52 thoughts on “Part of a larger infographic thingy to help people grok DW quickly.”

  2. ‘Partial’ should be just as bold (?) as the rest. Maybe split it in half, across the center, for a visual cue?

    I’m hardly a design guru, that’s just what comes immediately to mind.

  3. I really like that. I’m going to nitpick though, because I think it’s important for new players and GMs to know that a 6- isn’t a failure. It’s a miss. You might fail, you might succeed, or you might get something in between. The important thing is that something you won’t like will happen.

  4. Chris Stone-Bush I do get reminded about that viewpoint regularly. It’s a point of contention with me, I never really bought into the notion of giving the player success on a miss at a higher cost than a 7-9, like World of Dungeons skills, unless a move specifies otherwise.

  7. Also I would argue there are some points which the gm will make a move not on failure. I think some gms can make combat boring because they dont realize that they can attack a player without a mias happening. So putting that on a quick thing would be useful

  8. Point of contention or not, a 6- not being a failure is Dungeon World as written. According to page 19 its actually just “The GM says what happens.” Its probably best not to editorialize the rules if the infographic is meant to help players understand how the game runs. Gorgeous piece of work, though!

  11. Exactly, 6- is the GM tells you what happens (Depending on the situation the player may “succeed” but then I’ll make a move. As an example, in my last game, the bard was trying to heal someone and rolled a 6. I decided, sure, the fighter is healed, but the magic and sound reveberating through the cavern started causing stalacites to start falling. This gave me fuel for future GM moves based on the fiction).

  12. I would not go with a “Partial” Success. It is still a full success. I prefer to see it as Success with Drama. Or a Success with Cost. The general misconception of the game is that Success and Failure don’t mean the same in DW than in other games. This leads to a misconception of the rules. One player that was a Game Designer since the 80s told me that it was like a Success but you get screwed as well, or a Screw Yourself roll. Which to me is a misunderstanding on what Success and Failure in the rules mean. Since then, I have come up with the Success with Drama.

    Best example I have is Indiana Jones: Raider’s of the lost Arc. The opening scene where Indie needs to jump across a pit. He rolls a 7-9, succeeds in jumping across BUT lands at the edge with a grip on an old vine. The Vine slips and he needs to climb up. If he rolled a 10 then he would have jumped across. on a 6 or less, he would have fallen into the pit. Success WITH DRAMA

  14. I will begrudgingly add words to the middle, remove Partial and replace the word Failure with Trouble as per the text, but it has made me frown at the text for unhelpful ambiguity, which is rare for me. 🙂

  15. Ambiguity is a problem.  With it’s narrative component things are always up to interpretation. This is why the best descriptor that I have had was “Drama”.  So on the infographic, my suggestion would be: Success (7-9) WITH Drama.  I personally don’t have a problem with Failure & XP, 6-.  But if you wish for more precise description, my suggestion is:

    10+Action Goal

    Success, 7-9, w/Drama

    Botched Goal 6-

    That, to me would be a bit more precise.  Perhaps Botched is too strong of a word.  I don’t like the word Failure but I am having trouble coming up with a strong enough word to convey the meaning. Given that the 6 or less result is things getting worse, not necessarily damage in combat but things escalating against the player.  The GM can do a Hard Move or a Soft Move that suits the fiction.

  16. The classic design problem in any industry is to drift toward form over function, and I recognise the temptation to keep it simple for readers and clean for aesthetic, but I do need to incorporate more grey granularity of meaning.

  20. Matt Horam (takes a modest bow) Thank you.  But seriously, thinking on it, I think that it works well.  You probably could even find tons of open source icons for the images.  And to me the best part is that the image would mostly be language independent.  Numbers not withstanding.

  25. Brian Haag it’s a hex, just because it’s pointy.

    A hex could just as easily be a cube, but I understand it’s not two cubes UNLESS ONE IS BEHIND THE OTHER * mind blown *

  26. The words are a bit hard to read, I would throw a shadow or a black outline on it to highlight it a bit more so that the words are not lost. So close to the edge and it makes the words nearly invisible.

