16 thoughts on “I’ve revised my Souls World hack based on feedback from here and elsewhere.”

  2. When I use Evasive Fighting and seize the high ground or the good position – wouldn’t I still trigger All Out Attack, making the choice from Evasive Fighting a bit mood? 

    It’s great when I have a ranged weapon to use but otherwise…

  4. I also like the layout 😀

    I find myself more interested in how you’d present Souls World to the GM than the player’s custom moves.

    + What impressions could the GM give to bring the world of Drangleic to the table?

    + What questions might the table discuss to put a unique spin on the world?

    + What diabolical fronts might threaten the party, if not the world?

    In terms of presentation I’d be thinking something like John Aegard’s awesome Indigo Galleon, or my own humble adventure starters.

  5. Fight Defensively has three choices, but you say take BOTH on a 10+…

    also for all the moves I need to spend a Stamina just to activate, and possibly lose another? seems like we are going to piss through Stamina pretty quickly.

    No way to avoid damage in All Out Attack? gonna make this pretty deadly, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

    side note…. looks like you can recover Stamina fairly quickly…

    On the recovery, do I not roll to recover if I am NOT in combat? you tell me what to roll if I am in combat… Should clarify.

  6. Definitely some interesting stuff going on. How do you envision handling the ripple effects? The most obvious being playbook moves that specifically trigger on or effect H&S and Defend?

    Or are you also imagining new playbooks?  

  7. For Recover Stamina, the second choice (lose 2 Stamina) seems to imply that you go up to your max stamina (because it’s a partial hit) and then subtract 2. Do I have that right?

  8. This is super nitpicky (sorry) but please bear with me, this is how I interact with gametext. 

    In normal DW when you can attack an enemy without a chance of them doing something back, when you have them at their mercy or surprised or whatever you just deal damage. When you are a Thief you can roll for Backstab if you want. 

    Now on a hit with Evasive Fighting I can get into an advantageous position. What does that do? 

    A few things I could see is that it gets you into a nice position from where you can act better/have certain advantages. 

    This has a problem though: 

    Say I can get into the blind spot of the gaping dragon and can attack it easily since it can’t see me anymore. That is fine. 

    Now let’s say I can get into a position behind the siege troll or whatever where they are armored less and I can finally engage them meaningful in combat. I could already do that by choosing the second option. The better position does nothing for me that the other option doesn’t. 

    Now let’s look at the trigger from All out attack. When I can get behind the Siege Troll and there is my chance to act and attack them where they are weak – Am I not seizing the opportunity and atack my foe without care for defense (since my premium position probably doesn’t allow the troll to retiliate)? So I roll that move instead of simply doing damage? 

    Another thing – What if I get past my enemy in a way that is neither Fighting Defensively nor Evasive Fighting – let’s say I have a longer weapon then them and keep them at bay and then use a feint to trick and get past them? That is not really evasive fighting. That is probably Defy Danger. What If i use my massive warhammer (with longer reach then their dagger) to knock them away from me. All out attack makes little sense since they can’t strike back (reach remember?) but Fight Defensively or Evasive Fighting doesn’t fit either. 

    So when I can Defy Danger to get into a better position – why don’t I do that and save myself some stamina? 

    The other problem with these moves is that they care little about fictional positioning of the weapons. Remember how the 16HP dragon can’t be Hack&Slashed with a normal sword because of its magical scales? That is because you can’t really engage it in melee with your fictional positioning. You can however Evasive Fight them. Dodge away from their breath weapon and then suddenly chose to find an opening and do damage (this however does make a bit of sense) 

    With the second option on Fight Defensively it gets weird though. How can my knife suddenly pierce the Steel Golem? The move clearly states I can deal damage so saying No you can’t there doesn’t work. 

    Also – when I open up their defenses for a moment – what happens? Can I just deal my damage? If so, why is it a different option then the second one? Just because their flavor is different? What happens if I chose the second and the thirdo ption together? Can I deal my damage and then deal my damage again because I attack them when their defenses are down? 

    This is me massively overthinking it but it just doesn’t add up in my head. 

    Sorry if I ramble and this is not fully coherent/understandable though.

  11. Tim Franzke My intention, is that you only roll for All Out Attack when you are in a position to be attacked back (much like you only roll Hack & Slash when you can be attacked back). In the situation you describe of having used evasive fighting to get to the monster’s weak spot then I would likely rule that you simply deal your damage.

    As far as using Defy Danger to avoid spending Stamina, there probably ought to be a rules that defying danger using physical means in combat also costs a Stamina, it would fit with the Dark Souls flavour.

    In terms of the weapon length stuff, how would you rule it in regular Dungeon World? If you rule that you can do damage with impunity if you have a longer weapon then that would apply here. If you rule it as a Hack and Slash then it would be one of the three moves from the hack. It seems to me that either you are fighting without risk due to reach, or the time scale that the attack moves (whether my moves or Hack & Slash) operate on assumes that the combatants are in motion and trying to get into reach.

    My own approach would be that if a PC was trying to use a longer weapon to prevent an opponent engaging then they would roll Defy Danger, if they wanted to attack then they have to roll an attack move and risk the consequences.

    Also, constantly using Defy Danger means you forego the additional damage you would generate from attacking. In DW as written you can constantly try to Defy Danger to set up unopposed attacks, rather than using Hack & Slash.

    In regards to the fictional position of weapons, maybe the triggers need to be clearer, but the intent is that the moves only work against something you can actually fight – in the exact same way Hack & Slash only works against things you can fight.

    The additional options for Fight Defensively and Evasive Fighting need further consideration.

  12. Okay, finally commenting. I am excited about this! I put a wee bit of work into coming up with something like this for my gaming group, but got distracted. 🙂 Now, some questions:

    Do you plan on having spells and miracles cost stamina too? And/or do you plan on tracking number of castings for spells/miracles?

    Have you tested this much to make sure that spending Stamina on every attack actually adds something tactical and interesting to combat? I’m not saying it doesn’t – I just got to wondering while making my own Souls/World of Dungeons whether my Stamina mechanic (which looks a lot like yours) added more than “this reminds me of Dark Souls.” I wonder if things would go more smoothly if you could spend extra Stamina to choose more items from the list when you make a move without necessarily requiring it for every move. (And if one of the move result choices on attacks is “You aren’t out of breath yet,” there’s still always the risk of overextending yourself. Just thinking out loud here, though…)

  13. Jason Tocci The whole thing is mostly an experiment in thinking about how these mechanics might works, and an excuse to practice doing layout stuff.

    I’ve not play-tested any of it, and honestly I’m not sure I ever will. Realistically these moves probably require new playbooks and a totally different approach to magic. As an aside I would probably think about statting up the attack spells as weapons and using them with the attack moves somehow.

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