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Yeah, I bought the penultimate copy at PAX East. Also got to play a demogame of it finally, which was a ton of fun.
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Mar 26, 2013 01:12
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On a 6-, the future refused to change... You may want something about art. Also, for Charisma, perhaps not just guiding leaders, but convincing anyone to take a particular path other than the one they were destined to choose. Seemingly unimportant people rise to influence history all the time. Something like: CHARISMA - convince someone to chose a path not taken
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Mar 27, 2013 06:02
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For the name of this psychic warrior class - maybe use psi or paranormal instead? Like psi knight for a simple one.
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Apr 6, 2013 06:51
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Man, I wish I'd gotten a handle on Dungeon World before I started running my current monster hunter/final fantasy mashup in FATE. Not that FATE is bad for it, but DW is just about perfect. The Inverse World classes, especially the Mechanic, really give me some ideas on how to make it work. I was thinking of running a PbP of it, but first I'm going to convert it to a DW. I know I'll need some help fixing it up though.
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Apr 14, 2013 19:13
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Maybe something like: Troublemaker When you roll for Outstanding Warrants, you may take the complication Drew the attention of your once-keepers and gain 1 hold, regardless of the result of your roll. You may spend hold 1 for 1 to ask the GM...
Revolutionary When you roll for Outstanding Warrants, you must always take the complication Drew the attention of your once-keepers but gain 3 hold. You may spend hold 1 for 1 to ask the GM...
The lists probably need work.
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Apr 27, 2013 18:54
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Hey I'll playtest some of that.
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Aug 15, 2014 02:59
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Handgun Phonics posted:The biggest problem with Apocalypse World is that someone thought "sex moves" sounded like a good idea. Also, that they should try to sound like a parody of a hardass biker while explaining the rules to the game. djw175 posted:The only take on sex moves I kind of like is Urban Shadows "When you share an intimate moment..." moves since it's not just having sex to activate moves. You can do it on a hug or a kiss or even a heart to heart. Is it that time again? Apparently it's that time again. I don't know what it is, but people just do not understand how the Special Moves in AW work. As soon as they see the word sex, they just immediately freak out. And even people who otherwise get the core PbtA concept immediately forget it. Fiction first. Fiction first. Fiction first. The Special Moves don't trigger off of having sex because they're trying to encourage it in the game. And if you have players who are hooking up in order to trigger the moves, they are objectively not abiding by the core tenets of the game. The Special Moves trigger off of having sex because in this genre, sex happens. The Special Moves trigger off that so that it's not just the usual RPG "I roll to pick up girls" poo poo. They' trigger off sex because it should, for most characters, have real narrative consequences. Look at the Operator's special. They live off their rep. How do you react to people who do wrong by their lovers, even if it's not a serious relationship? Look at the Driver's. They're all about the open road and mobility. Bedding down with someone risks tying them down. Even the Battlebabe's nullification special is about narrative. Obviously the characters wouldn't think in terms of how their move works, but as always, the moves are about fiction. The Hardholder's special is a way to connect their partners to themselves and the community they run. That they can't get that hold on the Battlebabe means something. There's this tendency to look at the Special Moves backwards, as being there to get players to hook up, as dumb bonuses for having sex. But there aren't any AW moves that are supposed to work that way. If you're worried about your players being creepy about sex, then maybe you shouldn't play AW with them. Because with or without the Special Moves, they are going to get creepy about the sex and violence in the game. That's the genre. Those things come up. If anything, the Special Moves at least put enough narrative weight on them to make you think about it a little. When your group decides bringing sex into the game narratively doesn't work for them, that's fine! The Special Moves just never trigger, the same way the Operator might make it the whole game without using Seize By Force, or the Gunlugger never stoops to Manipulating Someone - they do what needs doing, and gently caress you if you don't like it. Or the way a group with the Hardholder and no Driver might stick to a specific location much more closely, and your game just doesn't get into the travelogue, road warrior narrative so common in the genre. Not every AW game includes every possible narrative that AW supports. Now, as for the intimacy instead of sex "fix," there are several things additionally wrong with that way of thinking. For one, if you think players who are creepy about sex are going to be any less creepy about heart-to-hearts or kissing, you're almost certainly being naive. That doesn't mean making the change is bad. In fact, I made the change for an AW game I'm recruiting for right now. But it is a change. I did it as part of several thematic adjustments to emulate a very specific story. That a Special Move can trigger off different kinds of charged encounters changes the narrative weight of those encounters. It changes how players react to them. It changes how players approach encounters that might go in that direction. It definitely changes the arc of the game after those encounters. In the standard AW genre concept, characters have a lot of momentum. It takes a lot to shift them out of the paths they've set themselves on - it's one of the key heroic flaws for most characters in the genre. Special Moves triggering more often is going to change that. That can work for certain games, but you have to be cognizant of it. That Urban Shadows triggers its Special Moves off intimate moments is a direct consequence of that cognizance. That's how the genre it emulates works. Conversely, almost all moves in Monsterhearts are about intimate moments, or turning an encounter into an intimate moment, because that's how its genre works. If you really want to change the Special Moves away from sex but keep the same kind of narrative impact, you're going to need to limit them to extreme encounters. The best example is the transfusion scene in Fury Road. None of the other scenes in the film represent the same level of charged interaction the Special Moves are supposed to trigger off of. Comrade Gorbash fucked around with this message at 15:56 on Jul 13, 2015 |
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Jul 13, 2015 15:53
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Conceptually it sounds like it's mean to be rolled at the start of each battle, or the first time you pick up a blunt weapon in a fight, and then you spend the hold throughout. I don't know if that's a better way for it to work though.
