D&D General Fighting Law and Order

[hawkeyefan]

Maybe you're right. But it doesn't change anything for me. The style of narrative/story games bugs the heck out if me, and I want nothing to do with it when I play D&D. Thinking about it doesn't help me play D&D better, and its lessons are not applicable to the kind of game I want to play. Others might get something out of it, and I'm happy for those people, but I am not one of them.

I mean, everyone's different. My D&D games have benefitted greatly from applying (or at least considering) the kinds of principles put forth by Apocalypse World and its derivatives. I would think most games would benefit from one or more of the principles in some way, but I'm sure there are examples where there's nothing to be gained.

 

[Aldarc]

Maybe you're right. But it doesn't change anything for me. The style of narrative/story games bugs the heck out if me, and I want nothing to do with it when I play D&D. Thinking about it doesn't help me play D&D better, and its lessons are not applicable to the kind of game I want to play. Others might get something out of it, and I'm happy for those people, but I am not one of them.

There is one thing that it should change IMHO. Instead of reminding us time and time again about how much you hate nearly everything about Dungeon World and how it doesn't jive with your D&D game preferences, it seems like the prudent thing would be to focus on providing solid advice to the OP from the perspective of your play preferences and game style. I assume that you can do this without resorting to "moves in Dungeon World are yucky!" Or am I wrong?

 

[Faolyn]

I have DMed MotW a couple of times. From my (limited) experience, WHY a player does something is as important as WHAT they do and HOW they do it.

The games encourages the Keeper to communicate with the players to understand their goals.

Once you know why the character wants to interrogate the non-magical statue, it should be easier to understand what comes next.

“Why are you talking to the statue?”
“I feel there is something suspicious going on”
“Ah, roll Read a Bad Situation”

Also worth noting that there are plenty of soft moves a Keeper can make if interrogating a non-magical statue doesn’t reveal anything and the rest of the party doesn’t seem to have their own move to follow up.

Off the top of my head, “reveal offscreen badness”, advancing the countdown, and put someone in trouble (which doesn’t need to be one of the party).

This makes a lot of sense. Thanks!

I'm really enjoying MotW, but I wish the book did a bit more explaining and showing. Getting out of the tradgame mindset is tough!

 

[Baron Opal II]

I just care differently. I'm not sure of what things could just make a person sink from entering my house. I take it you have, could you give some examples of things you and others have done in such a case? Or maybe if anyone else has an example?

My children are anaphylactic to peanuts and allergic to tree nuts. While I do encourage players to bring snacks that they enjoy and to share, nuts are strictly forbidden. They do not enter the house. The players are informed of this before they come over.

We tend to have a break midway through where we eat dinner together. If people tell us their food allergies / preferences ahead of time we will accommodate them. I know what it is like to be fed food that you cannot digest or is actively harmful, so I take my guest's needs into account. If they don't tell me that they are greatly allergic to lemons and we serve chicken piccata, that's on them because we ask ahead of time. We will prepare something for them, due to hospitality, but it will be not nearly as nice as what we planned.

I do not see this as "whim" or a frivolous desire.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

This is a good rule to have. Even more so if the players are obsessed with it. Then a GM can just use it as a shield "nope, no complaints, the fiction requires it". then all the players will just nod and say "By the Fiction".

...I have literally no idea what this means, but it doesn't sound anything like Dungeon World either. "By the fiction" literally just means... whatever it is that's going on, and which the players have already encountered or will encounter very very soon. It's not some mystical thing. It's literally just the answers to the question, "what is the situation?"

Do you need a "shield" against players deciding that gravity points up today, or that the sun simply disappears from the sky, or that dirt is worth more than gold just for the next hour?

 

[Micah Sweet]

There is one thing that it should change IMHO. Instead of reminding us time and time again about how much you hate nearly everything about Dungeon World and how it doesn't jive with your D&D game preferences, it seems like the prudent thing would be to focus on providing solid advice to the OP from the perspective of your play preferences and game style. I assume that you can do this without resorting to "moves in Dungeon World are yucky!" Or am I wrong?

I disagree with the value of using DW principles/mechanics to assist the game in question. I also provided advice much further up; to whit, that once the events in the game have occurred, they should be respected and the game should continue from that point.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I disagree with the value of using DW principles/mechanics to assist the game in question. I also provided advice much further up; to whit, that once the events in the game have occurred, they should be respected and the game should continue from that point.

What should one do if thise events make it so it cannot continue from that point? Because the looming specter (not to over-use the term) of TPK, or an unplayable adventure, was specifically one of the issues brought up by the OP.

 

[FrozenNorth]

This makes a lot of sense. Thanks!

I'm really enjoying MotW, but I wish the book did a bit more explaining and showing. Getting out of the tradgame mindset is tough!

Yup, I have to admit that I would have had a much harder time grokking MotW had it not been for the posters here elaborating on how PbtA games are played.

 

[Oofta]

Okay, but you do realize this is dangling the specter of some terrible price paid, some unacceptable cost that would ruin everything if one actually paid it, and then when asked what exactly that price is, you have replied "well I don't feel like saying."

Which, to be clear, none of that is like...verboten or anything. Nor is "DW just isn't for me." There are plenty of things that aren't for everyone. But it weakens your argument considerably to make such speculative claims about the potential "cost" and then refuse to actually say anything at all about what it might be.

What specter? All I'm saying is that if you're looking at relative values of two competing systems you have to take the entirety of the package into consideration. For me, that means that the far less than 1% chance we'll have a DM who runs a session that's guaranteed to end in a TPK won't happen because they are bound by the rules does not balance out the negatives.

People toss around this horrible DM that will do **** like the OP as if it's standard and hold up DW as if it has an answer. The problem is that the answer - the entire move resolution of play - is a huge part of the issue I have with the game. Therefore DW doesn't hold any value in this regard to me.

That has nothing to say whether you care for DW. If you do, go have a blast. I'll stick with D&D even if there's an infinitesimally small chance the DM might set up a TPK to teach the party a lesson.

 

[Oofta]

Putting an NPC in trouble is a valid move in PbtA.

Technically, neither Gandalf nor Frodo are PCs or NPCs, which points to an inherent limitation in mapping a story onto a D&D or a PbtA system.

Technically none of them exist so they aren't constrained by any game rules. So that's completely irrelevant to the conversation and is dodging the question. If you can't have an honest discussion about how this might work for an adventuring party in the game don't bother answering.

If there were a scene in a D&D game where there's a guardian at the gate and it takes a while for the party to figure out the puzzle, it's pretty straightforward. The monster has it's own actions and motivations. Perhaps the DM decided that the group was on a secret timer of how long it takes the tentacle monster to wake up. In addition the group failed perception checks to notice the ripples in the water. The tentacle monster gets a surprise round and attacks whatever PC they want. There's no need for anyone in the group to fail a move.

In DW, Gandalf failed their check but Frodo succeeds. But it's not Gandalf that gets attacked, it's Frodo. That seems to be contrary to my understanding of the way the game works.