I’ve run the 2nd and 3rd sessions of my campaign these last two nights, and there have been some amazing highlights.
A player who was initially leery of improvisation-based games made a bard, and has been actually recording their adventures, notably the barbarian’s victories, failures, and hijinx in rhyme. He’s got quite a few stanzas, loves his bard, and loves jumping in to say cool and useful things about the fiction.
The Druid, in an attempt to win the favour of a bear, took the form of an owl and knocked a bee hive out of a tree. He rolled a 6, and the swarm chased him through the forest howling “Murderer! Destroyer! Invader!” He finally lost them when he changed into a fish and hid in the river.
The Druid made a miss on his shapechange into a bird, and the bird spirit demanded that the Druid hunt and kill a beastman with a goat’s head and only 1 horn. The beastman had slain the bird spirit’s lover!
Later, the bard discovered that in a magical war between an unnatural plague and the sorceress-queen, some animal spirits were twisted by evil magic, took mortal form, and became the ancestors of the beastman.
The Druid failed a scout roll, which resulted in him and the barbarian having to fight off an angry swarm of bees that called the Druid “Murderer! Defiler! Invader!”
The three reached the sorceress-queen’s ancient home from 400 years ago, and through statements, questions, and spout lore, discovered that the barbarians used to be warrior protectors of the queen, the land, and it’s people’s. as the three broke into the destroyed tower, they found clues and challenges that suggested that only the three of them have the knowledge, heritage, and skills needed to enter her inner sanctum underground…
The players were attempting many rolls, in part reaching for the failure XP. One such attempt was the moving of a horse sized boulder by the barbarian. I asked “are you sure you want to? It’s really heavy…” He proceeded, and rolled a 6!
“We’ll, you get XP…” I said, and he cackled gleefully as he marked it off. “But as you haul on the boulder, you slip and your leg slides under it! The boulder falls with a horrifying crunch onto your right foot!”
I roll some damage, it doesn’t kill him but its a substantial amount of harm.
He reaches for his dice, but I say “you don’t need to roll to free you leg, you can scoot backwards, as you stare horrified at the mangled stump where your shin used to be. The players face mirrors the shock and horror I describe, but I go on to explain why this happened and what it means for his character.
“Dungeon world is dangerous, and failure has consequences that follow in the fiction. Marking XP for misses is fun, but ass your misses build up, even for innocuous stuff like spout lore, the consequences build up too.”
I also explained to him the mechanical effects of his failure, if he fashioned a makeshift peg leg, he’d only be at -1 ongoing until he found a better replacement, and since they were exploring the abandoned tower of an abandoned sorceress-queen that disappeared 400 years ago, there’s every chance he might find something that can help. He quickly cheered up, and began coming up with ideas about a steam powered or magic powered mechanical replacement.
Love the stories! Thanks for sharing your experiences.
Hey, you forgot to add all the …. colorful… and highly entertaining things that have also been happening to Azog the Bonebreaker (My Barbarian). I especially like the trophies he is collecting from all his kills….. 😉
Azog has been collecting notable keepsakes from his conquests in battle. Goblin ears, crocodile teeth, the head of a two-headed serpent.
A few of his trophies are a little more… Questionable. They had to fight off a horde of goblins, and to spice things up I threw in a goblin Goliath a Gobliath, if you will. During the battle the Gobliath broke the barbarian’s arm before it was dispatched. For his trophy the barbarian took the monster’s dismembered … Uh … Member and fastened it to his belt along with his other trophies. In polite conversation we call it his trophy kilt. Mostly it’s refered to as the kilt of co…. I think you get the idea.