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Strom Cuzewon
Jul 1, 2010

Sea Lily posted:

Yeah I've read that over twice and it helps me understand the game as a whole but I feel like I'm missing something about the nitty gritty bits like moment to moment GM moves and handling shifting the focus around in combat

Spin it like an action movie - you cut to a player, they do one badass thing, which could be one move (decapitating the Duke de Pomme Frite) or could be a couple (freeing the Lady E'Clair from her restraints, swinging across with her to the pirate ship and kicking the captain into the sea) and then move to the next.

Also don't be afraid to split the party - being able to interject a "meanwhile..." Is a great way to keep the tension high, but also gives you a bit of breathing space to figure out what to do next.

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Shanty
Nov 7, 2005

I Love Dogs
I'm running a DW session this week, and thought I'd do a halloween theme. The players are trapped in the middle of a spooky temple anyway, and their source of friendly magical light is about to disappear on his spooked pegasus. What better way to theme the session than a colourful custom move? I was hoping the thread would help me design it. Here's what I've got so far:

Spooked! 🎃🦇👻
When something spooky surprises you, decide whether this scares you or not. If it does, tell the GM why and mark XP. Before taking any direct action against the source of your fear, roll +CON to overcome your terror. ✴On a hit you may carry on (but any rolls made are still at -1). ✴On a 7-9 also choose one:
  • You’ll need someone else’s help.
  • You'll become paralyzed with fear for a few crucial moments afterwards.
  • Your nerves fray further. Mark sick.

I sort of dislike custom moves that are just a reskin of Defy Danger, but I want to give players an option to roll anyway. The whole "if you do, mark XP" seems pretty tried and true (not by me, though) and the idea of offering players a treat seems appropriate. The roll... I'm not 100% happy about. I could just leave it as "ur scared" and that naturally triggers Defy Danger or other GM moves. That just leaves the move a little... bloodless.

I also don't like things that make all players roll simultaneously, so I don't want this to trigger for everyone when a ghostly goblin leaps out at the party. The idea is that I'll only surprise one person and their reaction will warn the rest of the party. This will be tough to regulate once the black witch's cat is out of the bag, though. So I'd like to do something about the wording of the trigger.
I could have it be "when something scares you stiff" and reveal it from play start? Or at the first spooky happening?

Glazius
Jul 22, 2007

Hail all those who are able,
any mouse can,
any mouse will,
but the Guard prevail.

Clapping Larry
Ghost Lines had a pretty solid terror move.

quote:

When you steel yourself against injury, duress, or supernatural horrors, choose an action below that you hope you don’t do, and roll+steel. On a 10+, you do none of them. On a 7-9, you do one you didn’t pick, GM chooses. On a miss, it’s the one you don’t want.
  • Freeze up, leave myself wide open.
  • Panic, disengage, flee.
  • Collapse, let go, give up.
  • Rage, lose control, do unintended harm.
  • Suffer more trauma or harm.

"Trauma" was a separate mental harm track. You could probably replace it with a mental debility.

Shanty
Nov 7, 2005

I Love Dogs
In the end I went with

quote:

Spooked! 🎃🦇👻
When something spooky in the Temple of the Nightwings scares you senseless, tell the GM why it scares you and mark XP. Before taking any direct action against the source of your fear, roll +CON to overcome your terror. ✴On a hit you may carry on, but any rolls made are at -1. ✴On a 7-9 also choose one:
  • You can’t do it alone.
  • You manage it, but become paralyzed with fear for a few crucial moments afterwards.
  • Your nerves fray further. Mark sick.
Made the trigger a little more location specific so we're not triggering it in future (the temple imploded at session end).

Worked as intended, players love XP and character development, so they got spooked by a few different things. I couldn't pop too many skeletons out of closets at them, so they were sort of limited to getting spooked by existing enemies and each other. One player kept acing his con rolls and killing stuff he was terrified of, so that was an unexpected outcome. Good catalyst for bond evolution, though. The ranger cast Guidance for the first time and nailed the description, so now that spell terrifies half the party going forward, also a bonus.
Good session in general. The Ranger taking God Amidst the wastes gave some great world building, and when I asked for input for a new faction we ended up with a caste-based society of phrenomancers, which, come on.

e: included full move text

Shanty fucked around with this message at 10:41 on Oct 29, 2018

Pollyanna
Mar 5, 2005

Milk's on them.


