Guys, I’m sorry, but I can’t take it anymore. I GM Dungeon World five days a week for elementary-school kids, and asking them to roll monster damage against each other just takes too long. I’m going to start rolling it myself. T___T
Guys, I’m sorry, but I can’t take it anymore.
Guys, I’m sorry, but I can’t take it anymore.
sounds like a good reason. What problems do they have with rolling the damage?
Man you crazy. I GM for middle/high schoolers once a month and that’s enough.
You are a hero James Mendez Hodes! Bless you!! Roll them bones yourself and never look back.
This is cool. Is it part of their formal education or are you just an awesome community center guy or something?
Why not just give them flat damage? Take the damage die, divide by 2– that’s their damage. A d10 monster does 5. A d6 does 3. Then no one has to roll.
Is this part of a recreation or learning program? I’m pitching a pilot game at the local Boys and Girls club.
Exactly what Stephanie Bryant says … works well.
Except it could take some of the excitement out of it
Honestly, damage is not the most common thing I do to my players’ characters. Knock them down, throw them off cliffs, drop buildings on them, spring a trap, break their gear… sure. But not often damage, unless they specifically trigger it with Hack and Slash.
I wanna play in Stephanie Bryant’s game.
Last game, one PC went outright catatonic at the prospect of what was about to happen to him. It was delicious.
I do the damage rolls as well for the youngsters I’ve got a couple dice ditherers that roll the dice for ages. They also generally feel the game master should be doing adversarial things to them.
I actually do this professionally at a FLGS as part of an after-school education program. Damage just takes them forever. If I’m like, “Roll 2d12 for the dragon’s damage,” they have to find 2d12, be told that the d10s they picked up are not in fact d12s, roll the dice, pick them up off the floor (I’ve started using a “dice that go to the floor are either 1’s or maxed” rule), and then look at the results. It’s faster if I just roll a die.
Stephanie Bryant, I do math very slowly in my head so it’s actually faster for me (especially in cases like b[2d12]) just to roll it rather than taking the average (which is always a multiple of .5 anyway).
The game doesn’t break if the GM rolls damage, and if it makes your games faster, easier, and more fun, don’t hesitate to do it.
When I first started GMing DW, I’d roll damage dealt to the players, but after a few sessions got them to roll. Both work fine, but there’s a freedom I now enjoy playing diceless GMing.