Anybody here tried running Dungeon World as a play by post game? If so, thoughts on what did and didn’t work?
I suspect the speed of combat scenes and such as compared to something crunchier like DnD would be beneficial, but on the other hand the conversation style of play seems like it would be more difficult to work with as a player (I.e., because you have to wait for the GM to tell you when you trigger a move, you would have to do one post for your intent, wait for a response, then another post for the execution, which could be pretty stilted to write in practice).
I’m curious what experiences people have had, and I’m theory crafting even if you don’t have direct experience.
I’m not and haven’t but I would like to so I am also curious.
DW works great as a PbF. You can totally trust payers to say what they do, know if it triggers a move, roll if required, and make some decisions about a 7-9 result in one post. The 90% of the time that it keeps the fiction moving along at a good pace makes up for the 10% of the time where the GM has to step in and take things in another direction. It works best when players build on the last post and trust one another to move the fiction forward rather than all chiming in to react to the same post.
http://rpggeek.com/thread/844931/ic-concluding-dungeon-world-against-darkness/page/1
What Marshall said. One of the best DW games I ever played was PbP over months.
I did and it did not pan out.
The DW was fine but the game itself was not engaging. DW didn’t have any issues specific to it, but much less off-topic rules argument.
Yeah I don’t think the system was to bad but what I love about DW is the conversation about the world and the characters…it felt to singular for me like i was creating a series of short stories with some dice rolls saying what happened in between.
There’s a very good Twitter DW game being run by @TweetsfromDW – having followed it from the beginning it seems to catch that ‘conversational’ vibe very well. That said, having four players seems (at times) chaotic.
I’ve had very good luck with DW pbp more than once. No problems with the system. I ask lots of questions during character creation and steadily throughout–and often I can keep the action going even while waiting for a particular player to answer something.
Here’s one:
http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?702701-Dungeon-World-Licensed-Adventuring-Company
The times I have played, the game has slowed down quickly, to the point of abandonment. I am not sure why. GM availability in one, too large and half-interested a group in another, happenstance in one maybe? It seems like it should be possible, given 4-5 dedicated individuals. I’d love to try again sometime.
PbP games fail mainly because people quit (DM and players). It just takes a LONG time to get anywhere. This goes for any system. For this reason all of my games are short in nature (3-6mo tops).
Currently I run a hacked AW/DW game that I just LOVE. Basically you start off as friends who have met at GENCON. The players literally play themselves. I give them an mod array to assign to str, dex, con, etc. Then they come up with 5 good and bad things about themselves (good mechanic, faint at the sight of blood, etc).
*Note: The players have NO IDEA what the game is about….only that they are at GENCON and they play themselves.
Anyways, we start on the seventh floor of the Hilton which is next to the convention center. I post that I forgot my DMG and run to get it in my room. 20 minutes go by and I have not returned. When they go look for me they find my body in a pool of blood in the hallway. Then people start to do rolls to see how I died getting bonuses to rolls (or negatives) based on their background.
After some time they finally figure out they are at ground zero for a zombie outbreak (I come back to life and try to eat them LOL). The game ends once they figure out what their course of action is (hold up in room, make way to harbor or police station, dive out of town, etc).
So even though ‘in game’ only 30 minutes pass it takes 3-6 months to put it in posts. So yes…DW/AW can work in PbP but you need dedicated players and it needs to be short.
Check out Grind4e, @MilwaukeeJoe (Joe N) runs a mean DW pbp.
Thanks for the responses, everyone. Sounds like the general consensus is that the only (or at least main) problems I should expect are the ones common to play by post games, rather than anything DW specific. Allowing players to activate their own moves by default, in particular seems a more than fair break with best practices, given the format.
I run @TweetsfromDW. Twitter’s character limit works great for keeping things conversational & the action moving. Intense combat situations can get a bit hectic and difficult to referee on the fly but it’s doable if you are organized & take an occassional step back to recap the action.
I have had several players quit the campaign but I always keep a minimum of 3 players at all times so the game doesn’t come to a screeching halt if someone quits or can’t post as frequently for the day and a maximum of 4 just so things don’t get too confusing or hard to keep track of.
Overall, I’d say DW via Twitter is a ton of fun!
Shawn P on which note, I’d like to apologize for vanishing after my initial enthusiasm.
No worries. Everyone who has quit the campaign has given adequate notice & enough heads up that it hasn’t derailed the game.