2nd attempt at a map dungeon starter. The earlier version is there for those that would like a blank one of the map with just the generic titles to make your own. I think there is enough there to get a group started on a first session using the playbook and few monsters from the book. If any are interested I could see developing each of these areas as its own traditional dungeon starter.
Lots of homage to others and the stories that inspire us to play and the original dungeon starters that I used when first starting the game.
Feel free to use in any way you like (as long as you keep the signature and date of the original). Created in Pages using google fonts on top of an original scan of the map I made.
So I like the idea of dungeon starters. I haven’t seen one that was just a map. I did this afternoon with a bit of free time. I used generic names but tried to put enough there to spark the imagination.
From here looking at the map you could use for a first session. What questions naturally come up when you see this map? Then you can make it less generic and start filling in some details during character creation.
You can put some themes that you may want in the game by your initial questions. I may come up with three different sets of questions to go with this map for different kind of campaigns. Example: if the first question you have to a player is “which one of the vassal baronies have you come from, why are you loyal to the rebellious Baron. Name him.” is a very different question from “why has the High King summoned you to his court from the vassal baronies. Which loyal Baron are you representing, and why is the call so urgent?” .
I am not saying this is a very good map, there are plenty out there on the internet but I made this one specifically for dungeon world, and I give permission for any and all to use for any use they want (just keep the signature on it). I did it pencil with calligraphy pen. It is obviously a throwback to medieval europe with some Alberta Badlands thrown in.
Anyone know what the fonts are from dungeon work playkit on the website.
Anyone know what the fonts are from dungeon work playkit on the website. I love fonts of all kinds and type in general. They have a really nice look and fit well with dungeon world. Thanks in advance!
For a space game based on Wod or dungeon world, does it make sense to have a move for fixing the space ship.
For a space game based on Wod or dungeon world, does it make sense to have a move for fixing the space ship. Or is that just defy danger? Struggling with this. I abhor d20 skill rolls and their ilk (even old school thief skills). It seems like failure needs to move the game forward. How do you handle a techy in a space game for computers, hacking, fixing space ships, or do you not just have them? I have looked at various implementations stars with numbers and star world and just falling flat with me. This seems to be the biggest impediment to me for a space ole world game where the techy guy is there to fix stuff but at the same time what do you do if they fail? They just try again? You can’t have their vehicle just marooned all the time – doesn’t seem like it moves the game forward. Seems like a wall and saying no if they fail. If there is no failure the class doesn’t make sense to be playable but is iconic (like in firefly). Thanks in advance.
Anybody in Calgary interested in a game? Would start as a one shot to check each other out to see what works.? 40’s something professional who does light gaming. Thanks
Hello fellow tavernites. So I am wanting to convert my dnd mashup to dungeon world. The boy is playing a spy and the girl is playing a knight. Are there any good playbooks that capture that out there, or am best in going with thief and fighter? Or two fighters? As the boy is a fighting man right now (my mashup only has the two original classes).
Cross post since this is a mash up of OD&D and Dungeon World. Peace
Cross post since this is a mash up of OD&D and Dungeon World. Peace
Originally shared by steven stewart
Actual Play Post – the goblins of Zog, tattertots, a purple fairy and a four year old continues the tradition of suggesting that sleeping goblins could just be killed because prisoners would be difficult.
Part #2 of my first session with my kids and wife of my OD&D mash up with Dungeon World.
When we left off we had characters, had established why they were adventuring and what the mission is for the spy. I asked a few more questions to my wife such as why is the queen of the fey was mad at her. She replied that she is obsessed with the human world, and left her post. Good enough for what we where after. My daughter decided to pipe up (sans question from me) that her knight fights dragons. My son piped up now with dragons, he decided sometime that I felt bad at baboons with laser beams wouldn’t be the main villain – so he added that the dragons have laser beam eyes to make me feel better (boy howdy it did). Yeah now we have laser beam eyed dragons.
