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]

What I have seen seems to be moving the game more towards more conventional play. It does not seem to me to make it more of a Powered by the Apocalypse game. Unless that means more like Monster of the Week. This design is emphatically less like Apocalypse World, Monsterhearts, Apocalypse Keys, Cartel, Pasión de las Pasiones, et al.

But perhaps more like UHH, or Firebrands, or (Masks maybe?) any of the incredibly broad swathe of games that claim the philosophy! I appreciate that they’re trying to make a game that’s more of a “group against the world” feeling - because that’s very much the core of most fantasy play right now. Managing how you design moves and the conflict engine around that would take some thought and drift away from DW. I’m curious as to what sort of questions they will be playing to find out, Helena’s game was quite opinionated on that, but I’m not sure if Chasing Adventure is in the same way.

On the other hand, Stonetop got to pretty robust group-based play without ripping away all the D&D/DW stuff so idk. TBH, I really just read most of their commentary as a refuting of the “bad D&Dness” of Dungeon World.

 

[Campbell]

I don't really have a problem with them making a decision about the direction of the game. Only the idea of what a Powered by the Apocalypse game should be. The game they are designing is definitely not for me, but neither was Dungeon World really.

 

[Gradine]

I will say that I like D&D, and I did not like DW, and I am so far liking the look of DW2. I think the idea that the original DW wasn't "PbtA enough" is entirely relatable, and one I agree with, but I also think that "PbtA philosophy" is more of a wibbly wobbly thing, based more on vibes than hard and fast rules about what mechanics are/are not necessary/verboten. I would agree that scaling HP and damage dice were part of what turned me off in DW; that's not to say that you couldn't have such things in a PbtA game but they (or at least their implementation in DW) definitely don't fit the "vibes" that I'm used to/looking for in a PbtA.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I don't really have a problem with them making a decision about the direction of the game. Only the idea of what a Powered by the Apocalypse game should be. The game they are designing is definitely not for me, but neither was Dungeon World really.

I think the game they're designing will probably be fine, and they can definitely make whatever decisions they like about it in that sense.

I think it's pretty messed-up that they're using the Dungeon World name for it, though, in exactly the same way bigger companies purchasing or re-using the names of IPs for basically-unrelated products is messed-up. I don't think there's an exemption to this just because you're a small indie company or w/e. They essentially say they're making "Critical Role Simulator", with an intentionally very narrow focus.

It's pretty equivalent to buying the name to say, Vampire: The Masquerade, and then turning it into a game that is about emulating the specific dynamics of The Vampire Diaries TV series and only the Vampire Diaries TV series or things very similar to it (which would not, for example, include, say, 90% of VtM and 99% of VtR campaigns nor Anne Rice-style stuff).

Further, maybe it's just me but I'm not entirely convinced the "Sure we're making Critical Role Simulator, you can play a different PtbA RPG for other D&D vibes!" thing is either justifiable (but let's assume it is and leave that to the side), or, more importantly, not just "backfill", because it's weird to me that it doesn't match the initial announcement very well. It's fine if they decided actually they want to narrow the focus, but I'm really wondering if that was always the intention (again, not really if they're going to call it DW2 though lol).

Also, whilst I am saying they can make whatever decisions they like, none of the mechanical stuff they've shown so far even matches with the description of the game they say they're making, imho. Instead it looks more like they're making the game more grounded and generic and possibly less heroic and specific, which seems like it kind of runs counter to the goals? Like, Read Someone seems like a largely unnecessary move, and they don't do a great job justifying it. Examine is essentially just a "nerfed", far less evocatively named, and more complicated version of Discern Realities. Sway seems pretty meh (and again, less evocatively named). Also frankly the claim "You can't Parley with appeals to emotions or ideals." is, well, "just your opinion, man" and doesn't pass the sniff test I'd suggest. It's not actually informed by the rules either but apparently by an answer on StackExchange, which is not a great justification!

In fact, let me go further - I would go as far as to say, Sway, as described, appears to represent a real step back in design, one that is actually less informed by any "PtbA principles" than Parley was, and is much more like a kind of generic "force the PCs to roll every time they want an NPC to do anything at all", which Parley was not. It's also kind of rubbish because it's actually three different moves, with different principles, just under one subheading, which like, again seems a very different direction to the one they're describing (also frankly they results aren't well thought-through).

