I wanted to talk a little bit about Dungeon World as a first RPG. I’ve now used DW to introduce half a dozen new people to tabletop RPGs, with great success. One of those new players just emailed me to say how much fun she had, and how, after playing some other games, she realizes how awesome DW was as her first experience with a RPG. My current group consists of 3 brand new folks and 2 who haven’t played RPGs for 15 years or so. We’ve been playing a few short runs (DW, tremulus, a weird Barbarians of Lemuris/DW hybrid), but they voted last week to return to DW for a long campaign,which I think speaks to how much they enjoy the game.
So, what are other people’s experiences introducing new folks to our hobby using DW?
I personally came from DnD 4e and when I played DW, I knew this is exactly what I was missing from DnD. This was, for me, the perfect niche in RPG’s, though there are many I haven’t played.
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I started on DW about a year ago and now there are about eight to ten young addicts in my town. Not one if them played any RPG before.
Some of my favourite stories are using DW to introduce folks to roleplaying. Especially kids. Kids love DW. I think mostly because we went in trying to design a game that made adults feel like 12 year olds.
Also this – http://dungeon-elementary.tumblr.com/
The key aspect of DW (and other *World games) that I find makes them so newbie friendly is the emphasis on fiction first. My geeky but non-gamer friends have no problem narrating their characters’ actions and basing decisions on what’s going on in the fiction (as opposed to making decisions based on the game rules which my more experienced gamer friends sometimes do). The smooth flow of shared story creation, the fact that the rules only pop up when needed then disappear again, and the simple universal resolution system makes it easy for them just play their character and learn rules-stuff as we go along.
I’ll just leave this here — it’s the most hilarious rant I’ve ever read about DW.
https://archive.foolz.us/tg/thread/32484819/
I haven’t introduced any newbies through DW. However, I have done with Fate, several times. Because the two are focused on fiction not “physics”, I expect they would be similar in that I am often struck by two things: the comparative ease with which unspoiled players pick up on it, and the profound difficulties those trained on D&D have in doing the same.
Yup! This!
http://story-games.com/forums/discussion/13777/dungeon-world-apoc-dd-dingledales-finest/p1
Adam Koebel you wildly achieved your goal. DW brought me back to gaming big time after a long time out and really got my son into it (he had only dabbled prior to DW/AW)
I thank you and Sage LaTorra immensely for that.
I wanted to play an RPG so I got 4 friends together and we started out with some D&D 4e, all 5 of us going in blind. We found the combat to be too slow and crunchy for our taste and then I found DW. We’ve been playing a year-long campaign with the system since then. It’s basically what I expected D&D to be like before I played it. :p
I used Dungeon World to introduce my kids (8 and 11) to RPGs, and it worked really well. I wanted something straight forward without a lot of big choices or complicated reward systems, and it fit the bill perfectly.
I like DW for introducing new people because it still has the choices, but they’re immediate, and flow directly from the narrative and mechanics of the system. It gets you used to the idea of narrative control within a solid structure, whereas most of the games I play expect players to mechanically work against the character’s best interests in order to receive awards. This is a neat mechanic, and tells a good story, but it can be counter-intuitive to new (or young) players. DW puts the concept forward, but triggers exactly when you have to do it, easing them in to the idea.