I ran my first DW game last night and we had a blast. I used The Slave-Pit of Drazhu. I modified it a bit. Everyone started out with the Pit Slave playbook, but when they made it to 5XP I let them “remember” the hero they once were and select an appropriate playbook based on how they had played their slave — lost HPs and XP transferred over.
I let them gain XP normally, but I also added 5 “heroic flags.”
Heroic Flags
[ ] Let me take damage for you when I am already hurt
[ ] Allow me to give you a treasure that I could really use
[ ] I Attack a Guard first
[ ] I Attack Drazhu first
[ ] Let me keep you from going first into danger so I can go myself
I let each person use a flag once – they checked it off and gained the XP.
It seemed to work well, everyone managed to “remember” their heroic selves before the big fight with the lich. (They lost their flags at this point.)
One of the slaves died early on, but rolled an 8 at the Black Gate, so Hel offered the character a chance to live as a hero again, but they had to kill Drazhu or die trying — no scampering away.
Anyway fun was had by all! I am converted to DW.
Props to Keith Martin Mark Zimmer for helping me with the game and Jason Morningstar for the fantastic module.