Author: Ben Duchac

Had a great session last night – found myself doing something occasionally that I wanted to get feedback on. Every now and then in a fight, I would make a monster move on a 10+ roll. I didn’t identify it as such, but I felt like it helped a lot to keep things moving. It seemed to follow the fiction and everyone was happy with how the fights flowed.

For example 

Ranger (bow was knocked out of her hand): I grab a sharp rock and fling it at the Goblin Orkaster as  hard as I can while he goes after the fighter.  

GM: OK, let’s call that a volley. Roll for it

Ranger: 11+2! I throw the rock so hard it’s just a blur through the cave, dead on target.

GM: Roll damage

Ranger: 6 damage! 

GM: Your stone hits the Orkaster square in the forehead with a sickening crunch. The force of the blow knocks into him with terrible force, knocking his head back.

(Orkaster’s HP is at 1 at this point)

Party: Yeah!

GM: He staggers back and and you hear him scream an  incantation – fire seems to pour out of his hands, turning the goblins closest to him into ash. Cleric and Wizard, you guys are close to him – a wall of fire is filling the cave near the Orkaster headed right towards you – what do you do?

—-

In that situation I was making a monster move after a 10+ roll. It seemed to flow naturally – maybe the moment post-throw was a golden opportunity? I am wondering how you guys read this.

I’ve been thinking about prep vs. improv lately. I’ve played a few DW sessions and GMed one for some new roleplayers. The game I GMed went relatively well, but I found myself having trouble thinking on my feet every time the players wanted to know what to do – I got great feedback from you folk after the fact, but I can’t help thinking that especially in the case of players who are looking for “the point of all this” a slightly more directed adventure might have been better. 

On the other hand, the DW text clearly states that you are playing to find out what happens, and certainly not playing to play out a pre-planned story. That said, there are GM moves that involve exploiting your prep. I know the prep can be ideas, fronts, dungeons, etc, but I’m running a one-shot soon for another new group who are very excited, and I I’ve been brainstorming some aspects of what is essentially an adventure/mystery. Now I don’t know how it will play out, and the types of characters who experience this setting will certainly change it, but to some extent I’ve thought up a possible villain, a thematic dungeon (full of blanks), and a few other locales or things that I could imagine happening.

My question is, am I disobeying the central tenets of DW if I give my players agency but also portray them in the midst of this adventure I’ve planned? I guess I’m wondering where the line between too much guiding and adventure fronts lies. I have some monsters, some settings, some events, and some locations planned. Some of them the players could absolutely influence, but others (like confronting the villain, or exploring the cave that the evil that is plaguing the town comes from) I guess I feel it would be strange to avoid. 

Any thoughts on this? 

Sincerely,

Lots Of Prep

Ran my first game of DW last night! First time GM with three first time roleplayers, so it was a big challenge. Some stuff went great, other stuff…well I’m here for advice. Character creation went really well, everyone had fun choosing traits and really got into their characters. Introductions were a lot of fun.

The problems arose with the actual adventure. I tried to prompt the PCs with questions, started off with an action-packed into which had them slamming the door behind them from a some force (which they decided were the trees of the forest, come to life to attack them!) bashing down the door behind them. We did a mini dungeon crawl (just a couple rooms, some skeletons, a little puzzle) which went surprisingly well, but they wanted to escape the dungeon so I got them out into a village and all of a sudden they lost steam.

I guess they wanted some direction, some quest, but I hadn’t planned one out because I was hoping they would fill it in themselves. In this case maybe a 5-room-dungeon setup might be helpful? We had a minor run in with a couple town guards after which everyone was feeling kind of done. I kept trying to introduce concepts that they might want to explore further but I think unless I gave them a set goal they weren’t sure what they were “supposed” to be doing. Any ideas? 

The group was a fighter, a ranger with a bear, and a druid. The fighter kept doing a defy danger, hack and slash and because of her high strength and dex stats was basically just cruising without having to think too much and got bored. The ranger was pretty good but wasn’t really sure how to use her companion. The druid took a while to realize that she could be constantly shapeshifting – is that how that class is meant to be played? 

Lots of questions, not sure if I’ll get this group back to the table, but I’m certainly interested. I’d love to hear feedback from people with more experience. 

Don’t know if this article has been passed around but I think it’s a great thoughtful piece on DW – also interesting take on the failings of the bard class.

http://www.1000d4.com/2013/07/25/failure-in-rpgs-and-why-i-love-dungeon-world/

Has anyone bought the book/pdf from indie press revolution lately? I did last week and aside from an automated confirmation message, I haven’t gotten a link to the PDF or any indication of when the book will ship. Emails and tweets haven’t been answered. Starting to worry, any suggestions? Thanks.