting, dangerous, and fantastic - sometimes that is a monster move, other times not. Dice-Mechanically, you'll also be given opportunities - ie when a player rolls a 9 or less, you often get a chance for the enemy to do something. For example, on hack-and-slash, enemy "does their damage" isn't just to roll damage die, but includes the tags associated to that - so for instance the Abomination includes "Forceful" as a tag, so the damage might include getting thrown into another nearby character, knocking both over; or could involve disarming the character. That will lead to more opportunities for failure as the players defy danger to get back into position. I'd say that for 1-9 rolls, every action has a reaction, and it's just 10+ that characters can get away scot-free. Rotten Red Rod posted:I'm a DM who likes tactical combat, which is one of the reasons I like D&D 4e more than 3.5e or 5e - there's so many more options for the PCs to choose from, and the enemies have interesting choices baked into them too. And looking at the rules for DW, the freeform nature of the game and definition of moves lends itself well to that - but I feel like I need a LITTLE more structure for the monsters' moves. For instant, Rot Grub has a move that is just "Lay eggs". Ok? What does that mean? Does it pop out a bunch of babies that then do damage? Does it lay eggs ON someone, giving them a bad status effect? There's nothing there other than the name. Am I expected to come up with those mechanics and effects on the fly, or is there some description somewhere I'm missing? The PC moves all have pretty clear descriptions and mechanics, but it seems like the monster moves... Don't. You aren't missing anything, you'll want to figure it out (either in prep or on-the-fly). If you do it on the fly, note that it can be the characters' choice too. You can always ask a character that may know (Ranger? Druid?) what the move does, then just stick to it (just don't cross the line). That way everyone at the table knows what is going on, and both you and them can be tactical about it. I think to understand tactical play in DW, just be clear about consequences. Mechanically, also recognize that every roll has a chance for a DM move, which can be a danger. If you want them to be more tactical, put them in situations where they need to be careful - eg use more hard moves on just running up and Hack-n-Slash fails, or make them Defy Danger to even take part in combat. Rotten Red Rod posted:On the flipside, I notice there are some PC moves that are... Overpowered. For instance, the Bard's It Goes To Eleven. Let's say they're facing a powerful boss monster - they would slaughter their allies pretty quick with that move. It seems like there should be some sort of extra defense similar to saving throws for some of these spells/moves for more powerful enemies, but it's all just based on the 10+ system. Or should I just think of the danger of an adverse reaction on failure as the "defense" the monster has? Yeah, I think you got one good defense - the failure can be really bad for powerful moves. Another really powerful move is the Druid's shape change - I chose to have a failure mean that the Druid can't shape shift into that beast form and that beast would be hostile to the character - until they do a quest or something like that. Another is to use the monster tags as a defense - see the classic 16 HP dragon.
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Aug 2, 2018 21:51
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metacorder posted:Yeah, I think you got one good defense - the failure can be really bad for powerful moves. Another really powerful move is the Druid's shape change - I chose to have a failure mean that the Druid can't shape shift into that beast form and that beast would be hostile to the character - until they do a quest or something like that. Another is to use the monster tags as a defense - see the classic 16 HP dragon. Thanks for the input - I'm starting to put it together with the help of some other new-GM guides and your post. The 16 HP Dragon story put it in perspective for me, and reminds me of another example... In D&D, if, say, a Mind Flayer is fought in a direct fight, like plunked down in front of a group of adventurers out of nowhere, he's a huge chump and can't do much. But if you play him how an intelligent, devious creature with those powers would act: the boss "battle" is weaving out his grand conspiracy of enthralled victims, and when you get into an actual physical battle he'll do everything he can not to face you directly - throwing thralls between you and him, mind controlling your party from a safe distance, etc. Preparation and setting is the key for powerful monsters. I'd still like the tags and monster moves to have a LITTLE more mechanics to them, but at least I now know I'm free to determine that myself so I can prep that beforehand.
