Hi there, I just finished reading Dungeon World and I really like it. The game evoked my earlier days or gaming, when we played AD&D, and we keep the game simple.
So, I decided to try it, and play an adventure in the Dragonlance setting, for the nostalgia and all that. The problem is that the players known the world with a lot of detail. The maps of Krynn aren´t a mystery to them (or to me!), and that nullify one of the GM principles: leave blanks (wich I think is one of the most important principles).
What should I do?
Taladas?. Make it a Dragonlance Ravenloft crossover? Something from farther back in history or time travel to there?
Take them to the Unknown Marches, a recently discovered land at the known frontiers of Krynn…
My advice? Play in a world that evokes the Dragonlance setting, but is your own creation. Dungeon World really sings when you build the setting collaboratively through play. Having everything figured out beforehand nullifies the GM principle of leaving blanks, as you said. But it also kind of kills the “play to find out what happens” agenda.
Making it work is all about finding the right level of detail to play at – you need to have enough detail that it feels like Dragonlance, but also enough stuff left as unknowns/blanks that your players can chime in.
My advice to you would be to go through the existing Krynn stuff, and then decide beforehand what aspects of the setting history really matter to you. Once you have that, you can tell your players what is 100% unequivocally true and what is open to interpretation/reinvention during play.
It’s actually easier if your players know the setting material, incidentally. It means that they can make declarative statements that everyone at the table will find plausible, instead of having someone make a statement and someone else say “no, I think you’ll find that on page 502 of novel #183 of the expanded universe, the third scullion from the right said that’s not true.”
Other than that, take them somewhere new or somewhere that’s a frontier, where things are changing fast and frequently, or else try to advance the timeline a bit so that everyone has some space to make changes in.
As long as you never say no to something a player suggested because it contradicts ~the canon~, you’ll be fine.
You, as GM, will take the maps, delete the unimportant, and leave blanks to be filled later.
You will reorganize the enemies in fronts which are meant to pursue their instinct, not to follow the plot in a dronelike fashion.
You will leave some details to be filled in by the players. Tell them they’re not at an exam: if they are asked for something and they don’t like it (don’t remember it), it can be changed.
In this fashion, you could even play the DL modules again, not just the setting.
Riverwind is NOT meant to be liquified/ressed in the same way.
What if you can convince lord Verminaard to betray his goddess?
When you’ll have made it YOUR Dragonlance, you’ll love it so muche more.
Or take them to that small spot on the map and let them discover what’s around. Just a few miles around. ie change to a microscale.
Before DW I almost always created my own home brew setting. However, I can remember my early days running games in Greyhawk and the Forgotten Realms. I didn’t use published adventures, though, so the setting was a foundation upon which our own tales were spun. In your case, to run a successful DW session, don’t follow the module to the letter. Instead, as others have said, pull the big elements from it that make it distinctively Dragonlance, and throw aside the rest in favor of leaving blanks and playing to see what happens.
You could start with: “This is Krynn, but not quite the Krynn you remember…” Have the characters be returning after years away, ask the players questions about what has changed, what’s gone, and how the familiar things that remain are different somehow.
I can almost guarantee this will increase their excitement for the game!
In DW, world building is a conversation between the GM and his/her players; a published setting becomes the third voice in that conversation. It acts only as an agreed upon foundation for your Krynn!
Stefan Grambart That´s an awesome start. Combing with Alex Norris advice (god! I never was, be or will be a “dogmatic canon fan boy”), it should work well.
I thought in adapting one of the classic modules using the Adventure Conversion appendix, but, like you said, opening the possibilities to anything build with the characters.
Leave blanks:
Krynn may be mapped out, but not every cavern, dungeon and small town.
Zoom in – find blanks amidst the big sprawling maps. I might know where LA is and where New York is, but to walk the roads between them would mean discovering a hundred tiny towns I’d never know about. The “map” you’re leaving blanks on can be a metaphor for discovering something new about a familiar place, too.
Ok, I´ll try it! Thanks!