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Jul 14, 2015 17:50
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It's strange because I've had the same experience with DW mentioned here, where it feels like more of a struggle to keep things flowing with GM moves, especially in combat. But when I think about it, I'm doing the same thing when I'm MCing other PbtA games. In fact, I don't think I'm doing any less work. It just feels smoother. I suspect it has to do with the fact that, ultimately, DW's genre is D&D, so it has baked into it the expectation of discrete actions and turn-taking. So everyone at the table is defaulting to that expectation (which is reasonable in the genre) which makes things feel choppy.
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Feb 3, 2016 17:22
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I figure now's a good time to do an update on the old "What are the best playbooks available?" question. I personally tend to run DW for pickup games so my preference is for a set of playbooks I can keep in a folder and mesh well together in whatever subset gets picked by a group. It's reached a point where I need to reprint all my sheets anyways, so I'm going to compile a brand new list from scratch. So what do people think would be good inclusions for that folder?
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Jul 1, 2017 22:22
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So as mentioned before, I was working up a list of good playbooks to pull from for games on the fly. I've explicitly and intentionally made it a large list because the idea is to have a large master pool to then curate further for specific games. Since I know every playbook in the large pool is solid, it makes cutting it down for a specific game much easier. Right now, my list looks like: The Artificer The Barbarian The City Thief The Dashing Hero The Druid The Dwarf The Elf The Gladiator The Halfling The Immolator The Initiate The Orc The Peerless Fighter The Priest The Princess The Ranger The Slayer The Spellslinger The Templar The Witch Things I'd like advice on:
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Jul 22, 2017 01:17
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Thanks for the suggestions! I did add all of those. I'm just about done putting together my collection. I ended up making a decision to not have the Inverse World books in the folder if only because there isn't a separate set of playbook files which makes it harder to pull them as needed, though I'm leaving them on the master list I'm working from. I pulled the Spellslinger because I added a bunch more wizard-like classes (the ones suggest plus the Arcanist) and it felt like the least needed. The specific questions I have left are: • What's the best Necromancer type playbook? Necromancer is a common request I run into that isn't quite covered by anything else I'm really looking at. I know there's one in Grim World but have avoided that source up to now. • Speaking of Grim World... Are there any playbooks I should strongly consider from it? They're more powerful than standard so I've shied away from them, but the Shaman in particular is very intriguing.
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Jul 28, 2017 22:57
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Nemesis Of Moles posted:The Grim World one is really good, there's a free one kicking around somewhere that I thought was ok, and I made one, which I think is pretty good. Here's a goon discount link Funny note - for the most part I've been paring down by finding playbooks that have different names but are functionally the same. The exception is the Shaman where I'm looking at three wildly different playbooks that all have the same name.
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Jul 28, 2017 23:57
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PbtA games are real good y'all. There's a lot of talk about DW being the gateway drug to narrative games, and to be honest it's true - for the GM. It doesn't really force players to change much so it's overblown in that regard. But from the GM side of the table there's fewer vestigial D&D-isms and it does a good job of laying out principals and moves for GMs new to PbtA. As a general rule, I've found that running PbtA makes you a better player of PbtA. So see if you can get your players to run a one shot.
