My first DW Campaign as a GM will be coming to a close in a few weeks, and I have joined another group as a player.

My first DW Campaign as a GM will be coming to a close in a few weeks, and I have joined another group as a player.

My first DW Campaign as a GM will be coming to a close in a few weeks, and I have joined another group as a player. I have had a tremendous amount of fun playing DW and have already started taking notes for the next time I GM.

I wanted to “play it straight” in my first campaign so we could all get a feel for DW, but my players have asked about adding a crafting system similar to something in Diablo or Skyrim.

I fear this will add too much crunch to a game designed to avoid crunch. I have some ideas about a simple crafting system which adds some bookkeeping, but I don’t know if it would be “crafty” enough.

I’m thinking about custom move template for finding crafting components that looks something like this:

When you spend some time to search [location] for [a crafting component that is commonly found here], you find 1d4 of that component and roll+WIS.

10+ Choose 2

7-9 Choose 1

* You avoid running into [denizens of this location].

* You don’t draw the attention of [an NPC or special guardian], who will [take an appropriate action].

* You gain an additional 1d4 of that component, or 1 of another component more rare to this area of the GM’s choice.

So filling in the blanks (in the order presented) for a graveyard may look like this:

The Westmarch Cemetary / Bone Shards/ a group of fresh Zombies / Captain Blazer’s Ghost / Haunt you until you leave Westmarch.

A forested location may look like this:

The Timberfall / Wood Spirit / a pack of starving wolves / A wood Elf / demand you give her what you’ve found

I would love all thoughts on the idea of crafting in general, as well as ideas about how to make this move template better.

All of this is very high level right now. I won’t be running a campaign again for about 6 months, so I have plenty of time to work on it. I want to make a system that my players asked for, but NOT add a lot of crunch and bookkeeping (which MAY not even be possible).

Thanks!

17 thoughts on “My first DW Campaign as a GM will be coming to a close in a few weeks, and I have joined another group as a player.”

  3. Also you could retool Ritual into a basic move called Craft and change some of the requirements. That way each time they want to make something you can give the requirements you think are necessary.

    Something like…

    Craft

    When you try to design an item to your specifications, tell the GM what you’re trying to achieve. Crafting an item is always possible, but the GM will give you one to four of the following conditions:

    It’s going to take days/weeks/months.

    First you must _______________.

    You’ll need help from ___________.

    It will require a lot of money

    The best you can do is a lesser version, unreliable and limited

    You and your allies will risk danger from _____________.

    You’ll have to destroy another item for the materials.

  4. I find your move satisfying. The only thing that bugs me is that if I roll 7-9 and I pick the rare ingredient because I don’t mind fighting or arguing, wouldn’t two NPCs encounters be unnecesary if not clashing?

    I’d change the encounter in: *you draw unwanted attention or run into denizens of this location, the GM decides”

    and the other option would be more in the terms of: you don’t spend more time than expected searching; you don’t get lost; you don’t find the ingredient in an area difficult to reach.

  6. Scott Selvidge, I like the idea of retooling ritual, and didn’t realize how similar it was to Savvyhead’s Workspace (Thanks Peter J).

    Shaken, Not Stirred, yes, I was at a loss for the second option, so I really dig your advice on it. I was thinking that both options were too similar, I just couldn’t think of anything else.

    Bryan Alexander, I can’t read your comment. All I see is a dot. Can you repost it please?

    On that note, I’ve seen that in other comments before. Either a dot (literally just .) or “/sub” in the comment line. Can someone tell me what that means please?

  7. Also, I thought of it like a template that I would customize for each location, but I like the way Shaken, Not Stirred worded it. THE move could be “When you take time to search the area you’re in for a crafting component that the GM agrees is common to the area…” and then “…of the GM’s choice” on the options lets me just throw whatever denizen, etc. is appropriate to the location without hardcoding it into the move.

    I feel stupid for not thinking of that myself. I usually do overthink things.

  10. I’d definitely go down the road of the Ritual/Workspace format.

    I’ve been playing a lot lately with moves that generate circumstances (like the Perilous Wilds travel moves do) and in the end, they’ve been leaving me flat.

    The beauty of the Ritual/Workspace moves is that you get to say “sure, no problem, but you’ll need to…” and then you’re basically telling them where the adventure is. They can do risk/reward evaluation, make plans, etc. And if they decide to go for it, you’ve got some prep already done and you can play it out like any other adventure.

    If “harvesting resources” is going to be mundane, oft-repeated, relatively low-risk thing in your game, then a move that abstracts it makes sense. But if “going out and finding the cool shit we need to make cooler shit” is the point of the game, then a Ritual-style move is where it’s at.

  12. For the foraging move, you could maybe simplify it by having the success be a simple “you get what you want” and then have the 7-9 be choose 1:

    *it takes you a long time to find it;

    *you find less than you’d like (roll 2d4, take the lower number);

    *you run into trouble with the [denizens of this location].

    I mostly make this suggestion because it seems like a move players are going to be making a lot, so making the options more straightforward and putting less strain on you as a GM seems like a good idea.

  13. liking the directions you people are taking this. I did something similar in my dw campaign but hadn’t thought it out as well out. Their wasn’t a move as much as me telling the what they would need to find gather. There was a forge/Smith ingredients move at the end I think. Have to find my notebook.

  14. Thomas Berton, I really like that, especially when I got to thinking that my move only covers “Common” components. I think I’m going to make foraging for common components. For rare ones, use my original “choose 2/choose 1” structure, with maybe even a fourth option. One of the options would be “You find it”, rather than “you find more of it”. This would make searching for rare materials even more difficult.

    Scott Selvidge, Jeremy Strandberg, and Rob Quiet, I think I’ll absolutely retool Ritual into Crafting, as it can be used for ANY crafting (I was looking for a way to craft scrolls, and this works beautifully for that as well).

    I can use Crafting and my Foraging together.

    Bob Bersch, that’s what I love the most about this community. Any time I have an idea I want to flesh out I put it up here and always get quality feedback!

    Thanks Everyone!

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