Just purchased the pdf from drivethrurpg and I have to say, I like what I have read. Not 100% I “get” how to play the game yet though.
I intend on running a game of this for my brothers when we are together on Christmas, any tips for the first session? I have already printed the character sheets, made copies of the basic moves sheet and read through the guide.
There was a helpful guide that someone put together, but I’d have to find the link.
http://www.dungeon-world.com/dungeon-world-guide/
Curtis Hay That’s the one!
For the first session I usually print a random generated (small) dungeon. Let the players create their PCs and ask questions like a fool, then put them somewhere in the dungeon, suddenly in action. Ask “What do you do?” and seek coherence in the fiction as you play. When parts of the world are blurred, either ask a question or set a detail, and so on. Follow the Agenda, the Principles and do your move when it’s your time to speak. And, of course, have fun! 😉
I have this guide and have read it a few times, its excellent. I think I may actually have to just play the game to get my head round it. I’m too used to abstracts like initiative and AC from playing games like pathfinder and D&D.
My top suggestion: When you say “what do you do?”, try as much as you can to make it a singular “you” directed at one person, e.g. “Ajax, what do you do?”, rather than directed at the players as a collective group. Play tends to be much smoother and more satisfying when the GM is aggressively focusing the attention.
There are lots of examples of people trying to get their heads around the perspective shift in this game, here and in the Dungeon World forum on Barf Forth: http://apocalypse-world.com/forums/index.php?board=19.0
A few things:
* The game provides a lot less concrete detail than you’re probably used to. When the game description is vague (“how big is the fireball?”, “what does it mean, the Dryad ‘entices a mortal’?”), the DM is expected to make a ruling at the table. The good thing about that is that the written rules can be very brief; the bad thing is that you and your players can read the same written rule and have a very different idea of what will happen. Err on the side of giving them lots of heads up about the consequences of their actions.
* When in doubt, make them Defy Danger. They want to hide, grapple, disarm, leap, climb, impress, fast talk? It’s all Defy Danger.
* Running combat with no explicit turns for the monsters is a new skill. If you just let the players have all the actions, the stats alone won’t make the monsters very dangerous. It’s up to you to come at the players — when the monsters get a move (on a miss or a partial), come at the players. When you threaten something on a soft move, make it a very bad thing.
If you haven’t already, also read this: http://www.latorra.org/2012/05/15/a-16-hp-dragon/
Also demand details in the answer. The answer to “what do you do?” should be specific enough that an actor or stunt person could perform it for a camera.
That’s what gives you the next rebound.
I thought that the Slave-Pit was a great first adventure. It gave structure while everyone found their feet and got the hang of DW: http://www.dungeon-world.com/pit-of-drazhu/
Completely agree with Chris Sakkas – ‘The Slave Pit’ was also a fabulous learning experience for me as a first time DM. Although, for the record, my players seemed to find the stock fights fairly easy (super exciting, but easy). Not necessarily a bad thing, mind you, but your mileage may vary.
I had a hard time getting the entire idea behind the actual writing until I stumbled upon a self imposed question, when reading the game, if someone bothers you, out the book aside and ask yourself, how would it work if you were on a game and you wanted the most awesome thing to happen?
My moment was very well defined and made me say WOW out loud, you can read about it here: http://apocalypse-world.com/forums/index.php?topic=4996.msg24443#msg24443
Thanks for all the great advice guys, can’t wait to run this in the next few days.
Scott Velez, good point, I forgot about that! We only had two characters, the Druid and the Ranger, but they still steamrolled everything.
Scott Velez and Chris Sakkas, my experience is that how dangerous these things are depends a lot on how the DM chooses to play the monsters. I can’t say as I’ve run a huge number of fights yet, but I definitely feel like I’m making the players sweat more. The moves are there, but you have to learn how to use them.
Colin Roald For the most part, I agree. And with a few more games under my belt, I am finding that I can push the difficult of fights by leveraging monster’s moves and the narrative. And I doubt any of us has forgotten the 16 HP dragon.
Nevertheless, if your players hit a hot streak, I think that the majority of enemies in ‘The Slave-Pit’ lack the moves to make them particularly dangerous, even if you are forcing your players to defy danger to enter Hack and Slash range (i.e. making them more dangerous). This is likely by design, as it IS an introductory adventure.
Can you provide further environmental problems and increase the overall challenge of the module? Certainly you can, and I think the adventure is better for it (making any bridge the characters you into a Defy Danger situation can be absolute gold, as you can nearly guarantee a complication with more than two players). But were the monsters in ‘The Slave Pit’ by and large, pushovers? I think so.
I will say that my players found the giant spider and the zombies to be the greatest challenges (and I substituted the shared HP horde rules from the DW guide for the latter). At least in the spider’s case, it was because its moves allowed me to change the way the battle was fought and adjust to my player’s strategies when the rolls allowed. Giant leaps and entangling webs can be quite nasty.
But again and overall, it was a blast to sharpen everyone’s teeth on.