Any Dungeon World players here?

cthulhu42 said:

So I guess it just depends on how you define, "animal". That's a tough one. Just because a creature doesn't exist in our reality doesn't mean it's not an animal indigenous to another planet/plane/reality.

Would you just draw the line at Earth creatures and be done with it?

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I think [MENTION=99817]chaochou[/MENTION] gave the best advice on this upthread - it depends how you and your group see the world and want to handle it. And also on what you're comfortable with as GM.

I don't think there's a mechanical answer.

cthulhu42 said:

So then are we rolling for that damage? If so, we still only roll the druids damage dice (d6 for starters). I was beginning to believe that the effect of a given animal move was left up to the GM. In other words, if a druid/elephant spent a hold to trample an enemy I might say, "You crush the goblin under your heavy feet." and the goblin is dead. No damage roll required. But are you saying that the proper response would be, "You crush the goblin under your heavy feet. Roll a d6 for damage."?

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Again, I think this is up to the GM and the fiction. If the elephant is charging down a narrow canyon, "You crush the goblins - they're dead" seems to make sense. If the elephant is charging the goblins on an open plain, and so they might scatter, fall down, etc, then rolling damage seems reasonable.

Again, I don't think there is a mechanical answer to this.

In all cases, I strongly encourage working this out with the group - having everyone's buy in is more important, I think, then getting it right in technical terms.

I thought I'd post a practical example of what I'm comfortable with as a GM and group buy in. Unfortunately it's a Cortex+ Heroic example, not a PbtA/DW example, but hopefully it's still helpful.

As best I can recall, I've GMed about 10 sessions of Cortex+ Heroic (some Marvel, some Fantasy). A key mechanic in this system is the doom pool - which is the GM's resource for doing stuff (a bit like how misses in DW allow the GM to make moves). And a key principle is that everything significant that happens to the PCs or the NPCs follows from making a check to establish an effect.

In the first couple of sessions I was just trying to learn how to manage the doom pool, as it serves not only as the GM's resource but also as the opposition for player checks when there is no opposing PC or NPC.

Once I got the hang of that, I started being a bit more adventurous in how I used it, being more relaxed about spending it down and getting a better handle on how it would build up again, and what that would mean. Over this time I also read multiple published scenarios, and saw the sorts of things they suggested doing with the doom pool which weren't mentioned in the rules; and the sorts of things they said about giving PCs benefits or imposing penalties that weren't mentioned in the rules either!

More recently I've started using those techniques myself: so when one of the PCs ended a scene having tricked the drow out of their gold, he started the next scene with an asset (a d8 Bag of Gold) that he didn't have to create in the normal way, and that lasts longer than a normal asset. When the PCs all got teleported deep into the dungeon by a Crypt Thing, they started the next scene all suffering a d12 Lost in the Dungeon complication because that followed from the fiction, even though I hadn't made the normal check required to impose a complication on a PC. In our session on the weekend, one of the PCs got drunk/stoned on vodka and a witch's herbs (the player made this choice because he wanted to earn XP for indulging in pleasure) and I imposed a consequence of d6 Mental Stress even though no check had been made. And also in that session, when one of the PCs who was trying to rescue some villagers decided he would impose discipline on them by revealing his werewolf form and terrorising them into obedience, I stepped up the doom pool (on the grounds that that is clearly the sort of thing that makes the situation more risky and dangerous for the PCs) even though the normal rules for growing the doom pool hadn't been triggered.

In each of these cases, the players accepted the ruling because they could see how it fitted the relationship between the system and the fiction we are all developing together. But it couldn't have worked the same way in the first session, when we were all still finding our feet and getting a hang of how the game works. And it's easy to imagine that for a different group a different set of expectations would emerge out of their play experience.

Personally, I see this sort of thing as another aspect of playing to find out. Even if you start a bit cautiously at first, while you're all getting a feel for the system, I would hope that over a few sessions and as the rhythms of play and the mechanics start to become more familiar, some organic sense of what an "animal move" should look like will start to emerge.

pemerton said:

Personally, I see this sort of thing as another aspect of playing to find out. Even if you start a bit cautiously at first, while you're all getting a feel for the system, I would hope that over a few sessions and as the rhythms of play and the mechanics start to become more familiar, some organic sense of what an "animal move" should look like will start to emerge.

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I hope so too. I plan to play DW more with my secondary group and possibly try a campaign length game with my primary. I've been watching lots of game play videos on youtube which is a big help.

