Other than Dungeon Planet are there any DW compatible (using the same stats and moves) science fiction (or any…

Other than Dungeon Planet are there any DW compatible (using the same stats and moves) science fiction (or any…

Other than Dungeon Planet are there any DW compatible (using the same stats and moves) science fiction (or any non-fantasy) inspired classes that anyone knows of? My players love DW, and Love the setting for RIFTS (no one loves the rules for RIFTS, which we only really ever play to show newbies how hardcore RPGs used to be) and I’d like to try a science fantasy game using DW as the engine, the classes in DP are cool but too pulpy for what I’m trying to achieve (though I allow them in my regular DW games, who doesn’t like weird genre bending in their fantasy games?).

30 thoughts on “Other than Dungeon Planet are there any DW compatible (using the same stats and moves) science fiction (or any…”

  1. The Inverse World playbooks have some concepts that could fit in a science fiction/fantasy world. They have a person in a robot suit, an airship captain, a golem made of varying materials (chosen at character creation), people who can fly (by various possible means). It’s pretty good stuff and available on Drive Thru RPG.

  2. Yeah I saw that, I’m waiting on the print version, I’ve bought too many pdfs lately, it’s too expensive to keep printing them (I’m a dinosaur, no laptops at my table)

  4. I don’t have AW yet, and I want to mix the pure fantasy classes from DW with some scifi inspired ones so switching system won’t work for my goal here unfortunately.

  5. Dungeon World, Dungeon Planet and Apocalypse World all run on the same engine (the 2d6+stat, 10+ is great, 7-9 is complicated, 6- the GM makes a move); they just use a few different mechanics like health, bonds/relationships, experience, and they have different themes (so different GM agendas, classes, and moves).

    I haven’t tried it, but I think it’d be very easy to bring classes from one into the other.

    Take the Brainer from Apocalypse World, an intrusive mind-creep.  You make up some stats that make sense (AW uses Hot, Cold, Sharp, Weird instead of Str, Dex, etc), rewrite the Hx as Bonds, maybe reword some of the moves to fit the DW diction.  Or, you take a DW class, and swap out one or two moves with a class from AW, and call it something else (eg “Psionic Wizard”, “Battlefront Fighter”).

    Other Apocalypse Engine games include Sagas of the Icelanders (vikings), Tremulus (Cthulu), Monsterhearts (teenage monsters), Monster of the Week (crime solvers), I’m probably missing a dozen others.

  6. I’m familiar with other * World games, I’m just looking to see if anyone has hacked their own DW compatible Scifi playbooks before I make my own. Have you played RIFTS? It’s a setting where characters from any setting (supers, fantasy, high tech sci fi, low tech post apocalyptic, furries, modern day…) can interact, I’m not looking for classes that themselves are a mix of two genres, I’m looking for classes that were designed for DW that are from genres other than traditional fantasy.  But it looks like I’m the only one with a penchant for mixed genre so I guess I have to write my own.

  9. I’ve read the planarch codex but it’s its own specific setting. But I’ll take a look at classes folks have come up with here again, didn’t think I saw what I was looking for when I looked before, thanks.

  11. Why do you want the same Stats and Moves? A SciFi setting usually is governed by energy blaster weapons. Hack&Slash makes much less sense there. Also they tend to be on the more deadly end fiction wise, so the DW HP system might not make such a good fit. 

    Or do you just want Fantasy, but dressed as SciFi?

    (insert Numenera comment here)

  12. Tim Franzke the energy weapon complaint isn’t valid — that just shifts focus to Volley, and hack & slash remains viable for the Jedi and John Carters in the party. DW is built just fine to handle science fantasy-style blaster fights. Clearly the OP doesn’t want lethal sci fi, so the DW HP structure works for that.

  13. I was thinking more on “hard scifi” instead of “space opera” or whatever terms you want to use. 

    For example, i wouldn’t run Traveller with Dungeon World. 

  15. It depends on the themes i guess. Saga in no way is about plundering dungeons. It is about the horrors at war and love in unlikelky places. 

    You wouldn’t get the Saga experience with Dungeon World. 

  16. RIFTS for the unfamiliar is a traditional class and race and level RPG, it uses HP and ablative armor. I want to use DW style stats and moves because I want easy integration, I don’t want some players to have 4 stats and other to have 5 or 6, I don’t want to translate another game’s melee attack move into hack n slash. RIFTS is closer to John Carter than it is to Star Wars, it’s not a planetary romance like Dungeon Planet provides structure for, but it mostly takes place on one planet (earth) so it’s certainly not space opera. A RIFTS game revolves around exploration, monster killing, and usually some themes about human supremacy in a world with many species (the bad guys are human supremacists). I don’t know much about Apocalypse world but the artwork I see implies it’s more of a horror game or a fallout-style post apocalyptic thing, RIFTS certainly has the latter themes but it’s closer spiritually to D&D and the old-school style of play. Hopefully this explains my motivations a bit better.

