I would like to play the Dark Sun setting with my players.
They will probably be attacked by a Silk Worm with its poisoned bite.
If the players get hit by that creature are they automatically poisoned (in this case paralyzed) or do they get like a defy danger +con roll against it?
If a creature has a poisonous bite and successfully bites a PC, it sounds to me like they would be automatically poisoned. You could make a custom move or use Defy Danger to see how much damage they take or what effect the poison has. Or if the poison is virulent enough, they’d just take damage.
I’d just write a monster move about paralyzing poison. Then, when a PC rolls a 6-, if plausible, I’d paralyze them (describing how and why).
When you a bit by a silk worm, roll +con.
On a 10+ you feel stiff as you shake off the little poison that made it into your system. Take -1 forward.
On a 7-9, the poison is slowing you down and affecting you greatly. Take the weak and shaky debilities.
On a miss, you a paralyzed and unable to move.
Delos provided a great example of a move you could give the silk worm, that provides a bitten character a chance to shake off poison.
It is important to keep clear though that this is a special move related to that monster, and NOT a Defy Danger. Don’t get Defy Danger confused with a D&D style saving throw!
You could also determine that anyone bit by the silk worm gets paralyzed for some length of time. Before biting a player, i would soft-move the heck out of it, so that they are prepared – before they get near them, they hear others talking about the dangerous bite of a silk worm, and how it freezes its pray and makes for easy eating. As they get near, they find the half eaten carcass of a major predator, clearly dangerous in its own right but unable to resist the poison well enough to stay off the menu.
Finally, when they encounter the worm, maybe include a brief exchange where a bit of spittle gets on their arm and the flesh goes cold, then numb.
Make sure they know it’s a real danger. That way they may come up with a way to resist it, and if they don’t mitigate or avoid it you can nail em with paralysis.
Being a fan of the character means throwing em in the deep end sometimes to see how the players get em out!
I only recently saw a youtube video of missclicks, adam koebel doing dungeon world and he actually let the party roll defy danger +con against the medusa’s gaze and defy danger +con vs some undeads creature spell or power. So there is a saving throw 🙂
Sure. Though there’s nothing that says you have to do that too. 😉
Part of the beauty of DW (and other AW-based games) but part of the difficulty in providing advice, is that there are very very few rules that you must follow. Most of it is just guidelines.