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Aug 20, 2017 03:41
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The easiest way to do dragonbreath is just to give it to them as a weapon using their class damage die. E.g. quote:Dragonborn And then I'd allow players to take custom moves to improve their dragonbreath if they really want to focus on it. I might even add an "area" tag for it; it's not a standard option in DW but it's a straightforward and logical addition. For thri-kreen and aarakocra, remember that narrative effects are very powerful in PbtA. If you say something is so, it's true and the reasonable benefits from that descriptive truth should apply. Eg. quote:Thri-kreen quote:Aarakocra You don't really need to attach any numeric benefits to those. The narrative aspect is itself a mechanic in DW - a non-thri-kreen might need to roll Defy Danger to make it over a slick wall while trying to avoid the city guard, but if its only ten foot high a thri-kreen can just jump over it. They'd also reasonably be able to benefit from a shield and a two-handed weapon at the same time. Comrade Gorbash fucked around with this message at 21:22 on Sep 7, 2017 |
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Sep 7, 2017 21:17
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What do you all do for 6- on Spout Lore? I generally don't like giving false information, because with the shared narrative creation aspect it feels like it betrays some of the central tenets of PbtA. In some circumstances I'm okay with it - cases where it's not me providing bad information, but where bad information exists in the world itself. But when speaking as the GM I prefer always to say true things. As a result I tend to fall back on reveal an unwelcome truth or show signs of an approaching threat based on the subject at hand. At other times, I find it better to provide incomplete or confusing information - a half-remembered prophecy or excerpt from something they read, maybe. They know something about the place they're going but it's an either/or piece of information that could lead them astray (e.g. there's a red gem and a green gem and one let's you in and one activates the defenses and I don't remember which is which). I'm always looking for other ways to do it though.
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Sep 11, 2017 17:38
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I like that variation - have the player spout the lore they would have anyways, and then either add a detail or have part of it be wrong.
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Sep 11, 2017 23:23
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That's a good idea as well. For the Princess, I've seen a couple of good re-contextualizations of it that let it fit pretty much anywhere. Avatar of a goddess, for example. That being said it makes total sense to curate playbooks for specific games. The bigger issue for the Princess in general is that it has a lot narrative leverage in social interactions. It borders on being a bit overpowered in that regard, especially compared to the core playbooks.
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Sep 12, 2017 04:59
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The copy I have is solid. Pretty much the standard oversized paperback style a lot of indie rpgs use.
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Oct 12, 2017 11:31
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I think that bonds as basically a descriptor of history and relationship between characters makes sense. It helps keep prevent the incongruity of new groups being a bunch of strangers with nothing in common. At the same time, the RAW for how to use bonds in play are really clumsy and ham-handed. Personally I think flags are an amazing idea, but rather than throw out bonds, use them differently. Every PC should have a bond with every other PC, and at end of session have them read them again and decide if what's written down is still the best encapsulation of their relationship. If it's not, if something has changed, mark XP and write a new one. kaffo posted:Speaking about forgetting, having 2 per player got pretty confusing, even with 4 players. We regularly forgot one or both of someone's and there's no real easy way to write two whole sentences down somewhere public for each PC If it's in person, I'm a big proponent of physical and visual aids. Put a little stand in front of each player with relevant info on it, including flags. This is especially good for PbtA and Dungeon World since you can cover a ton of info in a small space. Alternatively, hand each player a card listing the flags of the party on it. If possible, collect and redistribute them each session. That way they're reminded to look for them every time. Maybe hand out some kind of token so that players can have a physical idiom to represent when a flag is hit. If you're playing over the internet, it's a good idea to have a shared notes file; a Google doc works well. You can include reminders for this stuff there. If you're on a VTT, see if if you can set flags as part of the tool tip popups for player tokens. For things like flags, it's not just a matter of having the information available, it's about making it available in a way that prompts players to use that information. Comrade Gorbash fucked around with this message at 17:08 on Oct 16, 2017 |
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Oct 16, 2017 13:59
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kaffo posted:Also totally up for the player aids, I already do it with names/classes but I have noooo idea how to format all that text in a readable way across a table without printing it on like an A1 billboard
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Oct 17, 2017 14:29
