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.

 

[zakael19]

Where are you seeing things changing? I'm getting their newsletter (which seems the same as their blog). But, I can't see anything that has been changed as a result of feedback.

They’ve edited posts a couple times already.

 

[Gradine]

The fact that it is distancing itself from OSR is a big win for me. I never loved DW 1e because of how closely it adhered to really archaic ideas.

This for sure! I hesitantly looked into this because I trusted the writers and enjoyed their work and it looks like Dungeon World 2e is turning into exactly the kind of game I had hoped DW1e would've been.

I can't help but feel a little bad for the DW fans who are being demoralized by this change in direction, but I will also say how excited I am to see a true PbtA game that's still embracing the D&D origins rather than treating it like its icky, which frankly a lot of the PbtA space tends to do. I can't disagree that damage dice and HP just really don't fit well within the PbtA framework. I also can't disagree, however, that dropping Constitution and renaming the other five stats feels a little... uninspired. I think the Stats could use a bit more time in the oven.

This already shaping up to be a much larger change than the largest D&D shift, which was 3.5E to 4E.

I read this and I kind of wanted to argue that 4e is closer to 3.X than it is to 5e, but... I don't know, it's close. I think the "numbers keep going up" math is what is making me feel like the gap between 4 and 3 is a lot closer than what we got with the move to 5. But that's neither here nor there.

 

[John Lloyd1]

They’ve edited posts a couple times already.

What sort of changes did they make to the posts?

 

[zakael19]

w

What sort of changes did they make to the posts?

Hi, I'm not really tracking the stuff super close: but I do know that they edited the phrasing on their Sway replacement because it was pointed out on Reddit that as written it would trigger basically any time you asked anybody to do anything. I've seen other people say they've cleaned up a couple of their other entries since the posts were first made. If you go to Reddit or the Dungeon World discord I'm sure you'll find a lot more info.

 

[John Lloyd1]

Hi, I'm not really tracking the stuff super close: but I do know that they edited the phrasing on their Sway replacement because it was pointed out on Reddit that as written it would trigger basically any time you asked anybody to do anything. I've seen other people say they've cleaned up a couple of their other entries since the posts were first made. If you go to Reddit or the Dungeon World discord I'm sure you'll find a lot more info.

That is too deep for my interest. I treated them as more of a design sketch. Also, I have only played Dungeon World (and no other PbtA game) once. I find it interesting to see their design thinking and maybe I'll play or run some more of DW.

 

[SteveC]

I can't help but feel a little bad for the DW fans who are being demoralized by this change in direction, but I will also say how excited I am to see a true PbtA game that's still embracing the D&D origins rather than treating it like its icky, which frankly a lot of the PbtA space tends to do. I can't disagree that damage dice and HP just really don't fit well within the PbtA framework. I also can't disagree, however, that dropping Constitution and renaming the other five stats feels a little... uninspired. I think the Stats could use a bit more time in the oven.

I think I'm in the same place. One of the things I like about DW is that it is a bridge for D&D players to come into the PbtA world. If you read about how to run games in PbtA fashion, you both get something mechanically fun, but also something for those players to take back with them into the D&D world.

I own Chasing Adventure, and it's ... okay. It is a solid PbtA fantasy game. Is it something that a D&D player or DM is going to pick up and understand? I don't think so. And my take on what I'm seeing so far is less of a bridge between two worlds and more of a PbtA fantasy game. I sort of wonder why you'd want to license the game name if you're not going to take more of the engine with you.

I intend to look at the final product more, and might buy it, but I don't know if I need another PbtA fantasy game. I hope the designers take that into account, or you'll have people asking why it's called DW2 instead of any number of other name choices.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

iirc, DW1 was basically Adam and Sage on the Dungeon World Google+ (I think it was G+? Some forum somewhere - maybe it was storygames) and there was a ton of discussion about various aspects of it. I'm ok with designing in this way, although I didn't participate in DW1 conversation, and won't in DW2 either. The difference for me this time is I now have SO MANY MORE OPTIONS for this type of game than I had in 2011 - and I've played so many more games than D&D plus 3-4 others. In other words, I am now older and jaded, so... I doubt I'll back this - "but it's not you, it's me"