Gerke Bouma – Dungeon World Tavern G+ Archives

Looking for some inspiration!

I’ve got a small group of 2-3 (depending on who shows up) players who are really new to tabletop RPGs in general, but seem to love Dungeon World. I am certain at least the paladin and ranger will attend, the 3rd player will be new if she shows up.

I did a first session where they infiltrated a castle where a party was in progress, stole a coveted weapon and barely escaped with their lives. They loved that session.

The second session was more typical “hack and slash” encounters while they made their way home with that treasure, and while they felt OK (especially the ranger who rolled absolutly exception on all his rolls) they told me afterwards they felt it was less fun than the first session.

For the third session, they found they need to go find an ancient artefact.

What i’m looking for is interesting situations that one could find themselves in, trying to find a hidden and/or protected treasure, that don’t (neccesarily) involve combat. These guys really seem to like puzzeling / strategizing, more so than just murdering everything they see.

Thoughts?

I am not a huge fan of HP in dungeon world for PCs, so I have been fiddling around with an alternative.

I am not a huge fan of HP in dungeon world for PCs, so I have been fiddling around with an alternative. This is my current way to do that, i’d love feedback on what you guys think.

Note that it is not completely original as it borrows a lot from other alternatives that people have suggested here and elsewhere.

The system:

You can have 3 types of injuries:

– Light (max 3), nothing too serious. Bruises, small cuts, etc.

– Serious (max 2). Hurts like hell. Think twisted ankles, broken bones.

– Deadly (max 1). Needs tending to as soon as possible.

If you take another injury of a type you already have the maximum of, you take a more serious injury instead.

If you take a second deadly injury, you go to the black gates.

There are two basic moves attached to this:

TAKE HARM

Whenever you take harm, roll and add any ARMOR that protects you from this harm to the outcome

On 10+ You take a light injury

On 7-9 You take a serious injury

On a 6- You take a serious injury and a debility

Tell the GM how you are injured and what happens.

RECOVER

Whenever you take enough time to recover, roll+CON

On 10+ Choose 3

On 7-9 Choose 2

On 6- Choose 1

– One deadly injury is reduced to a serious injury

– One serious injury is reduced to a light injury

– One light injury no longer affects you

– One debility no longer affects you

(you can pick the same option multiple times)

Some notes

– Like with any move, sometimes the GM might decide you don’t roll. Instead, simply tell the player to take an injury (of type X) if that makes sense for the fiction.

– My players like rolling for the damage THEY do. So monsters can still work with HP, I don’t mind that as much as I dislike hp for characters. I have to add that I rarely track my monster HP in detail. Many monsters die in 1 hit (feels epic) and more difficult monsters (leaders, bosses) tend to go down in 1-2 succesful hits as well, but require more rolls to get into a position to get those hits in.

– I would consider renaming ‘armor’ to ‘defense’, as I can think of many different examples of spells and abilities that enable you to avert harm from yourself that have nothing to do with shields and breastplates.

What I personally like about this system

– Mathematically, it still works out more or less the same as HP on average. In my mind, a light injury would be about 3 damage, a serious injury about 5, and a deadly injury about 10, making this equivalent to about 20 hp in line with the average PC.

– It removes RNG from incoming damage rolls (although you don’t need this system to do that, it is a benefit nonetheless in my mind).

– It gives ARMOR a much more similar mechanical use as all other modifiers in the game.

– It makes CON a more interesting stat

– The recover move feels more natural than saying ‘ ok now you regain X hp’. It is also a very easy move to affect with other skills that allow you (or others) to remove more quickly.

– It is very easy to attune healing spells/potions to this system. For example, the cleric already has three types of healing spells, one to match each level.

– More use for debilities

I’d love feedback, suggestions, comments…anything! 🙂

Has anyone here tried to port the BITs (Beliefs, instincts and traits) from Burning wheel to Dungeon World?

I am considering to try this out to help some of my less experienced players to set more clear & consistent goals for their characters and how they interact with the world. Kinda like flags but the other way around?

If you have done this already or something similar, what did you do and what did you like (or not like) about it?

Looking for some inspiration!

My party has tasked itself with getting into an ancient vault in the catacombs beneath a palace. Anyone going in to the vault for as long as far back as anyone can remember, either never came out or came back out talking complete nonsense/utterly insane.

The vault stores an ancient artifact that will potentially be able to bring back an ancient god to life.

Complicating factor: the sister of one of the PCs has already entered the vault ahead of the party as part of a deal that saved the related PC’s life. Basically the party is mainly going in to make sure she survives, but also to help her obtain the artifact as that was part of the deal. Bad Things will happen (to the sister) if they don’t.

The setting is a bit of a mix between steampunk & lovecraftian horror. So basically there’s cults, sacrifices, gods, mysteries, steampunk-monsters (think mechanical spiders etc), machines with a lot of cogs and tubes that do stuff they have no business of being able to do….

I imagine the vault being a mini-dungeon. Say 3-4 ‘rooms’, each with some problem the party faces. I’m looking for any input for moves, encounters, monsters or traps that could be found in the vault that broadly fit (part of) the setting as described above.

Any thoughts?

I was discussing this with one of my friends today.

