Author: Mike Wice

Need some advice for handling vulnerabilities please.

For example, in your world you may have trolls vulnerable to fire. Or lycanthropes vulnerable to silver. How do you handle these types of things in your world? My inclination is to say they always regenerate as a move, unless the damage was from that type of attack.

Thoughts?

Spell Failure Results Ideas! I started writing a few of these up last night and thought I would share one. Please post your own ideas as well!

Charm Person –

1. The spell works, but works on you too. You and the target now perceive each other as close personal friends. It’s like a super intense bromance buddy movie now.

2. The spell works TOO well. The target is now in love with you. Permanently.

3. The spell works, but it works on one of your allies, and makes them perceive the target as a friend.

4. The spell backfires in the worst way. You think the target is a close friend, but they don’t see you any differently.

5. The spell goes awry, and instead of evoking friendship, the target now has an intense permanent hatred of the caster.

6. The target thinks you are a long dead friend or relative, and is completely at a loss as to how you are there and alive. They will probably be heartbroken and very upset once the spell wears off.

Wizard and Cleric Spellcasting Failure: How do you handle it? There is nothing listed by the move, so do you just make a hard move that is somehow related to the spell? Any advice or examples? 

Called Shots: How do you handle descriptions of attacks that specifically target an area of an opponent’s body and still reconcile that with the Ranger’s Called Shot move? The presence of The Ranger’s Called Shot almost seems to indicate that other characters can’t normally describe where they hit, but that seems to go against the spirit of Dungeon World in which you describe the kind of stunt/attack/etc that your character is attempting. Thoughts, opinions, or experience welcomed!

For big complex encounters with combat, do you use a map with minis or tokens or a sketch? Do you just describe it all?  One of the first scenes in my upcoming game will have 9 npcs and 4-6 players, horses, obstacles, etc. Is there anyway to do this without a map and minis really? Would it merely be an exercise in futility? I sort of feel like using minis and maps takes away some of the imagination aspect of things, but does make it easier to know where people are etc.

Any advice appreciated!

How do you handle unconsciousness in your games? It seems the rules don’t have some method for handling non lethal damage (aside from perhaps stunning?). While I don’t necessarily want to create new rules and tack all that on, I am interested in how you handle these type of things in your own games. Do PCs or NPCs ever get knocked unconscious before they hit 0 hit points? Do players get angry that they are knocked out? (But I have Hit Points left!). 

Please share your thoughts and experiences! Thank you!