Chris Rouillard – Dungeon World Tavern G+ Archives

Watching “Critical Role” on geekandsundry.com

First off, I love the show. It’s a ton of fun to watch, and the GM and players are all entertaining as hell (I highly recommend it to everybody)

The thing that made me realize how much I love Dungeon World is a scene in the second episode. (They’re using D&D 5E)

Basically, one of the heroes cast a lightning spell on a creature that was soaking wet. The hero mentioned that it was soaking wet, and that he was casting the spell pretty much for that reason.

The hero hit with the spell, zap zap damage… but the water really had no bearing on the attack.

In my mind, I’m shouting “Have the creature stunned for a second! Have it take a bit of extra damage!

Did the wizard roll a 7-9? He didn’t realize that the puddle the creature is standing in has gotten to the fighter, and he sees the bolt of electricity hit the creature, and then arc through the puddle toward his friend.

Fighter, you look down in time to see a bolt of electricity charging toward you along the ground. What do you do? What do you do?!?”

The rules in other systems are often so tied into mechanics, that improv is pretty limited.

Sure, coming up with stuff in DW can often be a brain drain. But it’s so much more awesome when you can use stuff like this.

Not directly DW-related, but inspiration is everywhere:

https://www.humblebundle.com/books

Posting this move, not because I think anyone but my group can actually USE it (though I would love any feedback you…

Posting this move, not because I think anyone but my group can actually USE it (though I would love any feedback you have), but because I thought it was pretty clever. And, yes, I realize it’s over-powerful. But right now, this monkey also serves as our cleric’s deity, and is the target of our mage’s “will have a role in a great occurrence” bond.

Our Ranger has a pet monkey named “Chopper” (named, of course, for the dog in Stand By Me).

Of course, one possible advanced move I came with was:

Chopper, Sic Balls!

When you’re fighting an enemy that a monkey could reasonable harm/hassle: Roll + CHA + 2 (Chopper’s Cunning)

On a 10+, describe what Chopper is doing and take all 3:

– Chopper does d4 + 2 (ferocity) damage to the enemy (if he could reasonably damage it with teeth and claw)

– Chopper ‘hassles’ the enemy until you have him do something else (or the fiction demands it), granting everyone +1 to all actions against the enemy

– Chopper doesn’t get hurt

On a 7-9, describe the action, and take 1 of the above

Of course, on a 6-, things go bad. Chopper is stubborn, after all.

I also noted that “‘hurting” a pet is entirely in-fiction. Sure, there won’t be hit points, but a monkey that’s flung across the room will UNDOUBTEDLY be out of commission for a bit (possibly the rest of the encounter). And having a monkey square off against the Demon Lord of Wutang is just ASKING for a monkey tostada.

Anyone else get irritated at yourself later when you think “I should have done THAT” during a session.

For instance…

The group is climbing a tower of a mad wizard, and comes about a creature that is wearing a key around its neck in a room that has 4 red lanterns (one on each wall).

I let them tell me what creature they see. It could have literally been anything.

They chose a bunny. (Strangely enough, the creature that I envisioned them picking when I thought up this scenario)

One of them trips into the room after a volley roll rolls a 7 (yes, they hit the bunny — and yes, after a humorous attempt at ‘animal speak’ by my Druid, they knew it wasn’t a real bunny).

Walls zoom away in all directions, bunny turns into a massive, slavering, demonic bunny. And they realize quickly enough that they need to kill the lanterns (with the side effect of the room taking a massive, possibly vomit-inducing LURCH after each lantern was destroyed, and making the bunny smaller and weaker in the process).

It wasn’t rocket surgery, but it was a lot of fun

The part that annoyed me later that night is that I didn’t have the bunny take any massive leaps into the air and land on people. Sure, he fought them, and hurt them pretty good with his sabertooth-like teeth and wicked claws. But I just wish he’d done something more “bunny-like” during the battle (I wish I’d taken 2 minutes after finding out what they wanted to plan out some more thorough monster details)

Anyone else have any minor regrets like this?

How do you handle your dungeons?

I’m going to be GMing a newly recurring game soon (this is the second “play” session). I have some fronts, I have some ideas from the players and from myself.

But they’re currently in a wizards tower (I know, cliche) — pretty much straight up.

So when doing dungeons, how much do you map? I’ve planned almost all floors, with space for more, and some of the fiction is pretty “loose” at this point (for example, if they manage to get to the top of the tower, they’ll find something — I just haven’t hashed out what yet — I have ideas, but I want to see what they come up with). I’ve done custom moves for several encounters, with openings for player creativity.

I don’t believe I’ve overplanned, but I was wondering, how much planning do you do for dungeons in DW? In the open world, I’m more likely to “wing it”, but obviously in a dungeon, there needs to be SOME control as to what’s going on.