The Dungeon World Tavern: Custom Moves – Dungeon World Tavern G+ Archives

Anyone have a custom move for vehicle racing that they like?

I want to run a one-shot adventure about an airship race in Inverse World with island hopping, cloud sea obstacles, creature dangers, sabotage, and rival airships to beat.

I’m sure I could just use the vehicle rules and basic rules as written, though I thought it might be fun to have a custom move that helps narrate the polling and complications of an exciting race, maybe a visual timeline/sequence tracker also. Since it’s a one-shot I’m hoping a custom move would help trigger boons, obstacles/dangers, and delays along the course, perhaps with a hold mechanic to help signify that the finish line is approaching. Regardless of where the party is in the polling when the race is finishing, a final encounter could be had to determine the race. A race is exciting in the back and forth and the bold moves needed to get ahead and stay ahead. Crashing out is always a risk, though hopefully a custom move could help a party that crashes midway to still make a play for victory.

Anyway, I’m part way to a custom move already in my head, but thought I’d poll the tavern to ask if anyone has a DW custom racing move they could share.

thanks!

A sample Ritual: Spirit Messenger

The Spirit Messenger creates a winged creature of soft, mystic light about the size of a humming bird that will fly at normal flight speed, but doesn’t eat or sleep. Assume 50 miles/day. Upon reaching the designated person, the Spirit Messenger dives into the forehead, delivering a message telepathically. The mage has to know the person fairly well. Only 25 words or less may be conveyed.

Costs: Need Place of Power

Caster nor recipient can choose when message is delivered. A small bird of light diving into their forehead might fall under “Put ally in danger”.

A small semi-precious gem (25-50 coin) will crumble and become the dust motes that form the bird of light.

Context: We are playing Pathfinder using Dungeon World. I’m playing Ezren, one of the iconics, and is a wizard. Last night, we were betrayed by 3 NPCs Pathfinders. We are leagues away, out in the field, Ezren is hoping to contact his superior to report the trio’s treachery.

Casting Spell with Mana.

Casting Spell with Mana. I’ve tried to do this before, and there are a ton of moves created by others, but i keep trying to create something more simplistic and great for a pick up game of World of Dungeons. This is my next attempt at a stream lined Cast Spell move using mana. Thoughts?

Mana Reserve

You hold Mana equal to your INT. When you fully rest, restore your hold of Mana.

Cast Spell

When you use your mana to conjure up a spell, roll+Mana.

10+ Cast the spell successfully

7-9 You cast the spell, and reduce your Mana by 1.

By now you should know I have a fixation with the Undertake a Perilous Journey move.

By now you should know I have a fixation with the Undertake a Perilous Journey move.

The move as written is kinda boring to me.

I don’t track rations.

I usually don’t do random encounters.

I never had actually interesting scenes when the party got lost. It just detracts from the actual adventure and it isn’t particularly exciting to play; it turns into an awkward moment of “well… so… yeah, we just continue in a random direction, hoping we’ll spot a landmark to try to figure out where we are exactly”. It might be fun the first time. Certainly not the second.

I’ve run many hacks (mine or found amongst the community) of the move and I’m still dissatisfied.

I’m trying this now, inspired mostly on Shawn Tomkin ‘s Ironsworn.

~~————~~

UNDERTAKE A JOURNEY

When you lead a group through hazardous or unfamiliar lands or explore a perilous site, roll +…

■ … +STR if you carry most of the gear.

■ … +DEX if you move cautiously and stealthily.

■ … +CON if you push on with resilience.

■ … +INT if you analyse the best path based on knowledge.

■ … +WIS if you follow land features and stars.

■ … +CHA if you motivate your group.

On a 10+, you reach a waypoint and gain 2 Progress.

On a 7-9, you reach a waypoint and gain 1 Progress, but use 1 Supply/Adventurer’s Gear.

~~———————————————————~~

VIGNETTE

When your reach a waypoint, tell us about:

■ A bond forged or broken

■ A trait or quirk of your character

■ A vista, landmark or terrain feature.

■ A task you undertook to help the journey

■ A hardship you endured or overcame

~~———————————————————~~

REACH YOUR DESTINATION

When your journey or exploration comes to an end, roll 1d6+Progress.

On a 10+, you reach your destination and take +1 Forward.

On a 7-9, you reach your destination but face an unforeseen hazard or complication.

On a 6-, your objective falls out of reach, you have been misled about the nature of your objective, or there is something you missed. If you push on, reset your Progress to 1.

========== PLAY EXAMPLE ==========

The adventurers gather their stuff and head out. They must reach the Temple of Doom before the sacrifice ritual happens in a fortnight.

GM: That seems like an Undertake a Journey move to me. Who wants to lead?

Ranger: I act as the group’s navigator, so it makes sense I do it. I roll+WIS; an 11!