We’re a good 5~6 sessions in now, and I feel like I’m understanding the system, especially fronts and dangers, less and less. For the most part, I’ve been kinda loosely following the portents and dangers in my adventure front, but I haven’t been sticking very closely to the rules as written, and have just kind of been winging it. I find it a lot harder to tie into the GM moves as opposed to letting the adventure unfold as one would, I often find myself at a loss for words (“what the hell happens next?”), and I have a hard time coming up with interesting NPCs.

The portents advance kind of arbitrarily, where the events involved still happen but not necessarily with the players’ involvement - for example, I revealed a bunch of monsters setting up an upcoming portent during a fight with cultists, but it just didn’t feel like it had much punch or anything compelling about it. Plus, it advanced without the players getting a chance to stop it - is that wrong? I’ve also been oddly dead set on accomplishing a particular portent, such that the cultist force simply tried a different tactic when their original plan failed, and the players didn’t end up doing what was necessary to prevent that tactic from working (i.e. went to the woods away from the village to cast a ritual while the cultists were hiding in the village). Was that unfair? Did I cheat or act like an rear end in a top hat GM?

The more I GM, the less confident I am in my ability to do it. Doesn’t help that we play after some seriously tiring days at work, too...

Glazius
Jul 22, 2007

Hail all those who are able,
any mouse can,
any mouse will,
but the Guard prevail.

Clapping Larry

Pollyanna posted:

We’re a good 5~6 sessions in now, and I feel like I’m understanding the system, especially fronts and dangers, less and less. For the most part, I’ve been kinda loosely following the portents and dangers in my adventure front, but I haven’t been sticking very closely to the rules as written, and have just kind of been winging it. I find it a lot harder to tie into the GM moves as opposed to letting the adventure unfold as one would, I often find myself at a loss for words (“what the hell happens next?”), and I have a hard time coming up with interesting NPCs.

The portents advance kind of arbitrarily, where the events involved still happen but not necessarily with the players’ involvement - for example, I revealed a bunch of monsters setting up an upcoming portent during a fight with cultists, but it just didn’t feel like it had much punch or anything compelling about it. Plus, it advanced without the players getting a chance to stop it - is that wrong? I’ve also been oddly dead set on accomplishing a particular portent, such that the cultist force simply tried a different tactic when their original plan failed, and the players didn’t end up doing what was necessary to prevent that tactic from working (i.e. went to the woods away from the village to cast a ritual while the cultists were hiding in the village). Was that unfair? Did I cheat or act like an rear end in a top hat GM?

The more I GM, the less confident I am in my ability to do it. Doesn’t help that we play after some seriously tiring days at work, too...

This is what's killing you more than anything. PbtA is a game that doesn't demand too much prep, but it does demand that you're in good shape when it's ticking over. Is "after a full day's work" the only available time? Can you take a little nap or something first?

Anyway, all is not lost, here are some things to consider:

Players ignoring portents isn't necessarily bad. If they don't care about what's going on yet, things will just keep escalating until they do.

Doom doesn't have to go through portents, necessarily. Ultimately you should give players a good, clear chance to stop a doom if they want! But the danger's still going to be moving even if the PCs respond decisively to a portent, as long as the PCs don't annihilate it entirely.

There's a reason the portents came to mind first. When the danger does something else than the portent it had planned, ask yourself "why didn't it do it this way in the first place?" Answers can include, but are not limited to:
  • this way is going to leave large, obvious clues
  • this way is going to be noticeably less effective
  • this way is easier for the PCs to counter or stop outright
Also somebody in another forum lamented how tough it was going to be to make Dante in D&D, and I dunno about that, but at least I can do this. Comments welcome.

Ilor
Feb 2, 2008

That's a crit.
OK, a couple of things here:

First, engaging portents/dooms: Here's the trick to making portents/dooms that will engage your players - they need to engage your players. Not the characters; the players. It's all well and fine to reveal portents about the fall of the Cleric's temple, but if the Cleric's player just wants to kill monsters and take their stuff, she is gonna ignore those hints until the cows come home. So figure out what makes your players tick. Observe which parts of the setting they gravitate towards, and do more of that.

