I’ve been away from the community for some time, but I’ve been continuing to run a Dungeon World game for over a year now. We finished one full campaign, with 4 of 5 characters reaching level 10 and having a great time! That same group has started a new campaign in the same world with new characters and it looks like it’ll be just as fun as the first.
I just love the Dungeon World system, and recently bought the book on Amazon. I hope Adam and Sage are getting profits from that.
In addition, I’ve started a podcast – Adventures From The Shed – where we kicked off the podcast by running through the D&D Starter Set, but we’re now starting to record a Dungeon World campaign. We release podcast episodes each Sunday, and the Dungeon World campaign will have the first episode released 11 Jan 2015. We’ll have Sidebar Podcasts where we talk about the system and introduce new players to DW, and we’ll have Adventure Podcasts for actual play.
I invite your feedback, and hope we entertain you 🙂
Any thoughts on 5E as compared to DW?
Wizards did a great job overall with the D&D Starter Set, in my opinion. The adventure is laid out well. The DM learning curve is nice. The pregen character sheets are easy to follow. The included rule book only contains what is needed to get through the Starter Set, which is great.
After about 20 hours of play and buying the Players Handbook, Monster Manual, and Dungeon Masters Guide, I can say this current edition is my favorite D&D rule set so far, and I have played them all.
That said, I missed the sweet, sweet call of Dungeon World the entire time 🙂
Initiative!?!? Bah!!!
I know the feeling. I have the PHB and will almost certainly get the other 2. If I was still a dedicated D&D player I would love the new edition, but DW has spoiled me and seems to fit the group I have better.
You say you’ve run dw for a year. How does it handle a campaign and what about none dungeon crawling aspects? Did your players max out their character’s level?
I have 5 players, and to my recollection 4 of the 5 reached level 10. The last just didn’t roll as much comparatively, and succeeded way more often on average.
Dungeon crawling was great! I used the “draw maps, leave blanks” advice and really just had conceptual dungeons prepared. For example, I had a cultist lair they wanted to check out. The only things I had prepared ahead of time were the basics; 1 – it would have a meeting room, kitchen, library, sleeping quarters for about 1/4 of the cultists. 2, it needed to have some place for the dracolich (part of the plot). 3, it needed to have a place that linked it to the Plane of Flame (also part of the plot). One of the players is our campaign cartographer and he roughly draws everything out as we adventure. I actually start with something like “you’ve entered a large room with exits to the north and east”…once I see how he’s drawn it, I use that lead to continue building the actual dungeon.
I then continue to use leads from the players to determine how it shapes up. Examples – If a player says “we need to be cautious in case there are traps”, one of my next moves will almost certainly be a trap. If they say “we need to find clues, let’s look for a diary in a bedroom”, one of the next rooms will likely be a sleeping chamber. I continue to refer to the map as it’s drawn based on my description so I can keep some sort of believable structure to the dungeon.
I hope that makes sense 🙂
I’m new to Dungeon World and am playing in the “Shed” group with Joe. We had a blast with 5E, but after just one session, I can tell that Dungeon World has serious promise!
Kurt Schumacher please feel free to pass any insights onto us.
For those interested, we’ve started recording the Dungeon World campaign, and we call it Perils of Parandisi! Our first episode containing character creation was posted last Sunday, and you can catch our first actual play episode when it posts tomorrow night. You can find us at http://www.adventuresfromtheshed.com
Because I feel the core Dungeon World has so much to offer, we’re playing with just the core classes and runs (plus The Barbarian). I’ve got one completely new DW player and two that have only skimmed the surface in a past game, so I’m spending a bit of time explaining things for the benefit of those players and the listeners of the podcast. With any luck, our recordings may help introduce others to this fabulous RPG system.