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Ran my first session of this (first time DMing any system) last week, and it's fantastically fun. One thing I'm concerned about is that my major moments to push the story forward come from making moves when they roll poorly, which makes it feel like I'm emphasising how bad they are at being adventurers. The first scene went really well - had them tied up and being interrogated in a hostile city, which lead to a great chaotic fight scene with poorly-aimed spells, throwing chairs, kicking people out of windows - but then it started feeling a bit Benny Hill. Go to gather supplies -> get discovered by authorities -> mad chase through streets -> teleport into sewers -> land on Otyugh etc. They all had a blast, and I love how DW gives you those moments of "I tried to do [X], but missed, which meant that [terrible thing worse than X] happened, so I had to...." but I'm worried I'm overdoing it.
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Jan 24, 2017 17:07
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Excellent advice, I shall try those techniques tomorrow. ImpactVector posted:
I was going almost obnoxiously terse on failed spout/discern - "it's a genie. looks pissed" - gives a strong signal that I'm planning shenanigans, so they're all on their toes, but doesn't give too much away. Although my players have already tried to chug mysterious bottles carved with even more mysterious runes, so maybe I should spell things out a bit more for them.
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Jan 26, 2017 21:54
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I have the reverse problem, the group I'm DMing for has a DnD guy who really really wants initiative. And attack rolls for enemies. (Although that was largely my fault for how I was handling groups of enemies. I've now been treating groups as their own thing, instead of three things, and it's been much better)Nemesis Of Moles posted:I made a new playbook, The Hexer, which is basically just a Witcher with the serial numbers filed off. I'm pretty proud of the way I handled oils and potions (like spells, prepared on rests and with a new one learned every level), and it comes with a new death move That's pretty neat, but the serial numbers are very much left on. I do like the oils though.
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Feb 17, 2017 14:29
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Nemesis Of Moles posted:I never said I was good at filing off serial numbers One of my players is using The Slayer that forums user Boing and I made, also broadly based on the Witcher, and I really want to slam The Hexer moves into that One of the things we struggled with was the preparation side of witchering, and our bodge of Readiness never felt very satisfying, so the oils and potions would be a pretty sweet substitute for that. Strom Cuzewon fucked around with this message at 19:45 on Feb 17, 2017 |
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Feb 17, 2017 19:42
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Glad you like it though!
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ShineDog posted:Any bender style playbooks? I've got some players looking to be kind of water and earth bender type characters in a game starting shortly. There's the Channeler from Grim World - you pick an element and various tags (blast, area, hazard, wall) to do poo poo like flaming armour, ice puddles, rock walls. It's great fun. And on a 7-9 one of the DM options is to have the spell go off as normal, but change the element to whatever the hell you like. With hilarious results.
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Mar 14, 2017 20:51
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Evil Mastermind posted:I know this is from a few days ago, but you can get the Elementalist as part of this PWYW deal: http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/129989/Johnstones-Dungeon-World-Character-Classes I think I'd recommend The Channeler over The Elementalist. The Elementalist seems overly detailed in having to keep track of all the commands, but weirdly vague as to how you actually do stuff with it. To me it looks like a simple "I throw a fireball" needs both the Create and Move commands, plus the advanced move to make it actually do a sensible amount of damage. I much prefer The Channeler's approach of choosing a pair of tags that describe the effects of the spell. It also gives you a basic move that's explicitly "you can do minor cool poo poo with your element", something that I don't think needs the level of detail The Elementalist has. My Witch player got a bit tired of just shooting spells at people, so I let her change to The Channeler - there was a 6 month gap between campaign chapters where she turned into a swan and went on a spirit quest to the south pole, and traded away her eye for mystical knowledge. So now she has an elemental portal under her eyepatch. I was expecting her to shoot ice beams or fire balls. Instead, she graphically described how she slowly and painfully pulled a giant spear of ice out of her eye socket and stabbed a dude with it  She also set her broom stick on fire and hurled it into shark infested waters. My players are not good at thinking ahead.
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Mar 20, 2017 16:45
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There's Fellowship which is essentially a simplified version of DW. It condenses the stats down and just uses modifiers. It also does away with hit-points - you take damage to one of your stats, and once all stats are damaged you're out. Works the same way with enemies - a giant spider would have stats like "Climbs on walls, Spits Poison, Spins Webs" and you'd have to take out each stat in turn to defeat them. Was quite cool in giving you the feel of systematically overcoming your enemies' abilities, but I did kind of miss being able to straight up stab a dude.
