Just out of curiosity, what is the tone of your DW or WOD campaigns? Is it more zany and over the top like a MCU movie or is it more historicaly/ realistically grounded? are your worlds and characters more like Frodo of the Shire or Conan the Cimmerian? Do you regularly play your favorite style?
For my part, I like to strike a balance between the mundane and the magical, where there are fantastic elements like low or minor magic and legendary feats of strength, but not techno/steampunk like WoW or discworld or more recent Final fantasy games. I like sci Fi and modern and futuristic settings but I like to keep them separate.
Examples would include Tolkien (High Fantasy, low magic). William Morris (Saxon Saga type fantasy). And various myths/pulp fantasy. Though I like usually to use a homebrew setting.
I’ve dreamed of building an 80s pop culture mash up setting where you play in a world where your favorite 80s movie and game motifs and tropes are real and classes include rockstar, karate guy, and nerd.
I push that Miyazaki/Avatar the Last Airbender angle hard, hard, hardcore. Bright colorful aesthetic, weird cool animals and monsters, whimsy and wonder, lovely people you’d love to interact with, plus real and dangerous stakes.
Alfred Rudzki Man I love both those those things! I’ve never played an ATLA or Ghibli style game but I’d love to
Not to divert from Dungeon World, but Fellowship is designed for exactly that kind of experience, and was developed by our own Jacob Randolph. I’d recommend checking it out if you really want a whimsical journey kind of game.
I still need to scope out Fellowship!
Mine tend to be more dark. Very Mordor-y. Lots of undead and dark sorcery and shit. That’s just my style, though.
Just started a new game for a couple of metal fans and musicians. Definitely leaning on the occult, witchcraft, demons angle.
My games feature a lot of lost/buried civilizations, fools (PCs?) digging up stuff that should’ve stayed buried, groups dedicated to keeping them buried.
Also: spirits. And magic fueled by stuff: blood, ley lines, crystals, etc.
Definitely a lot more light hearted and has the feel of a fantasy action movie. I feel the ruleset just makes me steer towards this even if i try to be more “serious”
I think it’s a good sign of a good rpg if it can be easily tweeked to accommodate a diverse variety of tones and settings. And AW/DW seem to be a testament to that. Also I’ve found the character and gameplay rules to be easy to customize and alter according to needs of me and my players.
My players tend to get goofy or zany and I’ll go with it, but the tone I have in mind when I’m planning leans more towards the serious end of the spectrum. I don’t wrote for zany, it just happens organically.
I recently took our campaign from a fairly low-magic, human-centric, politically driven setting to what I’m calling Medieval Lovecraft.
There’s a big political thing happening between two continents where one side shuts off a massive ancient gate from the other side after their capital city is overcome by dark magic and the remaining military forces on this side get paranoid and close their borders until they can figure out what’s up. While that big picture event is going on, the players are currently in a seaside city undergoing some issues regarding the livelihood of most of the folks there when the harbor is shrouded in a strange fog emanating from a nearby island that’s swallowing up ships and putting a halt on the import/export that the town depends on.
The players travelled to the island, located a recently built church and a mysterious staircase leading down beneath the sanctuary. From here my intentions are to go full-on old school fantasy horror with it. Think Death Frost Doom in an cthonic water temple devoted to a long-dead sea deity.
Brandon Fincher Woah that should be fun (and terrifying).
My game is more Sword and Planet than typical D&D. I’ve got an NPC from a spelljammer like universe, lots of interdimensional beings, shapechanging cabal, A sky city that a PC comes from, an unexplored continent, Illithid invasion from a star destroyer sized black spire that hovers and flies, time travel, lost civilizations, wacky Gate travails and travels, flying ships.
My pcs include a Wild Mage from a dying elvish culture that resembles the mongols, a psychic child of 12 with waist long blue hair, A spellslinger, who’s playbook is a direct rip of Man With No Name, A former NPC follower of the Goddess of Justice who has become a full blown paladin in all but name and Warlock Bounty Hunter from a Polynesian analog island culture.
I gots a recap of all of our adventures (except for last night, will hope to write that one soon…) here: forum.rpg.net – Intrigues of Parsantium- Dungeon World
Mine are usually serious, but action oriented, and usually in a high fantasy/magic setting. Closest example would be Warcraft-esque.
Storn Cook That sounds really incredibly cool. takes notes
Edward Hickcox It really has been. I’ve got an diverse cast of players and they all bring something different to the table. But all of them are willing to trust the fiction and the game started out as very typical D&D… but over time, it has morphed into very high adventure, globe trotting stuff. I’m loving it.
I usually play a fairly serious setting with humor coming arising from situations, instead of jokes or sarcasm from players. It would be a lot like Warcraft i guess.
The game I play with my kids tho is gonzo! Dinosaurs, crashed aliens, a full on Doctor Doom analogue, dragons, wizards and everyone is a smart ass. I honestly prefer the shit my kids come up with lol.
My group’s campaign setting is all based around our inside jokes and favorite memes (yeah, seriously), without wasting any opportunity to make references to books, movies and whatnot.
If you take a closer look, our sessions have a pretty serious, sometimes even gritty tone, but all the lore around it is very lighthearted and funny.
I think the most positive aspect about it is that the players feel invested in the world right from the beggining, because everything feels very familiar to us.
Storn Cook Seriously, I’m throwing some of your elements together with some other epic elements and a story I’ve been working on and coming up with something so good it makes me want to write it into a book…
Edward Hickcox That is really nice of you to say such things. I hope your game is awesome and epic! I hope also that you throw up a recap or impressions of your game so we can see it too.
Low magic, dystopian, urban, clockpunk.