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Aug 2, 2018 22:12
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Another very important thing to remember in dungeon world is the players are not looking through a list of moves and saying to you "I roll hack and slash" Your players must be narrative about it, that said if they are gunning for a specific move it is entirely in their interest to let you know, however it's your choice as the GM when/if those moves trigger For example, if a player tells you he runs up to a slime and hits it with his sword then gets the dice out to roll hack and slash, that's when you've got to put the narrative first. Any second rate adventurer knows a sword ain't gonna do poo poo to a slime monster so there's no hack and slash to roll. It's up to you if you follow that up with some narrative how it doesn't work, a soft or a hard move Honestly, I personally don't feel dungeon world makes for a good tactical game, and I'm sure someone will disagree with me. Sure the tags system is there, but personally I feel like they are used better as suggestions to drive the narrative than be used as actual tactical modifiers. I think that DW works best when imaginations are sky high and fantastic. Killing the dragon isn't so much because you had a +2 sword which has +dragonslayer but because a player described how he epically drew the sword from his dying comrade's bloody hands, promised he'd come back to save him, turned to face the sun, blotted out by the dragons shadow, pulled off a cheesy one liner, runs off the edge of a cliff and onto the dragon's back, plunging the sword into its neck while screaming "THIS ONE IS FOR DERRICK THE BARD YOU rear end in a top hat". Roll hack and slash you beautiful bastard
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Aug 2, 2018 22:37
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DW combat is much more cinematic than tactical. I'm a little worried that what it tries to deliver and what you want just aren't aligned. My main experience with DW was DMing a father-daughter game for a couple of younger kids, and they just inferred that it was supposed to be turn-based, and... it's not. That caused a lot of frustration, because some moves obviously take longer than others, and if you're trying to force it all in to a turn-based structure, there's no support for it. Someone makes a move, it changes the situation, you describe how it changes, you ask someone how they respond to the new situation.
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Aug 2, 2018 22:40
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Rotten Red Rod posted:Thanks for the input - I'm starting to put it together with the help of some other new-GM guides and your post. The 16 HP Dragon story put it in perspective for me, and reminds me of another example... In D&D, if, say, a Mind Flayer is fought in a direct fight, like plunked down in front of a group of adventurers out of nowhere, he's a huge chump and can't do much. But if you play him how an intelligent, devious creature with those powers would act: the boss "battle" is weaving out his grand conspiracy of enthralled victims, and when you get into an actual physical battle he'll do everything he can not to face you directly - throwing thralls between you and him, mind controlling your party from a safe distance, etc. Preparation and setting is the key for powerful monsters. I threw this guy against a group of four lv. 2s about a week ago: Voadroch the Gazer solitary, large, magical, intelligent, planar Elemental Beams (1d10+3 dmg); 16HP; 2 armor (to represent a magical shield, maybe even take it to 1?) close, reach, far, ignores armor Instinct: To enslave lesser beings Special Qualities: Levitation, telepathy Moves: -Use the weak minded as a shield (this gives me the opportunity to attack the players with it) -Descend my slaves, descend! -Harry their movement with elemental rays -When at Death's door, offer them everything He didn't even have any support from minions, but he harried their movement and beat the crap out of them. Almost killed them to the point they had him down to 5 hp so I used "When at Death's door, offer them everything" and they were so desperate they almost took it. One player threw a hail Mary though and killed him. It worked out great. The monsters are what you make of them!
