24 thoughts on “Why is there not more discussion about fronts in this community?”

  2. Every good campaign I’ve run has used something like fronts, conspyramids, etc. I am very thankful for the system. I’ve only run a handful of times, so far, so do not have a lot of good insights or feedback, yet. I imagine I will, though.

  6. I don’t enjoy making them, to be honest. I don’t think I really understand their structure and point. I follow the idea by having other things happening concurrently, though. I guess I am doing it in my head without officially making it a front, but I usually keep it short term.

  7. Have you ever jotted down a few notes for an adventure you made up that you ran for an RPG? Then you’ve used them. Tack on labels using their terminology if you like.

  11. I generally play D&D, and occasionally DW (mostly because I enjoy the tactics and own a ton of minis), but I expect I run my D&D games much like Adam runs DW. I never come to the table with more than a couple index cards with notes and a monster manual. And I rarely end up using the index cards. If I merely formalized my “what might happen” notes, they’d be Fronts.

  12. If you don’t fronts on DW, you should check the front section from another *world game. It seems like everyone has a different idea of what a front is. In a good way. My favorite front set up is the one from AW, but DW’s fronts seem to work better for some things. And then you could always hack the front system.

  13. I haven’t written one up yet. They scare me a bit. I’m not sure I can come up with something awesome to justify one. But I am going to give it a try anyway. I had to look up conspyramid. That is awesome, though far more terrifying (all those arrows) than a DW front =P

  14. I’m a big fan of Fronts because they pretty much mirror the way I run campaigns anyway. Grim Portents are the perfect way to remind yourself what the bad guys are actually trying to do, because it’s easy to end up in a place where it seems as though they’re just there to hassle the heroes. They also make it easier to come up with a course of action when the heroes thwart a Grim Portent and you ask yourself, “How is this Danger going to get back on track?” When I run a campaign I like for my players to feel as though the other people, monsters and organizations of the world all have goals, motivations, and objectives. This adds massive layers of verisimilitude to a campaign.  

  17. The main reason I’ve started using fronts for all of the campaigns I’m GMing right now (even the non-DW ones) is that the process has pushed me to think bigger. I’ve had a tendency to think of one immediate threat and then center the game around it. Having more concurrent threats and a larger overarching theme has really helped me feel more comfortable GMing. If the players happen to completely circumvent or destroy the current issue, I’m still relatively prepared to handle it.

  18. They seem to provide a nice glue for the adventures. I think they can really give the players a sense that something larger is about to happen. As a GM they also help me get really excited to see how things are going to evolve.

  20. Apparently, I am not alone, so I finally can stop feeling guilty for not using them.

    I am not writing fronts because it would take for me a lot of work to summarize all the plotlines (not fixed plot, just my list of environments, events, situations, and NPC objectives) into the front format, and then I would have very little reason to use them.

    It would be probably different if I had to share my ideas with other GMs.

  22. I improv everything. There are some great tips in how to do this in Graham Walmsley’s Play Unsafe.

    I think if there were more examples floating about though people might use fronts more often. 🙂

  23. I have not used them. I have tried fitting existing adventures into the front format and it hasn’t gone well. To be fair, my DW games so far have been throwaway games not campaigns, and so when I play DW I have no idea coming into it which way it will go. Really that’s usually why I choose DW, cause I can do it with no prep. So I draw a blank coming up with fronts for a non-existent campaign concept.

    I do think fronts are interesting. The whole notion of grim portents leading to an impending doom is a nice way to organize things. It is basically the same as Plot Points in Savage Worlds, just streamlined down to a bare outline (like everything else in DW). I guess I see Fronts more as a presentation format. Some things fit, but not everything. Some things are too simple to require grim portents; some things have no clearly defined impending doom; some things work better as location  based or as a relationship map. It’s just a tool in the toolbox.

  24. I’m curious to see some examples of things people feel fronts are poorly suited to handle. When I read the section in the rulebook it seemed pretty darn comprehensive to me.

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