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Time for some complicated and maybe a bit unsatisfying answers!Shanty posted:Okay, so they clear out the dungeon and emerge victorious with the mayor's rescued prize cow or whatever. Now I'm supposed to make a Steading ("during a snack break"). I'll use cues from the players, like if they keep talking about presenting a gift to the Lord Cardinal it's probably not a complete shithole. Should I press them for more before going through the steading rules or am I basically creating a town from scratch like I would when I run any other RPG? The default stance here is to only make what you need for the narrative now. Often that's the best approach. It leaves you room to maneuver later and keeps things moving. Regarding player input, I would use it as a starting point and see if they have more to offer. Sometimes they won't, and that's fine. In that case it will be your role to fill in the gaps until you have what's needed for the scene. It's also totally appropriate to add in some cool things you're interested in, even if it remains off stage for a while. As a rule of thumb, though, when coming up with setting information you should really only add one "secret" like that before you come back for player input. On the other hand, there can be incredible value to fleshing out something in your game world in detail. It gives everyone a fallback set of established facts, a good foundation when they're having creative blocks and a guideline for later development of the setting. Taking a break to get into the nitty gritty with the players can have tremendous value there. Plus sometimes its useful to take a break from the usual play cycle and do some worldbuilding; it's a nice breather that will often leave players with new ideas and more energy when you get back to regular play. Judging when to do one or the other is an experience thing. I would say in this case go with the more skeletal approach. Look at the Steading rules and think about what the next narrative scene needs, and then see if the players have input on the elements you need for that. If they do, riff off those and build just what you need for now. If not, then fill in yourself only until you have what you need. Shanty posted:Play wraps up and I start prepping fronts for next time. By now we've probably got enough meat for a few. What's so special about that cow? What's the Lord Cardinal's game? Does anyone other than the ranger give a poo poo about blemmysmen? But do I then think of something completely new and slot into the existing lore? The "White Gate" example in the book, for instance, did that (hypothetically) spring from a player saying "I was raised in the shadow of the White Gate" or is that the GM going "Here's a dope concept, White Gates, this is now the campaign"? Is it a case of "adventure fronts are from players, campaign fronts are from the GM"? As in, next session the players will want to continue doing what they were talking about last session, but then I show them hints of a larger narrative. Based on which way they go, I advance my campaign fronts and prep new adventure fronts for next time. White Gates could be either from a player fact that strikes your fancy, or from something external you add as the GM. A good DW campaign will have both elements, and campaign or adventure fronts came come from either the players or the GM. The key is the back and forth, the conversation. The White Gates might have been just a name the PC found compelling that the GM then elaborated into something more, largely by taking a concept they liked and attaching it to a name the player provided. Or it may have been a background detail the PC fleshed out more completely that appealed to the other players and thus was elevated into a campaign theme. Or maybe as GM you came up with a cool bit of window dressing you only intended to use once as a backdrop, but the players were inspired to flesh it out further. Any and all are totally acceptable ways for campaign and setting elements to come into being. Shanty posted:Another thing: I've run into a sentiment online here and there which is basically: The GM only uses Moves. Whenever an interaction takes place between a player and the GM, if it's not covered by a player move it's GM move time. Moves are really important, but they're a secondary mechanic. The primary mechanic of PbtA is the conversation, which literally is the interaction between players at the table, including the GM. And it's named for exactly what it is. Most of your time at the table with a PbtA will just be talking back and forth, letting the fiction develop naturally. Moves come into play at the friction points. When a player wants to do something that diverts the narrative flow onto a new path, they use moves to provide the leverage to do that. Essentially, when you go "this is what will happen next, but I want this to happen instead" that's when a move should come into play. That's true of the PCs and the GM; the difference comes in what their moves are and the narrative triggers for them. That's why moves are structured as "when you..." conditionals. When the fiction leads you to that conditional, then you are using the move. Some of these are very clear cut, others are a bit of a judgement call. Also, some moves have hard triggers and some have soft triggers. That is, certain fiction is automatically a fork in the narrative paths and the only way to proceed is to use the move; otherwise you'll have to retcon back and do something else so you don't hit that trigger at all. Those are rare. Most moves are soft triggers - the conditional gives you permission to use that move; you can choose not to and not divert the narrative flow from its current path. GM moves are almost entirely soft trigger moves. So not every fictional interaction requires a move. Most of it will just happen naturally, as part of the conversation. Moves happen when the fiction leads you to points of conflict or change. And even then, especially as the GM you don't have to use a move even if you have the opportunity to do so. In your example, it's entirely appropriate to just let the scene play out without making any moves at all. But if you want to use a move, you are correctly identifying several triggers for them. You should only do so if you think it will create an interesting fictional moment though. Moves cascade - if you use one, you should intend there to be followup. That won't always happen, of course, but if the move isn't going to go anywhere, don't use