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Mar 21, 2017 16:25
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I really like the Dashing Hero, except for the Lover in Every Port move. Because whenever you enter a civilised area, barring any sort of sudden emergency, the plot pauses and the game becomes about the Dashing Hero for a while. I've been able to work them into the plot so far ("ahhh it's your old-flame, the trader in magic weapons and plot relevant artefacts") but the nature of the move means it's primarily the Hero who gets to respond and make decisions.
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Mar 29, 2017 21:53
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Arkanomen posted:There already is a "witcher" type class that's about hunting monsters, taking trophies and getting abilities from those. Think it's called monster hunter or something? I'm fairly certain you're thinking of the same class The Slayer (https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B94zELwEwdHsR3JTX1Vaek1FeHc/edit?pli=1) that Boing and I wrote. I think it tries to be too many different things - It's potion chugging witchers, it's mutated half-demons (notice how none of the moves tie into this), it's blue mages who collect sackfuls of severed limbs, but as long as your player has an idea of how they want to play then it's pretty solid. I've been very lucky, my slayer player just instantly got Dungeon World combat, and was doing all the cool dirty fighting and creative maiming right out of the gate. The Bestiary Knowledge and Exorcist moves are pretty great for building the world, especially if your players have an appropriate sense for the mystical. Grisly Trophies is my favourite move (even though its the least Witchery) because it's a way of introducing new toys and equipment to the team without the ball-ache of sending them shopping. Also I really love scribbling little moves on flash cards for my players.
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Mar 30, 2017 23:43
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Sanzuo posted:I'd love to hear or read a play-by-play of a dungeon world session. I feel like I'm missing something crucial in how it is run. I tried running a game for my players and maybe my style is poo poo but they couldn't get into it. They don't have roleplaying background but they have played some D&D and video games. They said they just preferred their game to be crunchy and like to play with meta stats and get treasure and so on. I felt like the narrative style wasn't clicking with them, and whenever I'd ask "what do you do" they'd usually just look at their sheet and resort to hack and slash until they'd win. The trick I find is to always give them something to react to, something that can't just be solved by hacking at it. "The ogre rips the tree out of the ground and hurls it at your head, what do you do?" "The birdman grabs your sword and flies out of reach, what do you do?" "The giant picks up your halfling buddy and hurls him at your head, what do you do?" "The 20 foot tusked sea-hippos are charging your wizard, he'll be squished into a fine pulp - how are you gonna save your mate?" "Whilst your party Head is trying to head off the Head of the Giants, the Giant Head pulls off his giant head and hurls it at your party Head's head - what do you do?"
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Apr 8, 2017 13:51
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Demon_Corsair posted:This is my favorite part of dw. Throwing a problem at the players that the can't just straight murder and having no idea how they will beat it. My favorite was I put them up against a time golem when they were exploring a wizards tower. Couldn't hack and slash it since it could see a few seconds into the future and knew what your attack was going to be. How did they beat it?
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Apr 8, 2017 19:07
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What are some fun things I can do with missing limbs? My Dashing Hero player got his arm sliced off last game (he stuck it through an illusory fish wizard and would have died if our blind necromancer hadn't cut it off with a shovel) and I'm not sure how to balance giving him some consequences while still being fun. He wants to use a multiclass move to take an Artificer move and build a robot arm, but I can't see how the moves allow that without fudging the Gadgets a lot.
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May 9, 2017 09:40
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That's a good shout gnome, I'll suggest that next session and give 'em a quest to travel to the Land of Clockwork Arm Manufacturers. Whybird posted:Yeah, if a character has an artificial arm or whatever you can just bear it in mind whenever you struggle for inspiration on a 6- or a Defy Danger 7-9. He has something like 8 intelligence, I'm going to need a lot of ideas for malfunctions. Part of his Last Breath deal was that Death claimed his arm for himself, so his robot arm will almost certainly become haunted.
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May 9, 2017 20:06
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Roach Warehouse posted:We've just started a game where a friend is playing a suit of armour full of spiders using the golem. Do they get to play normally or do you force them into an Everyone is John type situation?
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Jul 2, 2017 16:26
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ShineDog posted:In this case, the bard writes in a book with magic ink and kind of nudges the truth. In that case his handwriting is really bad. "he stops bleeding from the hoe in his leg" *gets entangled in gardening tools*
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Aug 30, 2017 15:55
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Would it be appropriate to replace Reveal and Unwelcome Truth with Reveal a Target to be Actually a Ghost in this case?