Failing that, threaten the things the players care about. OK, so your Cleric's player is lovely at role-play doesn't give a gently caress about the fall of the faith's temple from an RP perspective; will she care once spells stop being reliable? Or when she stops getting spells all together? Remember, take away their stuff is a valid MC move when people are looking to you to say something. So is present an opportunity, with a cost. Yeah, ordinarily you can be a faith-based spell-casting machine, but you need to deal with this problem first. And who knows, maybe fixing this problem will bring you the god's favor in some tangible way. Still wanna ignore this?

Obviously you don't want to be a dick about it, but putting the PCs in lovely situations and watching how they jump is exactly the spirit behind "find where they're not in control; push there."

Next, interesting NPCs: here's the trick to making interesting NPCs - they have to interact in ways the players find engaging. Not the characters; the players. Who rises to the insult? Who responds well to flattery? Who appreciates straight-talk? Who likes to be flirted with? Who likes a good pun?

Failing that, give each NPC you introduce one physical identifier, one speech oddity (accent, catch-phrase, mode of address), and one quirk. "So the Captain of the Queen's Guard is a guy named Sir Kraetos. He wears an intricately-embroidered, burgundy velvet eye-patch over his left eye - the embroidery is said to have been done by the Queen herself. Sir Kraetos is a gentleman's gentleman, and is unfailingly polite in his speech. An unparalleled swordsman, he is also rumored to be a hard-core masochist." Boom, now you've got an NPC that's fun to play and can interact with the PCs in a variety of circumstances. He could easily be either an ally or a foil - or both, if you're making good use of PC-NPC-PC triangles. You don't even have to decide what makes him tick right away; the important part is that you introduce him to the PCs and make interactions with him memorable.

As an example, I introduced an NPC to the players in my BitD game, a Tycherosi (i.e. part demon) sculptor with a serious case of the Innsmouth: bulging eyes set too far apart, a wide and down-turned mouth, thinning scraggly hair, and a propensity for gulping. When the players completed the job for which he employed them, I idly mentioned that he offered them salt-water tea. And I'll be damned if one of the players (who has a love of all things weird) didn't latch onto that, deciding on a whim that his character had acquired a taste for salt-water tea. Now this NPC - who was initially crafted simply to give the appropriate flavor to a score - has become a recurring character.

In general, PbtA games all live by the same maxim - whatever your players latch onto, go with that.

Pollyanna
Mar 5, 2005

Milk's on them.


...yeah. I think what happened is that I started putting advancement of the fronts over riffing off of the players, and where they wanted the game to go. Previous one-offs of Dungeon World, and the best sessions we’ve had so far, have been when I’ve moved away from “ok what do my dangers and people want to do, in that case I need to make X happen” and let the players decide where to go and how to advance. One-offs were great for this since I had no established fronts and dangers to try and play as, no pre-existing assumptions, so it was literally just “ok Paladin, what do you want to do? what was your order like? ok well this defector just showed up wyd” for all the players, and I would react based on what they did.

In that case, when the players went to do the ritual in the woods, the main point of entry for the cultists’ influence on the world should’ve been there and as a explicit result of what they learned during the ritual, rather than happening in the village because I already decided that was the case.

I think I’m somehow overpreparing, or at least making more assumptions than I should. From now on, I’m going to be reactive, and let the players drive the progress of the game and what they want to dig into. My role will be to bring up things that are relevant to their interests, and the best way to do that is to work directly off of what they have already done.

Ilor
Feb 2, 2008

That's a crit.
Well, you need to be careful about going too far in that direction too. "What are you guys doing?" is a terrible way to start a session unless you have really good players who have identified goals and crafted schemes for themselves - and those kinds of players are rare as hens' teeth.

Remember, the best situation in which to put the PCs is one which they cannot simply ignore! So sometimes it's good to take a look at your portents/dooms and come up with an immediate situation based on that info.

So for example, if one of the ticks of your ongoing Cultist plot is something like "the Cult starts abducting people for sacrifice," your dark portent isn't "some people have disappeared around town, what do you do?" - because the answer might very well be, "Nothing, gently caress those filthy townsfolk." Instead, you make the situation more immediate: "A guy comes busting into the tavern, saying that he just saw someone jumped and abducted on the street. From his description, the victim sounds an awful lot like your hireling Aelfrith, whom you sent to go take care of the horses like twenty minutes ago and who hasn't returned. What do you do?"

