Nick Nunes – Dungeon World Tavern G+ Archives

There’s been a lot of talk of alternate Damage and HP systems.

There’s been a lot of talk of alternate Damage and HP systems. Here’s another that I cooked up as a thought experiment. The main goal was to keep class damage dice as written, but to mitigate the effects of excessive armor and low damage rolls.

When I first wrote it up, it was more complex than it sounded in my head—I set it aside expecting to forget about it, but it’s grown on me some since then. Still not sure it’s worth using, but I thought I share if it sparked someone else’s imagination.

Noticed a potential bug with the Druid. The background move Totemist (which I think is good) says:

You are bonded to a specific animal or beast; your Tell reflects it, and you always possess its Instinct. When you use Shapeshifter to take the form of your totem, you always succeed as if you had rolled a 10+.

The move Shed (also good) says:

When you take damage while Shapeshifted, you may choose to forcibly revert to your normal form in order to negate the damage.

Together though you have kind of an at will damage shield—nothing is stopping you from repeatedly shifting in and out of your Totem form to block all damage. I think the way to fix it is to put a limiter on Shed. Maybe “you can’t shift into that form again until you’ve made camp”. Or instead of negates all damage “reduce the damage by half” or “reduce the damage to 1”.

One of the things I really like about this is how races have been incorporated into look.

One of the things I really like about this is how races have been incorporated into look. I think it’s the correct amount of prompting to indicate that race is something the player should care about but is also flexible.

My favorite innovation about this is that you pick an advanced move during character creation. I love the way this opens up character building options and makes starting characters both more varied and more focused. I’d actually like to see this expanded upon, maybe some classes could have fewer starting moves and more starting advanced move choices.

However, these two things together got me thinking–what’s the point of Background moves? I know they’re a replacement for race moves but, beyond that what purpose do they serve? Why should they be set aside instead of included as a starting move with options, or just included in the advanced moves as potential choices? Some of the backgrounds are mutually exclusive (an argument for them being set aside) but most aren’t.

I think background moves also miss something that the best racial moves can bring too. Although most of the racial moves aren’t like this there’s a few like Dwarf Cleric, Dwarf Fighter, or Human Druid, which really add a lot of flavor to what it is to be a particular race/class combination. Of course it’s really hard to come up with a move for every race/class combination that’s that good, most are pretty boring.

I have not had a chance to pick up the recently released Xanathar’s Guide to Everything yet but the reviews mention that there are a lot of class specific backstory tools like superstitions and tattoos for Barbarians or temptations and a nemesis for Paladins. This sounds very interesting and I’m wondering if something like this could make a better background than just some moves that you have to pick from.

Thoughts?

I’ve been working on a Monk playbook for DW for a long time.

I’ve been working on a Monk playbook for DW for a long time. There are a lot of Monk playbooks out there already so why create another? None of them did exactly what I wanted. What I wanted was a Monk that had the same “feel” as the base playbooks—streamlined, mostly setting free, with a some cool moves that referenced the tropes of the archetype. I especially wanted to try to remove explicitly Asian flavors as I find it unnecessarily guides the fiction. For example Diablo III’s Monk has kind of an Eastern European flavor that I think is fresh and different. I wanted a monk that was about devoting oneself to mental and physical practice to achieve mastery.

I’ve drawn inspiration for this from multiple sources, including Peter Johansen’s Monk in the Lore and Lords Pack, Jason Shea’s Monk in the Donjon World Hack, Friendly Neighborhood Gamer’s Monk, James Mendez Hodes’ Monk, the Flow Monk, the Prisoner Monk, David Guyll & Melissa Fisher’s Monk, thesmitster’s Dungeon World Ideals project, Johnstone Metzger’s Class Warfare, Multiple editions and supplements for Dungeons & Dragons and Pathfinder, and references to a wide variety of traditional media.

I really like what’s being done with the World of Adventures project, so I made some changes to make my WIP Monk compatible and decided it was finally time to share. I’m particularly proud of the moves Drunken Master and Shadow Clone. Hope you like it.

p. 27-29 Wizard Feedback

Hard Study +1 Ongoing?

Generally like the rewrite, but in a weird way it makes me want Cleric Invocations to be mechanically more different than they are currently.

p. 25-26 Thief Feedback

Punk should be +1 Ongoing?

In Poisoner, “Dissect” a poison is weird language, maybe “break down” or “isolate”

Underdog should be +1 Ongoing

Making Shoot First 6+ is possibly a good idea, but I don’t see why it needs Underdog as a prereq.

Hideout is good.

Consider removing the 6+ requirement from Heist. It’s akin to Ritual and has really strong class flavor. I think having it as a starting move option would really reinforce being a Thief.

p. 23-24 Ranger Feedback

Always Prepared and Ruthless slayer seem out character for the rest of this hack. It’s the only two part move, and uses named hold. Doesn’t really seem to have much ranger flavor either.

All Ranger affinity for Volley has been removed. Called shot seems like an iconic Ranger move shouldn’t have been excluded.

There are a lot of ranger moves that let you ask GM questions.

This is My Turf seems really clunky. Also uses named hold.

I do like moving Setup Strike from Paladin, it’s good here.

In general the Ranger does not really bear much of a resemblance to the DW Ranger besides Animal Companion. Of all the classes that could have had such a dramatic departure, the Ranger doesn’t seem like the class that really needed it.

p. 21-22 Paladin Feedback

In the intro text there’s an instance of “armored”. My preference would be to always use armor vs armour, but this is the only remaining instance of “armor”.

Don’t like the flavor of above the law. Maybe “Punish the unbelievers”.

Meek is good but quite powerful for a background.

I see Courage was fixed between versions, the first release was broken.

Penitence should be +1 Forward (or Ongoing, that seems a bit OP though)

Instances of “mortal” should be replaced with “mundane”?

Over Onward, perhaps supposed to be “Ever Onward”?

We Happy Few, “Inspiration” is just hold, the style elsewhere has generally been not to give hold names (although there are good reasons to name hold).

Healthy Distrust was better as a Barbarian move, maybe:

Whenver you defend against dark, corrupt, or chaotic magic, take +1 hold even on a 6-

I miss the flavor of Exterminatus. The move itself is probably wrong but I think the ability to fixate was nice.

Quest and Devout Virtue together seem like that could get out of control. The GM has control of the quest blessing to help prevent this, but adding Perfect Knight just doesn’t seem wise. I’d remove it, make Quest have a level 6+ prereq or a less powerful prereq move, like maybe Quest just for xp, then the “advanced” Quest gives you a boon. Also I don’t think “Power of the Virtuous” should have two ranks.

p. 19-20 Immolator Feedback

Lore of Flame, “You take 1 preparation towards” is the same as +1 Forward right?

Legacy of the Phoenix is not as good as Burning Bridges, this should really have some exhaustion mechanic IMO. Doesn’t necessarily have to be bonds but just removing character death as an option seems excessive.

Burn down the house flavor seems off, but I guess it works.

Too Hot to Handle is good here. Always thought the Battlebabe move was weird for Fighters. Moving it to Immolator is brilliant.

p. 17-18 Fighter Feedback

I think Riddle of Steel is a great starting move for a Fighter

I miss Heirloom.

I liked Sense of Unease better as the Barbarian move Healthy Distrust