it. The player asking for ale is definitely a trigger for you to choose whether or not to make a move. You don't need to take it. You're right to look at the move list and go "hmmm, do any of these speak to me right now? do any of these lead to a scene I think the players and I would enjoy?" But if none seem promising you can just let the fiction follow naturally from there - the PC gets their ale and marks off a coin. You should only be taking the trigger and using a move if you want something else to happen instead, and you should only want something else to happen if you think it would be enjoyable. That doesn't preclude adding window dressing to the interaction either. "Ale? We've a special on elf wine, only five coins" is really just color. Servers upsell people all the time, and that itself isn't a move, not really, because there's no automatic followup built into it. If the player simply says "sure!" then it remains just narrative and they mark off the expenditure. You've still improved the interaction by adding some appropriate banter, giving the game world a little more depth. On the other hand if the player bites on it and gives you input then it's also a nice starting point to use moves. "Five coin? That cheap?" is a great prompt to open up a subplot or add more setting facts to explain the fact the player just established, and a place for you to use all sorts of moves to follow on. -------------------- I'm kind of feeling a bigger effort post about how to understand the the mechanics of Dungeon World and other PbtAs and how a lot of them are "hidden" mechanics, less because the game doesn't identify them and more due to expectations created by other TTRPGs. Would people find that useful? Comrade Gorbash fucked around with this message at 18:36 on Jan 4, 2018 |
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Jan 4, 2018 18:31
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Another trick I've used is to go ahead and let the opponent land a blow that doesn't deal damage but still makes it clear they have initiative and are pressing their advantages without waiting for the PCs to act. For example, I've opened a combat with something like "You spot the black knight's mace whistling towards your head just in time to get your shield up. The blow strikes with tremendous force, gouging the wood and making you stumble. By the time you recover, he's already closed the gap, crowding you and raining down blows to try and find a gap in your defenses." In this case you've still put them in a spot but you don't have that "bullet time" effect that sometimes can feel a bit wonky. They're already striking and attacking, it's just that they haven't quite landed a telling blow yet. At that point the player can decide what they want to do, and depending on the results you're well set up to deal HP damage or do something else nasty. Another example is that I had a group of goblins waylay the PCs by having half of them launch a barrage of sling stones while the rest charged. I told the PCs to describe how they managed to dodge or protect themselves against the sling stones, and then that the other goblins were now right up in their faces, jabbing away with spears. Again, this gives you the narrative of continuous action and danger, but in fact opens with a very soft GM move that's about establishing facts to set up later hard moves. A key is to remember that HP is an abstraction, and that especially in Dungeon World a single hack & slash generally doesn't reflect one swing of a sword. You can lean into being a fan of the PCs to narrate how they just barely avoid getting hurt by an attack, or even a series of attacks, and then throw it to them at a point where they know they have to do something or the next blow might well get through. EDIT: To go back to that original question, remember you can and should make a moves right off a PC success. The key is you should never negate a success, and should avoid undercutting it as much as possible. Build off it. It takes practice, but it's entirely possible to phrase throwing the PC back into the fire as part of their success. A good way to do this is to specifically and directly call out how their success has put them in a better position to deal with the new threat, and to indicate what would have happened if they hadn't succeeded. Essentially, "here's how this would have gone if you hadn't been such a badass adventurer." Again, an example: "You dance back out of reach of the dark elf's blade, then suddenly lunge forward, catching her perfectly off-balance and dispatching her with a perfect strike. That speed serves you well - you have plenty of time to sidestep the other two dark elves coming to assist the one you killed and bring your blade to bear. Even outnumbered, you have them at a disadvantage as they try to reorient themselves after their mad rush. If you had been even a bit slower dealing with that first opponent, they'd have you thoroughly boxed in." Comrade Gorbash fucked around with this message at 18:57 on Feb 12, 2018 |
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Feb 12, 2018 18:41
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kaffo posted:All that said, maybe I'm preaching to the converted here, maybe your players will all "get it" right away. But certainly for me it can be a point of frustration from both sides of the table, when it really shouldn't be In fact, it's not totally inappropriate in all cases - it's part of the reason moves have names like hack and slash as opposed to "melee attack." There's a built in narrative to naming the move, and at times it's appropriate to fall back on. That's a good way to help players keep this concept in mind - even if they name the move in a fairly mechanical way, name it back and respond to it in a narrative way. If they say "I hack and slash the golem," and grab their dice, stop them and say "You lash out at the golem, hacking and slashing with your blade. But it doesn't seem to feel the blows, and in moments the cuts in its clay flesh fade and seal over again. What do you do?" I'd even then say "you know there must be some way to wound it, but just flailing away with a sword won't do."
