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On the topic of move difficulty: how do you deal with moves that are obviously taking the piss? If a player wants to use a Defy Danger roll to limbo-dance through the crack under a closed door, do you just out and say 'No, that's silly'? Just saying no seems like it should be counter to a lot of the feel of the game.
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Jun 17, 2013 15:48
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This looks like an amazing system! The moment my current 4e campaign ends I'm so switching my players to Dungeon World. Right now I'm trying to get my head around how Parley works. Is the only difference between the 10+ and 7-9 results that you can welsh on your side of the deal once they've held up their end?
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Jul 8, 2013 17:36
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Flavivirus posted:For Parley, I think the important thing is that on a 10+ the other party trusts you to do what you promised if they do what they promised, while on a 7+ they need proof right now that you're on the level (whether that's putting on their holy symbol, turning over a down payment, or stabbing one of their prisoners). Right -- so if what they want is 'hand over that McGuffin' and you already have it, there's no difference between a 10 and a 7-9, right? It's only if you're promising to go do something for them later that it's a thing.
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Jul 8, 2013 18:35
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Boing posted:in DW it really matters, and will very often end up being a relevant part of the story or setting. This is a key thing, I think. 'Soft' character build choices still make a game-mechanical difference: they might affect whether doing something is a Defy Danger roll or not, for example. They just don't front-load the mechanic onto the build choice as you make it.
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Sep 4, 2013 13:27
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Elderbean posted:Would I be silly for implementing items that have a percentage to do extra damage/an extra effect? My players all come from D&D and they're so used to items having some kind of mechanical attachment so I thought it might be a nice in-between for them. Nah, I would just make the extra effect as an always-on thing that gives fictional positioning. A D&D weapon has a 25% chance to destroy undead. A DW weapon glows with an inner light that cleaves through undead flesh like butter. The latter wouldn't give you a numerical bonus, but it would mean that trying things like hacking a ghoul's arm off because he's grabbed your buddy are on the table for you now, whereas before it might have been some sort of Defy Danger to make sure your sword doesn't get jammed into him.
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Sep 8, 2013 09:07
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I don't think I've seen one of the most iconic pieces of D&D treasure written up for Dungeon World yet; I've had a go at putting it together myself. The Wand of Wonder The Wand of Wonder begins the game with a number of charges, which the GM will determine. When you wave the Wand of Wonder and hope that it will solve a problem you are facing, expend a charge, roll 2d6 and do not add anything. On a 10+, something unexpected happens to solve the problem, though it's likely that it won't solve it in the way you were expecting. On a 7-9, something unexpected happens. It solves the problem, but creates a new problem of its own. On a 6-, the wand makes things worse. When you wave the Wand of Wonder just to see what it does, expend a charge, roll 2d6 and do not add anything. On a 10+, something unexpected and obviously beneficial happens, like lighting your weapon on fire or giving you wings made of fallen leaves. Take +1 forward when you use it to your advantage. On a 7-9, something unexpected happens, but you will have to figure out a way to make it beneficial. If you figure out a way to use it to your advantage, take +1 forward when you use it. On a 6-, a calamity occurs. It might be an immediate physical threat, a debility, or an entirely new Front with its own Dark Fate and Grim Portents. When you draw the Wand of Wonder in a settled area and threaten to unleash its power, roll 2d6+CHA. On a 10+, refraining from waving the Wand of Wonder counts as leverage over anybody with a vested interest in avoiding a swathe of calamity befalling your surroundings. On a 7-9, they don't believe you and you are forced to unleash a charge from the Wand of Wonder in to prove you mean business. If the area still stands after, you count as having leverage as per a 10+ roll. On a 6-, or if you will not expend a charge to prove your intent on a 7-9 roll, they decide the best way to keep their home safe is to take the Wand from you by force.
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Sep 19, 2013 22:04
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madadric posted:The rules for GMing are built to help the GM ad-lib scenarios and consequences on the fly. The game runs incredibly well with minimal to zero prep, because you can just look down the list of GM Moves, pick one, flavor it to suit the situation, and hit the players with it. I'm petrol's GM, sup. The problem I found with picking GM moves with no prep was that the party very quickly escaped the initial danger (angry villagers) and got themselves into a fairly safe location (the Mastermind's fortress). It was tough for me to think of sources of danger, which most of the GM moves seem to be fuelled by, that could reasonably threaten them there. I can think of a number of ways to make things fun for them going forward, since if they just turtle down then I'm free to start pushing with Grim Portents. But not having Fronts for that session did throw me a fair bit.
