Just a though/question about signature weapon. I had a player ask this and I vetoed it (in retrospect it might have been a bad time to veto): So my signature weapon can be fists right? And then I get to place two enhancements on it? Okay, I choose Versatile: Reach and Huge.
So now my hands are capable of attacking at the range of a polearm and can push someone over, make things explode, and so forth.
Essentially, my player was trying to make a fighter capable of the streetfighter Hadouken… Which seemed to me out of place.
What would you have done with this?
I mean as long as it makes sense in the fiction (natural fey magic, imbued with divine energy, etc.) I’d say sure.
The fists option is just for this. It is how you build a Monk on Dungeon World. If it fell outside the style of game the rest of the players had in mind you did right but I have allowed such craziness and more.
I would have asked the player “so your hands can do all that? How? What does it look like when you do it?”
If they said “hadouken” and that didn’t fit the kind of game I thought we were playing I’d say something like “Really? Like Street Fighter? I was thinking this would be a bit more of a grounded grim game, maybe we can rethink this a little.”
On the other hand, I can totally seem some games where I’d be like “our fighter is Ken? Awesome.”
If the Fist doesn’t fit, you must Acquit…or not allow…whatever 🙂
Should have asked some loaded questions to justify reaching, explosion fists rather than vetoed.
Also over-sized gauntlets with chains that stretch out like flails could be awesome too.
Yeah, the questions might have worked. Joe Stroup my player literally wanted his fists to be the weapons. Gauntlets with chains would not have been acceptable. But I agree, it would be cool.
reach range? forcefull and messy fists?
http://www.hdwallpapersarena.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/hulk_general_desktop_1440x900_wallpaper-83992.jpg
Yeah, I might have worked with it a bit, and used it as an opportunity to world-build. “Your punches have reach? How does that work? Everyone else, does that fit with your idea of the setting? And your fists are huge? What does that look like? Are they comically oversized, or are they bear paws or something? Are human-animal hybrids common? Where did they come from?”
Thanks for the suggestions guys! I should have asked more questions!
I’m pretty permissive with my games so I would have run with it and asked him more questions to look for the hook, the drawback to having giant fist weapons.
“That sounds pretty deadly! What would those monsters be like when it comes to fiddly tasks?”
A player in my campaign would like to play with a monk and to emulate this he used the fists as your signature weapon.
The game flows pretty well.
The above about asking questions: that’s really the key. I had a player do almost exactly this (I think he took Versatile: Close). It never bothered me because, hey, fists are on the list of options, and it’s not like the other enhancements make more sense. (“My fists are have serrated edges and glow when golems are nearby.”) (Actually, that sounds pretty cool. My next character is going to be Magnus, Robot Fighter.)
I think my player was intentionally trying to break the system, which annoyed me a bit. But that’s a whole other issue I guess.
I think I would have explored option that fit his concept. I am down with Hong Kong action theater, especially if “fists” meant kicks and the like as well. Huge seems odd, thinking about “fists” unless you can describe him as a monstrously large brute. Street Fighter seems more like magic than a signature weapon to me but if the player can describe those ideas, that’s great.
I think the huge thing was just a add on. The real focus, and the thing that threw me was the idea of fists having reach. He wanted his fighter to throw little fireballs for every punch.
One thing I like about Dungeon World is that it channels player goofiness, especially when as the GM you ask questions about the silly things they try to inject. I don’t even remember how it started, but our world is shaped like a waffle, there is an annual waffle festival, and the ancestor of the local nobility was saved from an assassin by a waffle. It’s silly, but it’s part of our world and in a strange way fits and it’s certainly ours.
Man, if he wanted fists with reach he shoulda described himself as Dhalsim. Stretchy arms would have been a much easier sell… And he could always have gotten away with yoga fire later on as a custom move.
Why not “fists with reach” couldn’t be kicks? Afterall martial artists don’t use just fists to fight.
Maybe he got all arm-stretchy like Dahlsim? Or maybe his fists just got all big during punches like in Battletoads? Maybe he grew out his fingernails extra-long and swipes his enemies that way? It seems like there’s a wealth of good ideas out there.
And maybe the answer is he wanted the throw Hadoukens. The best part about Dungeon World is the players get to make the type of characters they want to play and get to help shape the world they want to play in.
I don’t like running a lot of RPG games because I tend to railroad my players too much into the plot/story I’m trying to tell, but I don’t have that problem at all with Dungeon World because I’m asking the players for answers to questions about the world they’re experiencing and they get to choose and I no longer feel the burden of trying to tell my players some story that I came up with out of whole cloth.