Weird question… has anyone tried modifying DW so that it’s skills rather than ability scores?

Weird question… has anyone tried modifying DW so that it’s skills rather than ability scores?

Weird question… has anyone tried modifying DW so that it’s skills rather than ability scores?

For example, use ability score arrangement for 5 skills, with the ‘8’ being for ‘everything else’ (that is, -1 on rolls involving a skill ‘you don’t have’).

So, you might have Archery and Survival skills that are rolled for a variety of attack, tracking, or discerning moves.

22 thoughts on “Weird question… has anyone tried modifying DW so that it’s skills rather than ability scores?”

  1. My first thought is “Almost definitely.” But to take a step back for a moment… what are you trying to accomplish by doing this?

  2. It might make more sense to call it a Moves as skills system than abilities as skills. Ranger class would have access to skills (moves) that others don’t. All characters would have access to “Everyman Skills” (i.e.: Basic Moves). Maybe something like that?

  3. Marty: The goal is stylistic. I’m actually thinking of tweaking DW into a scifi game, and, stylistically, SF embraces a more modernist notion that your character is what you’ve learned, not something innate to you.

    Having Engineering vs. Intelligence.

    I mean, I can certainly just keep ability scores and describe them as rolling up a lot of learning, too (it’s not how strong you are but a combination of training and innate physique), but … style.

    Mattia: It’s no more complicated to say ‘Roll Int to Discern Realities on this ancient scroll’ than ‘Roll Occult Lore to Discern Realities on this ancient scroll.’

  4. Well… my advice is more or less always the same: read Apocalypse World, it has chapters about how to hack it that could help you to make it in the easiest and most effective way possible.

    Hacking an hack (DW) is less effective than going “to the source” (AW).

  5. William Timmins If you’re considering re-hacking DW, I think I’d back up to AW as well. Some of the D&Disms in DW should be chucked for a SciFi game, IMHO. (Of course, there’s a lot of sci fi genres, too.

    In any case, I think that you could accomplish something skill-like by having class-specific attributes to reflect their core competencies. Then base your moves off of those. You would then also need to consider carefully what remaining “core” or universal attributes and moves you would need to reflect your specific genre.

  6. Now I just have to figure out, if I go this way with my STL SciFi game, how to work ‘worlds’ into a title for a game where the entire setting is in the Oort Cloud. Um.

  7. Maybe go with the “roles” idea of Leverage (a Cortex+ game based on the TNT show). Every PC has 5 roles as a stat (Mastermind, Grifter, Hacker, Hitter and Thief). Whenever they are trying to do something fitting one of those roles, that’s the role they roll. (http://doabarrelroll.co/ Sorry.)

  8. Looking over AW, it looks like changing the basic stats is, obviously, doable.

    (Also, I’m glad I encountered DW first, because WOW AW reads like a hipster 80s game. Sex moves, really?)

    But good comments about moves and skills.

    I’ll have to think long and hard about what I want to embrace as ‘what characters are,’ what impression to leave players, and what kinds of compatibility I want to leave with different supplements.

    If I cleave to a more DW-like game, I give people freedom to pulp it up or otherwise tweak it as needed with DW supplements, so that’s a good point.

    I also speak to a greater familiarity and design … commonality with a lot of gamers — people have some idea of what to expect and how to think of Str, Con, Wis, etc.

  9. When you hack a computer for valuable information, roll+HACK 

    On a 10+ you get what you are looking for plus another useful tidbit. 

    On a 7-9 choose 1 

    You find what you are looking for

    You find something else that is still interesting 

    When you hack a security door, roll+HACK

    On a 10+ it opens nice and smooth

    On a 7-9 it opens, but just for a moment. 

    When you spread a rumor out to the interwebs, roll+HACK

    On a 10+ choose 3

    On a 7-9 choose 2

    – The rumor spreads fast and wide

    – No one can trace it back to you

    – The rumor goes out exactly as you want it. 

Comments are closed.