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Sep 26, 2013 13:18
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Mushrooman posted:One of the players said the treasure she's going after is "A crystal ball that can tell the future," and I'm kind of torn as to how to make it work. How about : On a hit, the ball shows a terrible event that will come to pass if the PCs do not intervene. On a 10+ it's clear from the vision where to go and what to do to stop it, though it still might not be easy. On a 7-9 the vision is cryptic or lacks details, you will have to work that out for yourself. On a 6- you are tired, frustrated or unhinged from staring at a crystal ball all night with nothing to show for it but a sense of impending doom.
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Oct 1, 2013 07:20
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What if the breaking-the-vow-of-pacifism move were to reset your peace counter to zero, but be a deeply effective attack? The way pacifist characters tend to work in this kind of story is that they quietly avoid conflict at all costs, briefly become terrifyingly badass when they are finally moved to violence, and then quietly go back to pacifism.
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Oct 4, 2013 09:54
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A call I made in my game last night that I could use some feedback on: I had a pack of monsters charge towards the party, and the Brute said 'I stand ready to stop them coming at the others'. Now that's clearly the Defend move, so all well and good -- he rolls, succeeds, gets his Hold. But he's also standing clear in the way of a charging enemy and taking no action, so does that also count as. Golden Opportunity for one of these things to straight-up deal its monster damage to him?
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Oct 10, 2013 08:03
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Well, okay, it was an action, but it wasn't an action that involved getting out of the way of danger or doing anything to avoid it, he was actively putting himself in the path of danger. The monsters were these big bull-like things that were charging at the players and trying to knock them down, so there wasn't a lot of room to narrate something like the winding up to take a swing at the player. I think, in retrospect, the mistake I'm making is conflating 'do nothing to avoid the monster's blow' with 'make a move that doesn't involve avoiding the monster's blow'. And not going into any more detail about how he does the move -- what I should have asked was something like 'OK, they're charging straight at you and don't show any signs of slowing down, how are you defending the rest of the party exactly?'
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Oct 10, 2013 09:27
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The main thing you lose from chopping individual xp totals is that the free xp on a 6- means that you can't minmax -- a character with an optimized stat block will advance way more slowly than one with a crappy one. If you don't mind losing that, what you could do is have a shared xp pool, and any time a character gains xp it goes in there; then when there's enough to raise the whole party a level, everybody levels up. E: wait, my reading comprehension sucks. I didn't realise your problem was handing xp out in little chunks, I assumed that you didn't like different players having different xp totals. Whybird fucked around with this message at 08:51 on Oct 23, 2013 |
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Oct 23, 2013 08:49
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Petrolblue, don't read this. In my setting, Death has already been killed and anybody who has the power to do so can claim one of his gates and collect souls of the dead. I have a number of NPCs written up with an interest in souls -- one is building an army of the dead, another uses them as slave labour to construct a space-ark he plans to escape the apocalypse on, another really likes how they taste. With active agendas like this it's a lot easier to figure out favours that a PC might do in exchange for their safety, which become nice quest hooks for the 7-9 result.
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Oct 25, 2013 17:56
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ZombieLenin posted:I haven't run the game yet, but it seems to me telling you "this is the front," sort of falls under the "don't name the GM move you're using." I agree -- equally, I can see that a player 'see the future' move which effectively tells you about a coming Grim Portent would fit nicely. You could even make the 10+ result be something like 'you see the best way to stop it' and the 6- result be 'you learn of a calamity that will befall you if you oppose it'. E: 10+
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Nov 11, 2013 11:16
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One of my regular players has asked me to run a one-shot of Dungeon World for his 3.5e D&D group, to demonstrate the existence of other RPG systems. (Apparently they reacted with horror and bewilderment when they learned that the Mage didn't have a set spell list.) Does anybody have recommendations for published one-shots that do a good job of showing off all the cool stuff Dungeon World can do? I'm currently thinking about Heart of the Minotaur, but I'm open to suggestions.
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Nov 13, 2013 14:33
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Countblanc posted:My issue with Messy is that it often competes with things like "+1 damage" or "Precise," and that's not really fair. I'm fine with Messy as a reminder in the abstract, but it often has an effective cost. Sure, but what it gets you is improved fictional positioning -- if it's ripping limbs off and crushing bones and whatnot then it's potentially going to be stopping enemies using their nastier moves, or defeating them without dropping their hp to zero.