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Aug 2, 2018 22:44
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kaffo posted:Honestly, I personally don't feel dungeon world makes for a good tactical game, and I'm sure someone will disagree with me. Sure the tags system is there, but personally I feel like they are used better as suggestions to drive the narrative than be used as actual tactical modifiers. I think that DW works best when imaginations are sky high and fantastic. Killing the dragon isn't so much because you had a +2 sword which has +dragonslayer but because a player described how he epically drew the sword from his dying comrade's bloody hands, promised he'd come back to save him, turned to face the sun, blotted out by the dragons shadow, pulled off a cheesy one liner, runs off the edge of a cliff and onto the dragon's back, plunging the sword into its neck while screaming "THIS ONE IS FOR DERRICK THE BARD YOU rear end in a top hat". I was using the tactical combat in terms of comparing 4e to 5e, and why I prefer 4e - because it gives the players more choice other "I guess I just attack again because I'm not a wizard". And that's an aspect Dungeon World shares with 4e that I like - more player choice (although for opposite reasons). I'm aware it's not going to be super tactical, but at least trying to teach and play the game won't feel like another full-time job, so I can accept that. Zorak of Michigan posted:DW combat is much more cinematic than tactical. I'm a little worried that what it tries to deliver and what you want just aren't aligned. My main experience with DW was DMing a father-daughter game for a couple of younger kids, and they just inferred that it was supposed to be turn-based, and... it's not. That caused a lot of frustration, because some moves obviously take longer than others, and if you're trying to force it all in to a turn-based structure, there's no support for it. Someone makes a move, it changes the situation, you describe how it changes, you ask someone how they respond to the new situation. I want a game that's easy to teach to new players, cheap to buy, and doesn't require a huge investment of time for me to craft the campaign I want. I like tactical combat, but I can accept the trade-off. And I can still set up fun battles where the players have to think creatively and use the environment to their advantage to take out unconventional foes! Oh, that and craft an interesting campaign that surprises them. The Adventure Zone podcast inspired me.
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Aug 2, 2018 23:01
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Rotten Red Rod posted:I was using the tactical combat in terms of comparing 4e to 5e, and why I prefer 4e - because it gives the players more choice other "I guess I just attack again because I'm not a wizard". And that's an aspect Dungeon World shares with 4e that I like - more player choice (although for opposite reasons). I'm aware it's not going to be super tactical, but at least trying to teach and play the game won't feel like another full-time job, so I can accept that. If you are onboard with it then, it sounds like something that could well work for you. PbtA is the king of player choice, since they can do anything which is possible as long as it fits a. what's already been established and b. the current narritive The moves are there to generalise for you, kinda flipping the "old school" DnD >pick a move from a list and describe it mentality and turning it into >describe it and the GM checks if it fits a move So, you should be fine, just make sure that the players are fully aware narritive is king and as the GM you always respond using the rules. Honestly, print a copy of the agendas and your move list and you'll never have a problem. Also make sure you try and do the obvious. This is slipup I've seen people make, they just assume that they need to be edgy and interesting. 9.9/10 times it's better to do the obvious, what you think the players expect, and it keeps everyone grounded in the fiction
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Aug 3, 2018 09:31
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You could probably just mash together The Golem and The Horde and take a few of The Mastermind moves to represent bribery and stuff and I'm not even sure if I'm joking
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Aug 3, 2018 10:49
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Strom Cuzewon posted:The playbook is amazing, but I am so sad to learn that this is a typo. Without looking at the playbook, idk if there's anything disallowing you from being a swarm of sentient silver shillings. Alternatively: Treasure bugs
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Aug 3, 2018 15:41
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Way I see it, the point of the DM asking players certain things is to let the players expand on their own characters and things that character cares about or is deeply connected to, rather than “uhhhh a thing happened hey player X what happened”. The DM will be speaking and laying out the progress of the world for the majority of the time, but when it’s clear that they’re addressing something a relevant player is in charge of, they pass the ball to them. So it’s not “your long lost mentor shows up, what happens”, it’s “the Black Knight you’re fighting loses his helmet and it’s your long lost mentor, they reach back and nock an arrow pointed right at you, what do you do”. It’s still the DM talking most of the time, and you have to be judicious in knowing when to pass the ball to the players.
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Aug 3, 2018 17:05
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Looking for suggestions for cool potion concepts for a Dungeon World witch. I haven't been taking as much advantage of the Cauldron's Brew and Potion's Bubble move as I could.
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Aug 5, 2018 18:26
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Comrade Gorbash posted:Looking for suggestions for cool potion concepts for a Dungeon World witch. I haven't been taking as much advantage of the Cauldron's Brew and Potion's Bubble move as I could. Your potion concepts are going to be cooler if they reflect your witch. Like, what does your witch wish they could bottle and sell? All the weirdest weather from around the world? Ten thousand malignant transformations? The best and worst parts of the characters from their favorite mass-market paperback series?