I still wish the devs had embraced the mechanics of the game that do exist and had made it more understandable. It's a well written book and entertaining to read, but some things just cry out for explanation. Even the examples they give often times leave me with more questions than answers. The real shame is that I imagine some people won't try such a good game rather than struggle through the rules.

It's interesting to me that one of the core points under the GM section is to "follow the rules", but then so many of the rules are left intentionally vague. I'm fine with there not being a mechanical answer to something, but I wish they'd say clearly that X, Y, or Z has no mechanic.

But, all of that said, I'm very much looking forward to exploring more of the game. I've played many, many rpg's but none quite like this. It feels like a breath of fresh air.

cthulhu42 said:

I still wish the devs had embraced the mechanics of the game that do exist and had made it more understandable. It's a well written book and entertaining to read, but some things just cry out for explanation.

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That's fair. Dungeon World started as a hack of Apocalypse World (AW) - I think as a bunch of playbooks and then it grew from there. Whatever, the assumption as DW evolved was that anyone who was going to pick it up would already have solid play-based experience with the 'base game' (AW).

Is this important? Well, kinda... Characters in AW are not a 'party'. Everyone is out for themselves, projecting spheres of influence into the chaos, and sometimes when those overlap characters help each other, other times they clash and things get tense. The important thing here is that if you're running AW, you're not running a 'party vs the world' game and so the way the dice are used in reaction to the players falls very naturally as each character pursues their own ideas.

DW is a change, in that it's starting to presuppose that a 'party' is all acting in unison. So the conflicts aren't shaking out between players - it's all between the players collective goal and the GM's resistance to that. This is not easy to do, impossible if the players are not creating new possibilities as the GM doesn't get to roll stuff...

You asked earlier about examples of 'Nature demands its price'... and I can't give you any. Can't isn't quite true, I can picture some, but that's not the point. The point is that GM-ing DW means being right there as your players say stuff, listening to what they have to say and working out what constitutes a price for them. It has to be done at the table

However... that kind of thing is easier if the players don't have collective goals, merely overlapping ones. They're all looking for the Fountain of Abundant Knowledge.. but the mage wants to be the only one to drink from it, the rogue wants to sell the water, the paladin wants to claim it as a holy site and the druid needs it's waters to purify the lands of his fathers. That kind of thing.

This might then be territory where Spirit Elementals can demand a meaningful price, and one which every players has a stake in...

I hope things are becoming clearer!

If you go to the dungeon-world site, under downloads, is a very useful Dungeon World guide by Ron Fontes-May and Sean M. Dunstan. It helps clarify the game in a big way. The Something Awful forums might also be a great place to get advice.

chaochou said:

You asked earlier about examples of 'Nature demands its price'... and I can't give you any. Can't isn't quite true, I can picture some, but that's not the point. The point is that GM-ing DW means being right there as your players say stuff, listening to what they have to say and working out what constitutes a price for them. It has to be done at the table

However... that kind of thing is easier if the players don't have collective goals, merely overlapping ones.

<snip>

This might then be territory where Spirit Elementals can demand a meaningful price, and one which every players has a stake in...

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There are some obvious challenges in running a party-based but non-collective-goal RPG, but I think that without that, it's hard to maintain dramatic tension in a party-based game.

Arilyn said:

If you go to the dungeon-world site, under downloads, is a very useful Dungeon World guide by Ron Fontes-May and Sean M. Dunstan. It helps clarify the game in a big way. The Something Awful forums might also be a great place to get advice.

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Downloading and reading that guide was one of the first things I did after buying the game. It really is very helpful. Still though, I was left with questions.

The Something Awful forums are full of good info as well, as is the google+ boards. Trouble is, it can be hard to find the specific answer to a specific question.

cthulhu42 said:

Actually, no.

According to everything else I've seen, when a Druid uses a monster move, she does not roll. It just happens. The side bar on page 105 seems to imply this as well.

But you're saying that if a player uses a monster move, she does roll? That is literally at odds with everything else I've read about druids.

I'm not saying you're wrong, just that it's at odds. Or that I'm missing something in you're explanation.

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Yeah, it just happens. But, in happening, it might trigger a different move, depending on the fictional positioning (defy danger or hack & slash, for instance). Which would then have it’s own roll, of course.

Or, it might not trigger another roll. Dungeon World is flexible, like that.

Campbell said:

You have summoned me. I like Dungeon World a good deal - not as much as I like Apocalypse World, but still a good deal.

Summoning [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] who is more of an expert than me.

What were your questions?

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Raising this dead thread. Is there a reason why you prefer Apocalypse World over Dungeon World? And how would you "improve" Dungeon World so that it would be more to your own preferences?