I was thinking last night, and i suspect Dungeon World could do Willingham’s “Fables” about right…
The Archetypes would be Playbooks: The Beast, The Beauty, The Wooden Boy/Girl, The Hood (Red, Green, White), The Prince/Princess, The Witch, The Big Bad Wolf, etc. Would make more sense for their only being one single Archetype, and the Bonds and starting Moves would be fun to extrapolate on. “When you go to the home of an elder relation (“Grandma’s House), roll + CHA…”
Adventures in the Mundane realm, the Homelands, and bleed-over across the two.
Very interesting.
You could do a Fables hack with a *World game but i would start somewhere between Apocalypse World and Monsterhearts, not really with DungeonW.
not a fan of Monsterhearts, but duly noted.
Sounds like you’ve got writing to do …
Hmmm… I can see it, to a point, but I don’t think any *W game currently really nails Fables.
DW is about being a close-nit team that moves towards pretty direct goals. That’s true of Fables at points, but so much of what I really remember is about the other stuff.
Monsterhearts is about being, well, a teenager: dealing with emotions somewhat beyond your control, dealing with other people, trying to figure out who you are. A few characters in Fables do that, but I don’t think it’d do the overall arcs well.
AW has probably the most similar style: it’s about a dangerous world that you can change, but also about the other people you don’t necessarily get along with. But the play books aren’t a great matchup to Fables, I think. The Savvyhead could be a witch with a little reskinning, Cinderella as a skinner, sure, but it gets a little tougher past that.
To really play Fables, not just something similar, I think I’d make up each major player as a very simple character, like Sagas of the Icelanders—just a move or two, enough to make them distinct but not so much so that they’re special. And, like Sagas, I’d make everyone fairly vulnerable. Then play it troupe-style: every session each player chooses a character or two that’s important to the current events and we see what’s up with them.
The GM’s fronts might also need some rethinking, as there are pretty distinct threats through all of Fables. Maybe make a campaign front that’s set, to mirror Fables at the beginning with the emperor, and then play to find out and make new fronts as needed.
Whew, didn’t mean to write that much.
Spoilers
You could run early Fables, during the first concquest of the emperor with Dungeon World but it wouldn’t be as cool as current Fabletown i think.
Ohh, now that would be interesting!
Yeah, i wouldn’t want to just completely go all Dragonlance and “play the novels” or anything…just a world inspired by Fables would suffice. I think i’m moreso a fan of the mythic/folklore-inspired Archetypes than I am attached to the words as writ, really…
edit: Sage LaTorra yes, troupe-style sounds like an excellent way to manage it also.
Oh yeah, in that case I could see DW.
I actually have this idea for a way to play DW with a “win” condition.
Basically, each class is entirely unique. The fighter is actually just one person somehow connected to a primal archetype, or the deity of war, or whatever—point being that they are the one fighter.
Start the game as usual.
After the first session the GM makes a campaign front and some adventure fronts. The more fronts the GM makes the harder the difficulty mode.
When a player character dies, they’re dead. Resurrection still works, sure, with the normal terms (i.e. it’s a discussion with the GM). Remember there’s just one of every class, so you can’t play another fighter if the fighter dies.
If the players defeat all the GM’s fronts before they run out of classes to play, the players win.
If the players run out of classes to play, the GM wins.
Obviously this isn’t a balanced competitive game or anything, but it could be cool to say “oh yeah, we beat a 3 front campaign with only 4 classes!” It’d also be cool to explore the uniqueness of classes through play—why is there just one fighter?
I don’t know why I’m posting this here, I should post it more broadly…
Sage LaTorra that’s al kinds of awesome! Yeah sorry for the derail of potentially broader posts, but i certainly appreciate the thoughtful responses from everyone! 😀