Quick clarification: when folks are discussing Dungeon World RAW or, playing DW RAW, what exactly does this mean?
Quick clarification: when folks are discussing Dungeon World RAW or, playing DW RAW, what exactly does this mean? Is that simply playing the game “as originally written” without any home-brew/house rules?
My apologies if this is obvious; I haven’t been active for a bit and I’m seeing the term pop-up quite a lot recently!
Just a little curious how some others schedule in-person games.
Just a little curious how some others schedule in-person games. Pick a day once a month and stick to it? Twice a month? A different day every time and just scheduling when you feel like it?
For a little while, we were doing once a month, but that feels like a huge amount of time in between sessions (to the point where players sometimes don’t really remember what they were doing). We also tended to bail and play something else if one or more party members couldn’t make it. This style has caused both my groups to fall into remission and it’s been more than a few months since the last game.
How do you guys work around busy schedules? I’m thinking I might reboot a group if people are into it, then continue with the game even if we’re missing someone (of course, checking if that’s cool with everyone first).
A small collection of monsters I made for a new continent, based on the various locations and regions on our new map…
A small collection of monsters I made for a new continent, based on the various locations and regions on our new map (Thank you Perilous Wilds!). I’ve only personally used the Hag’s Hut so far, but the Shale-lix stands to make an appearance soon too! (We found out the Witch inside affectionately refers to her home as “Hutsy”)
I usually try to list a few more monster moves than what is necessary just to ease the mental burden when encountering them at the table.
Enjoy!
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Hag’s Hut
The Hut of the swamp hag is a strange creature all its own. It moves through the muck, mostly on its master’s command, stopping at intervals to let her collect ingredients for her brew. It appears like a regular hut at rest, but in motion the house moves on giant avian legs at incredible speed. Few things are more unsettling than the Hag’s Hut sprinting through the night. Though nearly unstoppable, there might be some way to convince its owner to slow down for a chat. Leaves huge footprints in the mud that quickly fade.
Solitary, Huge, Terrifying, Construct
Taloned Stomp (d10 + 3 damage); 24HP; 3 armor;
Reach, Near, Forceful
Instinct: To Keep Moving, no matter what’s in its path
Special Qualities: Unsettling, whines like various injured animals simultaneously when harmed
Moves:
– Flick something aside like it was nothing
– Stomp something deep into the muck (ignores armor)
– Take off erratically in another direction
– Make an Earth shattering Leap
– Emit a terrifying screech.
– Reveal an utterly unnatural feature (eg. The north facing window suddenly blinks and stares back at you)
The Wraiths of the Fog Hills
“The seven wraiths of the Shifting fog hills, dozing idly by in the pale moonlight // None know how they came to be, or how they grew to boast such height.”
Giant Wraiths of the Wild; it’s unclear where they came from. They retain an intense curiosity for any living creatures that wander into their hills, much to the dismay of said creatures. They are announced by massive enigmatic statues of each of them, carved into the hillsides.
Group, Large, Terrifying, Insubstantial (at times)
Ghostly weapon (d8 + 1 damage); 10HP; 1 armor;
Close, Reach,
Instinct: To Learn from the living by any means
Special Qualities: Insubstantial at times, Intensely curious of the living
Moves:
– Drain Vitality with a curious clutching grasp
– Swing a massive Ghostly armament that changes form with each swipe
– Adapt to a recent attack as proof of their learning
– Attack suddenly and in unison
– Comment on something obvious to things that are alive
– Avoid an attack by ghosting through it
Dragon-King Slime
Maybe you’ve seen the Dragon of Razakel’s Spires, monochromatic and strangely without definition, able to bend and wobble without losing shape. Some say it was a massive slime that consumed a dragon, or perhaps the other way around, and now the two forms are inexorably linked. Others say it is just an ancient Ooze that fancies itself a ruler. Just know that it combines the unstoppable vitality of a slime with the ferocity of a dragon.
Solitary, Large, Magical, Hoarder, Ancient, Amorphous
Corrosive Claw (d12 + 2 damage); 18HP; 2 armor;
Close, Reach, Near, Damages Armor
Instinct: To Devour
Special Qualities: Mostly maintains the shape of a Dragon, but can also morph at will
Moves:
– Burn away armor
– Exhale a toxic dragon flame
– Command lesser slimes to assist
– Envelop and consume something
– Soar through the air on formed wings
– Hurl undigested scrap as deadly projectiles
Shale-lix
This stone elemental is rampaging near the Circle of Azath on a path of destruction from a long forgotten war. It can twist a landslide into itself to grow in size and power. The Shale-lix’s size may change from a wheelbarrow full of rocks to a village-smashing avalanche, but a curiously coloured stone always stands out from the pile, seeming to command the rest.
Solitary, Large, Ancient, planar, Amorphous (swarms of rock and stone)
Stone Fists (d10+2 damage 2 piercing); 16 HP; 4 armor
Forceful, Close, Reach
Instinct: To ravage the land
Special Qualities: Made of stone
Moves:
– Tear structures asunder
– Charge along an unstoppable path
– Cause an avalanche, and harness that strength.
– Send someone flying with a stone punch
– Bury something utterly
– Instinctively protect its core when discovered
Firestarter Condors
These strange creatures passively burn through patches of forest and field and are happy to pick through the ashes as sustenance. With bright orange and red wings to contrast their dark head and body, they ignite with bursts of flame when startled.
