Call for advice.

15 thoughts on “Call for advice.”

1. .

2. I’ve run some DW one-shots, though not in a con setting. A few things I found helpful:

   1. I skip the standard bonds rules (I find new players are bit confused by them and the XP incentive doesn’t apply in a one-shot). Instead, I ask a lot of heavily leading questions to establish character entanglements. For instance, “Cleric, you helped save the Fighter’s life once; can you describe how that happened?” Or: “Thief, you stole something valuable from a church you passed through recently (you know, the church to the deity your Paladin worships); what did you steal? Which of your other companions saw you take it?” I’m still giving the players a lot of narrative authority, but I’m giving more concrete templates for them to respond to, so that it’s less stressful to come up with material.

   2. I have them mark XP on misses (because that’s a cool part of DW and worth highlighting), but might give them a chance to take an advanced move midway through, regardless of XP earned.

   3. I usually fudge monster HP a bit to avoid combats turning into slogs. If it starts to feel slow, I fast forward: “you clean up the remnants of the death slugs and stand triumphant, covered in foul-smelling goop.” If one danger isn’t creating a good sense of tension or inspiring character interactions, I allow it to quickly resolve and transition to something different.

3. I recommend the minimalist playbooks from DriveThruRPG.

4. DAMNIT!

   I was going to go, before I had a falling out with my best friend. 🙁

5. +Nathan V, my coworker has an extra ticket to sell, I think.

6. Yochai Gal my ticket was going to be a gift, and I was relying on my friend for transportation. Unfortunately, PAX East isn’t an option for me any more.

7. I recommend that for the players, you have pre-generated characters that can be tweaked a bit. Then you have them describe the characters. You don’t worry about the rules, have the move sheet printed out but mostly ignore it, it is there for players to look at when they are not in the spotlight. You simply tell them to act and describe what they want. Yes a little preliminary should happen once the players are started and in the world, describe the rules as you go. Let them know that this is about little mini-scenes and if they feel that they can jump in on the fun do so, if they have something to add to an action, let them. Now, make sure that they know not to block someone from roleplaying but this game is about the story and about the characters. Not the specific rules. The only real thing they need to know is how their specific Moves from their characters work.

   Maybe a quick go over of each character, their roll, and their specific moves, let them know that the moves are Triggered and you will tell them what to roll when they trigger.

   Maybe a little bit on the terms: +1 Forward or +1 Ongoing and the specific roll of [2d6]b, means that they do not ADD the dice but take the better. That was the biggest sticking point. But let them know it is not about “initiative” or other D&D concepts from most roleplaying games and that sometimes actions do not trigger Moves. Such as opening a Lock when you have LOTS of time, surprise attacking a group, attacking when they are not able to defend, ect.

8. thanks guys! Mostly I want to ensure I get the right paperwork. Smaller character sheets, what parts of the rulebook should I print out that kind of thing.

   That advice about simplifying, and leading in the bonds sounds great. No on understands bonds the first time I try to explain them. 🙁

9. Just say, if it “comes up” during play, it counts as bond XP.

10. Ah, Paperwork.  Well, Character sheets.  The Basic Moves page, that is about it.  I have noticed that some people have trouble with the concept that there is no initiative in the game.  Also, people seem to want to go and go and go, with out letting the spotlight travel to another person.  As the GM you should remember to bounce the spotlight around often going, “Your companion is about to get hit with arrows, what do you do?”  to those that are not directly involved in combat to give them a chance.  I have developed Spotlight cards that I use to keep track of when a player “goes” and can’t jump in because they are busy or when they can or can’t aid their friend.  They worked out well for those that are seeking to have a sort of initiative.

    The other concept that seems to be hard for people to understand is the fact that the bad guys don’t seem to get a “turn”.  Which is not the case.  The bad guys “turn” is simply wrapped up in theirs.  Breaking the action down, you realize that each roll or each opportunity for a roll is like a little mini-scene.  DW has slimmed down the action/response-players and action/response-bad guys and npcs into one smooth roll.  It wraps “their turn” and “your turn” all up into one interaction instead of two.  As the GM you narrate a lot and have “Them go” all the time with the players “interrupting”.  To experienced role-players this feels a bit shortened and when the players min/max their characters they don’t realize that they are actually shorting themselves on Drama and story.  With immense success of rolls things become easy to the players and they sometimes get bolder.

    When running my best advice is to know when they can make a roll for something or is it going to be that something just happens (good and bad) because there is no need to roll.  To many experienced role-players it seems unfair to ambush the players with out giving them some resistance rolls against the bad guys to help them get out of it.  You need to resist the urge of allowing a roll when something is impossible to get out of.  Just let it happen BUT with a sense of Drama.  How many times in a movie have you seen the bad buy get the drop on the good guy and NOT kill him right away, often sighting an excuse of “I may need him later.” or other excuse.  That adds Drama and makes it so that the bad guys are not down for the count with out giving them a chance.  Remember it is about the Drama.  The rolls are about the Drama, not things that are easy.  You don’t need to roll to walk down the street, unless you are literally running a gauntlet of bad guys, avoiding the police, or some other dramatic scene.  If a player has a character enter a competition then only have him roll when something difficult and outside of the norm of the competition happens.

    Bring the Drama, Bring the Fun.  The scenes that are interesting are the ones that were a challenge and ones that it got messy.

11. Use FREEBOOTERS ON THE FRONTIER. You can thank me later. 🙂

12. Read John Aegard’s guide to running DW oneshots. It will save you.

13. https://docs.google.com/document/d/17ypjtlHfcwqrU_-x4b7o0e8tZ_dN2TiNLUu48MLAw7Y/edit

14. When I run DW for Games on Demand (I’ll see you tomorrow!) I have them make characters because that’s part of the fun, Letting them work for a half hour tops. This is where you explain the basics of how stuff works, what stats are connected to what moves, etc. Then I drop them right in the middle of some action and let them bash around in it for a while. I explain how different moves work as they come up, and usually force some simple scenarios where something like Spout Lore or Discern Realities could be used.

    Don’t worry about any of the First Session stuff. This isn’t the first session, it’s a preview of how the game runs, so just throw a bunch of stuff at them. Use the Principles and Agendas and amp them up for the demo.

    The Slave Pit of Drazhu or one of Marshall’s Dungeon Starters are great for demos. You can’t show them the entire game, so just show them why it’s fun.

15. And I also have some characters sheets I made that have just the stuff relevant to showing the basics of the game. I’ll have them for people to use.

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