Ran my first session of DW this past Thursday for five players, several of whom have past experience with * World…

Ran my first session of DW this past Thursday for five players, several of whom have past experience with * World…

Ran my first session of DW this past Thursday for five players, several of whom have past experience with * World games.

I want to thank the authors for this outstanding game — it was the most fun I have ever had as a GM! (And I was worried that not rolling dice would be dull… Ha!)

I still have work to do on understanding the rules, but the foremost concern from the group was combat (which I understand to be a common issue). I get that it’s a conversation, with no rounds and no GM attacks, per se. I took advice from the excellent Dungeon World Guide, and went around the table in a rough circle, asking “What do you do?” in response to my moves. I thought it worked, but one or two players said it felt rote and too turn-based.

Any thoughts?

8 thoughts on “Ran my first session of DW this past Thursday for five players, several of whom have past experience with * World…”

  1. Don’t get to down on yourself. Any player that has played DW and was really open to enjoying it will be allergic to anything that feels like rounds 🙂 

    What were the moves that you were choosing?

  2. Mix it up.  Put one player in a spot in response to their action, then pick someone else who’s in a position to act on that and ask what THEY do now that they see the monster bearing down on their teammate.  Jump around the table based on reactions and opportunities.  One player’s partial success is another player’s dilemma.  _What do you do?_

  3. I almost never ask every single person what they do.  I pick someone and target them.  If someone pipes up, I’ll address them, too.

    GM: Okay, Avon, you failed your roll, so the Orc dives on you, knocking you to the ground.  Rion, what do you do?  Avon’s going to get cut up.

    Lux: I run over and kick the orc!  I’ll protect you, Avon!

  4. Thanks, guys. Matt, I was doing things like: show signs of approaching threat, use up their resources, deal damage (mostly on hack & slash misses), separate them, put someone in a spot… You know, combat-related stuff. I only kept the list of GM moves in the back of my mind, since this is all stuff we’ve been doing all along… right?

  6. When you get more comfortable with the rules, experiment with not going around in a circle. Target characters more randomly, let the fiction guide you, stay with one character for a little bit. Mix it up until it feels right.

  7. Aaron Sturgill totally, we should be doing that all along! I was asking more specifically, what was going  on in the fiction? Can you give a few examples of what happened in the combat?

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