Category: The Dungeon World Tavern: Actual Play

Cross post since this game is 50% LBB and 50% dungeon world

Originally shared by steven stewart

Actual Play Post – the goblins of Zog, tattertots, a purple fairy and a four year old continues the tradition of suggesting that sleeping goblins could just be killed because prisoners would be difficult.

So this is part #1 of an actual play post. I was out of town on a job for like 2 months. I had the iPad so the dnd bug got a hold of me again, it has been a while. My favorite incarnation is OD&D – specifically Torch and Sword Retroclone, which is free.

The wife, the boy (8), and the girl (4) humored me. The girl insisted on playing, and so that drug the wife reluctantly. After 17 years of marriage, she still doesn’t like it, but I think she liked this version better than any other. A good tactic by the girl, and got the whole family involved.

I find that dungeon world has changed the way I play forever. More on that as I go. I run a very loose game now, and we just started making characters. I didn’t have anything planned. Only gear I used was a large vinyl platemat. That I think is the most important gaming gear.

I printed off some handy labyrinth lord character sheets, cause I dig how they look.

I like the 3d6 roll in order. But I understand that the boy may be upset if he got a 3. So I compromised we agreed to roll 3d6 seven times. He could take the highest six but had to take them in order. So he ended up with 10, 13, 13,17,6,12,13. We had some discussions about the stats and how they describe his character. Luckily in OD&D ability scores don’t mean a lot. We ended up with him wanting to be a wizard type – so I mentioned an elf, but after some discussions about agility and being stealthy, he ended up with the idea of a spy. A fighting man in other words. I love in OD&D classes determine a few key statistics mad doesn’t define the character. A simple question, do you cast spells, no then you are a fighting man. No thief for me. It is too limiting.

So my dungeon world skillz kick in and ask who is he a spy for? He said the kingdom. I ask for the kingdom or the king, the answer is the prince. A few more questions in and now we have established:

– a spy for the young prince, twenty one, of the kingdom of Frill.

– Frill is bigger than neighboring Zog. Which is ruled by am evil wizard. Since we had just come from the zoo I was thinking baboons with lasers. But now wife showed up and threw out some different ideas. More on that later.

– the girl rolled up her character stats now. I was thankful that she rolled a 15 strength since she was set on being a knight. She had fun rolling dice. And was the first to name her character. She said l like red. So she was a red knight. And Dame Matches was born.

My wife started rolling, she turned and looked at me – so what is she going to be. I thought uhoh, she isn’t digging this. So I tell her maybe a spell caster. I threw our some words witch sorcerer elf, and then asked her what color she liked. She said purple. So she was a purple sorcerer. But then I asked about whether she would like to be a fairy. She said yeah, and she was starting to get more into it.

She asked if she could have a magic flute. I work off the premise of letting the players be awesome so I said sure. She wanted the flute to calm people. I said ok but you have to roll the die of fate every time you play it. A die of fate is how I work just about everything in the game on a 1-2, bad things that move the game forward, 3-4, a meh result, and 5-6 great things that move the game forward. It comes from burning wheel I think plus the original “skill” system of moldvay basic, also a bit of dungeon world defy danger. I have some dice I like that have skulls for 1’s which work great for a die of fate.

So the flute, on a 1-2 it enrages the creature with anger towards the fey, and they attack with a +1 to hit.

She rolled spells, said she hated the vancian names because they took too long to write (best supplement I have can’t remember which blog I got that off of). But they worked out cool for me. Meanwhile my daughter decided that Dame Matches had a good sense of smell. I think as I was explaining all the spells to my wife, such as Melf’s impenetrable membrane, she wanted a power too and that is what she came up with. Along with a shield. The shield is important later.

I made everyone second level for fun, and we rolled hits and wrote down saves. Decided that the boy needed a +1 save vs. dragon breath due to his dex.

We were almost ready to go, just needed gear and off course some questions answered so this motley bunch can have an adventure. I still didn’t have an adventure yet.

We went off on a tangent about languages. Since in OD&D every point above 10 you get a language. You can see some of them on the character sheet. Such as Frillian. But also the secret spy language Spyatan.

From languages and a few more questions we got into goblins, who are apparently at war with both Frill and the Queen of the Fey. That came from the wife’s languages. She originally said Orc but I was grooving on the semi fairy tale like quality of the game and suggested goblins. I grew up in the 70’s and 80’s so sue me. David Bowie’s goblins scared the snot out of me when I was a kid.

So I ask why do the goblins work for Zog (you can see my awesome inking skills on Zog on the play mat). Wife comes up with he is paying them in children’s dreams. I couldn’t of bested that so we went with that. We are now equipping the characters. I hate this shopping part of the game, so we just brainstormed. But I establish that I will track resources like money, light and food. As soon as I mention food my daughter pipes up with her food that Dame Matches the Red Knight has – no kidding – she has tatter tots (which caused coffee to shoot out my wife’s nose). Meanwhile my son had a sword and throwing stars. But he got off on the food tangent as well so he has beef jerky, dumplings and apparently soy sauce. My wife ended up with berries. But Dame Matches was not done yet. Spicy chicken biscuit was added to the character sheet. We had moved north of the border, and Canada doesn’t have any chick-fil-a’s so I guess there is some escapism going on there.

We move from food to clothes. I ask my son what kind of armor he has, and going on the Asian theme he said bamboo. While very cool, I thought why does a spy have bamboo armor (he is sustainable I guess). At some point we decide that we have to have something separating Zog from Frill. The girl suggests bricks, the wife suggested baby teeth which caused the girl to sit in my lap, and the boy still on the bamboo theme suggested bamboo. That lead to some more discussion on how bamboo keeps goblins out, and the wife suggests that the noise they make when knocking together scares goblins and cause them pain. So now we know why the boy has bamboo armor, he can knock it together to scare goblins. The wife gets an iridescent mood gown that reflects the mood of the person looking at her.

The wife also gets a bow. Since I play d6 damage and some other non traditional combat rules that was cool. I remind them they need light. The wife ever trying to fiction game me asks for a magic lantern running off dragonfly wings – because she realized she would hire someone to carry the light. I said no, the magic item bonanza was getting out of hand. She then gamed up for my son. Saying a spy would be good at seeing in the dark since he had black eyes. The die of Fate decided that he could see better than normal, but not in complete darkness. I really wanted them to get henchman. (The wife said I was heavy handed). They all figured out they needed a torch bearer so they could bear arms, but more in the next post. Including the reasons why the starting villagers all had eye patches.

One last thing about equipment. The boy rolled for his throwing stars and he rolled 11. That got me thinking why only 11? What happened to the 12th one, that generated out adventure hook. The goblins had snuck in to attack the prince, and Massato the Black Spy had killed the goblin and gotten the map of the secret tunnels between Zog and Frill.

I am happy to share my rules and AP. Like I said I don’t play exactly the RAW but find a lot folks don’t, and that dungeon world has colored how I play for the better. It has brought out the creativity of the whole family.

Peace,

#dungeon #world #zog #od&d #playingwithkids