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Feb 12, 2018 19:17
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Shanty posted:It's what really attracts me to DW, but bear in mind my previous posts on this page: I have never played DW, I only read about it obsessively while counting the days till our first session. The principles are GM facing, but several of them really apply to everyone at the table. The players should be fans of each other's characters, should follow the fiction, should look for challenges. Taking advantage of narrative approach that way is likely to undercut everyone else at the table in a way that's not fun. That doesn't mean you have to shut down a suggestion like that completely, but the context matters a lot. Of course if it's just a joke to break tension, that's fine. And it's also fine if the player making the suggestion is creating a narrative of them not just being expensive, but nearly impossible to acquire, or following the fiction in some other way that avoids undercutting everyone else. Or if you're playing a game where everyone is on board with silliness, then by all means! That last is important because what's appropriate fiction is something you have to create consensus for at the beginning of the game. Part of the set up with a PbtA game, and possibly not as well delineated as it should be, is having a discussion about scope and tone. Tone's the more obvious one, but scope plays into it as well. Specifically, figuring out just how much narrative leverage a move gives you. It's easier to explain with Apocalypse World - different scope and tone are how you can play The Last of Us and TurboKid using the same system. Everyone needs to be more or less on the same page with both in order for PbtA games to work. In that sense, whether those super-arrows fit depends on what the group agreed to. Outside of a comedy game, I'm still not sure if regularly available super items like that work in DW. Maybe if you go the full on Exalted route and have everything dialed to the maximum setting, at which point you use the Volley rules because a single goblin is not a worthy foe - you're Volleying against a hundred goblins at once, or a dueling a demi-god who doesn't stay dead. I would argue that extreme is working right up against the limits of what DW is capable of, and would probably recommend using a different game, like Godbound.
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Feb 13, 2018 15:29
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You probably want the basic moves on a separate sheet so they can see them at the same time they're looking at their playbook. Also I would start them in the middle of something crazy going on. The last few times I've done one shots, the very first thing that happened is the party being attacked by the flying monkey minions of the Wicked Lich of the West as they approach the Vault of <ask a player what it's the vault of>. EDIT: If you have a player who has experience with DW, have them be the first you ask a worldbuilding type question. They're less likely to freeze up and it will help the other players get into the flow of things if they see and hear an example. Comrade Gorbash fucked around with this message at 14:03 on Apr 3, 2018 |
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Apr 3, 2018 13:59
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Kaffo's advice there is spot on, but I did want to pull this out for a separate discussion.kaffo posted:Then you can decide if he's rolling volley, maybe he's got to roll Defy Danger first to avoid the hail of arrows as soon as he stands up, or the swordsman he didn't see coming In this example, it should be either Defy Danger OR Volley, but not both. The key is that moves have downsides built into them - either explicitly like the 7-9 outcomes for each, where it spells out the compromises you need to make, or implicitly because a 6- is a trigger for a GM move. If you do Defy Danger in order to set up Volley, you have two chances for bad outcomes and only one chance for a good outcome. The Defy Danger success is a null result - it doesn't change the circumstances, the player is still putting themselves at risk depending on the Volley result. Deciding which move should be used is more art than science, but typically the guiding factor will be whether you think the established fiction makes the question "can you do this at all" vs "how well do you do this." If it's about whether it can be done at all, if the question is if its possible to both make the shot and avoid the arrows, then roll Defy Danger. On a 10+, they avoid the arrows AND hit the target, follow the fiction to decide the result of the hit (this can include damage!). On a 7-9, you can force them to pick between getting the hit and avoiding the arrows - that's a great worse outcome, hard bargain, or ugly choice. On a 6-, go to town - they miss the shot and they get hit, or whatever feels appropriately nasty for the moment. If avoiding the arrows while firing is definitely possible but you want to know how doing that affects the shot, then Volley. The 10+ and 6- are the same, but the 7-9 lets them decide - did they expose themselves to the hail of arrows? Did staying low to avoid the arrows mean they didn't get a clean hit? Did they decide not to expose themselves and thus rather than aiming just sprayed and prayed (used up ammo)? It's a bit of a fine distinction driven by the moves not really being as well constructed as they could be, but even if you just flip a coin to decide between them, just do the one. That being said, there are occasional circumstances where one action can trigger two or more moves. The key is that this is appropriate when only one of those moves is determining the outcome of the action, and the others are circumstantial. For example, a Dashing Hero who goes to Carouse might also trigger their A Lover in Every Port move. This is okay because neither move depends on the success of the other. You could use the result of one to narratively explain the result of the other, but a 6- Carouse doesn't cause you to ignore or change the result of A Lover in Every Port, it just potentially changes the way you present that result. Comrade Gorbash fucked around with this message at 15:55 on Apr 4, 2018 |
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Apr 4, 2018 15:52
