So I am looking for more info on fronts, I feel like I am over thinking it honestly. I listened to the So You Want To Play Dungeon World playlist from Christopher Grau which helped for the most part but like I said I am still not quite catching on to the fronts chapter. Anyone have any good reading or videos in regards to building fronts targeted toward the basics of it? I have GMed many other games in the past but I have been thinking about trying my hand at Dungeon World.
So I am looking for more info on fronts, I feel like I am over thinking it honestly.
So I am looking for more info on fronts, I feel like I am over thinking it honestly.
What are you having trouble with specifically Chris Willhelm?
I guess after viewing the series I am still a little in the air about Grim Portents. When should I look at imposing those on the world? Are the Grim Portents for the Campaign Front effectively the plot milestones or should they be something like each adventure is a grim portent to you overall campaign front?
IT IS LIKE THIS!
you have a campaign about a fellowship destroying the one evil master ring.
danger 1: Sauron takes over
(planar force of chaos: impulse: to destroy all semblance of order)
grim portents: 1) the ring wraiths terrorize the land and good people turn evil 2) The kingdom of Rohan Falls and the sun dissapears 3) gondor falls and the hords of darkness cover the world
doom?: rampant chaos and destruction
danger 2: The ring takes over
(cursed artifact: impulse: to find a worthy owner)
grim portents: 1) the ring escapes it’s bearer 2) The ring finds a power hungry owner. 3) the ring corrupts all with power absolute
doom?: Tyranny
ok so you have these 2 dangers. sauron and the ring. the grim portence are the countdown to doom.. first the party has the ring and know that it is evil. WHAT!?! they don’t do anything about it and instead go shopping? they get the first portent- ring wraiths are about.
ok now they know that this ring is bad news for sure….. but they did want to join the crew of that pirate NPC they met a while ago… WHAT!?! dummies after a while they get the second portent!- they hear news that rohan fell in the far south and the sun just doesn’t rise anymore… ok, they look at the ring and get serious. “we gotta do somethin” and start heading for mount doom.
but oh crap they fail some rolls and lose a fight and as your GM move you take the ring from the group! it is lost! advance the 2nd danger to the first portent- the ring escapes it’s berer.
they get to gondor and help defend it successfully. so you dont advance a portent. but one big mistake now and BOOM. the last portent- gondor falls. if that happens they lose that front, and the Doom comes to pass. destruction.
they havent lost the campaign. they can find and destroy the ring and kill sauron but the world still experences rampent chaos and destruction. if they just run and forget the ring, that front slowly advances until it’s doom: tyrrany. comes to pass. the party could just become evil and live in that world (WHICH THEY CREATED BY FAILING AND IGNOREING YOUR WARNINGS) or the next campaign could be about fixing everything.
THAT IS A CAMPAIGN front!
if they ignore a warning you gave for to long (“Show signs of an approaching threat”/ in other words the grim portence) advance the clock and change the world accordingly. it isnt hard. and takes like 5 min tops.
The way I look at them, Grim Portents are the steps in the villain’s plan. Or the steps that progress from “things are fine” to “OMG disaster!” if there isn’t a big bad villain behind things. Basically, Grim Portents are a series of progressing events of what would happen if the player characters didn’t get involved in the situation.
As far as making the Grim Portents come true, there are basically two ways to do it: A) when the characters make a Grim Portent come true, and B) when you, the GM, need to make a GM move and it makes sense to advance a Grim Portent. You can and should use both of those methods at the same time, rather than picking just one.
ok that clears it up for me, the Failure of the Rings was a great help, also glad to see in Dungeon World I can make them tools of their own doom(or greatest adventure).
The Grim Portents are the list of inevitable and unavoidable events that definitely will happen if your Heroes do nothing.
If the party sat on their hands and did nothing, this is list of things that would happen to the world, in this order, and then something worse would happen.
They are the events leading up to the Impending Doom (which, if it occurs, will become The Doom That is Actually Happening Right Now).
The Dangers are the Pro-Doom guys that want bad mojo to happen.
The Party are the Anti-Doom team: only they can stop the occurrence of more of these grim portents, and keep that Doom a (hopefully forever) impending one.
The easiest way to get it straight in your is to write it up for something you already know. Lord of the Rings above was a good one. Ghostbusters works well too.