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Dec 11, 2013 09:31
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Glazius posted:It's also got costs to it. You're pretty much always going to leave traces of your battle, and at least how I run, 0 hit points means players get narrative control of the NPC but a messy weapon can only kill its target. Really? I'd say that taking someone out of a fight without a sap or blackjack or something like that would be at least a Defy Danger roll.
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Dec 11, 2013 15:31
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Emong posted:Going Green: Choose a move. When you are in your chosen environment you take +1 ongoing to any rolls that move involves. You may take Going Green as many times as you want, so long as you choose a different move for it to affect every time. Would it be better if the trigger for this was something like 'When features of your chosen terrain give you an unexpected advantage in using that move'? That way it's not just a flat bonus, it's also a means of generating cool fictional positioning. Geomancers always have a convenient branch to grab onto.
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Dec 25, 2013 10:16
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Under the vegetable posted:I've never heard of that module, but I'm now considering it because I have a player who is already a minotaur. I picked it up from http://campaignwiki.org/wiki/DungeonMaps/One_Page_Dungeon_Contest_2011, and it ran pretty well with my group of first-time Dungeon Worlders! It's likely to go very differently if your party are comfortable with the idea that a minotaur might be an intelligent, reasonable being (the big twist at the end is that the minotaur you think is the antagonist is just the innocent victim of a curse, and you've already hacked your way through the goblins who are the real villains). If you still want this to happen, it's easy enough to swap out 'minotaur' for 'gorgon' or 'werewolf' or 'double vampire'.
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Dec 31, 2013 12:05
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Shamblercow posted:One thing I always tell my players is that I will never lie to them if they do a Spout Lore check. I'd rather give them nothing than start the meta-game express, which will begin the next time your players roll 6- on a Spout Lore and immediately disregard the information you give them. Instead, I usually use the opportunity to use the GM move Reveal an unwelcome truth. Holy poo poo this is the best drat advice. My players love Spouting Lore and Discerning Realities and I keep on struggling to get them 6- results that won't send them on a wild goose chase. I'm totally going to start doing this now.
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Jan 20, 2014 09:02
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The key to understanding the Mage, I think, is to note that nowhere in the Mage's playbook does it say "You can use magic to do anything". The phrasing of the Cast A Spell move is "When you weave a spell to help solve a problem" -- so for any given problem, a Mage always has a spell that will help them solve it. That is not the same as the Mage having every spell they can conceive of. So: Ask them which problem they're trying to solve by being invincible; the spell will help them do that, but it won't last beyond that. Also, ask for more details on the spell. How does it turn them invincible? What powers does it call upon to do it? Does it make them invincible by turning their skin as hard as steel, or deflecting blows away from them, or keeping their body in a timeless stasis, or trapping their soul inside a Horcrux? All of these details give you fodder to Reveal An Unwelcome Truth about the spell's drawbacks the next time somebody rolls a 6-.
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Jan 21, 2014 00:31
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Two of the PCs in my current game are looking increasingly likely to come to blows. It's all healthy IC rivalry (and I am well aware of the need to intervene if they do find it spilling over to OOC) -- that's not my worry. I've not found much on how to handle PvP conflict in game mechanics though. How have other people run it?
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Feb 5, 2014 13:45
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Awesome. Thanks guys, this is really helpful! I suspect it'll be something more convoluted, since we have a Clock Mage and a Mastermind -- two classes who both favour the indirect approach -- but I did want to be ready for if they do just decide to duke it out or something.
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Feb 6, 2014 08:58
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You don't have Kenny as a name choice. You should correct this right away.
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Feb 20, 2014 09:01
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Handgun Phonics posted:So I have a player for a game who's looking to play Clock Mage, and he's got some... interesting ideas about how chaining time/event manipulation works together that's a bit broken, but he does raise a point, I think. Hanging around within sword reach of an enemy sounds like Defy Danger to me. If he's slowing things down so that he can't be hit I think there's another Clock Mage move that will let him do that and make the DD roll based on +INT.
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May 25, 2014 09:07
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Handgun Phonics posted:After a party member spent most of their time on an airship cooking and curing meat from the various dangerous / endangered wildlife with attacked along the way, I gave writing a compendium class a try. I reckon Kiss The Cook would be better phrased as 'You can use a promise to cook somebody's favourite meal as leverage for Parley'. That way there's more room to throw in complications like not knowing what a Beholder's favourite meal is, and the need to obtain and kill the ingredients for it first.
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May 26, 2014 22:01
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I've heard making it multiple choice works well too, if players are struggling. Like "You recognise this man from a previous adventure. Was he a friend or an enemy, back then?"