Or even more immediate: "On your way to the outhouse to relieve yourself from all the ale you've been drinking, you hear the sounds of a scuffle coming from the stables. Suddenly, you hear a crash and a thump and your hireling Aelfrith comes staggering out, bleeding from a head wound. Hot on his heels are three masked thugs - what do you do?"

Or even more immediate: "So you're in the outhouse, relieving yourself from all the ale you've been drinking. Trews around your ankles, imagine your surprise when the outhouse door is wrenched open and a couple of masked men with truncheons wade in swinging. What do you do?"

All of these reveal an unwelcome truth: the Cult is abducting people. But they do it in ways that put the action front-and-center, because that's what the game is really about. You'll also note that in setting up these situations, I've made liberal use of MC moves like separate them and put someone in a spot - it's totally fair game for you to single out a PC when doing this kind of thing, especially in circumstances where the PCs might reasonably be expected not to be bound together at the hip. And this is fun in-game, because depending on the first PC's actions, you can start roping in the other players with stuff like, "So you're enjoying your third mead when you hear [first PC]'s cries for help from outside. Keeping in mind that the bouncer still has your weapons, what do you do?"

Does this make sense?

whydirt
Apr 18, 2001


Gaz Posting Brigade :c00lbert:
I've updated The Gourmet to hopefully be a bit better. I changed up the background moves to hopefully be a bit more flavorful than just generic stat substitutions.

I'd like to come up with 1-2 more Level 6+ moves and then I'll be ready to format it into an actual playbook.

kaffo
Jun 20, 2017

If it's broken, it's probably my fault
So I had a bit of a dip in my campaign where I felt I lost the... fire in my games, and I really couldn't put my finger on it
I felt like I was doing stuff the same, players were saying they were having fun, but at the table there just wasn't that same energy which got both me and them really going... something was missing

Well this week I got it back. I left last week on a cliff hanger where the lookout got a partial success on his roll, so something was coming but he didn't have time to warn the party. I told him it was lots of small noises in the bushes and left it there

Mid week I had the idea of kung fu pygmies and decided I was going to go full ham it up for the session. I got out my big rear end speakers and waited for everyone to sit down, then started blasting out drums, bells and whistles then described how they got surrounded by literally dozens of them
The paladin got about as far as "oh shi-" before they got charged and they got really into the fight. It was great fun. Followed that up with the cleric failing a cure light wounds which let me use a custom GM move of "Show off another team's stuff" by doing a drive by in a demon powered air ship. They were in awe

I got my groove back :dance:

Shanty
Nov 7, 2005

I Love Dogs

kaffo posted:

So I had a bit of a dip in my campaign where I felt I lost the... fire in my games, and I really couldn't put my finger on it
I felt like I was doing stuff the same, players were saying they were having fun, but at the table there just wasn't that same energy which got both me and them really going... something was missing

Well this week I got it back. I left last week on a cliff hanger where the lookout got a partial success on his roll, so something was coming but he didn't have time to warn the party. I told him it was lots of small noises in the bushes and left it there

Mid week I had the idea of kung fu pygmies and decided I was going to go full ham it up for the session. I got out my big rear end speakers and waited for everyone to sit down, then started blasting out drums, bells and whistles then described how they got surrounded by literally dozens of them
The paladin got about as far as "oh shi-" before they got charged and they got really into the fight. It was great fun. Followed that up with the cleric failing a cure light wounds which let me use a custom GM move of "Show off another team's stuff" by doing a drive by in a demon powered air ship. They were in awe

I got my groove back :dance:

I just had a session where the players were massively outnumbered and that just works so well in Dungeon World. The wizard ended up holding the guards off with the threat of a fireball, and the switch from "combat" to "tense standoff" was so smooth. In D&D you would have had to end combat and sort of take control of the narrative by GM fiat. In DW, suddenly triggering parley in the middle of a tense situation because poo poo's getting too real just flows nicely.
It actually felt a lot like one of those moments in a MGS game where you've hosed up and triggered the alert, but fight your way out of the first response team and then hide until you've evaded the search team.

Pollyanna
Mar 5, 2005

Milk's on them.


Ilor posted:

Well, you need to be careful about going too far in that direction too. "What are you guys doing?" is a terrible way to start a session unless you have really good players who have identified goals and crafted schemes for themselves - and those kinds of players are rare as hens' teeth.

