Retirement moves

Retirement moves

Retirement moves

Grim World adds the idea of Death Moves to Dungeon World, but epic or not, death isn’t the only way a character exits active play. The other is “retiring to safety”.

I’m nowhere near this yet—we don’t have any characters above level 3—but I wanted to get this germ of an idea into the hands of shrewder minds than my own in case there’s something to it.

I wonder if it would add anything to offer players moves that trigger when they retire a character. I was thinking of a move that just adds a fact to the fiction, like monster moves, rather than something that includes a Roll+(anything). Since the buildup of fiction between level 1 and level 10 could lead anywhere, I don’t see the retirement moves being class-based. But they could easily be added to certain Compendium Classes, or even be self-contained Compendium Classes with just one move that triggered when the character retires.

When you retire with enough gold to lay down in and a gold crown upon your head…

When you leave your adventuring career having survived the collapse of civilization…

When you recover all eight fragments of the Triforce and defeat the cruel wizard Ganon…

When you construct an invisible tower to conduct your magical experiments in seclusion for the rest of your days…

Classic D&D assumed that the endgame involved strongholds and domain management, and those might be some of the options. I’m also thinking of Sorcerer, which gives players the opportunity to narrate something about their characters’ destiny (when their Humanity bottoms out).

Anyway, this might be how the “retire to safety” option is played already, and adding formal “moves” might be unnecessarily restrictive. I haven’t formed the idea fully, I just wanted to get it out there for further development by the able.

9 thoughts on “Retirement moves”

  1. I think that such moves may be best created to integrate seamlessly into the existing campaign.

    I definitely like the idea of starting with the concept from AD&D where advanced level characters might retire to a stronghold, wizard’s tower, thieves’ guild, and so forth.

    You have the right idea starting with compendium classes. This is probably the way to go. Although the GM could just as easily create a custom move to complete the “retirement”.

  3. You could also rule that at a set level, 11 for example, a character has to make a retirement move. Said moves establish the retired characters as important players in the campaign (guild master, landed lord, head of the wizard order…). So even if you don’t get to play your retired hero anymore, you’re still able to make certain decisions and influence the game world.

  8. Have you ever checked out the original Apocalypse World’s option for retiring your character to safety? The rule book contains some helpful musings on the subject.

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