Author: Sarah Newton

Just played our third DW session of Steading of the Hill Giant Chief – and our first PC fatality! Xiola Zenwaith, elven wizard, fell during a lethal battle against two hill giants and four dire wolves as the party attempted to retreat from the Steading to rest up before staging a direct attempt to attack the chief. We also had our first level up – Felix Pook (aka Pook i’the Hood), the thief, took a +1 Dex and the Cheap Shot Advanced Move. Interesting GM snippet was basically escalating a notional “adventure front” I was pretty much making up as we went along – how was the Steading reacting to the PCs’ intrusion. I’ll be writing that up more formally for future sessions.

Hey folks – I thought I’d post some of the stats I’ve been using for running the old AD&D module “Steading of the Hill Giant Chief” for Dungeon World up at my blog. This first lot is for the giants, in addition to the Hill Giant in the Dungeon World book; I’ll post the hill giants’ minions and other critters next time. Hope you like them.

http://sarahnewtonwriter.com/2013/01/04/dungeon-world-a-handful-of-giants/

So, folks, what’s your take on levelling up in Dungeon World? Do characters become more and more awesome, capable of taking on dangers orders of magnitude greater, or do they become broader-skilled, more flexible and deeper? Is there a big increase in character power with level-ups, and how do people tailor opponents and adventures to cope with higher levels?

It looks like one of our party (the thief) will be levelling-up next session, and I’m keen to get a feel for what to expect.

Hi folks – just found the community, a week after discovering Dungeon World, which I’ve been having a blast with.

Question for everyone: I’m thinking ahead for my City State / Wilderlands of High Fantasy DW game (session two just played), and trying to grok how to create NPC / monster spellcasters. I get Monster Moves, etc, but am wondering how much detail you guys put into your magic-using NPC / Monster opponents. Do you assign them a notional level, let them learn / cast the actual spells in the PC classes? Do you jot down a “Casts Fire Magic”-type move, then list a suite of approximate spells they can cast, and the rough power level? Or do you just have a vague move “Casts Lethal Magic” or some such, and hand-wave everything?

My reason for asking is simple pragmatics: when I’m GMing, I find I like to have the parameters of an NPC / Monster written down for ease of reference – I’m usually busy enough imagining and describing the events of the game, without also having to spontaneously come up with fully-formed and consistent critter capabilities off the top of my head (instant spell lists? argh!). So, I’d ideally like to have a “Monster Move Reference” which incorporated the sort of magic an NPC / Monster can use – without being unnecessarily arbitrary. The magic-using critters in the DW bestiary don’t have much detail on that front. Say the PCs are about to raid the Tower of the Ebon Sorcerer and confront him in his chamber of magic – how would you prep the Big Bad’s NPC “stats” for that?