Remember, the best situation in which to put the PCs is one which they cannot simply ignore! So sometimes it's good to take a look at your portents/dooms and come up with an immediate situation based on that info.

So for example, if one of the ticks of your ongoing Cultist plot is something like "the Cult starts abducting people for sacrifice," your dark portent isn't "some people have disappeared around town, what do you do?" - because the answer might very well be, "Nothing, gently caress those filthy townsfolk." Instead, you make the situation more immediate: "A guy comes busting into the tavern, saying that he just saw someone jumped and abducted on the street. From his description, the victim sounds an awful lot like your hireling Aelfrith, whom you sent to go take care of the horses like twenty minutes ago and who hasn't returned. What do you do?"

Or even more immediate: "On your way to the outhouse to relieve yourself from all the ale you've been drinking, you hear the sounds of a scuffle coming from the stables. Suddenly, you hear a crash and a thump and your hireling Aelfrith comes staggering out, bleeding from a head wound. Hot on his heels are three masked thugs - what do you do?"

Or even more immediate: "So you're in the outhouse, relieving yourself from all the ale you've been drinking. Trews around your ankles, imagine your surprise when the outhouse door is wrenched open and a couple of masked men with truncheons wade in swinging. What do you do?"

All of these reveal an unwelcome truth: the Cult is abducting people. But they do it in ways that put the action front-and-center, because that's what the game is really about. You'll also note that in setting up these situations, I've made liberal use of MC moves like separate them and put someone in a spot - it's totally fair game for you to single out a PC when doing this kind of thing, especially in circumstances where the PCs might reasonably be expected not to be bound together at the hip. And this is fun in-game, because depending on the first PC's actions, you can start roping in the other players with stuff like, "So you're enjoying your third mead when you hear [first PC]'s cries for help from outside. Keeping in mind that the bouncer still has your weapons, what do you do?"

Does this make sense?

Yeah, I getcha - I’m not intending on not giving the players something to react to, just to make that reaction and flow less one-sided and make the action directly relevant to what the players actually do. I haven’t been asking questions and using the answers recently...

We ended up canceling last night cause us players were just so drat tired, though. I really do think that the game suffers when we have to do it after a long day...wish we could do it Saturday instead, but I don’t wanna take up people’s weekends.

Lord_Hambrose
Nov 21, 2008

*a foul hooting fills the air*



Pollyanna posted:

We ended up canceling last night cause us players were just so drat tired, though. I really do think that the game suffers when we have to do it after a long day...wish we could do it Saturday instead, but I don’t wanna take up people’s weekends.

Yeah, this is a problem I used to run into all the time when I was younger. Playing when you can play is great, but if you really want role playing to happen the way you want, do what you want. If it is worth people's time, they will make time. Even on the weekend.

I work retail so my free time is opposite all the people I normally played with for 20 years, but we can still manage one Saturday a month. It can be tough to not play with all your old friends each time, but games are always better when people are genuinely invested.

kaffo
Jun 20, 2017

If it's broken, it's probably my fault

Shanty posted:

I just had a session where the players were massively outnumbered and that just works so well in Dungeon World. The wizard ended up holding the guards off with the threat of a fireball, and the switch from "combat" to "tense standoff" was so smooth. In D&D you would have had to end combat and sort of take control of the narrative by GM fiat. In DW, suddenly triggering parley in the middle of a tense situation because poo poo's getting too real just flows nicely.
It actually felt a lot like one of those moments in a MGS game where you've hosed up and triggered the alert, but fight your way out of the first response team and then hide until you've evaded the search team.

So true, DW is fantastic is this, especially the seemless flow from combat to "we are getting outta here". It really shows how bad traditional initive based systems are at handling the situation

Overemotional Robot
Mar 16, 2008

Robotor just hasn't been the same since 9/11...
Anyone know of resources to help me keep campaign notes?

Worlds of Adventure has some of this; a threat tracker, a monster stat sheet, and a general note sheet, but I'm looking for something else to keep me organized.

Glazius
Jul 22, 2007

Hail all those who are able,
any mouse can,
any mouse will,
but the Guard prevail.

Clapping Larry

Overemotional Robot posted:

Anyone know of resources to help me keep campaign notes?

