I’m sharing this here because I want to know if other people has the same experience as me.
Dungeon World opened up a new way of gaming to me, one that I vastly prefer to what I was used to.
The inclusiveness and the assumption of equal participation is something many other, more traditional games leave out, and often they assume the exact opposite; that it’s “the GM’s game”, that the players are just along for the ride.
I just felt that I needed to share this here, and see if other people has similar experiences.
Having been introduced to RPGs via console games, my current players were used to limited choices and little meaningful interaction.
DW feels more like Improv than most RPGs, and I mean that in the best way. Console RPGs are lagging behind when it comes to improvisation and breadth of choice; RPGs should be embracing those elements as the things that make them relevant…
DW does this like no other game.
Stefan Grambart When did you start roleplaying?
Kasper Brohus ugh, showing my age here, but I am a player since 1985 (I was 11), and GM since about… 1990?
Stefan Grambart Oh, read your post as if you had been introduced via console games! Lol, my bad.
The funny thing about improvising in DW is that it is also somewhat assumed that the players will do it, for example when you have to say why your character knows something when successfully spouting lore. That’s not something you see in many games.
After reading your blog, i had exactly that feeling you described when reading Dungeon world, and though i have not yet got a FTF group yet to play it, i find its advice seeping into my other games i run, which can only be a good thing i think.
I have yet to play DW but I have read through most of the rules. It’s that improvisational/openess of it that is blowing my mind, as I am used to die roll determination and a GM telling you what’s what. It’s hard to fathom
I can’t go back. I’ve tried to play trad games and just can’t anymore. RIght on Kasper.
Noel O’Connor The paradigm is intoxicating. That’s the closest word I can think of.
Christopher McGurr The openness is what makes the game amazing! You say what you do, and on a +10, it just happens! When that kind of power over the narrative is given to a player, wonderful things follow. I’ve never had this much fun as a GM.
Stuart McDermid Me neither. I will play new games, but not in a traditional way. The binary failure / success outcomes are just so… boring now.
The paragraph that begins “I learned that for me, the most important part of a game is how it enables and amplifies the social aspects of gaming”, that’s the realness, right there. That’s why this game is blowing everyone’s minds. Until DW, the idea was (and this is even printed in many games): “If the game is holding you back from having fun, stop following the rules and just wing it.” Never has a game design been built on the idea that following the rules will be FUN. Combat movement, task resolution mechanics, and power balance have always been written and designed as necessary evils to separate RPGs from just creative chaos. DW not only embraces that chaos; it REQUIRES it. It’s fueled by it.
Ed Gibbs I’m 100% behind you there. So far, my experience with DW is that the game gets better the more moves that are triggered. They always introduce something awesome, even if it is just a “success” of sorts, because then someone got exactly what they wanted.
Great simple game. DW for me simply codified my existing D&D DM style.
Robert Neaves Yeah, the rules for the GM in DW are things that he was expected to do in other games.
Ed Gibbs i wouldn’t say that is true. A lot of indy/small published/story games are 100% behind the “these are the rules – follow them!” bandwagon. Just look at Burning Wheel for example.
Tim Franzke, yes! MOUSE GUARD changed my gaming life forever. Traditional RPGs will always remain nostalgic but I don’t want to play them.
Then came EDGE OF THE EMPIRE which I understand is similar to DW on some levels and involves open ended gaming.
Tim Franzke I didn’t mean to imply DW is the ONLY game that does this. I know it’s not. But for a lot of people (myself included), DW was the one that opened our eyes, the “gateway game,” if you will. I have never read Burning Wheel (and, until a legit PDF of it is released, probably never will).
Edge of the Empire is fun like that too, if you’ve got a GM who wants to put the pedal to the floor and go full Han Solo with it.
Roll and succeed with extra awesomeness icons (I can’t for the life of me remember what they’re actually called!) on the dice? I don’t just run down the stormtrooper with the hotwired grav loader, I catch it on the junkyard gate and it goes end-over, crushing the rest of the patrol as I jump free.
The dice mechanic is a bit different – closer to Fate, especially once you count in those Force points – but you still get the graded & colored successes. It might go the way you want but with a setback, or you might fail but end up with some advantage.
I still think it’s sad everytime i see someone discussing EotE but not using a “play to find out” principle with proactive player characters. Especially obligations directly create some motivations to get stuff done.