Somewhere in this kibitzing we where doing it was suggested that the goblins make some sort of noises that drive the laser beam for eyes dragons to Frill reigning death and destruction. Going back to the girl, I asked what was the town called where the people where attacked by the dragons. The girl (playing Dame Matches the Red Knight) said with the innocence that only four year olds can pull of: “the village of townspeople”. Alas for the village of townspeople. If you see the mat, next to the rendering of Zog is a skull where the village of townspeople bravely fought to the end. So now we have tied the goblins and dragons together with Zog and the mission – and somehow used two archetypes and tropes of fantasy with a good helping of gonzo for myself. So far we are doing well.
An observation – the girl is much more into the archetypes of fantasy due to the parents being a bit more relaxed about early childhood tv, toys, and her wanting daddy to tell her stories vs. the boy who is elder and therefore shafted by our hippie leftist harass anti tv parental types when he was an early child. But the boy now loves machines, how things work, bikes, mysteries and spies. So he doesn’t differentiate or is stuck with fantasy tropes. Which makes for great games, while the wife is really into good books and historical literature and medieval art but not gaming so we get the cool fairy tale vibe. But she totally abuses the henchmen as is coming. I mention this because on the map you will also see JPL – yes dear readers (if have managed to not be bored by this post yet) Frill apparently has a Jet Propulsion Laboratory. I haven’t figured that out yet, so I just wrote it down when it came up in conversation. The first time, I didn’t. But when it came up,twice, it goes on the map.
By this time we had spent an hour and a half, and everyone was having fun. We hadn’t actually started the game though, just the character creation.
So we start with recruiting henchpeople. They need someone to hold the light in the tunnels. So we need a village. The boy throws out Atruian. Good enough. I ask the wife why does everyone in Atruian have an eye patch. She had started to get a little bit agitated so this re engaged her. True to form to go with her other ideas, she says the children’s nightmares that the goblins are taking somehow infect the people when they see the children since they are at the borders of Zog and their eye starts to fill up with a erie liquid (the girl says red since at is her favorite color) and if it fills up they turn into goblins – hence the eye patch. Once the penny drops, the girl wants to sit in my lap again because she is scared.
So we have enough for the town. I describe a campfire where the locals all gather to drink their fill. The kids know what campfires are, but not really a tavern, plus I am tired of taverns.
At this point I discover they don’t have any money due to my character creation rules, and my desire to not have an hour of let’s make a shopping list for adventure mart. So we roll some dice, the boy gets upset because the knight got 2d6x10and he got 1d6x10but he sucks it up, and knows that he wants to get more. I am unsure of what the boy said the money is. The abbreviation though is FT. The wife and boy were taking about it, and the girl was telling me about her shield again so I didn’t catch it. Soemthing like Frilltons or Frilllunedollars maybe? But I do know that Canada is rubbing off on him because there are two types of coins, one worth 1FT and one worth 2 FT. Like lunes and twoonies up here. I got that much. The wife tries to game fiction me again about how the prince wouldn’t send them on a mission withhout sufficient resources wanting more money than she has. So out comes the die of fate again, on a 5-6 she is right, roll for more money, 4-5 the prince decides that the she should go and collect from the fey queen which owes the prince money for a debt, and on 1-2 the prince takes all her money to repay the debt since she is the closest representative to the Fey queen. A four is rolled so all is status qou.
After some discussions, and some horrible reaction rolls from the grizzled veteran who rather than risk becoming a goblin cut his own eye out with the tip of his bamboo spear. They retire for the evening with no hench people. The morning turns out better though. Apparently word has gotten out. Franco, a man whose wife was snatched by goblins ( it was originally going to be the daughter but I think I had already warped my daughter enough by now and ret-conned it to be the wife) takes up with band, wages are not discussed. that should have been a warning bell to them. They head off to the Emporium- which is really just a tarp and a table to equip Franco. The wife is shocked, “you mean I got to buy him stuff, he doesn’t come with anything?” I tell her well ephemeral has clothes and his bamboo cudgel. She decides since he is carrying the lantern, that is all he really needs. Classic henchman abuse right from the start. They are interrupted by Luka the Magnificent! who wears a blue robe and has some plastic looking stars and moons sewn on it.
