I may be way behind the curve here, so bear with me. I’m still relatively new to the intricacies (and wonderful lack thereof) of DW rules.
While working on my campaign setting, it occurred to me that one thing I found to be of value was the Race of the characters. Sometimes even moreso than their specific Class. So I started taking a look at how DW handles Race.
One way seems to be to skip the issue completely.
Frequently, there’s no big stat difference that needs delineated b/n the Dwarven Fighter and the Human Fighter.
And I get that. It’s cool.
But, I want something more.
So, I saw that some other Classes/Playbooks take a different approach; These give a couple of Race choices at the beginning and provide a particular ‘tweak’ to the Class in certain situations because of that Race/Class combo.
Also kind of cool. I can see that working in a lot of situations.
Still another seems to go full-bore in the other direction and creates a full Race Playbook which then allows particular subclass-like Moves to reflect how that Race handles being a Fighter, Ranger, Wizard, etc.
I suppose I like this one the best, overall.
But, I thought of something else while comparing these, and I wanted to know if you (collectively) think there’s anything particular right/wrong/useful/useless about this idea.
Why not simply add a series of Racial Moves which get added into the available Class/Playbook moves at each various level tiers? Like, let’s say we’re making a Dwarven Fighter. You have all of your Fighter Starting Moves, Plus you get a choice between a few Dwarven Starting Moves. Perhaps, for ‘balance’, these are moves which enhance or replace a Fighter Starting Move? Not sure on that one.
But, then we’d have a couple of Dwarven Advanced Moves that get added in for levels 2-5. They’re not GIVEN, they have to be chosen. Thus, it simply adds a little more variety. Same thing at levels 6-10. Just more options.
If you want to make a really Dwarfy Dwarf who fights, just take the bare minimum basics of the Fighter Class and then take lots of Dwarf Advanced Moves. Simple.
There could be Dwarf Moves, as well as Class-Specific Dwarf moves (Fighter, Cleric, etc) if a particular race has Class-specific things that really fit the flavor you’re going for.
I dunno, maybe this has ALL been done before, but it just occurred to me tonight, so I thought I’d throw it out there.
If heritage, or stock, or species is a major theme in your game, you could make some compendium classes that define certain behaviours, benefits, and drawbacks of the various cultures, heritages, etc you want to explore.
If you haven’t had much experience with them, compendium classes are a group of between 5 and 10 like-themed moves exploring a concept that isn’t big enough for its own playbook.
I’d also recommend making a “transgressing” or “outsider” compendium class, someone that bucks the trend of their culture/heritage in interesting ways.
David Guyll and Melissa Fisher are doing pretty much what you describe for their “A Sundered World” sourcebook. They put Background instead of Race moves on all their classes. Then each Race has a list of Advanced and Master moves that you can take instead of the ones from your class. So each player can decide how important race is to their character.
I think racial moves would work well as compendium classes. Obviously, just being a member of said stock could grant access to the CC, but they could also be more exclusive, like “dwarf spelunker” CC or “elvish shipwright” CC, or “elf spellsword” CC that requires your character to be a member of the high elf guard etc.