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Jun 26, 2014 22:12
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If you're looking for a 'sucks up pain and then violently lashes out when it's too much' mechanic, I would create a class with a d4 damage die and moves that revolve around avoiding enemy attacks, distracting or confusing the enemy, and helping allies out of a spot. Those moves let the class gain Peace as a side effect. When the class attacks, they must spend their accumulated Peace, and can roll +Peace to get things like Forceful on the attack.
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Aug 4, 2014 23:56
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If someone wants to play an armoured gorilla then I would take a look at The Brute. One of my players is having enormous fun smashing everything in sight with that playbook.
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Aug 12, 2014 07:48
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If you name your burst move Spray and Pray then you totally have to rename Volley to Aim and Fire to keep consistency.
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Aug 14, 2014 16:15
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One of my players plans on making his next character The Djinn ( [url] http://www.rpgnow.com/product/130838/Djinn--A-Dungeon-World-Playbook [/url]), after his previous character wrestled his archnemesis off the top of a seemingly bottomless waterfall. Has anyone else played with this class? Anything worth knowing?
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Aug 26, 2014 15:45
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The solution I used when I was creating a steampunk game was to create a big distinction between what magic could do and what tech could do. Specifically, magic was very focused on the individual: it was always short-range, always required the caster to be present, and always dependent on the caster's skill. So technology still had a monopoly on the things that made industrialisation a big deal in the real world: you needed technology for mass transit, automation or long-distance communication.
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Sep 2, 2014 09:42
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aldantefax posted:Similarly, if they want to bite on the meatiest (and first) hook that you gave them, there shouldn't be anything wrong with that. You can develop that front with them and then you can insert a twist like that villainous NPC was working for a higher power, or was an ally in disguise that had to go to desperate measures to accomplish their agenda, and so on. What if robbing the PCs was only a sideline for him, and his main job had been couriering a magical artefact to one of the setting's big bads? The PCs now have the One Ring, congratulations.
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Sep 9, 2014 12:16
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The Iron god isn't evil but it is dangerous, because its pantheon is incomplete. Its purpose is to build an army, and it will have its followers fell trees, mine ore, and build forges. But without the god of Wisdom, it won't know to stop. Without the god of War, it won't know how to use it. Without the god of Plenty it won't know to keep its subjects fed. It'll just keep on building and building until the world is one enormous strip-mine.
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Sep 10, 2014 08:32
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What they thought was an I was actually a lower case L. Now Xenu is free from his magnetic prison to reawaken his army of Thetans.
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Sep 10, 2014 14:20
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Yeah, I think a key part of this has to be to keep it ambiguous whether the cult are really holding eldritch horrors off. A couple of ways to do this, to ny mind: - Magic in this kind of setup does inevitably send you mad, so they're going to see threats everywhere. The cult are likely going to be hitting a whole ton of false positives in their hunt for agents of the Old Ones, which to an outsider will look like they're just killing indiscriminately. - They can't be sure the PCs aren't agents of the Old Ones, or just Nyarlathotep in a different hat, so they're not going to be particularly forthcoming about tipping their hand. - Just because they're keeping the Old Ones at bay doesn't mean that they're nice people, or reasonable people. If fact, if they know that the stakes are the utter destruction of reality by world-devouring horrors then pretty much any atrocity on their part can be justified to themselves with 'well, the alternative is worse'.
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Sep 23, 2014 09:25
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This is a terrible idea. One of the best things about Dungeon World is how tightly-written the classes are: everything is thematically linked, succinct, and well-defined. I honestly can't imagine how anybody could think that taking that away would be a good idea.
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Sep 30, 2014 10:46
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Some ways she could use time magic that don't immediately win her the fight: - Inflict a long-term injury on a character at some point in their past. - Call in backup from a different time zone. - Reveal a trap that she went back in time to set up.
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Oct 6, 2014 16:39
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Another way to make her time magic have a game effect but not a fight-breaking one would be to give her the Clock Mage's freeze-time-and-walk-somewhere-else teleport, but as a thing that takes a few moments and can be interrupted. So if she sees someone running at her, she can always time-skip to somewhere safer, but people can sneak up on her or use ranged attacks just fine, or try to come up with other ways to stop her from casting.
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Oct 6, 2014 17:22
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In general I would focus more on giving the players fictional positioning with moves, rather than making numbers be bigger. For example, I would swap quote:Military: Once per battle you may reroll one damage roll (yours or someone else’s) for something like quote:Military: When you discern realities, add "How can I use my surroundings to gain a tactical advantage?" to the list of questions.
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Dec 1, 2014 13:16
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