I ran my first DW game last night and we had a blast. I used The Slave-Pit of Drazhu. I modified it a bit. Everyone started out with the Pit Slave playbook, but when they made it to 5XP I let them “remember” the hero they once were and select an appropriate playbook based on how they had played their slave — lost HPs and XP transferred over.
I let them gain XP normally, but I also added 5 “heroic flags.”
Heroic Flags
[ ] Let me take damage for you when I am already hurt
[ ] Allow me to give you a treasure that I could really use
[ ] I Attack a Guard first
[ ] I Attack Drazhu first
[ ] Let me keep you from going first into danger so I can go myself
I let each person use a flag once – they checked it off and gained the XP.
It seemed to work well, everyone managed to “remember” their heroic selves before the big fight with the lich. (They lost their flags at this point.)
One of the slaves died early on, but rolled an 8 at the Black Gate, so Hel offered the character a chance to live as a hero again, but they had to kill Drazhu or die trying — no scampering away.
Anyway fun was had by all! I am converted to DW.
Props to Keith Martin Mark Zimmer for helping me with the game and Jason Morningstar for the fantastic module.
Whoo hoo! Another convert! Sounds like everyone had a great time. 😀
Totally stealing this for session 1 of my new Dungeon World campaign this weekend. Thank you! 😀
Jason Tocci Very welcome! I beefed up the Lich (12 HPs and Armor 3) and added a horde of zombies to his lair. He nearly killed 2 of the PCs, but they also got in some awesome shots and took him out.
As the player of the first slave in that game to ‘discover’ that he was actually a hero, let me say that I had a fantastic time. I’ve run DW a number of times, both one-shot games and short campaigns, but that was only my second turn on the other side of the screen. Wayne did a great job of both portraying a fantastic world and of being fans of the players.
Totally stole it, as promised. It went well!
Great!