Group, Small, Magical
Fiery Talon, Burning Beak (d6 damage); 6HP; 0 armor;
Hand
Instinct: To burn down
Special Qualities: Burst into magical flame when startled
Moves:
– Cause a fire when disturbed
– Streak towards a target while fully ablaze
– Detonate with a flaming tackle and come out unharmed
– Rake with searing hot talons
Hey guys
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!
I have a question about “multiclassing” with the Artificer class.
I have a question about “multiclassing” with the Artificer class. I have a character concept of an Assassin who uses his own improvised gadgets and tools to get the job done. What I’m thinking is using the Grim World Human racial move to give up an Assassin starter move for an Artificer one.
The question is, the “gadget belt” starter move on it’s own is a kind of useless, and needs the “field test” starter move to gain half it’s functionality. Is it safe to assume that you’d get both when taking it as a multiclass move? The precedent I’m looking at is I read somewhere that when you multiclass as a wizard, you get a spell book along with the ability to prepare and cast spells (although I can’t find where I first read this).
I know we could just house rule it as we see fit but I’m wondering if anyone’s run into this before with multiclassing specifically.
Any ideas for reigning in the Mage class?
Any ideas for reigning in the Mage class? Thinking about offering it to some new players in a new group but the sentiment I get online is that it’s almost too powerful.
I really love the idea of the class (especially the foci/look part), and I know there have been some separate classes made of the different foci archetypes but those seem to play quite differently.
Overwhelming versatility is one of the fears of the class being too strong, and as-written the mage can do pretty much anything except “opposed” magic. Would restricting them to operating within (or at least only close to) aligned elements help with that or be too harsh?
Have there been any mages in your games and how did they function? Did they completely take over the game, or were there cool moments to be had? Maybe offer the class with some caveats about what their magic can do? There are some super cool ideas in here but after reading a bunch about it, a lot of people seem wary! (even the creator! From what I understand he started working on the “foci specific” mages classes as an alternative to the Mage?)
Looking for an older post about a DW inventory system that was picture based (I’m pretty sure it was here on the…
Looking for an older post about a DW inventory system that was picture based (I’m pretty sure it was here on the tavern). The template had drawings of packs and pouches and the PCs would draw in the items they have. I was thinking I wanted to try this out but now I can’t find it!
Anyone know where I can find this?
Hello folks
Hello folks,
I wanted to open up a discussion about how to make the game more “exciting” as a GM. In my group’s game, I’ve come away from the past few sessions feeling like we didn’t get very “far” into whatever dungeon/environment we’re in because we get bogged down by lots of “details”. We DO do some cool things, but moves like “speak to stones” or “what here is evil” or the players being indecisive at which direction to try at a fork has them turning to me to come up with little things for a dungeon I probably made up 10 minutes earlier. By nature of “play to find out what happens” I’m not going to have an answer right away because this stuff isn’t pre-planned. I don’t want to say “forget about it and keep moving” because that’s passing over moves their characters rightfully have. I try to purposefully give lots of options because I don’t want anyone to feel railroaded (eg. “you can go this way or this way, OR you can just turn around and LEAVE this place to chase the yeti who stole some of your equipment, if you want”) but maybe that’s working against us?
I always endeavor to get down to business next session, but then get caught up in the details all over again because of the stuff that’s being asked!
I dunno, I just want to fill lives with adventure here! I don’t have a story I’m looking to selfishly “get to”, (I have a half finished front and the rest is by ear, results have been pretty good so far). One of the things I don’t miss from 4E was slogging through combat encounters that felt like they didn’t matter, and when they slowly pick their way through a dungeon or town it can kind of feel the same way. I haven’t had any complaints from them or anything like that, but there always a nagging feeling of “well, I could have made that more exciting” when we end off (we only get to play once a month too, which might be amplifying my feelings here).
Any tips for more active play? Punish indecisiveness with more GM moves? Maybe ask one player at a time for navigational decisions instead of waiting for a consensus? Carry on, because maybe they like this way of playing and I am imagining things? Throw more ogres at them? Thanks for any input, guys!
I’ve been thinking about making a Druid move/item/fictionally-learned-ability that allows our druid to do “quick…
I’ve been thinking about making a Druid move/item/fictionally-learned-ability that allows our druid to do “quick change” actions, where he quickly shifts in then out of a form to do something (eg. turn into something fast to catch up to a foe, then change back to halfling/into something else to attack). It feels like this doesn’t really fit with the gain hold function of the regular shapeshift since he’s only changing briefly. I’ve been inspired by some video games like Bayonetta where the animal forms are mostly a means of traversal but the actual fighting is performed in human form. The changes can be very rapid.
Any ideas for mechanics to go with this? Or should I just make it descriptive? It’s mostly an idea for a coolness/flavour thing, so maybe if he’s not involving an attack it’s just something that he gets to make happen without a shapeshift roll? What do you guys think?
Last breath partial successes: what have you guys used for these death rolls?
Last breath partial successes: what have you guys used for these death rolls? I know they are often very specific to each game and character, but I am having some trouble coming up with one for a Thief in the party.
I have tentative ones for our Wizard, Paladin, and Druid, but I can’t think of anything to impose on the Thief that would be interesting enough to take (and not just say “no” and die :P). No one has had to roll for it yet but I’d like to have a Pact with Death for each PC just in case I’m caught on the spot.
Would you ask the players for their own “hard choice” like this?