18 thoughts on “So, I made a thing.”

  1. Ghoul: “You gain health” has no trigger. Do you intend for it to read “You gain maximum HP” or do you intend for there to be a trigger which adds to your current HP?

    Foul Sorcery: “Requires: Black Magic” and “You can cast any of the spells granted by black magic.” seems redundant. Usually if you want to change the way a move works, you say “Replaces: Black Magic”.

    Incarnation may not have the kick a player expects from a 6-9 advance.

  2. I like the idea, and am thinking of Brandon Lee’s The Crow as I give suggestions:

    1. Five starting moves is a lot!  Maybe get rid of Old Bones, and flesh out Broken Angel. Maybe use the Paladin’s Quest as a baseline. Heck, maybe make Born and Shroud as possible options under Broken Angel. 

    2. Damage is just a d6, and they aren’t a spell caster. Maybe it should be a d8?

    3. the Bonds could be a little more evocative, perhaps: ____ has cheated death, and will answer to me!

    4. Past Life and Master of Disguise are both perfect.

    5. Dried Veins could be more evocative — and I think that’s true of all the ones that make you more deathly.

    6. Black Magic is complicated. The idea is, you can cast a bunch of spells, but not too much, right? Maybe just: you may cast the follow spells, so long as your level is at least the level of the spell: x, y z. Roll +cha (or whatever, I think cha makes sense) and choose an option from the cleric’s cast a spell list move.

    7. Army of darkness! Heck, yeah! Ooooh, how about a move that grants undead minions?

  3. Jonathan Pearce All of these have been fixed. Ghoul’s health increase is meant to be a passive increase, and the current writing should reflect that.

    William Nichols I was basing it off of the Immolator, which – spoilers! – has five starting moves. I will definitely look into modifying things. Old Bones will probably stay, though; it’s sort of a defining feature of the class.

    I wasn’t intending to create a high-damage character when I made the Revenant, so the d6 will probably stay. It’s intended as a defensive class.

    Bonds is definitely something I’ll get to work on. I was having trouble coming up with good ones. As for the deathly traits, I didn’t want to be too definitive; some things should be left to the player, I think, though I could certainly give some more descriptions with that.

    Black Magic is supposed to be complicated; it’s basically half a class in and of itself. The way it works is that as long as you have hold, you can cast spells freely. But if you don’t spend the hold when you cast the spell, you instantly forget it after the cast. 

    In terms of clerical casting, without spending a hold you get an automatic 7-9 and are forced to forget the spell. You can spend a hold to up that result to a 10+, which lets you cast it without forgetting the spell. Once you run out of hold, you lose all of your spells until you rest again. 

    Undead minions have been considered, but I need to find a good place to put them. 🙂 

  4. Complicated moves in dungeon world, or ones with lists within lists get tiresome in play. As is tracking another resource. That said, Grim World’s playbooks have this feature too and they work great in play.

    The Neutral Alignment move is weak. How about Ritually mourn the death of a creature you knew? Or something that allows for a charged scene. Off screen moves are flat, yeah?

  5. Slender is a strange move. Why, if I would to sneak an enemy, I should accept that 7-9 result? That is not a standard “success with price”. That is a forced part of fiction, far from what the player asked for.

  8. Shroud of Death. This is a “weak” move. Almost everyone can try to disguise, rolling a standard Defy Danger. Maybe you should give more bonuses/extras. Can you replicate another person? It’s not clear in the 10+ result. Can you “passively” be always invisible while in crowded places? This could be useful. May you leave no precise impressions in the people you speak at. Etc.

    Sidenote:I always ask myself: can I make this action if I haven’t this move in my playbook? If the answer is “yes”, then I think the move is a weak one.

    Born in the Darkness. I’d remove the mechanical part. You can see in the dark. Point. So you can play and roll any moves in the dark, not just a failed/10+ result in ambushes.

  9. Equip is a little bit boring. I think you can come with more descriptive weapons (a crucifix shaped sword, a battle hatchet that scream when hit sinners, a long unearthly resistant whip made from the skin of demons), also the plain clothes should have a very cool fiction tag, to be chosen on the free Armor. Go with some description.

  11. Dried Veins and Dead Flesh

    Thick Skin

    Deathly Sustenance

    I’m not sold about all the added physical description. There are a lot of cool undead heroes full with Charisma, while with this moves you are forcing the character to be a chitinous dried shaken body.

    You miss the part where the GM asks to the player:

    so, now you are immune to venom; how it’s look like?

    So, your naked skin is like an armor; how it’s look like?

    They could choose “a green aura surround my body”, “my skin is white like porcelain and hard like marble “etc.

  12. Alright, fixed a lot of things. Shroud of death has been rewritten as Undercover, which is far more interesting. Gear is something I’ll look at later today.

    The Slender move is now optional. The “success” is teleporting behind your target; the price with 7-9 could be that they hear an audio cue that announces your arrival, or something along those lines.

    As for the physical description; yes, there are cool-looking undead characters. The revenant is not one of them. It is a monster in disguise, a story you frighten children with. You are awesome in spite of your appearance, not because of it.

  13. Much more interesting! But, I’d allow the player and GM to decide if the character is awful to look at or not – there are examples of both in the fiction. 

  14. I don’t like Black Magic / Foul Sorcery. 1st of all: when roll 6-, there is no mention that also the GM can do a move.

    Then, you are a sort of wizard but no interesting things can happen in the fiction, ’cause you don’t roll to cast the spell. No risks, no interesting things, you can at best forgot the spell. Boring.

    Finally, the thing about twice the level of the spell is “broken” and still boring: it’s an autocast with no risks and NO CHARGES, so you are an autofiring “cause fear animate dead  darkness contagion” wizard! A normal 10th level wizard can have just a couple of 5th level spells to play with…

  15. Death Is An Open Door

    “you always gain hold equal to your CHA.” or are you meaning “you gain at least holds equal to your CHA”? Also, to bond a couple of evocation choices to a defend move is not so thematic, I feel. Thing like “summon a wall of bones to divide two zones” or “giving a bone armor (+2 armor forward) to your friend” are more linked to a defend move.

  16. Incarnation. Very weak move. Usually, race moves are weaker than level-up moves. Here you gain 1 of former, AND you have to choose if in a session you can use the newest one or the original one. Too much (useless) mechanic.

    I’d suggest you gain AT LEAST a couple of race moves (hey, maybe you have countless reincarnations before you!), maybe 3 or so. Also, when the situation is quiet, you can switch from one to another in a few moments, simply recalling your heritages.

  17. Shepherd’s Flock. Nice move, however I’d put a roll to “charm” (so funny things can happen in play), and remove the “no more than 1 session in a row limitation”, pretty uninteresting. If you need limited timed move, then put “friendly for a single long task” or with a 7-9 “friendly, but it doesn’t last long”. Also, you didn’t put clarifications about affect NPCs/PCs/monsters. 

  18. Modifications have been made, besides Gear. The disfigurement has been removed directly from the advanced moves and incorporated into a rewritten starting move. Exact nature of the revenant’s appearance has been left to the player and the GM.

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