I’m hoping to start a Dungeon World game soon using the Innistrad setting from Magic: The Gathering. This setting only has humans, so to provide a little more variety in racial moves, I wanted to give the players the option of taking a move related to the province they were born in if they don’t like the Human option from their class. I came up with three choices for each location. Do any of these moves look out of whack?
Innistrad Regional (alternative race) Moves
Gavony – rolling moors dotted with small towns and villages
Townsman – When you spend a little while in a town or village, you can quickly work out the location of the important places and who is really in charge.
Hard Won Knowledge -When you spout lore about undead or geists, take +1
Self-sufficient – You learned a craft in your youth. What can you make/repair?
Kessig – dense woodland with small settlements carved out of the forest
Sterner Stuff – When you are faced with a scene of grisly horror, take +1 to any rolls to resist fear.
Folk Wisdom – When you come up with a pithy saying, a wise parable, or an Old Wives tale, take +1 forward to the next action that the wisdom applies to.
The Beast Within – When you spout lore about werewolves, take +1
Nephalia – misty sea coast with busy port cities
Hard Bargainer – Take +1 to the Supply move, and subtract an additional CHA from the cost of items (minimum cost = 1 coin)
Born on the waves – Take +1 to rolls made on boats, ships, or the sea
Disturbers of the Blessed Sleep – When you spout lore about skaberen or ghoulcallers, take +1
Stensia – mountainous land of eternal twilight and stoic peasants
Stoic – When you must roll to endure a hardship, take +1
Our hungry masters – When you spout lore about vampires, take +1
Mountaineer – When you Defy Danger or Spout Lore in the mountains, take +1
Thraben – the great city, home to the Cathedral of Avacyn
Urban Sophistication – when dealing with rustics or others who might be impressed that you are from the great city, take +1.
Prominent Piety – You know well the ways of the Avacynian church. Take +1 when you Parley with members of the church or especially devout laymen.
See beneath the surface – When you Discern Realities to determine a person’s motivations, take +1
I am running into the same situation with my human-centric campaign. I like your moves and am borrowing them for inspiration. Cheers 🙂
Gordon Spencer – hope they are useful. I’m not sure whether any of them are way too good (or way to bad) compared to the other racial moves, but I think that they will give the players a few more options.
Sterner Stuff might be better phrased as the fictional benefit, something like “grisly horror never phases you. Other stuff might, but blood and guts and deaths isn’t scary to you.”
Folk Wisdom might be a bit odd in play. It tends to promote just throwing out lots and lots of pithy sayings. The first time is awesome, the second is cool, and it keeps getting worse. That said, I’m not quite sure how to fix it!
Born on the Waves is a tough one as well. We’ve avoided too many situational bonuses that depend on large shifts of setting. The difference for that character between being on a boat and not is pretty large. The Gm has a lot of control of how often that comes up. Maybe instead journeys over or along water don’t count as perilous, not matter what? That’s a fun bonus that shapes play. The character might take a longer safer journey along the coast, for example.
Mountaineer has a similar issue. Maybe instead “climbing natural surfaces is never dangerous for you.” That’s still kind of weak, but ideally it’s something that obviously applies in mountains but it useful elsewhere.
Overall they’re super strong and I like them a lot!
Sage – Thanks for the suggestions. I agree that the tow environmental abilities might not come up often enough to be as useful as the others. I’ll work on making them more broadly applicable. I also agree that Folk Wisdom probably sounds better on paper than it would be in reality…