Are you running DW as a series of one shots, short campaigns (2-6 sessions), or a longer campaign (6+)?
Are you running DW as a series of one shots, short campaigns (2-6 sessions), or a longer campaign (6+)?
A’right, vets!
A’right, vets! New group, new game this Sunday – and I think I’m ready for them. However, let me ask the lot of you:
I’m going to go in with minimal prep – but I do have this idea based around an old blurb for the Orbs of Dragonkind back in D&D2nd days. There’s this part of me that really loves the idea of a fantasy world where countries are based on a set of artefacts, and where the very political identities of the people in the world are ultimately connected to who owns and uses what pretty bauble.
This isn’t necessarially something I want to throw out at my players for game one – just a tidbit about the world I want to incorporate into the larger musings on Fronts and campaign that the PCs may never actually encounter unless they go political or a villain leaps out at me that fits the paradigm.
Should I throw this out early, or hold it until later?
I do /not/ necessarily want to influence my player’s brainstorming sessions – but it is little thing that I, as a GM, want to develop. If I throw it out there, they’ll riff on the theme – but that ruins it as a surprise for later.
Either game could be good. Which way would you go?
Little idea I had at work: for GMs comfortable with improvising:
Little idea I had at work: for GMs comfortable with improvising:
Dungeon Seeds
The demon lord Anarazel delights in greed, bloodlust, and recklessness that adventurers so often fall prey to, and so fashioned these items to give them endless opportunities to practice said vices. They appear as small coins of an unknown black metal, polished to a mirror finish. If a word is spoken to one, and it is buried in the earth, some time later an entrance will emerge to a dungeon themed by the word in question: “fire” will produce a fire dungeon, “spiders” will produce a spider dungeon, etc.
Most coins produce relatively small dungeons: a single level with 5-7 rooms in them. Roughly 1 in 6 produce greater dungeons: 5-7 levels deep, and 1 in 6 of those (or 1 in 36 overall) will produce megadungeons consisting of 5-7 full dungeon “branches”. Small dungeons will take a few minutes to “grow”, greater dungeons will take a few hours, and megadungeons will take a few days. Almost all dungeons will result in thematically appropriate monsters, traps, tricks, and treasure. Usually, any treasure will be commensurate with the risk involved: a “harmless” dungeon might only have a few copper coins scattered through: contrariwise, attempting to cash in with the word “gold” might result in a dungeon filled with lethal golden constructs and deathtraps.
Hello folks, new poster here to offer up a compendium class I whipped up based on a character type from the…
Hello folks, new poster here to offer up a compendium class I whipped up based on a character type from the excellent D.M.Cornish’s Monster Blood Tattoo novels. I’m looking for criticism, I’m not sure if I’ve constructed the moves correctly as I was working to emulate an existing archetype and getting it to fit in the Dungeon World rules. I did deliberately break one of the rules in that the core move generates hold that the other moves make use of, but that’s not necessarily a bug unless there’s a particular reason why that wouldn’t work.
Hope you like it!
Played my first game of DW as a Druid just now.
Played my first game of DW as a Druid just now. Had a great time! I really love the shapeshifting mechanic. I just wish my MC would have let me “shapeshift” and __ instead of making me wait every time. (Surely if everyone else can “defy danger” and ____then I should be able to “shapeshift” and _____?
It really is hard to get out of the round by round mindset isn’t it?
Just wondering, as an MC, if your Druid player wanted to try and purify a defiled lake, how would you handle this mechanically? My MC told me that I couldn’t do it. Whilst I’m ok with the decision, I’m pretty sure I would have made it possible as MC. (Isn’t the golden rule still “don’t say no, determine difficulty”?
I had a flash of insight this weekend.
I had a flash of insight this weekend. I’d been reading a trade paperback of “Dr. McNinja” comics, and it occurred to me that DW’s monster creation process hews to McNinja’s “Inverse Ninja Law.” (“One ninja is an elite and powerful adversary. Multiple ninjas make a group of faceless and incompetent pawns.”) Granted that DW monsters aren’t necessarily faceless or incompetent, but it’s true that the more of something there are, the less powerful they are, all other things being equal.
Nothing more to say except that this realization amused me greatly.
Sage. Adam. I found your new back cover blurb.
Sage. Adam. I found your new back cover blurb.
“Dungeon Ghetto be a tabletop roleplayin game. It’s a set of rulez dat you use, along wit yo’ playas, ta play up fantasy adventures. You’ll take on tha rolez of dwarves, elves, n’ humans up in a ghetto of magic. You’ll grill dangerous enemies, sweepin plots, and treacherous locations fo’ realz. Is you ready?”
http://gizoogle.net/index.php?search=dungeon-world.com&se=Gizoogle+Dis+Shiznit
Today’s minor DW revelation: the GM’s choice to make a hard move vs.
Today’s minor DW revelation: the GM’s choice to make a hard move vs. a soft move can be a huge element in determining tone for a game.
Adventure Time? All soft moves.
Warhammer Fantasy? All hard moves.
Most D&D games fall somewhere in-between.
For those of us unfamiliar with Dungeon World, how long do you guys typically spend building “fronts”?
For those of us unfamiliar with Dungeon World, how long do you guys typically spend building “fronts”?
Is it silly to come up with a few steadings before the first session of play?
Is it silly to come up with a few steadings before the first session of play? I think I went overboard, coming up with three steadings that are linked through trade and proximity. I only did the tags, I did not come up with any other information, nor wrote down any leading or open ended questions.