In my Dungeon World Campaign, the characters keep finding themselves partially or completely engulfed in the maw of…

In my Dungeon World Campaign, the characters keep finding themselves partially or completely engulfed in the maw of…

In my Dungeon World Campaign, the characters keep finding themselves partially or completely engulfed in the maw of some beastie. As a way to move the story along and not have them just die (not as interesting a choice), I have come up with the following custom move (I will try it out tonight).

I gained inspiration from the Perilous Wilds (weather moves) as well as https://plus.google.com/communities/100084733231320276299/s/aid%20or%20interfere%20flags

I had originally debated about using a “hold” system or a choose 3 (10+), 1 (7-9), but I had an issue coming up with compelling choices that were all equally desirable. The 10+ solution here is basically defy danger e.g., you get what you want.

Any and all comments are welcome.

Without further ado…

• In the belly of the beast:

○ When you find yourself partially or completely engulfed in a monster, describe what you do. Do you…

○ Try to rip/tear/fight your way out? Roll+STR

○ Try to get back out the way you got in? Roll+DEX

○ Hunker down and brace yourself for what is coming next? Roll+CON

○ Come up with an elaborate plan? Say it now. Roll+INT

○ Use your knowledge of biology/the creature to find a solution? Roll+WIS

○ Impress/Beguile/Reason with the beast? Roll (not always possible) +CHA

• 10+

○ You do what you set out to.

• 7-9

○ You do what you set out to, but the GM will give you a choice between 2 of the following: Danger, Retribution, or Cost. You choose.

• 6 –

○ Mark XP

8 thoughts on “In my Dungeon World Campaign, the characters keep finding themselves partially or completely engulfed in the maw of…”

  2. I agree with Aaron Griffin​, this sounds a lot like the vanilla defy danger but rather than letting the PC say how they choose to defy that danger and letting the fiction trigger the move you’re giving them a limited set of ways to defy that danger.

    Applying regular defy danger: “Oh no, not again! You’re deep in the maw of the ice worm. What do you do?” “I curl up in a ball and hope to endure a crushing bite and escape when I feel the beast’s jaws relax.” Or “I dive deeper in and will cut my way out once in its stomach.” And given time PCs will probably come up with more ways to defy danger with CON in this case. Same applies to the other abilities.

    I think you run the risk of the move hamstringing them a bit by limiting their options.

    I bet you’ll be surprised at what they come up with. Maybe they get so experienced with these kind of encounters that they seek out custom jaw propping gear or build some cool inflatable bladder from a former large beast slain that they can rig to inflate in the mouth of such a beast to choke it, the only problem is getting the bladder in far enough that the beast can’t spit it out – but that doesn’t sound like a problem for your PCs. 😉

  3. Hmm. Good thoughts. I appreciate the feedback and explanations. It has caused me to reflect quite a bit about why I made this “custom move”.

    I guess I have been having a challenge of eliciting fictional responses from my players (who are coming from a history of crunchy D&D style play). This was my way of prompting them of some ways that they could handle the situation fictionally to trigger something mechanically.

  4. A custom move is sometimes a good way to flag players with “hey, this is a thing you can do! maybe do it!” But those sorts of moves almost always have very specific, very flavorful triggers.

    Like: when you punch a shark in the nose, roll +STR. On a 10+, POW, it’s stunned and shaken and fucks right off; on a 7-9, it backs off for the moment but it’s still circling.

    Put a move like that out there when someone falls overboard, and you’re telling the PCs that punching sharks in the nose is a pretty cool thing to try! I bet they do it!

    The kind of custom move you ended up crafting, though, is more of a how do I consistently resolve this thing that keeps coming up move. Which is fine, there’s a place for that. But those really only help if the results of the move are specific and flavorful. What you ended up with, though, is just 10+ you do it and 7-9 ugly choice, which (as Aaron Griffin points out), is basically the same as defy danger.

    As for how to push the players to think more fictionally:

    1) be more visual yourself, in your descriptions and your GM moves. Add positioning, momentum, snarls and sound effect, “he’s swing at your head like this what do you do?”

    2) be more demanding with their descriptions. “Okay, cool, what does that look like?” or “Sure, but how exactly do you do that? What’s you’re approach?” If you can’t visualize what they’re doing, then you don’t have enough going detail.

    3) reward cleverness! if they do something that surprises you, it probably surprises the bad guys. Let it work!

    4) prompt for Spout Lore and Discern Realities, a lot. If they ask something like “is there any sort of light down here? do I see a way out?” or anything close to that, respond with “sounds like you’re Discerning Realities, yeah?” Or if they’re like “how they hell am I gonna get out of here?” maybe just ask them if they want to Spout Lore. Either way, give them something really concrete and actionable on a 7+. On a 6-, still give them an answer but make it one they don’t like. Regardless, if they act on those answers, make they’re way easier.

    Basically, you’ve gotta condition them into visualizing it and thinking laterally by first demanding it and then rewarding it.

    (Well, that was longer than I was expecting.)

  5. Thank you for that answer. It was a lot of fun to read. I’ll try some of those things out… our session is just about to begin.

    Let’s see if we encounter any sharks. lol

  6. For a while now I’ve wanted an ENTIRE GAME centered around getting swallowed by a dragon big enough to eat a town, with towns INSIDE IT and trying to figure out how to get out/kill the dragon from the inside.

  7. Josh C there’s a similar idea implemented in the 13th Age supplement: eyes of the stone thief. It’s a 25$pdf at drive thru. It’s about a living dungeon that has swallowed towns, etc.

    I only have it because it was bundled with something else and came dirt cheap. I haven’t actually read through it but the concept seemed cool enough.

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