Worlds of Adventure has some of this; a threat tracker, a monster stat sheet, and a general note sheet, but I'm looking for something else to keep me organized.

The GM sheets in the play packet aren't doing it for you? Or were you looking for something electronic?

Overemotional Robot
Mar 16, 2008

Robotor just hasn't been the same since 9/11...
I've got those, just looking for something more.. concise? Better organized? Having trouble describing exactly what I'm looking for. I was thinking something that lets me keep track of player notes as well. Just wondering if anyone knows anything like that. Yes, digital as well.


This is what I'm working with at the moment: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1wvq2156BGUXUACL6jAeERC6szx9MKYOo/view?usp=sharing

Overemotional Robot fucked around with this message at 20:57 on Nov 24, 2018

Glazius
Jul 22, 2007

Hail all those who are able,
any mouse can,
any mouse will,
but the Guard prevail.

Clapping Larry

Overemotional Robot posted:

I've got those, just looking for something more.. concise? Better organized? Having trouble describing exactly what I'm looking for. I was thinking something that lets me keep track of player notes as well. Just wondering if anyone knows anything like that. Yes, digital as well.


This is what I'm working with at the moment: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1wvq2156BGUXUACL6jAeERC6szx9MKYOo/view?usp=sharing

Hm! Yeah, I see what you mean. The basic ones aren't really that useful, are they?

Did some googling around, found this which is kind of an autofill spreadsheet for managing dangers, NPCs, and places. You'll need to make a copy for your own use but it'll autopop some common things for you.

Overemotional Robot
Mar 16, 2008

Robotor just hasn't been the same since 9/11...
I have no idea where you found that, but thank you! That's super useful! This is going to make generating things so much faster.

Glazius
Jul 22, 2007

Hail all those who are able,
any mouse can,
any mouse will,
but the Guard prevail.

Clapping Larry

Overemotional Robot posted:

I have no idea where you found that, but thank you! That's super useful! This is going to make generating things so much faster.

I found an aggregator page here, but it seems to be down at the moment. Google's cache or the wayback machine should still be good for it, though.

Glazius
Jul 22, 2007

Hail all those who are able,
any mouse can,
any mouse will,
but the Guard prevail.

Clapping Larry
A while ago, on another forum, somebody asked how they'd do a game where everybody was a sworn knight of some order or in charge of some department at a wizard school. Everybody just uses the same playbook? Well, no, I said. If you wanted to do it with Dungeon World your best bet would be to make a compendium class that reflected that additional responsibility, start with varied playbooks and the compendium class opener at level 2.

Today, somebody was speculating about running a game where everybody was a merchant, and I was like, hmm, what would that be like as a compendium class?

About like this, with extensive, extensive apologies to gnome7, Inverse World, and the Collector.

Comments welcome.

Infinite Oregano
Dec 31, 2007

I'm going to make my friends eat infinite oregano and they'll have to do it because the recipe says so!
That looks really interesting, also fun in general because it gives you something to throw loot at.

However now I'm curious too as to how this wizard-ish compendium class worked!

Glazius
Jul 22, 2007

Hail all those who are able,
any mouse can,
any mouse will,
but the Guard prevail.

Clapping Larry

Infinite Oregano posted:

That looks really interesting, also fun in general because it gives you something to throw loot at.

However now I'm curious too as to how this wizard-ish compendium class worked!

Here's the Department Chair, which totally existed outside the realm of theory before you made that post. Comments still welcome.

whydirt
Apr 18, 2001


Gaz Posting Brigade :c00lbert:
What's the reason behind Defend dealing flat damage equal to your level in place of your vanilla damage die? It seems out of place in a game where very few things directly scale off your level.

Shanty
Nov 7, 2005

I Love Dogs

whydirt posted:

What's the reason behind Defend dealing flat damage equal to your level in place of your vanilla damage die? It seems out of place in a game where very few things directly scale off your level.

I guess to make it more dependable and maybe simplify it a bit. It can be a bit of a speed bump in combat as it is, I can only see that getting worse if you had to risk assess your damage die every time you spend hold.

What's the thread's take on whether weapon tags, forwards to damage etc apply to that, by the way?

Glazius
Jul 22, 2007

Hail all those who are able,
any mouse can,
any mouse will,
but the Guard prevail.