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Waffles Inc. posted:I'm adding this whole post to a notes doc I've got going, it's incredibly illuminating! It's possible for a player to describe an action broad enough that you will want to break it down into segments. You don't want to get overly granular with this, but it can happen. Let's say a player declares, "I'm going to sneak down the hallway, spy on the orcs, and come back to report to the party." Now, it's worth considering just folding that all up into one move - Defy Danger or Discern Realities. Ask "If they sneak down the hallway successfully, will spying on the orcs be a trivial issue? Or is sneaking down the hallway not the risk - it's whether they can see something useful once they get there?" That should lead you to the right choice. But it's possibly you do have two different actions here. That "come back and report" is where I might make a slice. You've narratively got passage of time and space enough that circumstances may have changed by the time they start on their way back. Maybe a patrol has come up. Then I might ask them to make another move - almost certainly Defy Danger - to complete the sequence successfully. The key is whether you already have or will cause a meaningful change in the state of the world for each and every move. Another example in the same circumstance - say the danger in the hallway is a trap. Then I might ask for Defy Danger to find out if they've disabled the trap or merely bypassed it while leaving it active, and then still ask for another move once the get down the hall. The reason here is that "what's the state of the trap?" is a separate and interesting narrative distinction. The world where the trap is still armed is a very different one than the world where it's not, and that has a powerful effect on the potential consequences of the next move. This is the sort of thing I mean when I talk about scope in PbtA. I still would lean towards one move (Defy Danger) to cover that sequence, but I can easily imagine games where it makes sense to break it down further. Comrade Gorbash fucked around with this message at 16:36 on Apr 4, 2018 |
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Apr 4, 2018 16:33
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You can also use it for really short periods of time if it makes sense for the game. For example, say you've got a Ravenloft-type setting and the party splits up after a lunch meeting at the end of a session to prepare for a night of vampire hunting. You could very reasonably use love letters to figure out what the party members were doing for those 5 or 6 hours. Basically love letters are a fantastic transitional tool. Any time you do a significant time skip and the activities of the players meet the criteria of directly influence upcoming events, have narratively interesting consequences for partial success or failure, and the outcome is the most important part, that's a great time for a love letter. And "significant" depends entirely on the fiction - in the right game, a 30 minute time skip could be significant. Or it could be a few days, a month, a year, even a decade. You want to make sure that love letters also set the scene for following action. You can totally resolve something in the process of a love letter, but it should still position the character for whats coming next.
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Apr 10, 2018 20:19
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Working on a Dungeon World hack/2nd edition project and am looking for your best suggestions/ideas. I've already picked out a few mission statements/concepts as guides.
Here's some of the ways I'm trying to meet those goals. Basic Stats
Characters/Playbooks
Moves/Mechanics
I'm also considering something more radical, where every class gets its a Combat and an Explore stat at +1 each, and those have descriptive names. So a Wizard might have Arcane and Lore, and when they get to add that +1 to combat moves when the specific action involves magic somehow, and +1 to explore moves when it involves tapping into some piece of obscure information they've learned. I'm not totally happy with it as described, but I feel like there may be something there conceptually. Anyways, suggestions and feedback are welcome.
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May 20, 2018 17:52
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Xelkelvos posted:I've been toying with this in my head too fwiw. I've discarded the D&D classes in its entirety though but I haven't gotten a lot of the class replacements down. My intention is classes based around their role in a party, i.e. Guardian, Bruiser, Mystic, etc. Rather than Origin and Background, I have Peoples/Race and History with the former being representing either a character's race or the people they come from/belong to (like Aristocracy or Scholars or Bird people). History would have little to no advancement options and represent what the character was doing before the present and what things they bring to the table. I'm a little ambivalent on having that last sheet at all. Xelkelvos posted:I'd take the Harm clock from the other PbtA games or use Fellowship's method of tracking damage wherein stats are harmed until there's nothing left to harm. In my approach, attack moves pretty much resemble their Dungeon World counterparts (one move for melee attacks, one move for ranged), but some classes will have specific moves that let them choose another stat with which to use those attacks (ex: an evoker-type character would use a more mystically oriented stat instead of Finesse to make ranged attacks, but still rely on Might to hurt people with weapons or fists). Damage against enemies would also be 1 or 2 damage per hit, no more without exceptional circumstances. Instead of just stacking more damage or damage dice, attacks would just do other things like impose negative characteristics on enemies or give advantage to subsequent attacks. As for moves, one of the things I wanted to move towards was the idea that the Wizard would roll Might if they were fireballing the poo poo out of something, while the Fighter would use whatever stat ends up representing a more nuance based approach for a lot of their attacks. At the same time I want everyone to be good at combat, so I haven't quite squared that circle. Xelkelvos posted:Part of PbtA games is the reduction of fiddly bonuses. Instead of getting a bonus in certain situations, they get to do more things in moves related to it or automatically get the effects of certain moves. Like being able to Command Lore about one piece of information at no cost when encountering a given thing for the first time.
