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thefakenews posted:Honestly, it was basically a thought experiment around trying to make DW moves that capture some of the mechanics of Dark Souls, so the bonfire and NPC stuff was included more as a nod to the games than because I think they would be great in play. I think if there was more than one player the bonfire stuff could work out pretty messily. It might work out as a one on one thing, but I'm not into that sort of play so I doubt I'll ever test it. I suppose you could always try and represent jolly cooperation with a move for summoning someone else to your world. But beyond that there isn't much co-op within the Dark Souls games. It's very much a lone person verses a lot of horrible poo poo looking to kill you.
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Jan 26, 2016 00:38
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I ran DW Dark Souls as a drop-in drop-out PUG type thing I want to say a few summers ago. Did the split screen thing, people had their own solo stuff to deal with or they could White Phantom it up. Lurkers liked it because they could just chill in someone else's party while everyone else went crazy posting back and forth. They got to touch one another's bloodstains and laugh, get made fun of by NPCs for being fukkin casuls, and feel real sad when they failed to protect their summoner. It was great. I absolutely would not run it anyway but PbP.
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Jan 26, 2016 02:02
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Arashiofordo3 posted:I suppose you could always try and represent jolly cooperation with a move for summoning someone else to your world. But beyond that there isn't much co-op within the Dark Souls games. It's very much a lone person verses a lot of horrible poo poo looking to kill you. My second play through of DS2 was co-op with a friend. The vast majority of that game can be co-oped. The original Dark Souls, not so much. Ultimately, a lot of what makes Dark Souls what it is can't be captured in normal tabletop gaming. You can capture some of the tone and style, but not a lot of the mechanics. Edit: Revised version of the rules: 
thefakenews fucked around with this message at 10:53 on Jan 26, 2016 |
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Jan 26, 2016 02:35
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Looking at moving a campaign into DW, but a big part of it is that we're in charge of a small faction (We're moving from REIGN). Are there any good supplements out there for "campaign table" moves so to speak? Looked through the OP and the Homestead rules, which seemed like they might have something worth cribbing, are behind archives :<
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Jan 30, 2016 01:12
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Fenarisk posted:The Homestead Here you go, I went and quoted them for you.
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Jan 30, 2016 01:22
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So I posted to last month's chat thread about running a game for people who have never pretended to be elves before and even though everyone was shouting about Gamma World, I decided to run Dungeon World. And then there was a snag! fool_of_sound posted:Don't run Dungeon World unless you're familiar with actually making its combat exciting, which is more difficult that it should be.
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Feb 2, 2016 04:50
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Dungeon World in general, and especially combat, functions best when the players always have clear prompts to react to. Never say 'there's goblins, what do you do?' always put the players on the spot. 'Goblins are throwing a shitton of nasty daggers at your buddy Frank, what do you do?' The players need to always be in situations where it's clear what the serious penalty for inaction will be. Also, read the Dungeon World Guide.
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Feb 2, 2016 05:27
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Tendales posted:Dungeon World in general, and especially combat, functions best when the players always have clear prompts to react to. Never say 'there's goblins, what do you do?' always put the players on the spot. 'Goblins are throwing a shitton of nasty daggers at your buddy Frank, what do you do?' The players need to always be in situations where it's clear what the serious penalty for inaction will be. This, plus the dude you quoted has beef with "storygames" iirc.
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Feb 2, 2016 05:30
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I think it's legitimate to say that if you think lots of dice rolling for result is exciting, like a game is craps, Dungeon World isn't the best at scratching your itch. In other games you just say, "we're hitting each other" and roll the dice a lot. I find it hard to come up with enough interesting prompts to get through a combat in DW, but I'd also say it's usually more interesting even when done at a mediocre level.
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Feb 2, 2016 20:40
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I ran DW as a daddy+daughter game for some friends, and for the most part it was cool and fun, but I also struggled a bit. The dads were both former D&D players and the girls were both around ten, which meant that everyone expected that there would be an orderly sequence of turns. That can work but it doesn't work nearly as well as a more cinematic approach would, especially because it's not always clear what constituted a turn. The ranger who always wanted to stay out of range and volley would end up taking turns that were nothing more than "I hit, -1 ammo, 4 damage." The older players, more confident, would want to do daring stuff that often required multiple rolls, and then the kids would be frustrated that they were only rolling once while the adults got to roll over and over again. If I had it to do over again, I'd have sat them down and watched the New York battle in The Avengers. "See how the camera follows one hero for a bit, then changes to a different hero, but it's still all the same fight? That's how combat works. One person takes a turn and does some cool stuff, and then someone else takes center stage, and it's my job to decide when that happens. When it's not your turn, just listen and imagine you were watching the fight on the big screen."