EDIT - Also also - they seem to be very keen on using actual moves on other PCs, like PvP stuff, particularly socially, and please correct me if I'm wrong, but everything I've seen of CR/Vox Machina does not seem to have that happening. On the contrary, whilst the PCs do sometimes come into conflict, they are notable in that they generally don't just try and "Read" or "Sway" each other in the ways described in those two moves, but make emotional pleas to the hearts of other characters, which doesn't fit at all well with any of the three options in Sway, neither in the way they function (they're kind of missing an "emotional appeal" one), nor the possible results.

I will say that I like D&D, and I did not like DW, and I am so far liking the look of DW2.

Which is kind of my point. It seems like they've taken the name of one product, and made a different game, one aimed it to appeal to people who didn't like or play that product, but rather specifically for people who were critical of it. In a decade will we see Shadowdark get sold and "Shadowdark 2" come out and it's basically just Pathfinder 1E?

 

[Gradine]

Which is kind of my point. It seems like they've taken the name of one product, and specifically recrafted it to appeal to people who didn't like or play that product, but rather specifically for people who were critical of it. In a decade will we see Shadowdark get sold and "Shadowdark 2" come out and it's basically just Pathfinder 1E?

On the one hand, I absolutely get it. They're taking something that you loved and making it into something unrecognizable. Look at how they massacred my boy. That totally sucks, and I can empathize.

On the other, more troll-like hand, I would say that I have never heard of a game design crafted primarily to address criticism of a previous edition, I say sarcastically as I get ready to run some D&D 5e, and then maybe for fun later we'll play every edition of Shadowrun* ever **



*They never did get that one quite right, did they?
**Following the established "more than one emoji" rule

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Also (putting this in another post to stop excessive re-editing of my previous), re: D&D having changed over that time, it has, but I don't think that particular aspect they're pointing to is actually true to the degree they're suggesting. Let me quote a bit:

Where in the past D&D was known for dungeon survival and powerful treasure, now it is more known for dramatic scenes involving fantasy characters. People still play TTRPGs for many different reasons, but someone looking for a 'D&D experience' today might mean a very different thing now than they would have twenty years ago.

Is that really more true now though for people actually play D&D than it was, say, ten years ago? Or twenty, even? I mean really is it? Because I'm not convinced. The place where the quote is true is "most professionally-produced, actor/comedian-involving podcasts and streams about D&D", but I don't see any compelling evidence that it's generally true of how most groups actually play D&D, and I've seen a lot of new players play D&D now.

The type of D&D story we want to emulate is a group of messy people embarking on dangerous fantasy adventures and growing into a heroic found family. This is the central narrative of not only many D&D campaigns

I mean, that's the focus of the Fast and the Furious movies (we can't call the car stunts anything but fantasy by F&F5), but is that actually "the [emphasis in original] central narrative" of "many D&D campaigns"? Because again, hmmmm, skeptical. I think it's something that naturally happens in a fair number of D&D campaigns, but the central narrative the way it is in CR or F&F? I don't really think so. Am I wrong? I mean, maybe I am, but I've always been interested in how people actually play D&D campaigns, and outside of podcasts and streaming, I'm not seeing this as what they specifically emphasize as the "central narrative" of "many" D&D campaigns.

I think what is true is that D&D has slowly become more openly heroic/superheroic, as referred to earlier in this thread:

fantasy superheroes doing action-movie set pieces with a strong focus on thespianism

But that's been a gradual trend over 40 years, and nothing in the original DW vitiates against that (indeed, the class designs and powers explicitly support "fantasy superheroes", far better than any edition of D&D), except, very arguably, the "vibes" of the art. Further, it's not the same thing as "Most D&D campaigns have emotive 'found family' scenes as the central narrative", and neither is intrinsic to the other.

And again, from the rules we've seen revealed so far, DW2 seems more grounded and less heroic than DW! They say they're going to reveal combat next, and it'll be very interesting to see if it's been made less heroic and more grounded like the rest of the moves so far.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

On the other, more troll-like hand, I would say that I have never heard of a game design crafted primarily to address criticism of a previous edition, I say sarcastically as I get ready to run some D&D 5e, and then maybe for fun later we'll play every edition of Shadowrun* ever **

I mean, you mention Shadowrun but that's a really good supporting example for me!