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Aug 6, 2018 22:36
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I've asked this in a "choose a system megathread" but I realise I should probably just ask here instead. My friend is our GM and its his birthday at the weekend. I've massively hosed up by leaving it this late so my plan is to buy the PDF and have it printed and bound at a local printers. I'm going to buy the PDF from Drive Thru but I'm reading in the Discussion section that there are multiple versions included in the download, so I'm just trying to gauge what I need to quote the printers in terms of pages in the book? It says 408 pages on Drive Thru, but is this including all the versions or for each version? Edit: This is a dumb idea. I was quoted £65 for the 400+ page print out. Also to get the thing shipped from IndiePress was going to total about $90. I bought a half decent used copy from Amazon for just over £20. The DPRK fucked around with this message at 16:57 on Aug 7, 2018 |
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Aug 7, 2018 15:59
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The DPRK posted:I'm going to buy the PDF from Drive Thru but I'm reading in the Discussion section that there are multiple versions included in the download, so I'm just trying to gauge what I need to quote the printers in terms of pages in the book? It says 408 pages on Drive Thru, but is this including all the versions or for each version? Yes, it really is 400 pages. Half-size, large print, generous spacing and margins. Not very consumer-friendly as POD.
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Aug 7, 2018 18:29
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So I'm returning to DW after a hiatus to Exalted. My players then said "that last game was more fun" so here I am So here's the situation, the players are keen on picking up on some world building we did in the last game that didn't get addressed, which is sky whales Sky whales got established as huge flying beasts which roamed the skies and were hunted for their corpses which were converted into airships Further, a sky whale was established as being born in the sky River (a river in the sky which flows into the sea in a huge waterfall) where they live until they mature and swim off the end of the waterfall into the sky properly My players want to hunt one. So my plan is to do a big time skip from the last campaign, letting me advance a bunch of fronts, move things about and gives me excuses to make stuff less familiar. As part of that I'm thinking that sky whales basically went extinct and the art of hunting them lost. However some incredibly rich/powerful patron wants a corpse for an airship and offers an incredibly handsome reward for the corpse The PCs can be a bunch of grizzled hunters but know nothing of sky whale hunting, much of the old equipment has been destoried, lost or turned into museum/gallery pieces over the years I was thinking of having a clock the players need to advance in order to be ready, having a bunch of steps they need to fill in before they can go. Likewise the other hunting parties will have their own clocks which I can advance as a move to keep the game on a slow boil I suspect 90 percent of the campaign will be the prep for the hunt, with dungeons, favors, long travel and all sorts involved in the prep. Then the actual whale hunt tied up in a handful of sessions. Each block of the clock should/could take a session or more to fill So two questions: 1. Is this a good way to model this? Is the clock idea good? Any custom moves you think I could make/use for preparing the hunt or advice on how to do this mechanically? Should the other hunters clocks be public? 2. Any cool ideas to make the whole thing interesting? I had a thought that sky whales are actually huge gas bags, not heavy like you might expect, so if they PCs don't do their research they could pop their whale by accident or something. Likewise some ye olde lost techniques to make bringing down a gigantic flying whale would help them a load, especially in the transport of the corpse Thanks in advance, I'm super excited for this one!
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Aug 14, 2018 10:31
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I like a lot of those ideas! The only part that gives me pause is I'm not sure it quite captures what your players asked for. You've got a solid idea for a campaign focused around hunting a sky whale, singular. If that's what the players expressed an interest in, the framework should work very well for it. But it gets there by fundamentally changing and reducing the presence of the setting element the players seem to have latched on to. I think that's a big risk in and of itself, and I think it may actually remove the aspect the players wanted to explore. My suggestion is: more sky whales. Rather than having them all be gone and the players hunting a rumor, I'd make it so sky whales and sky whalers are still a going concern. But the patron doesn't want any whale - they want a special whale, one the hunters will have to track down. Sort of a Moby Dick situation. And you can still bring in the lost knowledge and techniques aspect if, say, this special whale is of a different type than the common ones, a type thought extinct. Sort of a sperm whale to the regular kind's grey whale.