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Feb 2, 2016 22:14
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That's a really cool idea. I've wondered about doing something like that as well, because my players also keep thinking in 'turns' but I hadn't thought of a good movie scene to convey the flow in DW combat. The scene you mention sounds perfect. On the other hand, perhaps just telling the players to "enjoy the show" while another player is doing something might go a long way, combined with trying to give the ranged people on the back line some more trouble like getting flanked, getting charged by fast movers, or taking away their ranged options somehow.
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Feb 3, 2016 09:57
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Yes, one of the problems we've been having with combat in our games is how static the scene can feel if the GM isn't continually pushing to keep things moving. It's vital to keep thinking about what characters' and monsters' attacks are doing in the fiction as well as just what they mean in system terms.
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Feb 3, 2016 13:53
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The GM needs to make lots and lots of "soft moves" all of the time, and in addition to that make "hard moves" when people fail or the threatening "soft moves" snowball. Players' getting caught in a loop is a kind of "whenever everyone looks to you to see what happens," which as you know means the GM must make a move. If you're having trouble coming up with things on the fly, prepare more. Flesh out any skeletons: that's why the GMing principles include "name every person," "draw maps, leave blanks" and "give every monster life." There's no 'gold star' for completely improvising a great game, and preparation really helps with stress, especially when but even if it isn't your first time. Resist the urge to foist the description of the world or situation on your players. Telling the players to be fans of one another's characters, be good spectators when it isn't their turn, and then build upon and around the fiction the others and the GM have created when it is their turn: those are all great ideas whether the players are familiar with other RPGs or not. Saying there are no 'turns' is a little disingenuous: what that means is there's no initiative that determines whether you're in combat or dictates the turn order. Having a bunch of players interrupting or otherwise talking over one another is lovely: one principle I would add is "being a good spectator means letting people finish unless they ask for suggestions." I have a verbose block of principles for that which I've started making a part of my introductory spiel before I get into the game. Sort of like a ritual thing to get people in the right state of mind.
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Feb 3, 2016 16:42
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slydingdoor posted:I have a verbose block of principles for that which I've started making a part of my introductory spiel before I get into the game. Sort of like a ritual thing to get people in the right state of mind. Do you have these written out in a format that you could share? This sounds like it could be pretty helpful to some people, and at least a great insight into others' GMing for others.
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Feb 3, 2016 17:03
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It's strange because I've had the same experience with DW mentioned here, where it feels like more of a struggle to keep things flowing with GM moves, especially in combat. But when I think about it, I'm doing the same thing when I'm MCing other PbtA games. In fact, I don't think I'm doing any less work. It just feels smoother. I suspect it has to do with the fact that, ultimately, DW's genre is D&D, so it has baked into it the expectation of discrete actions and turn-taking. So everyone at the table is defaulting to that expectation (which is reasonable in the genre) which makes things feel choppy.
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Feb 3, 2016 17:22
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Tendales posted:Also, read the Dungeon World Guide. A while ago someone pointed out that some of the advice is a little outdated based on our current understanding of "PbtA technology". Things like the difference between a hard move and a soft move, and...one or two other things I can't remember off the top of my head. With the new edition of AW coming out, I was thinking that it might be a good idea to update the Guide to a generic PbtA thing. I haven't talked to scrape in ages, but I know he considered us "co-owners" even though he did the majority of the writing, so I don't know how practical doing this would be.
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Feb 3, 2016 17:32
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Blasphemeral posted:Do you have these written out in a format that you could share? This sounds like it could be pretty helpful to some people, and at least a great insight into others' GMing for others. quote:Before everything else: some ground rules on how we're gonna play, that I will enforce as best I can.
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Feb 3, 2016 17:38
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slydingdoor posted:(You can replace Talking Stick with Turns or Turn-taking. To be honest it's part of my leveraging my native american heritage to guilt people into following the principles I lay out.) These are real good. I've been trying to run a game with some friends of mine and I'm have a really hard time with some of them, even seasoned RPG veterans.