I was discussing this with one of my friends today. Sometimes players feel a bit ‘forced’ into certain skills with their characters, that may not necessarily match what they have in mind in terms of who their character is and what he/she can do. Simply because it is on the character sheet and what they want isn’t.

What if we completely skip picking a class, but simply come up with the ‘concept’ of a character, and pick (or design if needed) skills accordingly. E.g. a trained army scout could have some fighter-like skills, but also e.g. be a trap expert.

Then, while leveling up, add skills that reflect your experiences during the fiction. So instead of ‘poof, you now know how to do X overnight!’ you get a skill that actually has a base in the fiction. E.g. if you encountered a lot of traps recently, maybe you become more aware of how to deal with those and you become a trap expert (just taking this as an easy example, could be anything).

Skills would still either come from a playbook or (if something new needs to be designed) would be structured exactly like any other DW skill. Just not prescribed in advance. And of course you would want to avoid your players all having the same skills, but I wouldn’t expect that to be too much of an issue.

Aside from the ‘do whatever you and your players find fun!’ argument, have any of you guys ever tried such a ‘system’, or do you know of a game that does something similar? What are the advantages and disadvantages of such a ‘hack’?

After GM’ing several sessions of Dungeon World I feel I’m getting into the ‘flow’ of how the moves are triggered and…

After GM’ing several sessions of Dungeon World I feel I’m getting into the ‘flow’ of how the moves are triggered and how to resolve them.

However, I still struggle sometimes with when to use discern realities and spout lore, and when to simply provide information or make them do a different type of roll. Some situations are obvious (someone is checking out a room = discern realities, someone wants to see if they know something about X = spout lore, etc).

But some situations are not so obvious, to me anyway.

Two recent examples:

Situation 1: I described one of my room in a dungeon to have various pictures of rituals etched into the wall. The room was known to belong to a cult they were investigating. One of my players wanted to examine the pictures more closely and figure out if they provided them with any more information. I did not have anything specific in mind up front.

Discern realities’ questions didn’t really seem to apply to this. I went with Spout lore (which resulted in them finding a riddle pointing to a hidden door), but i’m not entirely sure this was the ‘proper’ way to handle this.

What would you have let them roll, if anything?

Situation 2: A player obtained an artifact belonging to the cult I mentioned before. The use of the artifact (a bracelet) has not been established yet (for the players, I do have something in mind). One of the players wanted to fiddle with the artifact around the room to see if it reacted to anything.

Although I wasn’t really planning on them doing this, it seemed cool to me. The answer “It doesn’t react to anything” would be unrewarding and lame. However, simply telling them ‘oh it reacts to XXX’ might be a bit too easy. This action uncovering something potentially dangerous felt unfair without there being a roll involved.

How would you have handled this?

I have noticed that in my games, I tend to ‘plan ahead’ quite a bit.

I have noticed that in my games, I tend to ‘plan ahead’ quite a bit. The worst thing I notice I have been doing is to try to solve the situations I come up with in advance for my players. Apparently I want to make sure there is an solution to the problem I put in front of them, I know what will happen if they do X, ask about Y, etc. This may be something I carried over from my D&D GM’ing.

To clarify: I’m not talking about the larger scale dangers/fronts or first sessions, but the smaller things that happen a dozen times during a session ‘along the way’. Before they enter a room, examine an object or get into a fight, I feel like I should know everything there is to know about it. This can easily lead to railroading or me forgetting to ask questions.

This feels very much against the spirit of ‘playing to find out what happens’ of DW, so i’m trying to get myself to stop this! That said, i’m not the best at improvising interesting encounters on the spot. Dungeon starters solve most of that for first sessions, but they don’t really help me after that.

How much detail do you guys&girls prep for your encounters/dungeons/rooms mid-campaign? And how do you go about creating interesting scenario’s for your players, while leaving room for their creative input and ‘playing to find out what happens’?

I’d love to abuse this beautiful community for some inspiration if I may.

My PC’s got split up and a couple of them are currently trying to escape a desert residence / small palace that they were imprisoned in. The place is on alert (due to the other PCs messy escape) but no one knows the remaining PCs are stil there and trying to get out.

The PCs trying to escape are basically a rogue and a homebrew bellydancer class with (secret) firecontrolling powers. They have no qualms about killing, but are not likely to survive an all out fight given where they are.

What I am looking for are some interesting situations / microfronts to put in front of these two characters on their way out. They will of course be a lot of sneaking involved and they will likely need to obtain some horses/camels to escape the desert palace they are in. We are using a arabian-nights kind of setting.

Thoughts?

Does anyone have sources, suggestions or ideas for engaging less combat oriented characters in a Dungeon World…

Does anyone have sources, suggestions or ideas for engaging less combat oriented characters in a Dungeon World setting?

Although I have no issues in coming up with exciting combat encounters, somehow I struggle far more with coming up with interesting scenario’s that still present some sort of challenge to my players but don’t necessarily involve sticks and swords (or traps. Traps are really only fun up till a point).

I have a few players that lean more towards Roleplaying and less towards Gaming. While they have been going along with my seemingly endless strings of combat I’d love to change things up a bit to give them more chance to shine in non-combat environments.

All input is appreciated!