Hi all. I’ve been considering attempting a new one shots with my friends based off of the idea of dragon riders and I could use some people throwing in inspiration.
The idea that I’m going for is that the character’s and their dragons would act as one entity based on their class. They would share health, the dragon taking damage when the rider did and vice versa. The dragons would take on aspects of the rider’s class features such as a warrior dragon having exceptional fangs and claws or a ranger dragon having enhanced projectile breath abilities. I could use some ideas for setting this up across the dungeon world and grim world classes.
I mostly want help with the dragon/rider combination, but I will also say that I’m planning on making a high magic world where the party is an order of dragon riders with authority that surpasses kings. I haven’t decided what challenge they will face, but the idea of returning Titans has been appealing to me.
Any brainstorming of cool ideas would be appreciated!
Have you talked this over with your players? Seems to me that they’d be the people to go to for inspiration/advice.
I will once I have an idea for the adventure part of the one shot nailed down better. We rotate Dms and try out different systems so I’d like to have a more concrete idea before I propose this to them. Be able to have some examples to show them but still let them interject their own ideas if they have one.
Plus I’d just like to have some fun brainstorming for my own benefit.
I’m all for brainstorming for your own benefit. I’m just thinking that Dungeon World is best when you’re getting player input both before, and during the game.
Dungeon World certainly works well with that method. I personally prefer having more prepared before an adventure begins. What I really want to discuss though is the creation of the established classes in the different formats, specifically a class in the dragon/rider format.
Have you seen Mounted Combat? It is pretty good at doing the things you just described. Even has dragon mounts in it.
http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/128277/Mounted-Combat
You can also checkout the Cavalryman discipline in my Fourth World hack, which makes use of Mounted Combat.
No, I had not seen either of those. Mounted Combat seems like a good source but I’m not looking to buy more at the moment unfortunately. I’ll check out Fourth World as well when I have time.
I forgot I had a copy of Mounter Combat. Basically, you just treat the mount and rider as a single entity, and the mount grants the rider fictional permission to take certain types of actions (flying, charging through enemy lines, trampling foes, etc.).
It’s sort of like the Ranger’s Animal Companion, but less mechanical.
I love the dragon rider idea! Reminds me of Pern.
I guess to expand on my original idea: What are people’s thoughts about representing the classes in nonstandard ways? The example I started with was the class features being represented in the features of the dragon/rider combo, but I’m sure there are many other formats a class could be applied to. What if classes were used to represent a player’s unit in an army. Their character would be the leader of that unit but their class moves would be presented as the combined actions of all the soldiers in that unit. Imagine a group of twenty wizards all casting a spell together against an enemy army all while under a single player’s control.
It sounds cool, but having just played a military game of 13th Age, it got a bit tedious. Half the time it was awesome, the other half of the time those 80 other NPCs we had to track just became a burden.
What about making the dragon rider PCs a unit in the army? Then they’re part of a large organization, but only have to worry about controlling their own characters.
I meant for the dragon rider example and the military unit example to be two different examples for reformatting a class.
The idea with the military unit example would be that you wouldn’t need to keep track of each individual soldier in the group, just the group as a whole as it represented the class.
Imagine it as ammo from Dw. Each arrow doesn’t need to be tracked, you only lose ammo when you’ve lost a significant amount of your reserves. In the same way, Hp could be uses to track approximately how much of your unit is still standing and able to fight.
The main idea that I’m still trying to get at is reformatting a class to work on things besides just a single humanoid.
What moves would you use when the dragons do stuff? Does Volley+HS create the kind of dragon fights yo would want?
The dragon entry from Mounted Combat does this (thank you Creative Commons):
Dragon
Stronger than a dinosaur, faster than a running bird, and more arrogant than the proudest king.
Huge, Control +3, 2 Passengers, Fearless, Flying, Terrifying, +1 Armor
Flame Breath
When your dragon breathes its flame at your foes, roll +Control. On a miss, the breath scorches the surroundings but not much else, causing great collateral damage and possibly injuring someone you did not intend to harm. On a 7-9, deal 2d6 damage which ignores armor to a foe and everyone around them, and everything around them is on fire now, whether you like it or not. On a 10+, the flames are controlled, and the surroundings do not burn unless you wish them to.
Proud Drake
You never need to Control your Mount as a result of fear or injury. However, if you offend your dragon or hurt its pride, you are automatically dismounted, and the dragon will not allow you to ride it again until you’ve made appropriate reconciliation.
Dragon’s Hoard
Dragons come with a Cost, like Hirelings do. Each session you fail to meet your dragon’s Cost, it loses 1 point of Control. If its Control drops to -1, it leaves you forever. When you pay its Cost in overwhelming fashion, it regains a lost point of Control. Example Costs: The blood of its enemies, gold and jewels, captive royalty.
I like how the dragon breath move doesn’t deal damage on a 10+…
I think Volley and HS work well enough, and the dragon entry looks really useful, so thanks to Lester Ward.
There are just some special cases that might have issues since I want the dragons and riders to be equally effected by class moves. Things like transferring Ranger ammo and animal companions, Druid shape shifting, and Necromancer minions.
Why not come at this from a narrative point of view first? Think of various situations and then how a fighter and his dragon might deal with it, or a ranger and his dragon, or a rogue and his dragon, and so on?
That might get you a few ideas for some class specific dragon moves, or find out there aren’t that many specifically, and just go with the a general dragon mount rules, such as the one mentioned before or something similar custom made by yourself or your players.
Regardless if the moves are general or specific, I’d recommend the players each get one or two (two if there’s a mix of general and class specific) and more as they level up, maybe in addition to the other things they get.
Thanks for posting the ideas
I’ve refined my idea some since the last time I posted. In the campaign, the players would mostly play as the rider/dragon of the class they pick, but I also wanted a backup option in case they split up. My idea was that they would take over an army unit that would collectively be the same class as their original rider/dragon and that they would use this unit to help the other players while they were split up.
I do not necessarily want to write new moves, I just want to find a way to use the existing moves in ways that they were not originally intended. For example both the rider/dragon and the army unit would both have the druid tell and shapeshifting but how they would use it fictionally would need to be adjusted.