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Feb 5, 2016 16:28
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thefakenews posted:My second play through of DS2 was co-op with a friend. The vast majority of that game can be co-oped. The original Dark Souls, not so much. Would it be rude to ask if you could upload that as a pdf, if possible? I'm sorry if it is. It's just closer to how I normally keep documents like that.
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Feb 8, 2016 17:59
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Covok posted:Would it be rude to ask if you could upload that as a pdf, if possible? I'm sorry if it is. It's just closer to how I normally keep documents like that. The latest revision of the basic moves, plus my attempt at converting magic.
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Feb 9, 2016 02:16
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You are doing the lord's work, thefakenews. You've inspired a non-goon friend of mine who's always been super hesitant about roleplaying but loves dark souls to want to try and run a game of Dungeon Souls. I'll keep the thread posted if anything comes of it.
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Feb 9, 2016 11:11
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Fumbles posted:You are doing the lord's work, thefakenews. You've inspired a non-goon friend of mine who's always been super hesitant about roleplaying but loves dark souls to want to try and run a game of Dungeon Souls. Awesome! One thing to watch out for, I haven't addressed how the new combat moves interact with any class moves that refer to Hack & Slash. Some of them can probably be changed so that they work when you use any combat move. Some of them might just have to be avoided. To work fully, I think Souls World would need custom play books. I might think about that at some stage, but I'm busy working on my 17th Century monsters hunters PbtA game at the moment. Also, I mentioned it in the Torchbearer thread, but any Souls fans should check out Brendan Conway's Cold Ruins of Last Life when it is released. I have a backer PDF and it is a great setting book for a Dark Souls inspired Dungeon World campaign. It's by the same author of Last Days of Anglekite if that means anything to anyone (which it should).
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Feb 9, 2016 12:09
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I made some Soulsborne houserules for a DW PbP game here that have some altered classes and such.
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Feb 9, 2016 15:15
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I have a few thoughts that I'd like to share: -I feel humanity, as implemented, may actually a bit anti-Dark Souls. Dark Souls is about dying and dying and dying again until you quit or win, but humanity, as implemented, basically gives Dungeon World a lives system. Now, I understand that, in tabletop gaming, there needs to be some sort of penalty, but there should be some implication that humanity can be regained. As a quest item: something to drive play forward. -Thinking it over, ultimately, the rigid class system of Dungeon World might always hold this hack back. Now, perfect emulation may actually be terrible, but it's worth considering some alterations to make the class system more rigid. After all, in Dark Souls, class only decided your starting point and you can grow into any character from there. There is a gimp to trying to move to something later, of course. Perhaps, make it so that someone can take a move from another playbook at every level up instead of one of their own moves. This would, of course, mean multiclass dabbler and the like are invalidated. Might not work out the best in play and I may be focusing too much on emulation and not enough on what makes PbtA work. Worth considering, I feel. -Some MC/Adventure advice that suggests smaller and split parties might hit the DS tone better. All of the participants in alternate paths only joining when summoned. Brings new meaning for the MC move "split them up." Might be best as a suggestion, though, and mostly regulated to pbp. -The INT requirement on spell atunnement t just rubs me the wrong way. Could just be and I'm only one voice, but somehow I feel a level+2 system might be more balanced between playbooks. -I worry, a bit, if the whole spell system might be a bit against the ethos of pbta. That isn't a problem, necessarily. People who don't mind and want a more DS experience will enjoy it and those who don't like that type of play don't need to use the hack,. However, a lot of overly gamely stuff causes weird things in play with this engine. It's not something I'd change yet, but something I would definitely press in questions when trying to get feedback on it. -I know this is likely more a matter of "I haven't gotten to it yet" but the MC section will definitely need a re-write to fit the new setting. Some more biting and cruel moves. The MC section tends to be overlooked when adjusting PbtA, but it's a great source of changing the flow and feel of a title. -I like how you changed Evasive Fighting and Defy Danger. Before, it was confusing to know when to use which. Overall, I'm hopeful for it and like the idea of it, but these parts seem like they can be issues. Ultimately, I'm just one voice, I'm not an expert on DW or PbtA, and I've never used these rules in play, but it's something to consider. Edit: You might want to go the extra mile and consider doing some altered classes to fit into the hack's design. If nothing else, if you change the magic system, the cleric and wizard can't stay as is. Edit Edit: Oh, you get Humanity back from leveling up. That could work, but maybe something that can also be obtained as a question item to drive play? Just a thought. Feels less important with that, but I question which works better for Dark Souls, ya know? Covok fucked around with this message at 22:56 on Feb 9, 2016 |
