First session ever of DW tonight, lessons learned
Need to improve improv skills
Combat is deadlier than I thought
Hard moves are tough to come up with in your first session…
Leaving a year between gaming sessions may not have been the best preparation…..
deadly combat, mh? Did you realize that HP are calculated with a base number (given by the class) + the whole Consitution score, not the modifier (i.e., if you are a Bard with consitution 15, you’ll have 21 HP, not 7!)? Because it’s a common mistake, even… errr… a friend of mine made it 😛
Hey Chris.
Improving improv takes some practice!
I’ve always found the Dungeon Starters (courtesy of Marshall Miller) great starting points, or, similarly, John Aegard’s “Indigo Galleon”.
The GM moves I’ve found the best inspiration have been:
– “Show sings of an approaching threat” (so you can suggest what might come if they cannot resolve the situation at hand).
– “Offer an opportunity, with or without cost” (yep, it’s looking bad for the wizard, but this is a golden opportunity for the bard to step up and turn the situation around).
I’ve always found that once you get into the swing of things, “moves snowball”.
Balancing soft and hard moves as well as when to deal damage is a lot of the key. Exhausting the party and challenging them so that they’re weary but capable for that final climatic encounter is the key. A lot of prep work I think about, as I mentioned in some other post awhile back, is environmental hazards. Having chandeliers to swing off of, kegs of oil, that pot of boiling stew over the fire, that precariously balanced statue of a demonic entity… Material you or the players can use during moves. Just be sure to be an equal opportunity game master in your descriptions before the clash of arms. If you use environmental moves the players will soon enough start doing the same generally and it leads to even more memorable battles.
also, there’s a Dungeon World Guide somewhere, very insightful and well written, you should take a look at it, it’s been helpful to me!
there you go… it’s not mandatory, but it sure helps 🙂
http://www.dungeon-world.com/dungeon-world-guide/
I second that.
“Combat is deadlier than I thought
Hard moves are tough to come up with in your first session…”
Haha! I GM’ed my first session a week ago and came to the same conclusions.
Combat is mostly deadly when you deal damage as your only kind of move against them. (And if players are not careful)
One of the best pieces of improv advice I ever read came from Graham Walmsley’s “Play Unsafe”, and simply says “Be Obvious.” If you can’t come up with some ‘creative’ or ‘imaginative’, don’t sweat it! Just go with the obvious answer! It’s an amazingly effective ‘technique’ once you get used to it.