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May 21, 2018 15:24
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Xelkelvos posted:One of the things with PbtA is that there's not really meant to be a formal deliniation between combat and non-combat unless you mean being capable of hurting things. It's easy enough to give every character a move that's capable of harming enemies. That's reflected in the Base Moves. If you want a character to use a specific stat when using those moves, either write it into the mechanics or have those classes start with a move that reflects that. You'll have to be more clear on what you mean by "good at combat" because in Fellowship, nominally every character can contribute effectively as long as they lean into what their character is good at. And again, Combat as a specific phase of gameplay isn't really a thing in PbtA games. If you want to make it a thing then you might have your work cut out for you there. For a D&D-esque game, the two things everyone does is fight and explore, which means those are the things I want to be careful about having the best moves tied to just one stat. That most likely means having more granularity in the fighting and exploring basic moves, so they can be spread across the stats evenly, but I want to be open to other ideas. Now that you mention that, I think there is room for it to be distinct, like how Night Witches has day/night moves, or more in line with Blades in the Dark. I'm not sure that's where I want to go, but it's worth considering. I should be upfront that I'm willing and in fact would prefer to stray from the typical PbtA mold, though probably not as far as BitD did. Comrade Gorbash fucked around with this message at 15:11 on May 22, 2018 |
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May 22, 2018 15:00
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It's a good outline but I would add two notes. 1) I would go ahead and give them the principles as well. The players should be keeping those in mind too. 2) Ask them questions to set up that first sequence. Give them a prompt and have them fill in the detail. "You're approaching the tomb of Alriss the Ever-ready, feared warlord from the the Age of Legends. Wizard, what defense do the ancient texts warn you of?" EDIT: On that note, I did a quick rough draft of DW player principals. I'd like to know what folks think.
Comrade Gorbash fucked around with this message at 16:25 on Jun 13, 2018 |
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Jun 13, 2018 16:13
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Overemotional Robot posted:Ok, run us a game (I am desperate to play).
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Jun 14, 2018 14:54
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Nemesis Of Moles posted:Everyone has a rough time GMing for the first time, don't sweat it, you'll get better. Also some of the GMing changes stem from the players are also taking a different approach - they may move things along more or take certain actions because they know it makes for a better show, but would act differently in a home game. In any case the Roll20 presents Apocalypse World series Adam Koebel did has a lot of useful GM stuff in it, for example, and Friends at the Table does a good job with the attitude and philosophy that leads to good GMing, if not necessarily the mechanics due to its nature as a show - not game mechanics, I mean the actual nitty-gritty things a GM does to run any game.
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Jun 14, 2018 16:24
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Nemesis Of Moles posted:I think that's fair, there's stuff in there you can learn and grow from, I'm just wary of suggesting anyone use APs as their primarily learning source on this. The difference in format, the presentation and the editing process makes emulating them a bad idea. But as you said, there's variance there, and its unfair for me to say that you can't learn anything at all from listening/watching them. Trying to run a game in that fashion outside of a very close group of friends or family is not gonna go over.
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Jun 14, 2018 17:10
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Pollyanna posted:I get that APs are performance more than realistic play, and I’m certainly not trying to be the new hotness. That way lies only pain. But I am influenced by it in a way, which might be a bad thing?
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Jun 14, 2018 17:23
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I think it would be useful to have a list of other GM-side questions that don't have specific slots so we can try and hit some of them along the way.
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Jun 21, 2018 14:42
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Overemotional Robot posted:My webcam and mic are from like 2008, sooo I have no webcam at all though.
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Jun 28, 2018 16:09
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Roll20's main benefit for something like DW is dropping stuff into a shared space for reference, so if we dropped it I think we'd need a replacement.
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Jun 28, 2018 20:24
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