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Feb 9, 2016 21:23
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Covok posted:I have a few thoughts that I'd like to share: As you note below, there is a built in way to regain humanity, but using it as a reward might also work. I haven't actually played this hack (and never really intended too - I wrote it as a thought experiment really) so I haven't given a lot of thought to stuff like GM moves and rewards etc. While it is a departure from Dark Souls, I didn't want resurrection to be totally open ended because I'm not certain that works all that well in a tabletop game. An alternative might be that you can alway resurrect and you spend humanity to pay off a loss of max HP/debilities. For reference the death move in Cold Ruins of Last Life looks like this: The Dead Awakening When you lose your last hp in Lastlife, you die, falling where you stand. As long as your body is not utterly destroyed, the strange mists of Lastlife will converge on you and carry your body to the last place you rested. You will come back to yourself, but the circumstances may be dangerous. Roll 2d6. On a hit, you’re restored with half of your maximum hit points. On a 7-9, pick one from below. • Permanently lose 1 bond. • Permanently mark a debility. • Permanently cross off both one Radiance and one Memory improvement; you can never take those advancements. On a miss, you are restored with one hit point; pick one from the list, and know that the mists have revealed your vulnerability to something dangerous that now hunts you. If PCs ever lose all of their bonds or permanently mark off every debility, they become the mindless undead. quote:-Thinking it over, ultimately, the rigid class system of Dungeon World might always hold this hack back. Now, perfect emulation may actually be terrible, but it's worth considering some alterations to make the class system more rigid. After all, in Dark Souls, class only decided your starting point and you can grow into any character from there. There is a gimp to trying to move to something later, of course. Perhaps, make it so that someone can take a move from another playbook at every level up instead of one of their own moves. This would, of course, mean multiclass dabbler and the like are invalidated. Might not work out the best in play and I may be focusing too much on emulation and not enough on what makes PbtA work. Worth considering, I feel. I think I said previously, a proper hack needs its own playbooks. I would likely make a small number to represent some of the starting archetypes (i.e pyromancer, knight, wanderer). My feeling is they should be relatively interchangeable, which goes totally against the PbtA ethos, but I'm not totally convinced it can't work. quote:-Some MC/Adventure advice that suggests smaller and split parties might hit the DS tone better. All of the participants in alternate paths only joining when summoned. Brings new meaning for the MC move "split them up." Might be best as a suggestion, though, and mostly regulated to pbp. Again, I haven't given much thought to MC advice because I never really intended to use the hack or make much of it. Definitely this is all important stuff for making a fully functional hack. quote:-The INT requirement on spell atunnement t just rubs me the wrong way. Could just be and I'm only one voice, but somehow I feel a level+2 system might be more balanced between playbooks. Yeah, I went back and forth on the INT requirement. Ultimately I went with it because in the Souls games attunement is governed by a stat, and you have to invest in it. I wrote the magic system with the idea that the hack needs it own playbooks, none of which would have other methods of spell casting. It is my intention that the magic system would replace spell casting classes entirely. Basically, having a lot of spells would then be a build choice, as it is in Dark Souls.
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Feb 10, 2016 01:25
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Is there a good Illusionist class? I didn't see one listed in the OP, and the core wizard has hardly any illusion spells beyond Prestidigitation, which explicitly can't fool anyone.
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Feb 13, 2016 07:43
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Lottery of Babylon posted:Is there a good Illusionist class? I didn't see one listed in the OP, and the core wizard has hardly any illusion spells beyond Prestidigitation, which explicitly can't fool anyone. I personally like gnome7's Masked Mage playbook. It can create illusions and do tricky things with masks and stuff!
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Feb 13, 2016 11:46
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I actually get to play a one shot instead of running one this week, and I'm leaning toward wizard. Does anyone have cool ideas for places of power to inspire me?
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Feb 13, 2016 18:47
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PerniciousKnid posted:I actually get to play a one shot instead of running one this week, and I'm leaning toward wizard. Does anyone have cool ideas for places of power to inspire me? The tower of the vanished artificer-lich Deyra Jarh. The ancient menhir where humans and elves first met in peace. The antiquated spire that marks the skyline of the bustling city of Karamorran. The Wellspring of Coruscating Light. The place where the shattered moon's remnants landed. The tomb-library of the dead god of secrets. The place where the bones of the first dragon are scattered. The ash desert that marks where the first demon set foot in the world. The hidden caves of the long-extinct ice dwarves.