Clapping Larry

whydirt posted:

I've updated The Gourmet to hopefully be a bit better. I changed up the background moves to hopefully be a bit more flavorful than just generic stat substitutions.

I'd like to come up with 1-2 more Level 6+ moves and then I'll be ready to format it into an actual playbook.

Hm. If you're still thinking about 6+ stuff? "When you make camp outside of a steading, tell the GM either what magical ingredient grows somewhere nearby or how you can recognize it when you find it. The GM will tell you the other half, and the risks involved in procuring it intact."

Also it feels like The Spectacle Fighter slipped under the radar a little? It's a compendium class for featuring Dante from the Devil May Cry series.

Shanty posted:

I guess to make it more dependable and maybe simplify it a bit. It can be a bit of a speed bump in combat as it is, I can only see that getting worse if you had to risk assess your damage die every time you spend hold.

What's the thread's take on whether weapon tags, forwards to damage etc apply to that, by the way?

Weapon tags apply if you use the weapon. You know, in the fiction. Forwards to damage also apply, unless it specifically says forward to what.

Wish I could speak as to why Defend deals 1 hp/level. From what I can tell that option was there pretty much from the beginning and nobody ever significantly questioned it?

Glazius fucked around with this message at 04:47 on Dec 1, 2018

mllaneza
Apr 28, 2007

Veteran, Bermuda Triangle Expeditionary Force, 1993-1952




Glazius posted:

Here's the Department Chair, which totally existed outside the realm of theory before you made that post. Comments still welcome.

The whole Resilience, Loyalty, Benefits, Hungers set of mechanics is giving me itches in game design-y places that I need to scratch now. Thank you.

Glazius
Jul 22, 2007

Hail all those who are able,
any mouse can,
any mouse will,
but the Guard prevail.

Clapping Larry

mllaneza posted:

The whole Resilience, Loyalty, Benefits, Hungers set of mechanics is giving me itches in game design-y places that I need to scratch now. Thank you.

They're an adaptation of-- well, first is the Hardholder's basic stuff from Apocalypse World, but also something from a hack called Pirate World, which was kickstarted and distributed but never officially released as far as I could tell. Which is a shame, it's pretty good.

Overemotional Robot
Mar 16, 2008

Robotor just hasn't been the same since 9/11...

Glazius posted:

kickstarted and distributed but never officially released as far as I could tell.

Yep, dude ran off with the money. I had a compendium class in there, too.

Infinite Oregano
Dec 31, 2007

I'm going to make my friends eat infinite oregano and they'll have to do it because the recipe says so!
If they ran off with the money, what's the legality of distributing the never publicly available Pirate World stuff?

Glazius
Jul 22, 2007

Hail all those who are able,
any mouse can,
any mouse will,
but the Guard prevail.

Clapping Larry

Overemotional Robot posted:

Yep, dude ran off with the money. I had a compendium class in there, too.

Infinite Oregano posted:

If they ran off with the money, what's the legality of distributing the never publicly available Pirate World stuff?

Well, seeing as how the copy I have says it's CC-BY licensed, here's a link to the in-progress v1.2 of Pirate World, by Iain Chantler. I don't know if a later version exists but all the links in the PDF have been killed by the hosting provider, so aside from asking random strangers on the internet there is no way to check.

Overemotional Robot
Mar 16, 2008

Robotor just hasn't been the same since 9/11...

Infinite Oregano posted:

If they ran off with the money, what's the legality of distributing the never publicly available Pirate World stuff?

I know there was an effort by someone afterwards to save the project, but that's been quiet for a long time

I have all the files saved on my G-drive that were released.

Golden Bee
Dec 24, 2009

I came here to chew bubblegum and quote 'They Live', and I'm... at an impasse.
I mean you could run Pigsmoke. https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/221386/Pigsmoke-A-Roleplaying-Game-of-Sorcerous-Academia

Pollyanna
Mar 5, 2005

Milk's on them.


I think I’m gonna take advantage of the former-cultists-turned-grad-students and make them into postdocs for the party Wizard. Vaporwave College. :science101: “You cone back from your excursion to see that your understudies have started setting up teaching huts and labs with “College of _____” written on them. wyd”

What do I do if the Wizard provides a golden opportunity to bring them into the ongoing adventure? Would they only be followers, or become part of a front?