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Sep 21, 2017 21:55
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DW seems particularly sensitive to the number of players you have. When I had a huge cast it was really hard to keep track of everyone, and it kind of devolved into "oh i dodge, oh i dodge again and attack". When I have only 2 or 3 players its a lot easier to handle the fictional positioning, and I have fights that are much more brawly and messy in that way that DW handles really well.
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Apr 20, 2018 23:39
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PupsOfWar posted:hello, lads, ladettes, and binary-nonconforming chums I had the reverse problem, where I would undercook my damage numbers slightly, and end up barely chipping away at any of my players health, especially once armour got involved. And it always felt noticeable (and petty) if I was then piling on some narrative effect as well: "I'm gonna try and roll out the way of all those arrows" *rolls a 3* "okay your pack is too cumbersome and slows your dodge, the arrows turn you into a pincushion, take d6 +3 damage" "with my armour, I take 1 damage" I did chew over the idea of having armour as a stat that you roll like the others, instead of subtracting from damage. It would give an alternative to defy danger and would feel a lot more active than faffing about with damage rolls that end up not doing anything. "what do you do about the giant hail of arrows coming towards you?" "i'm wearing full plate and have a shield the size of car, I don't give a poo poo" *rolls to not give a poo poo* It's specifically DD with Dex that I struggle with - it's so easy to interpret it as a straight up dodge roll, and it becomes kind of a one-note move.
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Apr 22, 2018 11:55
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Pollyanna posted:I like the idea of dealing with spells the same way that Blades in the Sark deals with gear and preparedness - you have X amount of slots or weight, and you can fill those as you need them by declaring what you have during play. In this case, you wouldn’t really prepare specific spells - just spell slots. Every game should steel Blades in the Dark's gear system for anything even remotely resembling an inventory. Gear, spells, potions, caravans, knowledge, childhood friends, remaining limbs/digits.
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Jul 4, 2018 12:19
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I think I'm a bit of an outlier in that I'd like to see a DW that leans a bit more tactical in its combat. It's a phenomenal system for setpieces and running (as in moving) fights, but when it comes to a pitched-rumble it felt a bit lacking. I was never really satisfied with any of my boss-fights. It wouldn't need to go anywhere near actual crunchy combat, an extension of the weapon tags with something like Fellowships monster tags would be enough. Something that gives a bit more structure to the combat so the DM doesn't have to wing it so much for enemy behaviour.
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Jul 24, 2018 10:47
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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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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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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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madadric posted:In addition to this, say that instead of treating it like the "combat game" and "everything else game" when stuff gets dangerous and violent think of it as an action scene instead of a tense sneaking scene or trap dismantling scene. There might be a fight in an action scene, but also an environmental hazard like a burning building or crumbling cavern. Creating situations with a few layers of threat or mystery or challenge can help break the players out of tactical minis mode. All DW players and DMs should be required to watch the Indiana Jones movies before they're allowed to play. And probably the Brendan Fraser version of The Mummy, just to be safe.
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Sep 14, 2018 16:34
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Overemotional Robot posted:Is there a prophecy type move in any playbook? Something where someone sleeps and gets a dream or anything like that? Star Mage has one where they get to read the stars and get a prophecy from the GM. I think of it as the "force the DM to live with the consequences of their improv" move. First time he pulled it on me I mumbled a hasty "oh uh...the priest...Brian the Blessed...he uh...wants to destroy magic" and then had to bullshit some conspiracy for them to investigate that ended up being the bulk of the next 6 sessions. The Templar from GrimWorld also has retroactive prophetic dreams - I think it's just one reroll per day due to dream messages from their deity, which is pretty hilarious when their god sends them warnings about runaway carts or dodgy roof tiles.
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Sep 30, 2018 14:27
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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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Oct 20, 2018 21:39
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GaistHeidegger posted:So one of my groups is back to the Dungeon World saddle and having fun with that again--we've once more run into something that was an issue for us back when we last played a couple of years ago, though. In this case, it is with the fun Star Mage playbook--but effectively what it amounts to is the individual playing the star mage basically takes the 'I have a hammer (folding space) and everything is a nail (try to fold space to solve everything)' Best part of the Star Mage is it's prophecy/read the stars power. When you force the DM to bullshit next session's plot....
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Jan 24, 2019 16:54
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Teonis posted:Question: I’m getting back into DW and was wondering. Is anyone aware of or has made moves for sailing and traveling via ship? Boing posted:Some more progress:
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Nov 8, 2019 19:13
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