Talked to my brother today about Dungeon World. I told him that I played Pathfinder recently (a game I really enjoy) and… well… it felt rigid and clunky at times having now experienced DW. Question: What other games, or elements of other games (if any) are less enjoyable to you now that you have experienced DW?
Talked to my brother today about Dungeon World.
Talked to my brother today about Dungeon World.
I have never been a huge fan of initiative and turn order in games, but now I can barely stand it after playing DW.
Honestly, between FATE & DW there’s just so much that drives me nuts about other games. Both of them have been very enlightening and ‘freeing’ in the way I view playing RPGs.
If some mad rpg scientist could take FATE’s aspects, stress, skills and stunts and then mix them with DW’s Bonds, ‘only the players roll’ and plot flexibility… I’d be out of my mind ecstatic 🙂
Oh, and more to the point of the question: Combat in general is so much better in DW. The tactical nature of combat in other games seemed fun at first, but nowadays it just feels painful and annoying. Noone does anything awesome, because everyone is looking to gather the most modifiers so they can hit big. Flanking & opportunity attacks are the death of cinematic combat.
“Noone does anything awesome, because everyone is looking to gather the most modifiers so they can hit big. Flanking & opportunity attacks are the death of cinematic combat.”
I completely disagree, and think it depends on your players. My 4-year-long 4e game was extremely cinematic and dramatic in its combat because we were all very dedicated to doing a lot of storytelling in combat.
However, I will say that this sort of combat (4e is particularly guilty here) is a PACING killer. While our game was certainly cinematic, combat took ages (in fact it took longer because we made it cinematic) which sometimes was a detriment to the overall storytelling.
Greg Laabs you make a good point – I guess I should have said: you’re effectively penalized for doing awesome things in combat.
I’ve heard that D&D Next alleviates this somewhat, but it still has concepts of advantage.
I just love the idea of a single damage die for a class. I love the idea that my fighter can kick over a stack of barrels on an enemy and still do d10 damage, rather than some other, likely smaller amount.
Clunky, unintuitive character design and general rules. Any time you have to go pawing through one or several thick tomes for a specific rule, any time levelling up or advancing takes linger than five minutes.
All of these things break the fiction, and force you to concentrate on the rules instead. When you invest so much mental space to remembering rules, you leave less room for imagining the fiction.
I have also disliked the need for extensive prep, and have mostly ignored it in whatever system I was playing. DW is the first game that has explicitly told me not to write too much prep.
In fact DW is the first game I’ve played to have clear, explicit rules on how to be a good GM and help shape the fiction for your players. Most other games have tried to be simulations – they’ve represented physical or sometimes social phenomena, they tell you how to simulate the world – usually in the frame of combat. DW GM rules are about telling you how to orchestrate a scene. Anything that doesn’t do this for the GM feels like half a game for me now.
“…I just love the idea of a single damage die for a class. I love the idea that my fighter can kick over a stack of barrels on an enemy and still do d10 damage, rather than some other, likely smaller amount…” ~ Michael Barrett
Yea, in fact I was just explaining this to my brother as well. In games like D&D you can (note: “can” vs “always”) have situations where group members are upset at, say, the Fighter for such a move (kicking over barrels) because that is clearly not as effective/efficient as simply swinging his sword/using an ability. In DW this is not the case, which is great. I was explaining that while, yes, you may have less initially selectable options (no giant list of feats, etc) at the table of a DW game, you really have MORE options because you are free to do anything and have it be just as effective, and in some cases do NO damage BUT be MORE effective.
Totally – again this may fall back to my FATE love, but if I’ve described the scene as having a big stack of barrels? In my mind, I want someone to kick them over and look awesome while doing it. If you do it, I’ll probably have it damage 2-3 enemies instead of just one. DW lets you do that easily.
I used to be a fan of Savage Worlds, and ran all of my games with it. But AW & DW have stolen my heart. I ran a SW game at a convention this spring and kept finding myself hand waving some the rules that were slowing things down. I just don’t think I can go back.
I was already ruined by the time DW came around
Dear DW and Fate, Because of you I get annoyed when a DM:
…picks up dice
…says “you don’t notice anything about…”
…refuses to make a situation dangerous
…talks about an npc more than asks questions about a player
…and already has the game planned from start to finish.
Or when a player:
…says “is it my turn?”
…Rolls the dice and says “I hit it.”
…doesn’t pay attention.
…Answers questions with “I don’t know”
…tries to make their character not have connections to anyone or anything.
For all of this, I sincerely thank you.
I was ruined a long time ago, too. DW resurrected me.
#4e and #DArpg , but maybe the problem is me.
#DnDNext still shows plenty of promise for that OTHER sort of game.
#DungeonWorld is the king of homebrew.
Pretty much everything I would say has been said. So, personal story. I’ve been running a SW game for over a year now. And the campaign has become pretty involved. So involved that its problematic when a player can’t make it. So we’ve started playing DW on nights when someone can’t show. And now I’ve lost all taste for my campaign. Also in reference to this thread #circlejerk
Thanks for the responses all – very interesting 😉
I’d love for D&D to go with damage dice based on class. They need to stop being a slave to the simulation.
I incorporate a ton of narrativist/DW elements in 4e which is VERY compatible with this approach. (The most compatible of any recent editions of D&D anyway.)