Glazius
Jul 22, 2007

Hail all those who are able,
any mouse can,
any mouse will,
but the Guard prevail.

Clapping Larry

Pollyanna posted:

I think I’m gonna take advantage of the former-cultists-turned-grad-students and make them into postdocs for the party Wizard. Vaporwave College. :science101: “You cone back from your excursion to see that your understudies have started setting up teaching huts and labs with “College of _____” written on them. wyd”

What do I do if the Wizard provides a golden opportunity to bring them into the ongoing adventure? Would they only be followers, or become part of a front?

Apocalypse World suggested keeping a "home front" for tracking all the friendly NPCs and how they all have knives out for each other when no one's looking.

The front doesn't necessarily need portents or dooms; tracking the important people, listing "moves" to prompt your actions as a GM, and listing stakes questions are all good uses for it.

Overemotional Robot
Mar 16, 2008

Robotor just hasn't been the same since 9/11...

Glazius posted:

here's a link to the in-progress v1.2 of Pirate World, by Iain Chantler. I don't know if a later version exists but all the links in the PDF have been killed by the hosting provider, so aside from asking random strangers on the internet there is no way to check.

People are probably not that interested, but Owen Briggs and I revamped my Ancient Mariner background:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1r3y81HsNRzmroMc2a7tVLHax4fYtrlNm7YCdaN9DcjU/edit?usp=sharing

Also, holy crap, that's my background! I didn't think it ever got used. Cool!

mllaneza
Apr 28, 2007

Veteran, Bermuda Triangle Expeditionary Force, 1993-1952




Infinite Oregano posted:

If they ran off with the money, what's the legality of distributing the never publicly available Pirate World stuff?

Motherfucker owes me a hardback, he's welcome to sue. Just be a backer, he'll never do it, he'd get hurt in court.

Infinite Oregano
Dec 31, 2007

I'm going to make my friends eat infinite oregano and they'll have to do it because the recipe says so!
Having been thinking about the Deck of Many Things recently (and implementing it in DW, and the different ways to go about it, etc.), I was struck with the thought about how would one do the Rod of Wonder in DW.

I mean you could just play it straight and interpret the effects through the lens of narrative, or alternatively you could maybe spin something more DWish?

What are your thoughts?

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Whybird
Aug 2, 2009

Phaiston have long avoided the tightly competetive defence sector, but the IRDA Act 2052 has given us the freedom we need to bring out something really special.

https://team-robostar.itch.io/robostar


Nap Ghost
I wrote up some rules for a Wand of Wonder in almost my first post in this thread:

Whybird posted:

I don't think I've seen one of the most iconic pieces of D&D treasure written up for Dungeon World yet; I've had a go at putting it together myself.

The Wand of Wonder

The Wand of Wonder begins the game with a number of charges, which the GM will determine.


When you wave the Wand of Wonder and hope that it will solve a problem you are facing, expend a charge, roll 2d6 and do not add anything.

On a 10+, something unexpected happens to solve the problem, though it's likely that it won't solve it in the way you were expecting.
On a 7-9, something unexpected happens. It solves the problem, but creates a new problem of its own.
On a 6-, the wand makes things worse.


When you wave the Wand of Wonder just to see what it does, expend a charge, roll 2d6 and do not add anything.

On a 10+, something unexpected and obviously beneficial happens, like lighting your weapon on fire or giving you wings made of fallen leaves. Take +1 forward when you use it to your advantage.
On a 7-9, something unexpected happens, but you will have to figure out a way to make it beneficial. If you figure out a way to use it to your advantage, take +1 forward when you use it.
On a 6-, a calamity occurs. It might be an immediate physical threat, a debility, or an entirely new Front with its own Dark Fate and Grim Portents.


When you draw the Wand of Wonder in a settled area and threaten to unleash its power, roll 2d6+CHA.

On a 10+, refraining from waving the Wand of Wonder counts as leverage over anybody with a vested interest in avoiding a swathe of calamity befalling your surroundings.
On a 7-9, they don't believe you and you are forced to unleash a charge from the Wand of Wonder in to prove you mean business. If the area still stands after, you count as having leverage as per a 10+ roll.
On a 6-, or if you will not expend a charge to prove your intent on a 7-9 roll, they decide the best way to keep their home safe is to take the Wand from you by force.

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