Author: William Nichols

In the last game of DW, we dropped +1 Forward/Ongoing and replaced it with an extra die, take the best 2. It worked wonderfully. 

This is totally stolen, and not original to me. And it is AWESOME.

DW Hack to share, for one-shot play and to actually get to play high level moves.

Changes:

1. At the end of a scene, if you have marked XP or feel you should from alignment and standard end-of-session questions, level and reduce xp by one.

2. Stats: Start with 18, 17, 16, 15, 13, 10 . When you level, do not increase a stat.

3. Debilities: You are playing ancient adventures, and have all 6 debilities. Group these into 2 or 3 “afflictions”, which are ailments you have – gout, necromantic arm falling off, and an evil deity speaking to you were all used.

4. Liberal use of magic items – i wrote up a bunch, and put them in a sack. When they were at a point where they’d get equipment, draw from the sack – I did one draw per player. This included plenty of potions of remove affliction, and rings of physical health.  At least one of these was “make something up”, and another couple were “pick something from the book”. 

5. Moves: ignore the 2-6, 6-10 split, as you are veterans who are relearning.

This made for fast leveling, and leveling was easier than normal. One character ended at 7th level. 

It worked well for what it was – a gonzo, no-prep, quick, fun version of dungeon world designed for a one-shot.

Paladin Week – How has the Holy Avenger materialized in your game?

In ours, an angel of the god of light brandishes a flaming sword when attempting to take the soul of a Paladin now serving the Great Gator. The Ranger knocked it out of the Angels hands, and the Paladin took it into his — and it was the Holy Avenger!

The Angel managed to get it back, but now we know. And to get it, we just need to fight all of one god’s angels.

On the number of bonds

I realized this week that characters cannot add more bonds as time goes on but, rather, keep the number they started with. The Bard always has six or less, and the Wizard never has more than 3.

Having a lot of bonds with a single character could obviously be a bad thing — but how does establishing more than the initial number of bonds upset the game?

As the characters journey together, wouldn’t their relationships become more complicated? And isn’t one way to show how messy relationships get to have multiple bonds?

Why the decision to keep the number of bonds at the starting level? Why are they treated as a resource?

I hear there are fillable pdf’s of character sheets somewhere? A google search did not reveal — can someone share?

As I read a list of new DW classes one popped out — The Immortal. My breath caught in my throat — could it be a Highlander-style immortal, only die if your head comes away from your neck?

Nope. Its a compendium class for you’ve made 3 last breath rolls and not died. Which is cool and all, but its not the clan McCloud.

What do you think would best facilitate a Highlander-style Immortal in the fiction? A base class? A racial option? A compendium class? Or, just narrative causality — that anytime you do die, your neck isn’t attached?

Is it just me, or does the Ranger’s Elf Ranger move reduce dramatic tension?

Why not a 12+ move, such as: Elf – When you undertake a perilous journey through wilderness and score a 12+, you succeed wildly at your role. It takes half the time, you can frighten, intimidate, or dismay any opponents waiting to ambush you, or you consume no rations. 

That 12+ move probably needs work. Is it a cool idea, or does everyone else like the automatic success? Any ideas for how to improve move?