I’m slowly converting Yoon-Suin to Dungeon World, making the mechanics fit and reinforce the fluff, and one thing…
I’m slowly converting Yoon-Suin to Dungeon World, making the mechanics fit and reinforce the fluff, and one thing that stood out to me was the caste system. On the one hand it’s a pervasive thing in the setting and thus the players should have to deal with it a lot (especially between themselves); but on the other hand I don’t want to really force them and remove their agency…
So far, I see 3 options:
– Use it as an “automatic leverage” for Parley. The easiest solution, but feels boring.
-Make a general move that gives you 1 XP if you obey an order by a higher caste character that goes against your interest. This is the coolest from a player’s POV: you’ll have to weight the pros (delicious XP!) and cons (depending on the exact order), making you doubt whether to just obey a higher-caste bad guy. The conflicts between PCs would be guaranteed. The downside is, it looks easily abusable and the mechanic could spiral out of control. But then again, almost every mechanic in DW is abusable, it’s not a game for selfish pricks.
-Make it part of Make Camp, just like alignments/drives. You obeyed the higher caste’s orders, you get 1 XP. This is the middle ground; not as abusable as the previous one, yet more visible than the leverage. As a downside, a character could just ignore the caste system once they’re “covered” for this session… It just doesn’t feel right for something that most people just obey without much thought, as an essential part of their society.
Your thoughts?
