Does anyone know of a good Dungeon World conversion for the Dark Sun? Best I can find is bits and pieces and a not-great AP.
If anyone has been part of something like this, I’d love to hear about it!
Does anyone know of a good Dungeon World conversion for the Dark Sun?
Does anyone know of a good Dungeon World conversion for the Dark Sun?
When you mentioned it earlier, I went looking and probably found the same things you did. Not much more than playbook conversions.
There’s only one set of complete playbook conversions and I’ll probably use those as a foundation but ultimately it’s looking like I’ll have to do it from scratch.
Is it not possible to run Dark Sun with DW as written? Just tailor to the setting by asking and answering questions along the way?
“Why does nothing grow on Athas?”
“What non-metal substance is your armor made out of?”
“Where do you get your divine magic from?” (since there’s no gods)
Craig Hatler I could, but I think that’s doing a disservice to the setting. I want to tailor the mechanics to reinforce the setting as presented, not the other way around.
Given the savagery and survival aspects of the setting, it might be worth side-porting some original Apocalypse World systems in, to add some teeth to scrabbling to survive in the desperate wastes.
Benjamin Baugh has the method I would use. That or just use the AW rules and the Fallen Empires playbooks rather than hacking the heck out of DW. I always saw Dark Sun as post-apocalypse fantasy and rather than bridge DW into that direction use AW as the vehicle and bring in DW elements that make sense as needed. That would likely save you a ton of work and still hold the flavor and feel of Dark Sun.
In case you need the direct dl link to the FE playbooks:
apocalypse-world.com – apocalypse-world.com/AW2ndEdFallenEmpiresPreview.pdf
Not to mention, Brainers and weird in general work amazingly as psionics.
Part of my desire to use DW instead of AW is mostly because that’s what my players are familiar with; it’s not a far stretch to jump over to AW but if I can go with what my players know intimately, then that’s better than taking the sideways step to AW.
Huh. Well, that’ll certainly do it way better than starting with DW I think.
James Knevitt I think you’re right on that – I’d stick with the DW core too. I think it suits better than a straight AW reskin, but AW has some moves and mechanics that could serve well in DW.
Makes sense. The way I trapped my players into loving AW and all things PbtA was running the Sunken Sydney one-shot as a Halloween game. As soon as the session ended I was like, “Did you guys enjoy that? Would you be interested in dropping our current campaign of Savage Worlds and switching?” The resounding response of, “Hell yes! When can we start?” Was enough for me to say, “What genre do you want to play in?”
Anyways, that’s a rather large aside. If you really prefer to use DW then I would take what you like from AW as Benjamin mentioned. That should get you pretty close to start with. More than anything, though, I wouldn’t wait until it feels perfect to you to play it. Just jump in with it. You’ll learn so much more in one barely prepped session than you would torturing yourself for hours and days to try and get it theorycrafted to perfection.
Edit: Playing to find out helps a ton with hacks.
Dark Sun IS AW:FE, no hacking required.
Also, FWIW, prior to the release of FE, I ran a Dark Sun-like setting (mashed up with Heavy Metal and Wizards) with plain Dungeon World and it ran just fine.
If anyone wants to be a thri-keen, just use the species move “when you deal damage, roll twice and use whichever result you prefer”