Specifically Shadowrun was like, continuous though 1E to 3E, with a clear effort to maintain the same tone, the same game focus, the same basic way of operating the rules and so on, and then it got licenced (sold?) to Fantasy Productions, a completely different set of people with different ideas, who made an absolute mess of things, and absolutely I think almost any Shadowrun or even non-hater would say 4E Shadowrun was a clear-cut case of "look at how they massacred my boy"!

D&D isn't exactly a bad example either - 1-3.5E, they're basically trying to do the same thing, but 4E, much as I loved 4E, wanted to do something a bit different - not as different as is being proposed here, I'd suggest but different enough that it was off-putting to like, 50% of extant D&D players. And when WotC decided to go in the opposite direction, and make a game that was much broader than 4E, and much more oriented towards a broad focus rather than a narrow focus, that was tremendously successful (albeit for complex reasons), where 4E had not been. For a lot of people, 4E did "massacre their boy", and I suspect that'll be even more true for DW2, especially they keep this confused-ass design up! Like pick a lane, for god's sake! They're saying they want Critical Role/Guardians of the Galaxy, but so far the rules they're writing are for like, something a lot more nebbish and grounded than that! It actually reminds me of 3E in a weird way. Like they're trying too hard to "rationalize" and "make sensible and orderly" the rules of DW, which were intentionally a bit chaotic or specific.

 

[SteveC]

On the one hand, I absolutely get it. They're taking something that you loved and making it into something unrecognizable. Look at how they massacred my boy. That totally sucks, and I can empathize.

I honestly find it strange more than anything else. I enjoy PbtA games and have a lot of them. There are a lot of D&D-esque versions out there. A simple search found plenty of articles on finding the fantasy PbtA game that's right for you. And there are tons of them I've never heard of!

I wonder if plans for DW2 didn't have a major change over time. I also wonder what makes DW a valuable asset. Is it just that it's fairly well known and has been around for a long time? Or is it because the design is different, and if I'm being honest, suffers from it, in order to have similarities to D&D.

I've played and run DW for people who are much more D&D-centered in their gaming experience. What it did, more than anything else, was teach them about running the game as a Conversation. All of them have played other games with me, including games like Champions, which is a very crunch heavy system. What they all said after playing was, "Oh so now we get how you run games and where it came from." That's what DW did for me: it formalized my idea of how to run a game in a manner that works for me.

DW was a simple sell for D&D players because you can roll 3D6, pick a class, pick a class feature and then let's go. The fact that it plays very differently is something that is allowed to flow very naturally. If I seem frustrated it's because the ease of transition works largely because of rules elements that seem to be leaving.

 

[zakael19]

I wonder if plans for DW2 didn't have a major change over time. I also wonder what makes DW a valuable asset. Is it just that it's fairly well known and has been around for a long time? Or is it because the design is different, and if I'm being honest, suffers from it, in order to have similarities to D&D.

To give you an idea of its reach as a brand, it's one of two PBTA tags on r/lfg (probably the biggest community for finding online RPG play?) - the other being MOTW.

EDIT - Also also - they seem to be very keen on using actual moves on other PCs, like PvP stuff, particularly socially, and please correct me if I'm wrong, but everything I've seen of CR/Vox Machina does not seem to have that happening. On the contrary, whilst the PCs do sometimes come into conflict, they are notable in that they generally don't just try and "Read" or "Sway" each other in the ways described in those two moves, but make emotional pleas to the hearts of other characters, which doesn't fit at all well with any of the three options in Sway, neither in the way they function (they're kind of missing an "emotional appeal" one), nor the possible results.

Having actual conflict resolution mechanics between PCs works way better for genuine play when you're not a set of actors maximizing drama for an audience, in that it lets you play your character to the hilt while sustaining a meta channel to actually resolve stuff and move forward. I'm glad they're keeping that in, I was a little worried they'd drop it tbh.

I anticipate Sway being tightened down significantly after the Alpha test. TBH, it should be 3 different moves with really explicit triggers.

 

[Gradine]

I mean, you mention Shadowrun but that's a really good supporting example for me!

Specifically Shadowrun was like, continuous though 1E to 3E, with a clear effort to maintain the same tone, the same game focus, the same basic way of operating the rules and so on, and then it got licenced (sold?) to Fantasy Productions, a completely different set of people with different ideas, who made an absolute mess of things, and absolutely I think almost any Shadowrun or even non-hater would say 4E Shadowrun was a clear-cut case of "look at how they massacred my boy"!

Not at all the point, but I'll say I know more people who swear by 4e than any other version of Shadowrun (5 & 6, not so much...)