Jeremy Strandberg – Page 15 – Dungeon World Tavern G+ Archives

Updates to the GM Playbook for #Stonetop, including the threats from my ongoing home campaign.

Originally shared by Jeremy Strandberg

Updated version of the GM Playbook, with threats from my home campaign. (If you happen to be one of my players… don’t read this!)

I wanted to see how well the threat types of instructions would work for the stuff we already had established. Mostly it worked well! But it led to a little bit of rewriting. For example, a threat doesn’t need to be active for it to have an Impending Doom/Grim Portents. It needs a trajectory. That’s a slight, but important difference.

Anyhow: comments, questions, and feedback appreciated!

https://goo.gl/ze0XvH

Updated version of the GM Playbook, with threats from my home campaign.

Updated version of the GM Playbook, with threats from my home campaign. (If you happen to be one of my players… don’t read this!)

Anyhow: comments, questions, and feedback appreciated!

https://goo.gl/ze0XvH

GM Playbook for #Stonetop.

Originally shared by Jeremy Strandberg

I’ve been playing with GM moves, “fronts,” and how to organize them, and it’s led me to here: the GM Playbook.

The intent is that this would be a booklet, 3 sheets of paper, with front & back cover and 5 internal spreads.

I’ve pretty much decided that I won’t be using Fronts for Stonetop. They just don’t work. The AW2e approach to Threats is much more appropriate. You’ve got threats, and threat types, and moves that come with them, and a countdown clock (grim portents) if they need them.

So, yeah, here’s my go at it. I’ve also made some tweaks to the core DW moves, ported over my Monster Creation Cheat Sheet, and added a few miscellaneous things I’m always looking up.

Questions or comments about the format, the approach to moves, or anything else? I’d love to hear them.

https://goo.gl/vggJcT

I’ve been playing with GM moves, “fronts,” and how to organize them, and it’s led me to here: the GM Playbook.

I’ve been playing with GM moves, “fronts,” and how to organize them, and it’s led me to here: the GM Playbook.

The intent is that this would be a booklet, 3 sheets of paper, with front & back cover and 5 internal spreads.

So, yeah, here’s my go at it. I’ve also made some tweaks to the core DW moves, ported over my Monster Creation Cheat Sheet, and added a few miscellaneous things I’m always looking up.

Questions or comments about the format, the approach to moves, or anything else? I’d love to hear them.

https://goo.gl/vggJcT

This week in my home #Stonetop game…

The PCs returned from the Great Wood in the dead of night, having recovered the body of a woman who’d been sacrificed to an evil spirit by someone from the village.

They were really smart about things! They ID’d one of the cultists and spooked a confession out of them, confirming the PCs suspicions of who the cult’s leader was. They gathered the nascent town council and presented evidence. Then they went to get the cult leader, who the sheriff’s apprentice had been spying on. I was expecting this to be the end of the cult!

But… I had the Sheriff’s roll +Quality for his apprentice (we’re using the Perilous Wilds follower moves) and he rolled a miss. I decided what happened but didn’t give them any immediate details.

The Fox (our rogue analog) snuck up on the cult-leader’s house, peered through the shuttered window and spied the cult-leader alone in his house, calmly smoking a pipe at like 3 in the morning–and some vague, muffled sound coming from out his life of sight.

The Sheriff and Ranger joined the Fox, then left him at the window and went around front to burst in the front door. The cultist appeared to hear (or sense?) them coming and sighed, hoisting something from the floor outside of the Fox’s view.

The Sheriff kicked in the door to find his apprentice hog-tied and bug-eyed, the cult-leader hiding behind him with a knife to his throat. The Sheriff used his I am the Law effect to demand that the cultist let the kid go, and got a 10+, but the cultist choose to attack. I revealed his newly-acquired Word of Pain, wracking the Sheriff and temporarily stunning him (7-9 to Defy Danger with CON).

The Fox tries to burgle through the locked shutters and take the cultist out from behind, but biffs the roll. I reveal an unwelcome truth: the shutters were warded! The Fox’s hand and arm ripples with debilitating pain and drops to the ground, writhing.

