In classic D&D, the Wizard and Cleric can only prepare spells once a day. (If memory serves—I only have the retro-clones on hand.) Anyway, I was wondering if your Dungeon World follows that pattern. Do your Wizards and/or Clerics prepare and/or commune more than once a day?
I see Andri Erlingsson’s Elf class states explicitly that “you cannot use this move again until after you have Made Camp.” I like that. What do you think?
They can prep as many times as they want, as long as they spend about an hour doing so each time.
Ach, I’d probably ask the wizard. Anyway, it seems that most of the times in my games, they prepare spells every 3-5 in-game days.
Once per day for free. Multiple times if there’s an appropriate story activity to justify (special ritual, sacrifice, holy/mystic act). Might require a Defy Danger roll if abused.
The “abuse” (if you want to call it that) is simple to handle by introducing time consequences. Also asking the other group members waht they do druing that hour.
Especially in a dungeon this is a time to use of their essources. Like torches. They go out then. Time to prepare the next one.
My favorite fictional reference for preparing spells comes from Zelazny’s “Chronicles of Amber,” specifically the second series wherein the protagonist describes how difficult it is to work magic in the thick of a fight, so he “hangs” spells that are mostly cast for when he’s going to need them so he can fire them off with a quick word/gesture. So I don’t have a problem with wizards in my games prepping spells whenever they can make time, and not having to redo them the next morning if they’re not cast. But like Tim Franzke said, an hour is a long time in a dungeon or other tense situation, and as a GM there are a lot of moves you can and should make to keep things interesting if it’s slowing down too much.
Clerics are mostly the same, but I do usually ask them when and how often they have to pray to their deity, and will make deity-related moves if they don’t stick to that (within reason).
In the original D&D, Magic-User/Clerics could prepare spells multiple times, as long as they had 8 hours rest and meditation to do so. Because of the long requirement, most people probably said 1/day to make it easier for the players to grab hold of.
I kind of like the idea of having to ‘Make Camp’ to study and commune to learn spells, but if there is something that needs to happen quickly, I’d be all for an emergency learning. Perhaps like the others have stated, an hour to learn a new spell with the possible dangers therein. If you have not lost a spell at that time due to casting, you’d have to sacrifice one to ‘make room’ for the new one.