Dungeon World Gets New Owners, Second Edition Planned

Luke Crane has purchased Dungeon World from its original creators and has plans to make a new edition of the game. Earlier this month, Crane, who previously designed The Burning Wheel and Mouse Guard Roleplaying Games, announced on the Dungeon World+ discord that he had "bought the game from the original creators" (Adam Koebel and Sage LaTorra) with a business partner and was preparing to work on a new edition. Crane did not specify whether either Koebel or LaTorra would be involved in the new edition.

Dungeon World's first edition won several awards when released in 2012, including the 2012 Golden Geek RPG of the Year and the Ennie Awards for Best Rules Gold Winner in 2013. The game was a Powered by the Apocalypse system in which players gained experience points when rolling a 6 or below on a check (which resulted in "trouble" occurring on the check and the opportunity for the DM to make a DM move. The game's co-creator Adam Koebel was a prominent creator and early TTRPG personality until accusations emerged of poor behavior by former partners.

Crane was previously the head of community at Kickstarter and attempted to run a campaign for The Perfect RPG zine back in 2021. He cancelled the campaign after it emerged that Koebel was involved with the project and later resigned from his job as a result of the backlash.

 

[Aldarc]

Congratulations, @Helena Real!

I hear that you will be one of the co-designers for Dungeon World 2e!

 

[Helena Real]

Congratulations, @Helena Real!

I hear that you will be one of the co-designers for Dungeon World 2e!

Thank you! And yes: for once, the rumors are true. I'm co-designing Dungeon World 2 with Spencer Moore, designer of Chasing Adventure.

If you or anybody else has any questions, I'd be happy to answer them

 

[zakael19]

Thank you! And yes: for once, the rumors are true. I'm co-designing Dungeon World 2 with Spencer Moore, designer of Chasing Adventure.

If you or anybody else has any questions, I'd be happy to answer them

The burning question we're all waiting to see:what are you doing with Defy Danger .

(looking forward to the Playtest next year!)

 

[Distracted DM]

I'm looking forward to this!

 

[Eyes of Nine]

Thank you! And yes: for once, the rumors are true. I'm co-designing Dungeon World 2 with Spencer Moore, designer of Chasing Adventure.

If you or anybody else has any questions, I'd be happy to answer them

Where can we go to follow you and Spencer discussing your design, if that's something you all are doing?

 

[Helena Real]

Where can we go to follow you and Spencer discussing your design, if that's something you all are doing?

We still haven't finished setting it up but, as soon as it's up and running, I'll post a link here, OK?

Thanks for the interest!

 

[Aldarc]

The general announcement on Dungeon World's Discord:

Thank you! And yes: for once, the rumors are true. I'm co-designing Dungeon World 2 with Spencer Moore, designer of Chasing Adventure.

If you or anybody else has any questions, I'd be happy to answer them

I suppose the burning question is probably how far you plan to stick close or diverge from Dungeon World 1 with any potential changes.

So some general questions maybe:

• What is your vision for Dungeon World 2?
• What are the sore or rough spots that you see in Dungeon World 1 that you believe need addressed?
• What are some of the "lessons learned" from running Dungeon World 1 or other PbtA games that you would like to see addressed in Dungeon World 2?
• Not that I am personally complaining, but why moving away from hit points to conditions?

Also, I would like to remind you of this post you made earlier in this thread:

This is definitely some unexpected news. As a long-time DW fan, I never expected to see a new edition, especially after Adam Koebel's debacle, but here we are.

In case you're looking for a heroic fantasy PbtA game, I'd like to recommend my own, Against the Odds, that's currently in active playtesting and you can find it here: Against the Odds by Helena Real

So final question: how did you get this gig? And how do you feel about this?

Gonna tag @Gradine as well since I know she has opinions about Dungeon World as a PbtA game, which she may want to share.

Also @Morrus may be interested in this announcement.

 

[Gradine]

So, my issues with Dungeon World stemmed from how much it felt like it was trying to fit into an OSR box and a PbtA box at the same time, to the, imo, detriment of the latter.

What I really want is a PbtA game that copies the aesthetic feel and tone of modern D&D, which was clearly not the design goals for the original DW, which is why I, personally, bounced off of it.

It's about the dungeon-crawling, resource-management style of play that is kind of what I go into PbtA games to get away from.

 

[mamba]

So, my issues with Dungeon World stemmed from how much it felt like it was trying to fit into an OSR box and a PbtA box at the same time, to the, imo, detriment of the latter.

What I really want is a PbtA game that copies the aesthetic feel and tone of modern D&D, which was clearly not the design goals for the original DW, which is why I, personally, bounced off of it.

It's about the dungeon-crawling, resource-management style of play that is kind of what I go into PbtA games to get away from.

Aren't there other PbtA games that do this, instead of trying to change DW into it

 

[Aldarc]

So, my issues with Dungeon World stemmed from how much it felt like it was trying to fit into an OSR box and a PbtA box at the same time, to the, imo, detriment of the latter.

What I really want is a PbtA game that copies the aesthetic feel and tone of modern D&D, which was clearly not the design goals for the original DW, which is why I, personally, bounced off of it.

It's about the dungeon-crawling, resource-management style of play that is kind of what I go into PbtA games to get away from.

Agreed all around. This is something that I noted elsewhere. Dungeon World leans into an old school aesthetic, but a fair share of DW players I knew were "new school" players who migrated to Dungeon World from 4e D&D. Even Dungeon World settings like Stonetop and A Sundered World originated out of 4e D&D games, so it felt like there was a weird mismatch of DW's "old school" aesthetic and DW's actual "new school" audience.