The cultist (apparently a sorcerer, now) gives a gloating smirk at the Fox’s grunts and the Ranger darts in and closes the distance (Defy Danger 10+). She then tackles the sorcerer with a 7-9, succeeding but drawing an attack as well… the sorcerer grabs her face and zaps her with a painful, poisonous touch that spreads under her skin! She mentally calls her saber-toothed tiger to come help them.

The sorcerer gets up, hits the Sheriff with another Pain Word , and walks out the door to find himself face-to-face with Sita, the saber-tooth tiger. The ranger rolls +Quality to have Sita do her thing, and… misses.

We cut to one of the other PCs passing the house, bringing the victim’s family to the common house. She sees Sita wimpering in the snow, and goes in to find the Sheriff and the Ranger recovering, and no sign of the sorcerer. He’s gone, in the wind, his tracks vanishing a few steps outside his door. And we end the session there.

Play to see what happens!

Sage LaTorra Adam Koebel has something changed on the Dungeon World Tavern lately, particularly regarding spam…

Sage LaTorra Adam Koebel has something changed on the Dungeon World Tavern lately, particularly regarding spam filters?

I’ve now seen two instances of folks saying that they posted on the Tavern but the post got lost. And now I’ve seen the same thing on one of my own posts. Are these posts getting tagged for spam review or something like that?

(I can probably track down links if it’d help.)

Let’s Talk About Dangers

Let’s Talk About Dangers

Specifically, I’m thinking about this stuff:

* The categories of dangers presented in the Dungeon World core rules: Ambitious Organizations, Planar Forces, Arcane Enemies, etc.

* The specific types of dangers (e.g. Corrupt Government, Demon Prince, Power Mad Wizard) and their impulses.

* The GM moves associated with each category (e.g. Attack someone by stealthy means… Give dreams of prophecy… Cast a spell over time and place…)

(for reference: http://book.dwgazetteer.com/fronts.html)

How have you found these dangers (the ones in the book) useful? How have you found them frustrating, confusing, or limiting? What parts do you use? What parts do you ignore?

If you were to add a category, or some individual types, what would you add?

(For the record, I’m specifically not asking about grim portents or impending dooms, or cast or stakes questions… but if the way you use the stuff above ties into those things, yeah, I’d love to hear about it.)

Tree spirits for #Stonetop. Questions and comments appreciated!

Originally shared by Jeremy Strandberg

“The Tall Ladies, Daughters-of-Seed, the Slow Sisters: these are all titles given to the brennauwed, powerful tree spirits and, if you believe them, kin to Danu herself.”

My take on dryads and treants

https://goo.gl/3jC71o

A Possible Way to Consolidate Rations, Adventuring Gear, Etc.

Originally shared by Jeremy Strandberg

A Possible Way to Consolidate Rations, Adventuring Gear, Etc.

I’ve been tinkering with alternative travel moves for #Stonetop (https://goo.gl/DV5akZ) and that’s been making me think about rations, adventuring gear, and the like.

Which led to this. Not sure I’ll use it, but I might try it out.

It’s definitely a draft! Thoughts and questions welcome and appreciated!

https://goo.gl/IRQCqK

I keep thinking about travel moves for #Stonetop.

Originally shared by Jeremy Strandberg

I keep thinking about travel moves for #Stonetop.

We were originally were using Jason Lutes’s moves from Perilous Wilds, but they were too explorey-hexcrawl for Stonetop.

Then, I tried two “primary” travel moves: a Venture Forth that you used when you were heading somewhere known but through dangerous terrain, and a Wander move (similar to Jason Cordova’s and David LaFreniere’s labyrinth move). I’ll link to those moves below in the comments.

We tried those moves a couple times, and they felt too artificial. Wander, in particular, actually took us too far out of the fiction. That got me thinking about a comment Timothy Stanbrough had, about navigating megadungeons, that “Perhaps a purely GM facing structure is better, something that helps you create the fiction rather than dictate the outcome.”

And that got me thinking about Savvyhead workshop moves, and the Wizard’s Ritual.

So, maybe something like this?

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ID4MBs2dM9Kbmo4d_8qCm9JdVmk0u0YBweOLUVdrqFE/edit?usp=sharing