  29. I like it. I think no text makes it easier to get.

    It completely throws off the line of the numbers, but what would the 7-9 stripe look like with the hands closer together? Also, what would the green and red sections look like with two hands each?

  30. Chris Stone-Bush This gives me lots of ideas beyond that. I will toy with them tonight before possibly smashing my laptop with a hammer, but there is a high chance a nice file will escape between.

  35. Matt Horam at the risk of making you frown even harder… a 7-9 doesn’t even always involve a cost or complication (despite what that page says).

    Take the basic moves: Discern Realities and Defend. Both give you success on a 7-9 and extra success on a 10+. Spout Lore gives you something interesting and it’s on you to make it useful… that’s not a cost or complication, that’s just a limited success. Heck, even Volley has the “take what you can get” option which might or might not actually be a cost at all if still roll high damage against a weak foe.

    AW uses the language “hit,” and specifically calls a 7-9 a “soft hit” and a 10+ a “strong hit.” Maybe that’d work for this? Or even “weak success” vs “string success.”

  36. Boo, Strandberg, Boo.

    How can we explain this to newbies if no-one agrees on precisely what we intend to explain? First, we must leave class moves to their own, as specific beats general. Second, let’s limit it to DW, not AW1 or AW2.

  37. I usually explain the basic dice mechanics like this:

    “You roll 2d6 and add a relevant stat. Usually between – 2 and +3. On a 10+, you get everything you want and more. On a 7-9, you get what you want with complications. On a 6-, I get to fuck you sideways with no lube.”

    No good?

  38. Jeremy Strandberg​ well Jeremy, limited success in a way IS a success with cost (the cost is the limited result). So getting limited informations, or very few damages with a ranged weapon, they are still well described with the super short info that an infographic has to provide.

  40. This is why I like the 7-9 being described as Success WITH Drama.  Basically it allows the GM to create a dramatic situation while still giving you the success.  In general terms this means that the GM get’s to make a Move but what of that “Move” the concept of the Move is very abstracted here.  So better to say that there is a complication, something goes wrong, or you pay a cost (usually in the form of a resource such as hit points, ammo, having a negative on a future roll, ect)  But in story or narrative terms you got what you want but things didn’t go according to plan, it was not with out a hitch.  So in terms of the story, More Drama.  Now a 6- is not even a traditional failure, you tried something and it didn’t work out.  The GM can give you the success that you want but he is going to make things backfire or what you tried to do did not work to the extent of making things worse.  Most see this as a failure, in truth it is a set back or a major complication.  Like sneaking up on a guy only to find that his buddy got the drop on you when you suck up on him or more simply, getting caught and fired upon when you though you were hidden.  The 7-9 in this example is the classic stepping on a twig and having to react quickly (from a soft move) or get caught.  Obviously if we continue the 10+, you snuck up on him successfully and were able to surprise him and knock him out without trouble.

    As I said, Drama.  The Narrative puts the Drama into a frame or a perspective.

  41. Matt Horam but I’m talking about class-specific moves, I’m talking about basic moves. Andrea Parducci I see what you mean, but limitation =/= cost.

    If it was my project, I’d probably do something like…

    10+: Strong success

    sweet!

    7-9: Weak success

    costly / complicated / limited

    6-: XP & prepare for the worst

  43. Jeremy Strandberg Yeah, you are right, my sleepy head read your basics and then thought about druid shapeshifting on a miss, and then I went back to sleep.

  47. Matt Horam – Matty, I l love the idea of a hex as an outline of a 3D d6! But for the info graphic part, what if you ‘sliced’ the cubes into segments from the top left, with a bigger ‘slice’ for the 7-9 segment? Thus simulating the higher likelihood of the bell curve?

  49. Here’s another idea. Remove the “second die”. Keep just the first. Use the exagon as the 3 visible faces of the cube (same surface for each of the three). Color each face of a different color. Place numbers and text inside each face.

    I suggest top one as 10+, bottom left as 6-, bottom right as 7-9.

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