Category: The Dungeon World Tavern: Actual Play

Things i learned from the IRL Dungeon World game this week. 

#1 i need to describe more. The group decided to make camp and one player immediately said he wanted to Discern Realities  Because there was nothing i had established it was a bit awkward  Had i described their camping place i would have had more to work with. The player asked what here is not what it seems to be. I told him that the snow berries (normally being used to heal people) in this area have been warped and contain tiny thorns inside that would tear up your throat. 

The Sky Dancer then went on a scouting flight to discern the realities of the entrance to the Orc cave. Once again i gave basically no description of the place before he asked his first question. I had it in my mind but i didn’t describe it in any way. We used the questions of the player to better define the orc defenses and the tactical options they had. After the questions we all had a pretty good idea about the place but it could have gone much better. 

#2 The Sky Dancer is an excellent Scout and having a flying character from level 1 is really cool. 

#3 I tried really hard to keep Johnstone Metzger s advice in mind about the Defense Move. The Dwarf Barbarian was fired at  with flaming arrows. He buried his giant sword in the ground and hid behind it. He choose to take half damage and open up the archer to attacks. (the last thing maybe a bit much) so he took half damage and no damage afterward even though the orc was still firing at him. The Skydancer used that moment to fire an arrow at the orc and then knock him down the watchtower. 

The same thing on a Hack&Slash, the fighter was fighting with an orc but didn’t kill him with the move. The kept on fighting but my next move couldn’t just be “he goes for another attack”, i had to change the situation so i used the “attack unrelentless” move and described the orc hacking with double speed, going total berserk without defending and “what do you do”  

#4 I still need to ask more questions next session. We took a lot of time creating characters, especially because we had a total RPG newby with us so i wanted to get into the action fast. We still don’t know much about the Skydancers and Fighters Race.

#5 The Orc berserker has a “mutations” special quality. I took that as a hint, especially because the players talked about the orcs warping normal animals into beasts, to mean that the orcs had a lot of biomagic and transformation magic. That’s why there were two mutated orcs, one with 3 arms and a transformation magic shaman. He had a Mr. Fantastic Rubber Arm and hit the Dwarf Barbarian with a magic pulver – granting the Dwarf extra knees (and a DEX debility).

#6 now i have to write dungeon fronts for the orc cave/fortress

#7 I need to think about why the orcs are doing what they are doing and in that, don’t fall into the same story structure i usually do. The player characters fail to prevent some ritual or to defeat a big dangerous enemy and have to flee to  prepare and fight another day. It’s not planned by me but it happend in 3 games now. I will try to not do that so there is no big godzilla monster waiting under the cave. 

#8 Oh BTW. the orcs have yeti allies (yay 6- Spout Lore)