Our Pathfinder group was short 40% of our players last night, so I conned the group into letting me run my first…

Our Pathfinder group was short 40% of our players last night, so I conned the group into letting me run my first Dungeon World session instead. I loved how the game just kept rolling, smoothly in and out of combat, and full of adventure. I recently re-watched the Star Trek reboot, and was struck by how the characters in that movie are constantly being thrown from one trouble to another. I aimed for a similar pacing in our game.

My seven-year-old son joined us right at the end of character creation. I was impressed by his creativity, and by the way the rules both allowed his more fantastical ideas, and kept them in check from being too overwhelming. All of the players had interesting histories for their characters. It’s clear that a continuing campaign would have lots to draw upon. The bonds also really pulled the group together.

I started with these questions:

“Tearos, why are you in this temple?”

“Ajax, who are you running from, and why?”

“Ovid, what did you do just before the cannibals started chasing you?”

“Lily, what have you foreseen about this situation?”

Then the group ran from the cannibals, discovering a secret door which they got through just in time, only to hear it broken down behind just after they had found that the hallway they were then following was collapsed. There was a battle with the cannibals, during which a mage spell had the unintended consequence of awakening some magical sentinel masks, which the party then overcame. We had to stop due to time just after that, but I was amazed by how much story and action we had fit into the one evening, especially given that we did character creation too. 

I think I’ll need to learn to balance things better: both the behavior of enemies, and the spotlight time for each player. I was holding back too much with the enemies. Just jotting down a couple of monster moves would have helped, and would have put the characters in a more vibrant situation. But overall, I’m calling it a win.

Thanks to everyone here who has posted such useful resources! I definitely made use of what I’ve read here.