I don’t care for the Barbarian Race move… so I came up with this alternative.
UNFLINCHING
You may be elf, dwarf, halfling, or human, but you do not hesitate in the face of danger. When you take damage you may roll a D20. If you
roll higher than your current HP, reduce the damage by 1. If you roll a 1 the GM tells you what bad thing happened. If you roll a 20, you say what bad-ass thing happened.
Have you tried the standard race move in game? Is one of my favourites…
The standard Barbarian Race move is actually very awesome and I love it. It’s a very good world builder. The one you made… I don’t really like it because it brings in a d20, and doesn’t really fit or bring anything to the world.
The move you made is also essentially covered by the Barbarian’s Hunger move.
We used this because we weren’t using experience: Outsider
You may human, but you and your people are not from around here. When you spout lore by recalling a legend of your homeland, gain a +1 upto a max of +3. If you fail, take a -1 forward to your next spout lore, as no one believes your wild tales.
I’m curious why you would use a d20?
Why not 10+ reduce damage by 1 and naration of a badass thing. 7-9 reduce by 1 and something bad happens. 6- some terrible thing happens.
I’d like to back up Bryan Lotz’s point; the Barbarian move is a weird fit.
1) It’s triggered by the start of the session, rather than being something that comes up in play. If you ended the last session sneaking through the Duke’s vault, it seems weird to have the barbarian suddenly stop and tell a story. And if it’s not reflecting something the barbarian is doing in game, it seems like just a info dump.
2) It gives XP, and is guaranteed to come up every session (being triggered by a session start). None of the other race moves work like this, and none of them give XP
3) The lore established by the move is explicitly not about the area the game is occurring in, since the Barb is an outsider, or it’s just background info on the Barb himself. Characters might travel to his homeland later, but it’s probably not as useful for world building as a Spout Lore check.
My suggestion would be something like this:
SAVAGE
Your ways are not the weak ways of civilized men. When you fail an Outstanding Warrants roll, gain +2 forward.
OUTSIDER
You seek to understand the customs of this strange land, and teach them your own. When you tell someone about your homeland, why you left, or what you left behind, you gain +1 forward to Aid them and they gain +1 forward to Aid you.
BRAGGART
When you loudly proclaim the glory of some aspect of yourself, your people, or your homeland, gain +1 to Carouse, and you can choose an additional option.
The fact that Outsider grants XP was a very intentional design choice; I recall Sage & Adam talking about it back during development.
Because the barbarian is usually rolling d8+d6, they roll misses a lot less and therefore mark XP a lot less. The “free XP each session” is there to counter that.
Whether that’s an important design element is up for debate.
I haven’t noticed a lack of XP in my group’s barbarian, he’s ahead of the others. This group is my only experience with one though, so it may be an outlier. If we assume that the XP shortage is indeed a problem, what about something like this?
OUTSIDER
You may be elf, dwarf, halfling, or human, but you and your people are not from around here. When you Make Camp, choose another player to ask you something about your homeland, why you left, or what you left behind. If you answer them, mark XP.
This helps reduce the problems with the fiction, since they are doing this in camp, and involves the other players a bit, so its not just designated barbarian spotlight time. The GM can ask the characters questions anytime he wants, no move needed for that.
Joseph F. Russo Hey! what are you doing instead of exp?Are you using HP? Seems intriguing.
The Barbarian Race move is good:
I love giving players a chance to add lore and backstory to the game… Dylan Knight did a good job of summing up what I don’t like about it… the most important being, I don’t need a special move to ask a player a question
Barbarians need the bonus XP:
The 1D6+1D8 prevents fewer fails than a +1 on a roll does… and they aren’t always rolling it anyway. I think Druids have move of an issue with falling behind on XP.
Why D20?
Dungeon World could have easily been designed to use just D6s… I like that they brought in all the crazy polyhedral dice and wanted to use that last one that was left out.
We were doing a one-shot adventure,so we just auto levelled to 3,and weren’t tracking XP. Thus we replaced the move.
When it is time to ask them the question for their racial move, never make it a Yes/No question. If you ask me then the Barbarian gets XP if they accept that you make up things about their home. Ask them why they do certain things that are just highly alien to other people. Imagine questions like this:
“So why do your people pay gold tribute every time you enter a forest?”
“What powers do your people hope to get from serving dragons?”
“Why do your people get married at such early age?”
If a player does not like that input into their character they can simply deny to answer the question and don’t get XP.
I liked a lot last two Dylan Knight post with alternative moves suggestions. All very enjoyable.
I like the barbarian move up to a point but sometimes eventually me as a gm can’t come up eith any more questions and them as a player have kind of tapped their creativity in talking about the barbarians home world.