GM: Great start, gain 2 Progress! Who wants to do the Vignette?

Paladin: I’ll do it. I’ll go with terrain feature. So, at first, we navigate through farmlands. Since peasants recognize me as a zealot of The-All-Father, they offer us food and lodging. Then the land transforms into meadows as we move farther from civilization. The first trek is easy as we can follow paths, even if they are more like animal or hunter tracks after a few days. As we move further, the terrain becomes more rugged and plains give way to rocky hills.

Wizard: I’ll lead the group for the next segment. I watched closely the stars patterns and studied the maps (roll+INT); I’m pretty confident on what bearing to follow… Or not. I rolled a 5!

[Here the GM has an idea, so he does the Vignette himself]

GM: Don’t feel bad, it’s totally not your fault. The weather as been so terrible you barely made any progress. At first it was heavy rain which made everything miserable. Trudging through mud, soggy bread and frail campfire. Then as you reached higher elevations, rain turned to slushy snow. Some days, you had to stay put until weather calmed. All of you guys, suffer a Debility of your choice; some of you might just be demoralized or pissed, while others might be actually physically taxed. What do you do?

Ranger: If you don’t mind, I’ll take the lead back. My character is in a bad grumpy mood. Again, I’m just doing what I’m best at: navigating by following natural features. I roll+WIS, 7.

GM: Alright, so you’re now a 3 Progress, but this delay has taken a toll on your supplies. Lose 1.

Paladin: I’ll do the vignette. I think this group needs a pep talk. I want to portrait my Lead by Example drive, so we have a moment where I notice the morale is very low. Everybody is grumpy and tired. He turns to them and says: “I don’t know about you, but I won’t let these people die just like that. If I must walk day and night and pass out on the porch of the temple, by The-All-Father, so be it.” Then I head out.

[Here, the waypoint isn’t a physical location. It’s just a moment where the camera stops showing travelling montage and shows the characters in a situation.]

GM: Great! So, you proceed. I think Paladin should lead this segment!

Paladin: Follow the leader! I guess I’m rolling + CHA. Hmm, so let’s see. 9!

GM: Good, so you do keep going but I think you chose to leave some of your gear behind to move faster. Lose 1 Supply.

Wizard: Yeah, I guess we kinda accepted the fact that we’re probably not coming back anyway, haha!

GM: You’re now at 4 Progress. I think we had enough interesting scenes for this journey. Do you feel like this journey comes to an end?

Ranger: Yeah, I think so! Wizard, care to do us the honor?

Wizard: My pleasure! I roll only a single d6+4, is that so? That’ll be 8.

GM: Excellent so you reach your destination, although you see a troupe of cultists in the distance, maybe 200 yards from the temple entrance. They are moving a dozen of frail looking prisoners into a caged wagon dragged by weird muscled furless bull-like creatures. They seem to be moving some of the prisoners to another location. What do you do?

In light of the recent Defend poles, i thought id give defend a look over.

Its something that has come up many times in my games and a topic of much discussion in past here at the Tavern.

So, one problem ive run into with Defend, that has been over come with a sense of reluctance, is that it specifies ‘attack’ and is gagged towards physical damage and attacking damage. Sure, this had been worked around, but it leaves a bitter taste in my mouth afterwards.

Second, is when a player takes to defense before the actual threat is near, then rolls a 6-. The GM moves can at times feel forced. We make it work at the table, but it just doesn’t always feel smooth.

My thoughts are as follows:

1) Don’t roll before the under threat. After all that’s why we roll. When there is a chance of failure.

2) Remove anything that deals primarily with numerical damage. Though it’s not specifically stated that way in the current move, it leans that way and can influence the thought process of players and GMs.

Rough ROUGH draft follows:

Rather than rolling to take up a defense. Just portray the player taking such a Stance. “I take up a defensive position in the passage and give my comrades time to flee”.

Defend

When you defend a person, place or thing, your demeanor changes and you take a more defensive stance. So long as you maintain a defensive stance, you can only react to actions taken against that which you Defend. You gain +1 to rolls made in defense. Changing your stance while under threat is dangerous and may call for a GM move.

This is my preliminary thoughts and would appreciate feedback. Thoughts?

Help me optimize this move

Help me optimize this move

“When you pass beyond the fiery gates of Muspelheim roll +CON. On a hit, you pass beyond the gates, but something about you has been permanently altered. On a 10+, tell us what fear or painful memory has been burned away. On a 7-9, as 10+, but something else goes with it, a cherished memory or some beneficial trait.

On a miss, go straight to Last Breath.”

So, my players are down in the massive volcanic city of Ang Khazem, where some crazy linguist-wizard has opened a portal to Muspelheim, the plane of fire.

There’s a chance they’ll try to enter this portal. We’ve established that Muspelheim is where the souls of those that are cremated go, and that this portal is messing with time here. The Firebrand(Immolator) has used this in a ritual. I wanted to come up with a suitable move for if they decide to seek adventure on the plane of fire.

