Is combat interesting in Dungeon World?
A short blog post about DnD and DW.
Is combat interesting in Dungeon World?
Is combat interesting in Dungeon World?
9 thoughts on “Is combat interesting in Dungeon World?”
Comments are closed.
Is combat interesting in Dungeon World?
Is combat interesting in Dungeon World?
A short blog post about DnD and DW.
Comments are closed.
Of course it is!
And a good article!
Yes, I agree. Certainly one of the more inspiring games. 🙂
It’s not as tactical as 4e (sometimes I really enjoy a chess-like miniatures battle), but it’s very interesting in other ways. When you fail at something, it isn’t always taken out in damage. You might get your sword thrown across the room, or might summon reinforcements, or you might get the prince you were escorting stabbed. GM has free reign to do whatever would make things more complicated when you botch a roll, as long as it follows from the fiction.
I’d say it facilitates interesting combat. AW and its hacks focus on the mechanics telling you more about how things go down than what exactly goes down.
It’s by no means perfect. I’d say that the inclusion of hit points works against the excitement of combat, but that’s a matter of preference.
I came to Dungeon World after running Swords & Wizardry Whitebox (an OD&D clone) for a year and a half. From that perspective, Dungeon World’s combat just made sense. Everything the old school renaissance blogs were telling me about working within the fiction (although with different terminology) applied, and I found that Dungeon World supported it better than Whitebox did. I also find that Dungeon World lends itself to more cinematic combat.
“Why D&D Has Lots of Rules for Combat” is a great article to get people thinking about how intention shapes mechanics in game design.
I think there’s an additional conclusion to be made in the light of the article: Dungeon World combat isn’t inherently more interesting than anything else you do. A chase scene, a tense negotiation or even carousing in town can all be as interesting as the fiction and the players dictate.
The list of moves does guide you in the direction of what might be interesting, but it’s broad enough to encompass most of what makes sense in a fantasy adventure.
Yes, of course, you can see it the other way round, AndrĂ© Rodrigues . I didn’t think of that, thank you.
Alan De Smet that’s very interesting because I experienced the same when I played DCC.
Sophia Brandt And thank you for the article, never thought of applying that idea to DW, but it really shows what the game is all about.