  17. I believe you can get the Inverse World playbooks without buying the book. At least, there’s a link to them in the PDF.  Jacob Randolph , is that true?

    Beyond that, the Artificer in Jacob Randolph’s Alternate Character Classes can be pretty sci-fi-ish (at least pretty steampunkish).

  20. Jeremy Strandberg I have seen the artificer it could work as a technological based character for sure. there;’s one.

    I was just thinking about approaching this from another angle and simply change starting gear and modify the moves of a couple classes and bingo, instant scifi. The problem I see is the idea that I could have 4 fighters in the group if I modify a class into multiple directions (so one fighter is a fantasy weapon master as written, another is a cyborged monster with built in missles, another is a modern day survivalist, and still a fourth is the mecha pilot), so I worry there wouldn’t be enough variety in choosing that route. Another idea would be making compendium classes to cover the sci fi roles I have in mind, but what I have in mind is people from a sci fi setting starting the game that way, I suppose I could let any character take a move from one of my cc’s at 1st, but what about the players who want to play a pure fantasy character? Of course, I could take a page from the source material and forget balance, RIFTS is legendarily unbalanced (you can have a group with an incredibly powerful god, a mech pilot, a human vagabond with no real skills appropriate to a life of adventure and superman all at level 1)

  22. Chris S I just checked that out, on initial inspection that class is a near perfect replacement for the Ley Line Walker or Shifter classes from RIFTS, thank you.

  23. John Kramer

    Glad it helped. Just bought it the other day myself, it’s got a lot of teleport stunts and alien thinking to it, super easy to port to that kind of game…. also look at the Clock Mage, by the same guy…. it’s a time stopping character. should have good flavor also.

    Jacob Randolph writes some bad ass playbooks. (I would tag him but don’t know how, to new to commenting on g+) I recommend all of his playbooks.

    There are some Psion characters that might work well also. Along with maybe the Metamorph, the Slipstream Warrior, and the Time Traveler.

    There is also one called the Stolen, which is like a character that was abducted and changed somehow.

    Those along with Inverse World and Dungeon Planet should give your players some good choices.

  24. Wouldn’t mind seeing a few alternate settings for DW as the simple ruleset allows for a lot of diversity.

    As for rifts, the settings are interesting but rules not so much. Only thing I can think of in that hard sci-fi RPG doing various subgenres would be Eclipse Phase (simple d100% system of transhumanity) & good overview on Role Playing Public Radio as well as some DW play recordings.

    http://slangdesign.com/rppr/2011/12/podcast-episode/rppr-episode-68-phases-that-are-eclipsed/

  25. Chris S Tagging what’s that? This is my first week on g+

    Darren Priddy I own eclipse phase, I like it a lot, my regular players essentially won’t play any sci fi that doesn’t come from a licensed setting other than RIFTS and old TSR stuff like metamorphosis alpha and star frontiers (And we’re not even that old), ie: they’ll play Star Wars, but not EP, or Numenera, or Diaspora. So when they ask for Dungeon World Rules with a RIFTS-like setting, I jumped at the chance to run something other than pure fantasy.

  26. John Kramer think though there is a Mass Effect conversion for Eclipse Phase on the website or in the works, might be a way in for your group. Can understand the desire to stick with established franchises but I find it more free to go with the rest as you can steal from franchises but put your own ideas on it.

  27. Yeah, I don’t play Mass Effect, so it’s not something I would get into. But believe me, I’d much rather play my own science fiction setting, but SciFi is the bastard stepchild or RPGs nobody likes them it seems. And my players’ contention with games like EP and Numenera has every bit as much to do with new systems as with new settings. Had I told them that the DM doesn’t roll dice in DW (Though I roll damage and treasure, in the open, I like rolling dice, sue me, it’s quicker than telling the player what the damage die is aand waiting for them to roll) before we started playing they wouldn’t have played. something about the DM not rolling dice breaking the standard of all RPGs before, so Numenera is right out. I briefly explained some of the innovations in 13th age (which I describe in shorthand as Dungeon world + d20) and they simply knee jerked that those innovations were inappropriate for a d20 system-ish game.

  28. John Kramer

     I meant this little thing where you can link people to comments… I don’t know how to do it other than replying to their email.

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