Category: The Dungeon World Tavern: Compendium Classes

Hey guys,

Been working on a compendium class (that I selfishly want to try using myself some day) called the Guild Master! Looking for feedback if you want to take a read

Here is the doc link (title is showing my old title for some reason):

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-JImJIze2pgPLa1PGGymBVdDz6hMj1R_hjX0gnfNijU/edit?usp=sharing

I’m basing this on the idea of one of the players becoming the leader of a guild or other organization. It’s mostly aimed at Sneaky-type characters like the Thief or Assassin (particularly the main move “Take Down”) who could more directly manage their Thieves’ Guild, but it could also work as a holy order type or even magical order type group too.

“Take down” was probably the most inspired move, everything else came out of there. If any of you have played the Assassin’s Creed video games, there is no cooler moment then when you silently signal one of your assassins to attack, and he jumps from a nearby haystack as if he was ALREADY waiting there THE WHOLE TIME: that’s what I was going for. Similar to how the Dashing Hero can always dramatically swing off something, these guys are fictionally already waiting there when they attack from a rooftop or leap from nearby bushes.

“Tip the scales” is a way to exert influence over the world using your position without necessarily being there. The idea is your using the might of your organization to get information or deal with problems far away (and head off some dire Grim Portents you can’t get to in time). Another one inspired by Assassin’s Creed where you send your guys across the world to do these missions, haha. It’s roll +ASSOCIATE because the idea is the more operatives you send the better their chances are. I’m worried this one might be messing with the GM a little too much though, or take the fun out of a particularly tense Front. That’s why the caveat of “to the fullest extent of their ability” is there though, so your associates can’t just assassinate a fallen god; at best they could probably grab some information on him or MAYBE inflict some wounds. The timing on this one is very weird too but I wanted the player to have to wait a bit before “finding out” how the mission went. Might be hard to remember throughout a session though.

(Is giving both as starter moves too much? I wanted a push pull dynamic of “if I send my guys on missions, then they won’t be around for Take Downs, hmmm” which doesn’t happen if one of them is moved to advanced. I’m a sucker for just having more moves though)

“Learn from the Best” as an advanced move is awkward but I wanted this to be the one that “personalizes” your organization. Like if a Wizard takes Guild Master, and Learn from the Best, now HIS associates are these terrifying Wizard assassins who can cast a spell or two in addition to whatever else if they successful engage off of a Take Down. A Thief’s associates turn into poisoners themselves, etc. It might be too strong as written though.

One thought I’ve been wrestling with: should the “associates” just be followers (either Original print ones or Perilous Wilds ones)? The idea was that they are always waiting in the wings or off doing missions for you and the party, not actually hanging out with the party like followers do. They act through “Take Down”, but then retreat soon after. And I didn’t want management to be too hefty beyond deciding their name, description, and a bit of background; they always come to the mission prepared with what they might need. I want them to be like this omnipresent influence that can be called upon when needed (then you can say “it was planned all along!” (but not really)). However they don’t really have HP or anything else so it might be hard to know when they’ve been struck down when a “Take Down” goes bad.

One last thing. This whole “hidden operatives” thing would probably step on the toes of a Thief or Assassin player if one is in the party, so I’d give them first crack at it as a CC. But otherwise I think it still works for any other class to lead their own Brotherhood.

Well that got long.

Looking for any and all feedback! I’ll be poking at this for a while so stuff might change a bit. I’m really interested to hear what the community thinks about this compendium class!