Everyone else was doing it, so I thought I would, too.

Everyone else was doing it, so I thought I would, too.

Everyone else was doing it, so I thought I would, too.

But seriously: inspired by Yochai Gal’s One Shot World and Peter J’s DW Quick Sheets, I’ve put together my own set of playbooks and rules tweaks that:

● Are optimized for one-shots and short-run play

● Introduce a lot of tweaks and changes that I’ve been using in Stonetop and my own home games of DW

If I was going to be in charge of DW2.0, it’d probably look an awful lot like this.

I’m all sorts of interested in any feedback y’all might have, and more than happy to answer questions.

(Oh, also: it’s probably riddled with typos and little gotchas that I missed, so if you see something, please say something!)

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1oLQ6QUT9LgOZuzoB_YqUaCjfPGYEOlud

25 thoughts on “Everyone else was doing it, so I thought I would, too.”

  1. Very cool! I was playing around with Wilds/Freebooters/Funnel this weekend with my kids, so I have a fresh appreciation for something pick-up-and-play.

  2. Just finished reading through everything, overall feels like a nice distillation of the DW basics, cutting out some text or options that might feel superfluous in some cases. Granted, I’ve been reading more hacks than vanilla text lately.

    “Encumbered below this line” had me scratching my head a bit until I realized thief and barbarian had things referencing being “unencumbered”. Maybe “unencumbered if nothing below this line,” or something that flips the keyword logic around?

    Make Camp mentions answering the GM’s questions- did you have specific ones in mind? Didn’t see anything on the cheat sheet, so wasn’t sure if this was just an opportunity for the GM to plot ahead based on some Q&A.

  4. Very cool!

    I didn’t spot any typos 🙂

    With the item slots… is the intent that you’re unencumbered if you only have two non-small items? Like, if the Thief ticks Rapier and Leather cuirass, the cuirass is below the “encumbered” line, but they didn’t tick the throwing knives, so is it counted as being above the line?

  6. Great to see some further refinement to that one-shot hack you fixed up a couple of weeks back. I liked it then, and I like it now!

    How’s your experience been with using Supply in place of Gear, Rations, Ammo, and the miscellaneous equipment items like Bandages etc.? I’ve been considering doing something similar, but my playtesters fear like it might make Supply a bit too conceptually muddled.

  7. Jeremy Strandberg what specific issues with the Druid did you have?

    I kept bouncing between “freeform shapeshifting” and “here are the 5 things you can become + moves” and never really felt settled on how it ended up.

  8. Yochai Gal pretty much the same sort of conundrum you’re describing. I’ve never been happy with the core DW shapeshift-as-pre-rolled-successes approach, and none of the other options I’ve hit on are doing it for me, either. Plus, the space constraints, and doubts about whether I want the class to be, like, all about shapeshifting.

  10. FWIW, an approach to shape shifting similar to what you’ve done with The Fighter’s signature weapon would be hot to me.

    Maybe something g like “you can take the form of animals native to your homeland, including a) a songbird or raptor, b) a bear, wolf, or hunting cat, c) a rodent, d) an insect”

  11. Cameron Burns I’ve only got one session in the books using this stuff, but the Supplies mechanic worked really well and was very well received. It (plus the Background moves that play with Supplies) drove some of the most memorable parts of the game.

    I think there’s a risk of that sort of it getting sort of muddled in longer-term play (e.g. I’m not implementing that mechanic in Stonetop) but for a one-shot I felt like it just sang.

  12. Robert Rendell the intent (and it’s a sort of wishy washy intent) is that the items in the “Encumbered Below This Line” section always go in that section. You can’t carry Supplies or wear Armor and not be encumbered.

    I think I’ve probably got some inconsistencies in there, though. E.g. a “Bow” is in the encumbered slots for a thief, but not for the ranger. But I should probably make the thief’s 2nd row “Brace of throwing knives or bow”.

    For longer-term play, I think I’d have a take like “_cumbersome_” that indicated item that had to go in those “middle” slots.

  13. Kevin Worth good idea regarding the “unencumbered” language. That’s nice.

    Re: Make Camp and GM questions, I don’t really have a bunch of specifics in mind, but I usually ask about logistics (where do you camp? what do you look for? do you start a fire? keep it going all night? who’s on first watch?).

    Sometimes I ask about interpersonal stuff, too (what do you seem to be thinking about? what do you do to pass the time? what do you find yourselves talking about?), but with this version of Make Camp, I’d probably do less of that because of the XP questions.

  14. Jeremy Strandberg I quite liked the version of the Shapeshift move you posted ages ago, where you can automatically assume the shape, but need to roll when you try to leave it. You could also have a custom Defy Danger-like catch-all move for doing animal moves while shifted, rather than having to come up with animal form moves at the moment the Druid assumes the new form.

    But I agree that the class doesn’t have to be all about shapeshifting. Getafix the Druid from Asterix is all about brewing potions. Old-school D&D Druids were spellcasters long before they were shapeshifters. And while I’m not a huge fan of the “special pet/flanking buddy” animal companion, Druids should definitely have some sort of “friend to all animals and plants” thing going on.

  16. Bonds are gone.

    The party-building aspect is replaced with the questions you get to ask in each Background.

    The “resolving bonds for XP” angle is replaced by one of the questions in Make Camp (“describe how your opinion of or relationship with another character has changed; if everyone agrees, mark XP”).

    Aid doesn’t require a roll. Interfere uses STAT instead of bond.

  18. Luke Jordan I did! I read the first like 10 in the series before I ran out of steam… I enjoyed them, but couldn’t really get past the one the one where Alice goes to hell. Definitely where the “spook” background came from, though!

  21. Jeremy Strandberg, when the PC is encumbered, he takes any penalities? I mean, I guess it ins’t the same negative condition from the original DW that gives -1. Right?

  22. Alisson Vitório correct. No penalty for encumbered. It’s the assumed state, actually. A couple playbook moves require that you be unencumbered, but that’s it.

    It’s probably better for the playbooks to say “un_encumbered if _nothing below this line.”

  24. Thank you Sor Jeremy Strandberg, everything is crystal clear now 🙂 I’m looking forward to give a look on your Druid. On top of that, I can hardly wait to see you finishing Stonetop as soon as possible to see you working on this beauty!

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