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Aug 14, 2018 13:37
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Comrade Gorbash posted:I like a lot of those ideas! The only part that gives me pause is I'm not sure it quite captures what your players asked for. The backup plan was hunting had stopped because airships were out of fashion, so same "lost art" kinda thing, however there were loads of sky whales, to the extent that someone wants to slow the rate of breeding. The PCs are hired to go to the source of the sky river (off the map) and murder the mother sky whale.... So either or really Also, a freind suggested I give the players a clock to mark their progress, but just model all the opposing hunters as a combined front. Which is a fair point
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Aug 14, 2018 14:06
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Agree that this may not be what your players signed up for. Couple of thoughts: Looking at IRL whaling you don't have to make it the Last Skywhale or the Biggest Skywhale to put the PCs in peril. Whaling is plenty dangerous at the best of times. Just make sure anyone they talk to about whaling is retired with missing limbs, scars etc to build that aspect up. Have skywhaling shipwrecks dot the landscape (and/or cityscape) too. Occasional debris could be a fun 6-. Give them a lead on a cheap ship with some personal attachment. Whaling grounds are weird and mysterious and hard to find reliably and skywhalers are the kind of desperate hardasses who do NOT share.
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Aug 14, 2018 14:08
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For rival hunters, I'd give them their own clocks. You've got a race scenario in play, and specific, unique rival groups makes that a lot more interesting narratively. Tracking those individually reinforces that, while grouping them is going to cast them as an interchangeable "opposition" rather than individual, quirky factions who are competing with each other as much as with the party. Mechanically it also provides some useful depth to the racing aspect. The party can't thwart the competition all at once - they might be able to slow down several rivals in one go, but chances are there will always be one who has a chance to progress unimpeded. It adds a layer of strategy - and even better occasions where the group will make a non-optimal move just to mess with the rival they hate most. I would make the clocks public for that reason as well. It also lets you simulate the rival groups messing with each other, which is a nice bit of flavor that presents it as a real competition rather than just road bumps for the PCs (even if behind the curtain you're just erasing segments arbitrarily to create that illusion). You can throw in a secret rival with a secret clock for the party to uncover, but I'd use this only once and carefully at that. You could throw in a broad clock representing "The Pack," the more generic competitors who don't really have a shot at winning. If the party messes with a rival enough their clock could go away and they fall back into the Pack, which could be a really satisfying outcome for the PCs. You'll probably also end up with some rival groups that are interesting but don't click enough to be regular characters - you can stop wasting the effort to track them individually but still have them in your back pocket for one off encounters. That "oh I remember these guys!" moment. Speaking of the racing aspect, I'd also go with something to create a race against time as well. I'd personally make a clock for the whaling season. Periodically the sky whales migrate somewhere out of reach. That would give you that time pressure aspect, since if the party takes too long they miss their shot until the next season rolls around - or they do a quest to find a way to get to where the sky whales went.
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Aug 14, 2018 15:05
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Shanty posted:Agree that this may not be what your players signed up for. Couple of thoughts: Comrade Gorbash posted:For rival hunters, I'd give them their own clocks. You've got a race scenario in play, and specific, unique rival groups makes that a lot more interesting narratively. Tracking those individually reinforces that, while grouping them is going to cast them as an interchangeable "opposition" rather than individual, quirky factions who are competing with each other as much as with the party. Further, I wondered if I could tag a couple of the clock blocks to make it more flavourful, so I could make a small number of new tags like Whale Killer or Vessel and make them prerequisites for one block each. That way they can see which groups might have what special equipment and it gives them a prompt of what to look for themselves... I am not sure if this is over complicating the whole thing though. I don't think it's too much extra work? But I'm not sure how much value it adds. However, regardless I could use some custom moves, like.... quote:When you go out your way to imped a rival group roll +nothing
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Aug 14, 2018 18:16
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Also if you're desperate for ideas, almost every arc of Toriko follows this pattern - a whole bunch of people or groups trying to be the first to hunt a specific giant creature.
