I've been thinking on this a bit, because I don't think of myself as a fan of individual characters. I don't focus on individual characters much at all. I want the players to have fun of course. I try to set up things that the group will enjoy, I do throw things in for specific characters now and then when it makes sense for what is happening in the campaign. Downtime is pretty exclusively focused on what individual characters are doing.
Yeah, I think one of the differences here is really this. Dungeon World, as a PbtA game, is pretty focused on bringing out the individual traits and building the action on top of who the PCs are. I'm not sure what individual vs group really necessarily means, because DW has 'bonds', which means associations between a PC and someone else, USUALLY another PC (though it could be an NPC as well) that are worth XP to act on. Bonds are also legitimate things for the GM to look at and frame scenes against, or put pressure on with a move. That means, if something happens to the Wizard, the Fighter, who 'swore to protect the wizard' is now also part of whatever happened (I mean, he COULD walk away of course, but even that's something). However, the party is made up of people, they aren't glued at the hip, and sometimes things take a direction that is mostly about the Fighter, and sometimes it might be more about the Wizard.
But I'm not doing this like a TV show. I'm not telling a narrative story, I approach things from a different direction.
Yeah, there's definitely no 'telling a story' in DW, story is emergent, for sure. At most the GM thinks "Well, I need to make a move here. I know, the PCs let that bandit get the slip and they never followed up on that. He's going to come back and kidnap Gramps!" Maybe now I need to know where Gramps actually lives, because it wasn't determined earlier so I ask "Hey, Graaahhh Foecrusher, where does Gramps live?"
I think of the world first, I set the stage. I think of the other actors on the stage, the movers and shakers in the world, the individuals and groups that are going to provide opportunities, obstacles and threats to the group. I try to figure out how to make those aspects important, motivating and interesting. What rumors, potential threats, possible chances for glory or gold can I throw out there. Then I let the players decide what they want to pursue. For that matter during my session 0 I discuss broad themes and type of campaign with the characters, but once we choose a general direction it doesn't get modified by whatever characters the players create.
I just see this as one person creating a menu of options that doesn't particularly address the other participants. DW will START with character creation, before there is any conception of setting at all (though honestly a lot of times people have already decided to play a game of sort X, Y, or Z and perhaps even where it is set). Still, everything is built outwards from the PCs. A PC comes with a few pieces that are going to tell us what we could do with them, bonds, alignment, race, playbook, and then we'll start with asking some questions to construct enough backstory to get started. The GM might ask the fighter "who gave you your signature weapon?" etc. She might even ask a player to describe what the PCs are doing right now. That sort of thing. An opening scene can then be played through, and possibly on into the beginnings of whatever adventure that suggests.
The GM is certainly allowed to have ideas, even 'stuff' that they're interested in using. Ideas ideally should be run by the players, or a hook given that they can decide to act on or not. After the first session the GM is going to do some work on fronts, maybe sketch out a map or two, etc. Personally I don't normally create a campaign front (a major campaign-wide theme) right off. Its better to create couple adventure fronts that set up the things the PCs seem interested in and give them some life. Maybe one is whatever they were heading towards, another could be a possible distraction, or something that another character will especially engage with. Soon the PCs will need R&R, and at that point a Steading can be created (town, village, etc.).
Hopefully we end up at the same place, a fun and engaging game. Maybe we're really saying much the same thing from different perspectives. But my approach feels much more akin to the standard approach to D&D because the nature of the game is different. D&D is DM centered world narrative with as little or as much input from other players as the group wants, DW is shared world narrative. Which goes back to my other thoughts on this: if you bring in systems from other games they have to relate to how D&D actually works. DW feels much more constrained on one true way of running the game, D&D is not and never really has been. And ... now I'm just rambling. Feel free to ignore the last few sentences.
I think that your approach is very much what Gygax and Arneson were doing. I think it comes straight out of wargaming/Free Kriegsspiel. Those are essentially systems where everything is pregenerated, and the scenarios are flat out a test of player skill, or in the FK case a literal realistic training exercise. But I don't think that original formula really accounts for 'open world' play! In the early days, if a PC left "Castle Blackmoor" and went elsewhere, there simply wasn't any provision for that at all. Its not just that the GM had to work it out, its that there isn't any provision for it at all. The game doesn't even really have quantifiable measures of play (loot and XP) nor fixed sorts of hazards and things that the GM can judge the nature of unequivocally. Now, obviously modern D&Ds have added skills and whatnot to help with that.
As for DW, its just a different starting point, its neither more nor less open-ended, but it has SOME virtue in that it addresses happenings in terms of their social and psychological dynamics. Its about "what do you want or need?" and then whether you will get it, and how, and what does that mean in terms of your character's personality, his relationships, as well as his physical and economic situation.
I don't think its rambling really. I think there's plenty going on in all these different games. I do, personally, feel like games like DW cut to the chase a bit more, and grab everyone. Like in the old days I'd often find myself rather bored by yet another low level D&D slog where we were more like the local garbage men making our 100th run. D&D always dangled some sort of exciting heroic play just out of reach. That was the essence of 4e, D&D that cuts to the chase (though it still has a lot of levels they were all pretty fun).
