Tonight, I’ll be running DW for my Encounters table since the D&DNext playtest resulted in them plowing through the whole module in about 3 sessions (which will be a post for another time).
It’s going to be interesting to see how some of these folks will handle Dungeon World after coming exclusively from a 4e/5e background.
We will, of course, be Codexing Planarchs.
Codex them so hard.
Those Planarchs will never know what Codexed them.
Let us know how it goes! Also, I’d love to hear your thoughts on Next from a DW-informed perspective, though maybe that’s best outside of the DW community.
Jonathan Walton I am planning on putting together a post on my thoughts on Next, but I’m going to wait until this season of Encounters is officially over because I don’t want to do any accidental spoilers or anything.
Sean Dunstan Cool. We did some really early playtesting, but I haven’t kept up on where it is now.
I just ran a game last weekend for a trio of people whose main experience is with 3e/4e/Next. They took to it like otters to water. It’s an intuitive system and very easy to teach and grok.
I too want to hear thoughts about Next.
I’ve played a bunch of Next starting with the first beta release to the public, I do like it. It really feels true to the 1st ed rules with lots of the good flavors from the newer editions.
I still prefer DW though, and so does my group.
So my friend Lenny told me something a while back that’s stuck with me: plot is what happens in the game, story is why you care. The plot of D&D Next and DW are pretty similar, but the stories are different. D&D has always been about overcoming adversity and getting more powerful so you can overcome even greater adversity. That’s an attractive story, one that a lot of people like, which is why D&D (and other traditional RPGs with similar stories) is so popular. It’s also the reason why, for instance, nothing much happens when you fail a roll; the failure isn’t the point, so we just breeze on past that until there’s a success, at which point shiny things happen.
The story of DW, on the other hand, is about dealing with the consequences of your actions. There’s still overcoming adversity and (to some extent) getting more powerful, those elements are still present, but most of the time you’re rolling in that 7-9 range regardless of your level, which means most of the time you’re dealing with consequences. The thing that makes DW fun is that dealing with those consequences is fun; whether or not you slay the dragon is almost beside the point, and is certainly less important to the story than what happens as a result of slaying (or trying to slay) the dragon.
I’m not saying either is better; they’re just different. My personal preference is the latter, but I still enjoy the former from time to time. D&D Next, in my opinion, tells D&D’s particular story in a more fluid, more exciting way than some past editions did, but it still tells the same story. If you like that story, that’s probably fine with you. If you don’t, D&D Next probably won’t convert you.
Brian Engard that’s a really interesting way to look at it.
I can’t take full credit for it. Leonard Balsera came up with the core idea.
Jonathan Walton I’d love to see the DnD 5th Ed vs. Dungeon World compare/contrast! Most specifically, I’d love to hear how people will be porting DW’s feel into DnD Next.
Can’t wait to hear how it goes!
Just got back from the game; sadly, one of the newbs didn’t show up this week, but we did have completely new player.
The characters took a job investigating a dimensional portal that appeared in the territory of a kenku street gang (the Queen’s Rook Five).
The portal led to a dimension that is without sky, just infinite caves in an infinite dungeon. They faced an evil wizard who possessed a statue, and stopped him from taking over a magic gem called a Worldseed, and extending his mind into the bones and veins of this completely underground world. Now they have to escort a person from a magmin city to the elven caves to see if this was a prelude to a war.
Interesting Fact Learned: Magmin reproduce by carving a child from a piece of laval rock. If the two magmin love each other enough, that love will manifest as an animating force, breathing life into their child.
Magmin love fact: stolen.