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Aug 15, 2018 05:57
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Finally starting play tomorrow, gently caress yeah. I've been fighting the urge to prep so hard, I keep having an irrational fear that I'll flub the player questions and we won't end up with anything to play against. But I've got a couple of ideas for an opening action scene, a few monsters I'd have fun with and, if all else fails, 20 Dungeon Starters. I'll be running for five players this first session, and we'll have a bit of drop-in-drop-out over the coming sessions. Just to streamline things, I'm going to start off with bonds and then I may add flags in the coming sessions, just because those seem better for games with varying players. How does that sound, DW thread?
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Aug 15, 2018 12:02
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Since I finally have friends interested in playing Dungeon World, I'm currently putting form to the idea I've had for a D&D campaign. Fortunately the concept isn't rooted in anything that requires it to be D&D - in fact the original concept came from my frustration with running a game in a pre-made setting (Eberron, in this case). I hated how, as the DM, whenever the players got to a city (or anywhere other than a dungeon or a small settlement, really) I was expected to either know (or come up with on the fly) all the factions, people, locations, politics, shops, etc. and it almost always resulted in fudging and abstraction that felt unnatural. So I shifted the campaign quickly to focus on an expedition to Xen'drik, which is an unexplored continent, and I loved it so much that the rest of the campaign was set there (which petered out soon after that, sadly). I liked how I had everything under my control and I had an excuse to keep the focus on small settlements, one-on-one interactions, discovery and exploration. Then years went by and I played Dark Souls and listened to Adventure Zone, and ideas started forming in my mind. I have a setting I've tentatively titled "World's Edge". The entire campaign is set in one city on an island, long abandoned after some magical calamity - but when I say island, I mean a HUGE island, like hundreds of miles across, COMPLETELY covered by the city. There are huge areas ripe for adventure - the city itself (which extends both into the earth and into the sky), derelict wizard towers, nature reserves that have been reclaimed by monsters, pocket dimensions, etc. The plot is that the players wash up on the beach with no memory of how they got there - they still know who they are, their entire backstory, etc. but the reasons they have for sailing to the island (and any sort of knowledge they have regarding the island at all) have been magically plucked out of their head - they know that they were on a ship, possibly part of an armada, hired to do something, but they don't know what it was, other than it involved the island. They can see there is a permanent magical maelstrom surrounding the island which is clearly the cause of their shipwreck and likely prevents any ship from getting in or out, so they're effectively stuck there. As they progress up into the city (and just getting up into the city for the first time is an adventure in itself) they meet other shipwreck survivors like them who are in the same situation, but have been there for weeks (months? years maybe) longer, and just begun to carve out a foothold. The city is seemingly abandoned of all sentient life aside from people (and other intelligent creatures) who have been trapped there like the players, all with their different motives and agendas. The party can help build up a small fortress settlement as a home base while working their way deeper and deeper into the city to discover the mystery of why it was abandoned, why they are there, and possibly how to escape. I love this setting because it allows me to build the plot one step at a time instead of having it all overly planned out, which is part of the reason I was inspired when I found Dungeon World - that fits the play style very well. I can weave an epic narrative like something in Adventure Zone without having everything decided already, but start dropping hints and clues as the players progress. I also like the idea of an interconnected city instead of a giant landscape, which is the Dark Souls influence - each adventure will be like unlocking a new area, finding a new path or shortcut, which gets them a little closer to their goal. But they can choose the path to get there. Like, for instance, when they first arrive they make their way to some dwellings carved into the cliffside where some other survivors have holed up, but are still unable to access the city above. They can either progress up the cliff (and contend with monsters that have nested on the cliffside) or into the tunnels carved into the cliff where the underclasses lived (and deal with monsters there), but either way they eventually make their way to the city's cliff-docks, where a shipping platform can be lowered to transport the other survivors up into the city, and can then be used from that point on to travel between the city and the cliffside dwellings/tunnels. I have other, grander ideas that I'm still forming, like the reasons for the calamity and how it relates to the rest of the world. And I want to have the currency be a barter system using magical materials - instead of finding coins, players will find raw components used to make magic items, and once they've gathered enough of them, they will be able to use them to forge items of their choice. (Most other mundane things you'd need money for can generally just be found lying around the city, to a reasonable degree.) And the setting lends itself well to cool setpieces - battles in precarious settings like on high bridges, towers, cliffsides, etc - and varied environments - they'll find pocket dimensions, portals to other planes, and more. Anyway. That's a brain dump of what I've thought out so far. I'd welcome any thoughts or suggestions! Rotten Red Rod fucked around with this message at 17:14 on Aug 15, 2018 |
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Aug 15, 2018 17:09
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Rotten Red Rod posted:Anyway. That's a brain dump of what I've thought out so far. I'd welcome any thoughts or suggestions! Read Apocalypse World. Knowing about barter and the Savvyhead's workspace will help you out quite a bit.