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Feb 17, 2016 20:45
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Places of power don't just have to be a place. They can be places in time as well. The Lunar Vergence, a moment every 10000 years, when all five moons are full. The 7th hour of the 7th day of the 7th anniversary of great Lich's apotheosis. A temple during the vernal equinox, when the veil between worlds is thinnest. The sacred stones of the elderwoods, as the noonday sun first touches them. Amongst the ironwood trees during the first lightning strikes of a maelstrom.
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Feb 17, 2016 23:55
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So, all the first session advice is to just hand them the sheets and explain how to play this and do some world building. That's great, especially for someone like me who doesn't get fronts. What are some good things to jam out on the first sessions?
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Feb 19, 2016 08:52
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Ominous Jazz posted:So, all the first session advice is to just hand them the sheets and explain how to play this and do some world building. That's great, especially for someone like me who doesn't get fronts. Make a really easy simple threat but let them riff on motivations and stuff. A orc tribe, elven bandits, a bog standard necromancer. And then ask the players why those dudes are there or whatever and go jazz from there. /edit and don't forget the real dungeon world classic, "What is an Elf?" Jintor fucked around with this message at 09:34 on Feb 19, 2016 |
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Feb 19, 2016 09:31
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Jintor posted:/edit and don't forget the real dungeon world classic, "What is an Elf?" "A miserable pile of sparkles."
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Feb 19, 2016 09:55
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potatocubed posted:"A miserable pile of sparkles." An arboreal race of fascists waging a never ending war of extermination against races they see as "lesser" eg. Everyone.
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Feb 19, 2016 21:12
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Error 404 posted:An arboreal race of fascists waging a never ending war of extermination against races they see as "lesser" eg. Everyone. Something we haven't quite gotten around to killing yet.
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Feb 19, 2016 21:42
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What are elves if not orcs who have ascended to purity?
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Feb 20, 2016 01:38
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I'm working on layout for the PDF of Lands of the Dead, including my scruffy artwork. Comments, suggestions, and criticism are invited. https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B4w2ZvCSYT6AMlVUbU4zdDdRdk0 Google Doc here: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1-tO8mux58YHCpX7wGGDnnv9siL58w4yN-v2M8C3lBmQ
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Feb 20, 2016 05:30
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Jintor posted:Make a really easy simple threat but let them riff on motivations and stuff. A orc tribe, elven bandits, a bog standard necromancer. And then ask the players why those dudes are there or whatever and go jazz from there. In addition to this, I find it helps engage players the most when you start them in immediate danger. After you finish the setup the group doesn't start wandering around in the woods looking for orcs, they just tripped the perimeter alarms of the camp and two orcish scouts are pointing their drawn bows at you, what do you do? No, Derek, don't look at your sheet, what do you do? I also like to ask the players a couple of questions about the immediate situation, such as "Derek, how did you screw up and trigger the alarm?" CainsDescendant fucked around with this message at 06:25 on Feb 20, 2016 |
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Feb 20, 2016 06:23
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madadric posted:I'm working on layout for the PDF of Lands of the Dead, including my scruffy artwork. Comments, suggestions, and criticism are invited. I'm not a huge fan of the red headings, when everything else is mostly black on white, but that's personal taste. On a more technical level, I would increase the size of the margins quite a bit. Particularly with a single column layout, I think it would look better. Take a look at the layout of Dungeon World or Fate Core in terms of single column layout with generous margins. I would also take a look at your leading (the spacing between the lines of text), I suspect if the spacing was a little larger you would improve readability. Also, there seem to be a lot of irregular/unnecessary line breaks.
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Feb 20, 2016 06:56
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Error 404 posted:An arboreal race of fascists waging a never ending war of extermination against races they see as "lesser" eg. Everyone. This is basically what dryads are in the setting I'm running, except also with a totally hypocritical shamanic state religion, where they claim to live in peace and harmony with all the spirits of the forest but actually just live in harmony with the ones who are on-board with Operation Exterminate All Lesser Life Forms, and exile or isolate the others. Also, their idea of living in harmony with a spirit is telling it "use your cool magical powers the way we tell you, and we'll give you a nice gilded cage to live in, 'kay?"
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Feb 20, 2016 18:03
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