Please forgive my general ignorance here. I am new to both DW and G+.

7 thoughts on “Please forgive my general ignorance here. I am new to both DW and G+.”

1. For me, when I adapt d20 stuff, or even old AD&D stuff into DW, I don’t even both with the stats. I’m looking mainly for the flavour description of how the thing works.

   Magic items in DW, as far as I can see, operate mainly within the fiction. They allow the player to affect the world in a different way than they could before. They can use the item to justify certain things in the fiction depending on the item. That’s a really theoretical description, but what I mean is that, if they get a cloak of spider-climb, they can climb walls. They may still have to roll defy danger or something if the climb is dangerous, but walking on walls is just their new thing now.

   Beyond that, if the item does something that really needs to be randomized, you should write up a custom move for it. In terms of items that deal damage, there are some rules in the book for converting d20 monster damage to DW, I would just use that system for magic items as well.

   Hopefully that helps a bit. I use the old AD&D encyclopedia magica and wizard/priest spell compendiums to find new DW magic items all the time. It’s mostly just for the fictional descriptions of the items though. All those D&D rules are just excessive 😉

2. Ben, it does help. Thanks. I am in an ongoing D20 game based on a published adventure and I really need to convert over to DW. The D20 prep time and combat rules lawyering is just too oppressive.

   Given that if I could follow up to ask if anyone knows of a good guide for adapting adventures. Right now I am drinking from the firehose and trying to get my footing.

3. The back of the Dungeon World book has a whole, though short, chapter on converting adventures. In a nutshell, take the spirit of whatever you’re converting, not the letter.

4. I have modified the D&D “Bag of Holding” as looted from an orc shaman. 

   A bloated bullfrog hangs from the shaman’s belt, by a leather thong woven through the frog’s bound legs.  The frog’s skin glistens with moisture and is warm to the touch, although there is no breathing, no heartbeat, and the creature’s open eyes give a simple dead stare.

   When you pry open the frog’s mouth, you see the corner of a piece of cloth poking through.  You tug on it, and start unravelling an old rag several feet long, crumpled, stained, and smelling of swamps.  Once it is clear, you hear a little jingling.  You tip the frog over, and a few Coin worth of assorted copper pieces, cracked gem stones, shiny pebbles and a few other shiny bits fall into your palm.  You peer in once more and see a feather.. tied to a stick?  You pull the feather, and it in turn tugs the stick.  You extract a twelve inch stick from the frog’s eight inch body….

   The Frog of Holding can open its mouth to approximately six inches in diameter.  Anything that you can get into the frog you can keep in the frog.

   When you retrieve an item you placed in the frog, roll + WIS.  On a 10+ you get exactly what you want.  On a 7-9, you get it, although it may take awhile, the item may be soiled, or you may otherwise be inconvenienced.

   When you check to see what else is in there, it’s junk!  GM’s discretion.. what did a previous owner want to keep safe?

   When you feed the frog something appropriate to its diet, you can extract a specific item with no WIS roll.  The “food” is gone, and cannot later be retrieved.

   Questions: 

   What happens if the frog is torn or destroyed?

   Are there limits to its capacity?  What would happen if you open its mouth and hold it underwater in a lake, for instance?

   What horrible thing did a previous owner put in there that crawls out and bites you, stings you, or crawls into your ear and lays an egg on a 6-?

5. Jeremy Christian

   One concern i’d have in porting a published adventure to DW is that many published adventures are overly prescriptive.

   I would consider turning major plot elements into DW fronts and dangers.  Port any statted monsters into a DW format.  And boil any maps down into very rough sketches with lots of blanks.

   Basically, i suggest you look at DW or other PbtA quick starts, and basically follow their design to encapsulate the spirit of your published adventure.

   For my DW games, i haven’t followed anything published.  I have practically no prep time before the first session, and minimal time between sessions.  the big challenge for me has been to AVOID committing to any ideas i’ve had.  I make a few notes between sessions.  I start my fronts by laying out a few broad questions (stakes).  This helps me develop sufficiently vague fronts and dangers that can be molded to fit whatever the players discover (and assert).

   I let the “facts” of the game world get established during play, and i find myself constantly pleasantly surprised while GMing, as opposed to frustrated while waiting for the players to figure out what’s in my head.

   We also avoid most of those momentum-loss points where players are trying to figure out a puzzle i’ve put before them.  I put challenges before them, but don’t have acceptable solutions planned out.  The first thing they suggest that is remotely viable, or at least can be argued, we let em roll with it.  If they fail, they fail forward, and now they’re so busy dealing with consequences that none of us are frustrated.

6. Andrew Fish

   Ok, here is the philosophical question that has bothered me for years. What happens if you put a bag of holding in a bag of holding?

7. Wynand Louw It has already happened.  The universe is bags of holding, all the way down!

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