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Aug 15, 2018 20:15
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Update: First session went extremely well. Flagged a bit in the Q&A, but regained a lot of momentum in the initial action scene. Might have leaned a little heavily on "deal damage", but I thought the fiction supported it.
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Aug 17, 2018 07:58
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The thing I've found about DW is that the PCs are extremely tough compared to other PbtA games. I've been having them fight mostly humans as they're... largely criminal scumbags and they've been cleaning the floors with them. It tends to work out though, as when I throw in some proper monsters, especially Messy tagged ones, the contrast really makes them think things have gotten real. Chipping away at that HP is always a handy move if you can't think of something better, so don't worry about it until you get a few other catastrophes in your pocket to throw at them.
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Aug 17, 2018 13:14
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Man I nearly killed two of them in the first fight. They'd been pretty badly ambushed so the fictional ball was in my court, so to speak, and every move I made had the threat of violence behind it. Then it kind of snowballed with a few nasty misses. And once the monsters started dealing damage, it felt wrong to dial back. They got through it heroically and were able to trigger the long recovery move afterwards, though. Awesome energy. Can't wait for next session.
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Aug 17, 2018 18:59
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Haha drat, never mind then! One of my guys is a Survivor, he can take hits for days (which is kind of the point of the playbook I suppose).
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Aug 18, 2018 01:06
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I'll soften up the moves next session. I think it'll represent their increased preparedness nicely.
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Aug 18, 2018 20:13
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If a PC is attempting to fight blind, this falls under Defy Danger, right? And if so what would the stat used be? I'd err on WIS but none of the Defy Danger categories actually cover trying to use perception or similar to accomplish something, the only reason I suggest WIS is because that's what Discern Realities uses.
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Aug 21, 2018 17:29
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Infinite Oregano posted:If a PC is attempting to fight blind, this falls under Defy Danger, right? And if so what would the stat used be? I'd err on WIS but none of the Defy Danger categories actually cover trying to use perception or similar to accomplish something, the only reason I suggest WIS is because that's what Discern Realities uses. Sounds like Wisdom to me, purely from a thematic standpoint. Relying on pure intuition and senses has always been in the Wisdom wheelhouse in D&D and such.
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Aug 21, 2018 18:07
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Rotten Red Rod posted:Sounds like Wisdom to me, purely from a thematic standpoint. Relying on pure intuition and senses has always been in the Wisdom wheelhouse in D&D and such. The wisdom debility description backs this up: Confused (WIS): Ears ringing. Vision blurred. You’re more than a little out of it I'd let a Fighter explain why they can just hack and slash, though. Fighting well is the extraordinary thing the Fighter has, so I feel like it's good to play it up. Depending on the situation maybe discern realities first, then H&S on a hit, DD on a partial and something soft on a miss?
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Aug 21, 2018 18:45
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