A long discussion ensues within the party in whether to hire Luka. They roll poorly on negotiations. I use the classic dnd 2d6 roll straight from torch and sword (which is the same as the LBB). Luka demands 20% of all treasure. The wife really doesn’t like him. She is in to him right away thinking he is a self important type with little real magic to offer (which she is correct about). The boy agrees and they almost don’t hire him, but in the end the wife decides that they could probably push him in front of a goblin or something and therefore probably won’t have to pay him. So first game in for her and she has discovered the idea of a meat shield.
Sorry there wasn’t more rules discussion, but this is getting long enough for now. Next post will be actually getting into the dungeon. Discovering sleep spell (Exquisite Repose) is bad ass and Franco will solve their quandary of what to do about sleeping goblins.
Cross post since this game is 50% LBB and 50% dungeon world
Cross post since this game is 50% LBB and 50% dungeon world
Originally shared by steven stewart
Actual Play Post – the goblins of Zog, tattertots, a purple fairy and a four year old continues the tradition of suggesting that sleeping goblins could just be killed because prisoners would be difficult.
So this is part #1 of an actual play post. I was out of town on a job for like 2 months. I had the iPad so the dnd bug got a hold of me again, it has been a while. My favorite incarnation is OD&D – specifically Torch and Sword Retroclone, which is free.
The wife, the boy (8), and the girl (4) humored me. The girl insisted on playing, and so that drug the wife reluctantly. After 17 years of marriage, she still doesn’t like it, but I think she liked this version better than any other. A good tactic by the girl, and got the whole family involved.
I find that dungeon world has changed the way I play forever. More on that as I go. I run a very loose game now, and we just started making characters. I didn’t have anything planned. Only gear I used was a large vinyl platemat. That I think is the most important gaming gear.
I printed off some handy labyrinth lord character sheets, cause I dig how they look.
I like the 3d6 roll in order. But I understand that the boy may be upset if he got a 3. So I compromised we agreed to roll 3d6 seven times. He could take the highest six but had to take them in order. So he ended up with 10, 13, 13,17,6,12,13. We had some discussions about the stats and how they describe his character. Luckily in OD&D ability scores don’t mean a lot. We ended up with him wanting to be a wizard type – so I mentioned an elf, but after some discussions about agility and being stealthy, he ended up with the idea of a spy. A fighting man in other words. I love in OD&D classes determine a few key statistics mad doesn’t define the character. A simple question, do you cast spells, no then you are a fighting man. No thief for me. It is too limiting.
So my dungeon world skillz kick in and ask who is he a spy for? He said the kingdom. I ask for the kingdom or the king, the answer is the prince. A few more questions in and now we have established:
– a spy for the young prince, twenty one, of the kingdom of Frill.
– Frill is bigger than neighboring Zog. Which is ruled by am evil wizard. Since we had just come from the zoo I was thinking baboons with lasers. But now wife showed up and threw out some different ideas. More on that later.
– the girl rolled up her character stats now. I was thankful that she rolled a 15 strength since she was set on being a knight. She had fun rolling dice. And was the first to name her character. She said l like red. So she was a red knight. And Dame Matches was born.
My wife started rolling, she turned and looked at me – so what is she going to be. I thought uhoh, she isn’t digging this. So I tell her maybe a spell caster. I threw our some words witch sorcerer elf, and then asked her what color she liked. She said purple. So she was a purple sorcerer. But then I asked about whether she would like to be a fairy. She said yeah, and she was starting to get more into it.
She asked if she could have a magic flute. I work off the premise of letting the players be awesome so I said sure. She wanted the flute to calm people. I said ok but you have to roll the die of fate every time you play it. A die of fate is how I work just about everything in the game on a 1-2, bad things that move the game forward, 3-4, a meh result, and 5-6 great things that move the game forward. It comes from burning wheel I think plus the original “skill” system of moldvay basic, also a bit of dungeon world defy danger. I have some dice I like that have skulls for 1’s which work great for a die of fate.
