I tried last night my first session of Inverse World.
My two players created 003, a faceless steel (maybe?) steampunk golem with a murky past and Vi, a sky dancer with wyvern’s wings, who none (himself included) knows where the hell he comes from.
Vi knows something about 003’s past, but not much: he eavesdropped his previous owner, a Lantern now dead. Very dead.
They are the only survivors of the Lonely Shewolf, a pirate airship that crashed on the Island of Glassery, a weirdly shaped island (thank you very much to Stephanie Bryant, whose island inspired me to play Inverse World) with a lot of secrets waiting our two weird heroes…
I just love this game: I had literally nothing prepared for this first session, with the exception of a couple micro-quests to keep them entertained.
In a matter of minutes they gave me a Campaign Front (“Who the fuck is 003 creator?”) and a lot of adventure idea.
Sounds like you have great set up. Just to make things really interesting maybe you could have 003 be known by someone wherever it goes. Every time they meet a new group of people someone goes “003 you sunofagun!” for better or worse.
Just out of curiosity, what’s your opinion on Inverse World itself? Did it add a lot to your game or was it just some new play books for you to use?
Great input! I’ll probably do that, it will be super fun!
Well, as a setting book it’s pretty cool, with lots of imaginative ideas and descriptions.
I can’t say how the playbook are, rules wise, since I just skimmed them and focused only on those two in play.
The Captain seems like the most “crippled” one, to be honest.
Anyway yeah, it’s not much of a huge upgrade to the rules of Dungeon World, even if the Drive and Aspects moves are pretty damn interesting.
Inspiration wise… It’s another beast.
Wow, without reading the source materials that sounds a lot like the world of China Mieville’s “Perdido Street Station”
If you haven’t read it and you need some ideas, it is a seriously good book.
I will! Thanks for the suggestions!
Also reminiscent of the Isle of Glas from Wolfe’s The Knight. Interesting.
Sounds like a great first session!
It was! I played Dungeon World before, but I was probably too attached to the “old” mindset of planning stuff and kinda rail roading the PCs.
I decided to embrace the system, this time, and it worked. I jotted down a Campaign front, today, just the bare minimum because I’m sure they will shatter it in the next sessions by deciding to do something completely different and new.
One could say I decided to “play to find out” what’s going to happen…
Half of the characters in my open-gaming Dungeon World game were from the Inverse World playbooks. They’re just so cool.