Just treading it as adventure RPG 345 with interesting dice is a disservice to it.
Having only played from the box set (a few times now) character creation wasn’t part of my experience, but I was impressed with how the moving parts enabled player-driven action.
So while I didn’t have the same buy-in as having built them from the ground up, I was content to explore the backstory given and I was well enough convinced that Pash had a good reason to do these things even if I wasn’t quite sure what those reasons were in the moment.
For me, the game that opened my eyes like this was Spirit of the Century and the Fate system, but like the OP said, it led me to look for similar games and thus I got DW!
I do want to experience DW eventually.
Kasper, I agree. I’m not new to GMing that way, but Dungeon World reinforces it and also supports it, for both players and GMs. (As do other AW-engine games – lightning keeps striking this family of riffs.)
Definitely changed my way of GMing. I’m still working on converting my players over from D&D to DW (only 2 of the 5 have been able to try DW so far), but in the meantime I’m now running our 3.5e campaign now as close to DW sessions as I can within the system. I’ve thrown out all my story plans and will play it to see how the characters create the story.
Bruce Baugh To me, the rules DW sets for GM’s is what sensible GM’s should do in any game. 🙂 I’ve long wanted to try AW though…
Alex Wilson I’ve actually been thinking about promoting Dungeon World at the university, putting up a poster with an elevator pitch and then run one-shots for everyone who cared to try it out.
Haven’t had a regular group to convert yet, though I seem to have converted one guy (and thus the people he usually GM for) by hosting a terrible one-shot. It was my first time GM’ing this baby, but he saw the game for its merits, not my utter failure.
Kasper Brohus
If you have enjoyed DW, I would suggest a number of other games that have expanded my thinking on the relationship between players and collective creativity.
Obviously, DW is based on Apocalypse World, and that game has been particularly influential on my understanding. Vincent Baker’s other game Dogs in the Vineyard is another one to check out.
Nathan Paoletta’s game Annalise and Meg Baker’s game Psi*Run both use similar innovative dice mechanics that involve players picking from lists of options based on what they roll on the dice.
Tim Kleinert’s The Mountain Witch has a very simple but ultimately engaging mechanic that trades on the player characters having buy-in on secrets they have from each other in a very cool way.
Rob Bohl’s Misspent Youth has a lot of collective decision making at the table about the nature of the world and what kind of threat the characters will confront.
On Mighty Thews is another great fantasy type game, but a bit more Conan-Sword-and-Sorcery themed. It gives the players a LOT of ability to narrate fun facts and color for the world.
This is, of course, just the tip of the iceberg. There’s a lot more cool games out there that have neat, collaborative mechanics.
I love DW (truly, it’s one of my favorite games), but I do think it’s important to place it in a wider move towards innovative game design with rules that facilitate at-the-table creativity and collective buy-in, and, as such, I think we have to acknowledge the other games that have come before it and are also out there right now. Hopefully, you enjoy some of those games I just listed, too. I’ve liked all of them a great deal.
Todd Nicholas That was a long list 🙂 Have you by any chance tried out Rapture: The End of Days? It should be on that list 😉
I haven’t, but thanks for the recommendation. I’ll look it up.
Todd Nicholas It’s a game about the post-rapture times in space. Only those of true faith on Earth was welcomed into the heavens.
Or so it is believed, all communication with earth seized immediately, only screams were heard for a few hours. Demons, devils and what was formerly considered superstition now roam the universe. Crazy shit.
What I liked about the game (except for the crazy awesome setting idea) was the conflict resolution. Both sides of a conflict roll their dice in a single pool. For each side, the GM picks a player to narrate the result based on how the dice fall.
Also, XP was granted to players (not characters) for dying violent or awesome deaths.
I think the big plus for me with PBTA games is that the rules are separated into bite-sized chunks of very explicit instructions that still give you lots of freedom to move.
When does a player use a certain move? When their action in the fiction hits the trigger. Then you follow the instructions, and a mechanical and/or fictional result is spat out the other end.
Similarly, the rules for GMing are equally explicit while still being fictional. The GM isn’t treated as master of the heavy tome of rules first and world weaver second. The GM gets to play a slightly different game than the players, more akin to a conductor, and the rules actually tell you how to do that!
PBTA is built for speed, flexibility, and manipulation of the narrative. It’s what revitalised my interest in the hobby.
Kasper Brohus That sounds right up my alley. Looking it up right now.