So the flute, on a 1-2 it enrages the creature with anger towards the fey, and they attack with a +1 to hit.
She rolled spells, said she hated the vancian names because they took too long to write (best supplement I have can’t remember which blog I got that off of). But they worked out cool for me. Meanwhile my daughter decided that Dame Matches had a good sense of smell. I think as I was explaining all the spells to my wife, such as Melf’s impenetrable membrane, she wanted a power too and that is what she came up with. Along with a shield. The shield is important later.
I made everyone second level for fun, and we rolled hits and wrote down saves. Decided that the boy needed a +1 save vs. dragon breath due to his dex.
We were almost ready to go, just needed gear and off course some questions answered so this motley bunch can have an adventure. I still didn’t have an adventure yet.
We went off on a tangent about languages. Since in OD&D every point above 10 you get a language. You can see some of them on the character sheet. Such as Frillian. But also the secret spy language Spyatan.
From languages and a few more questions we got into goblins, who are apparently at war with both Frill and the Queen of the Fey. That came from the wife’s languages. She originally said Orc but I was grooving on the semi fairy tale like quality of the game and suggested goblins. I grew up in the 70’s and 80’s so sue me. David Bowie’s goblins scared the snot out of me when I was a kid.
So I ask why do the goblins work for Zog (you can see my awesome inking skills on Zog on the play mat). Wife comes up with he is paying them in children’s dreams. I couldn’t of bested that so we went with that. We are now equipping the characters. I hate this shopping part of the game, so we just brainstormed. But I establish that I will track resources like money, light and food. As soon as I mention food my daughter pipes up with her food that Dame Matches the Red Knight has – no kidding – she has tatter tots (which caused coffee to shoot out my wife’s nose). Meanwhile my son had a sword and throwing stars. But he got off on the food tangent as well so he has beef jerky, dumplings and apparently soy sauce. My wife ended up with berries. But Dame Matches was not done yet. Spicy chicken biscuit was added to the character sheet. We had moved north of the border, and Canada doesn’t have any chick-fil-a’s so I guess there is some escapism going on there.
We move from food to clothes. I ask my son what kind of armor he has, and going on the Asian theme he said bamboo. While very cool, I thought why does a spy have bamboo armor (he is sustainable I guess). At some point we decide that we have to have something separating Zog from Frill. The girl suggests bricks, the wife suggested baby teeth which caused the girl to sit in my lap, and the boy still on the bamboo theme suggested bamboo. That lead to some more discussion on how bamboo keeps goblins out, and the wife suggests that the noise they make when knocking together scares goblins and cause them pain. So now we know why the boy has bamboo armor, he can knock it together to scare goblins. The wife gets an iridescent mood gown that reflects the mood of the person looking at her.
The wife also gets a bow. Since I play d6 damage and some other non traditional combat rules that was cool. I remind them they need light. The wife ever trying to fiction game me asks for a magic lantern running off dragonfly wings – because she realized she would hire someone to carry the light. I said no, the magic item bonanza was getting out of hand. She then gamed up for my son. Saying a spy would be good at seeing in the dark since he had black eyes. The die of Fate decided that he could see better than normal, but not in complete darkness. I really wanted them to get henchman. (The wife said I was heavy handed). They all figured out they needed a torch bearer so they could bear arms, but more in the next post. Including the reasons why the starting villagers all had eye patches.
One last thing about equipment. The boy rolled for his throwing stars and he rolled 11. That got me thinking why only 11? What happened to the 12th one, that generated out adventure hook. The goblins had snuck in to attack the prince, and Massato the Black Spy had killed the goblin and gotten the map of the secret tunnels between Zog and Frill.
I am happy to share my rules and AP. Like I said I don’t play exactly the RAW but find a lot folks don’t, and that dungeon world has colored how I play for the better. It has brought out the creativity of the whole family.
