Do I build “Beyond the Wall” World?
First, Beyond the Wall and other Adventures [1] is a “Young Adult Fiction” take on OSR-style D&D, modelled on the worlds of Ursula K. LeGuin (A Wizard of Earthsea, etc) and Lloyd Alexander (Chronicles of Prydain). Nothing wrong with it, lots of evocative playbooks (some available for free at Drivethru — check the Noble characters book if you’re interested in seeing their take on playbooks) and “discover through play” stuff going on there already. The free Village map [2] is a wonderful DW resource for villages and towns — lots of room to discover through play, or even Vornheim the place right up.
Second, in a bout a month’s time I should have the opportunity to run a game, and Dungeon World is at the top of the list. Already have a framework for very perilous adventures — but I would willingly toss that over my shoulder if I thought I could pull this off.
What do I need to do? Build six playbooks. Most of the “vanilla” Dungeon World playbooks might need to be dumbed down a little bit. Cleric has to go, Witch’s Prentice should fill that slot well enough.
Or maybe I’m looking at this too closely. Are the existing playbooks fine?
[1] http://www.flatlandgames.com/btw/
[2] http://www.flatlandgames.com/btw/downloads/Beyond_the_Wall_Town_Map.pdf
I reckon you could run the game with the playbooks exactly as they are. However, there are couple of things that might help to invoke the correct tone.
Take a good look at the starting bonds, and change or add things appropriate to the background; X and I come from the same village; I’d follow Y to the ends of the earth, whatever.
The other is the class descriptions (which aren’t part of the playbooks). The wizard in particular implies lots of past solitary study. Some versions about discovering strange powers or particular affinities might be more appropriate for younger characters.