Here’s the text of the Alchemist move:

When you *have time to gather materials and a safe place to brew* you can create three doses of any poison you’ve used before.

I like the idea of moves that allow you to create things like this, but I don’t like the trigger. I would prefer a better trigger that is based on fiction action, not circumstances. I was thinking something more like this:

When you *set out to brew a poison,* describe how you do so, which may include paying a cost described by the GM, and say what effect your poison will have.

What do you think?

End of Session questions.

What have you changed or modified the questions to better reflect the mission of your game?

I am in family game and is less about killing things and taking stuff and more about doing missions to save the Duchess from the misogynistic machinations of the invincible overlord.

And the questions don’t all seem appropriate it. I knew there used to be some posts about this, but can’t locate now.

Peace,

Steve

This thread got me thinking about the wizard and spells.

https://plus.google.com/108081872647188369149/posts/Jjq6P99AcsU

I know the general consensus is to ditch the wizard playbook, but I dig vancian magic and spells. It is easier for me and my players. Plus it feels like the old days.

The approach to using ritual is well explored in that thread. A different approach would be to create new move that could be taken when you level up to research magic spells. Googling revealed their is not a lot of work in this area.

What would such a move look like? I have this one for starters, not play tested though no one in my group is playing a wizard right now.

When you have enough time and access to a library you can craft a new spell. Describe he spell effect and what you want to have happen. The GM will:

Tell you what the actual spell can do

Tell you what level it is

Offer you a different version at a lower level or cantrip level

Roll+library

On a 10+ you are successful, cross off one use of your library and add the spell to your spell book

On a 7-9 you are successful cross off one use of your library and choose one:

– the process warps your mind, take -1 to INT rolls until you roll doubles while using magic in the future

– you attract unwanted attention on the planes of magic

– the process was more difficult than you expected, cross off 3 uses of library instead of 1. If you don’t have 3 uses then pick something else

– you are marked in someway, the magic is slowly changing you. You radiate magic continuously. If you take this consequence more than once the effect becomes more pronounced. Eventually you will be a being of whatever spells are made off. You can be dispelled.

– the spell will work but has some additional unattended consequence, the GM will tell you

– the research mostly worked, you are missing one ingredient, the GM will name it and tell you how to get it. It is up to you to determine if you want to. It may not be easy to get, but won’t be impossible.

On a 6- it is not successful cross off one use of your library and the GM will pick one

– an unspoken move appropriate to the game

– you cannot research a spell again until you find ________ to unlock the secrets of the Word.

– somehow you tapped into an interference with your link to understanding magic, something unexpected will happen when you use magic until you are able to do ______.

– your research tapped into a feedback loop on the planes of magic, you blaze with magic out on to the place were spells come from like an irrating feedback, surely some beast or planar being is disturbed by this and will seek you out to end it.

– the spell is not contained into spell book form, it comes alive in your library with a motive to destroy spells and libraries. It is only affected by magic or a quest to remove it.

Magical research library – bulky

Basic – 300 coin, + 0 library, 3 uses

Advanced – 600 coin + 1 library, 4 uses

World Class – 2000 coin + 2 library, 6uses

Incredibly Awesome – must find it in the ancient ruins of _______ + 3 library, 6 uses

What would you do instead of this?

I have a Wizard in the group I am running, and while he is enjoying the Wizard, he has talked to me a bit after…

I have a Wizard in the group I am running, and while he is enjoying the Wizard, he has talked to me a bit after sessions on how he misses all of the little utility spells he is used to having in D&D.

So taking some inspiration from one of the Discern Realities podcasts that I binged over the last few months… i don’t recall the which episode, but they did talk about the possibility of using Ritual in at a much smaller scale to help fill in for some of the missing utility. I coupled that idea with one of my own favorite Wizards, Harry Dresden from the Dresden Files, and I have come up with this custom move. This is a first draft, we haven’t even taken this to the table yet, but I thought I’d put it our here for input. Thanks!

Personal Place of Power

Requires Ritual move

When you take a moment to mentally or physically inscribe a circle around you, you have created a personal place of power. This circle concentrates your innate magical power allowing you to perform minor utilitarian feats, for a cost. While in the circle, you may make the Ritual move with the following limitations:

• The effect must be utilitarian in nature and not deal direct damage

• The effect cannot be permanent, it will last moments/minutes/hours (choose one)

• While the effect is in play, take -1 ongoing. When the effect ends, take -1 forward.

In addition, the GM will give you one to four of the following conditions:

• It’s going to take moments/minutes/hours

• First you must __

• You’ll need help from __

• It will draw unwanted attention

• It will require sacrificing something valuable

• The best you can do is a lesser version, unreliable and limited

• You’ll need hair/blood/personal items from you or the target of the effect