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.

 

[Cergorach]

It also doesn't have all the issues associated with Dungeon World or Luke Crane.

shrugs I don't care about the drama the writers/creators have/made, I'm more interested in the product. Dungeon World never attracted me. But a nice DW2e might... I've started to become interested in games like Blades in the Dark and Spire/Heart, part of it is the interesting setting/campaign, part of it is the art, and the other part of it is support in my favorite VTT (Foundry).

And while 'Chasing Adventure' might be great, looking great, it has the market footprint of a Beetle. To give an impression, they did a KS earlier this year for their Hardcover physical book, they had 221 backers (160 wanted the HC) and raised less then $10k. That's tiny! So tiny that no one bothered to make an implementation for a VTT. Dungeon World still has an active following after 10 years, in multiple languages, VTT support, etc. If/when DW2 comes out, I expect most fans to just move to that (including VTT support) and probably have more fans.

There are many, many gems in the world. You can appreciate them in private... And if you play in person, you can play the game with others. But if you play online, that becomes more difficult. And the one of the biggest issues of playing something else from your main game (like D&D) is learning the rules, not just the GM, but also the players. So you need to get a group of people to read a 215 page book well enough to make characters and play a game. With an integrated VTT much of that overhead is taken care of. Making it simpler to start and having something handle all the things you don't want to keep track of.

So if we have a pretty Chasing Adventure and a pretty Dungeon World 2 (similarly sized core book), which of the two do you think people will choose? The well supported one or the one with a few hundred backers? The world doesn't work like "If we make it, they will come!", things like marketing and existing market share are very important!

Sidenote: How many people actually dropped D&D 5e over the Gary G controversies? I expect not many... Art != artist.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Sidenote: How many people actually dropped D&D 5e over the Gary G controversies? I expect not many... Art != artist.

Or more to the point re: 5E, the Mike Mearls controversy, which, in the grand scheme of things, I'd actually rate as more harmful than what Koebel did, and also Mearls never really apologised for it (AFAIK, correct me if he did at some point), and instead just largely stopped posting on social media, but actually got promoted at WotC (classic "failing upwards") until his recent firing.

 

[Nathaniel Lee]

There is already an spiritual successor for Dungeon World, called Chasing Adventure:

DriveThruRPG

www.drivethrurpg.com

There is also a free version available here:

DriveThruRPG

www.drivethrurpg.com

The creator seems a really nice person, and the game looks great. I liked DW 1e, but not sure a cleanup DW is going to offer anything better than Chasing Adventure.

Cool! Thanks for the callout. I had never even heard of this game before. I might have to check it out. I have the original DW on my shelf, but have never gotten a chance to try it out as a GM. My one experience with it was playing in an introductory session with a former coworker. It would be interesting to see how this general PbtA system works from the GM's side of things, as I'm really only interested in GMing.

 

[Vicente]

shrugs I don't care about the drama the writers/creators have/made, I'm more interested in the product. Dungeon World never attracted me. But a nice DW2e might... I've started to become interested in games like Blades in the Dark and Spire/Heart, part of it is the interesting setting/campaign, part of it is the art, and the other part of it is support in my favorite VTT (Foundry).

And while 'Chasing Adventure' might be great, looking great, it has the market footprint of a Beetle. To give an impression, they did a KS earlier this year for their Hardcover physical book, they had 221 backers (160 wanted the HC) and raised less then $10k. That's tiny! So tiny that no one bothered to make an implementation for a VTT. Dungeon World still has an active following after 10 years, in multiple languages, VTT support, etc. If/when DW2 comes out, I expect most fans to just move to that (including VTT support) and probably have more fans.

There are many, many gems in the world. You can appreciate them in private... And if you play in person, you can play the game with others. But if you play online, that becomes more difficult. And the one of the biggest issues of playing something else from your main game (like D&D) is learning the rules, not just the GM, but also the players. So you need to get a group of people to read a 215 page book well enough to make characters and play a game. With an integrated VTT much of that overhead is taken care of. Making it simpler to start and having something handle all the things you don't want to keep track of.

So if we have a pretty Chasing Adventure and a pretty Dungeon World 2 (similarly sized core book), which of the two do you think people will choose? The well supported one or the one with a few hundred backers? The world doesn't work like "If we make it, they will come!", things like marketing and existing market share are very important!

Sidenote: How many people actually dropped D&D 5e over the Gary G controversies? I expect not many... Art != artist.

The issues with Dungeon World are not just about the creators drama (although that adds to the pile), that's why I separated them on the list. You can look at a lot of threads about PtbA games, and the consensus is that Dungeon World is not a good PtbA implementation. I agree with that, as much as I love the game personally (I own the original English print signed, and an extra Spanish edition which is a amazing, they did a very cool reprint there).

So yeah, feel free to wait for DW 2e! I know what I will be playing meanwhile

 

[mamba]

Sidenote: How many people actually dropped D&D 5e over the Gary G controversies? I expect not many... Art != artist.

would be a little late for that anyway

 

[Aldarc]

The issues with Dungeon World are not just about the creators drama (although that adds to the pile), that's why I separated them on the list. You can look at a lot of threads about PtbA games, and the consensus is that Dungeon World is not a good PtbA implementation. I agree with that, as much as I love the game personally (I own the original English print signed, and an extra Spanish edition which is a amazing, they did a very cool reprint there).

So yeah, feel free to wait for DW 2e! I know what I will be playing meanwhile

I assume you mean Fantasy World then as many of the criticisms that people make about Dungeon World not being a good PbtA implementation also applies to Chasing Adventure. Chasing Adventure undoubtedly addresses some of the criticisms people have about Dungeon World (e.g., HP); however, it's still much closer to Dungeon World in its implementation than to other acclaimed PbtA games. Dropping Constitution and renaming moves doesn't magically make Chasing Adventure a "good PbtA implementation."

 

[SteveC]

Exciting news on the new DW edition and thanks for sharing alternatives. Gives me some new shiny things to look at.

 

[Cergorach]

would be a little late for that anyway

10 years or 50 years, doesn't matter, it's the principle of the thing!

 

[Joshua Randall]

But the quote of Crane saying that DW needs a good editing pass leaves me hesitant. I absolutely love Burning Wheel, it's a great game. But all the Crane's products that I've touched severely lacked in editing. The organization, layout, language used, the amount of words to convey simple concepts has always been very lacking. It is not one of his strengths.

This.

Burning Wheel is unreadable.
Mouse guard is unplayable in its published form.

 

[Manbearcat]

This.

Burning Wheel is unreadable.
Mouse guard is unplayable in its published form.

?

I've read Burning Wheel, Torchbearer, and Mouse Guard.

I've run a smattering of BW and a ton of the latter two including a recent MG game (maybe 16 Missions/Players' Turns or so?) with @hawkeyefan and @Campbell and another player. MG being unplayable would certainly be news to both them and myself!

I can certainly accept that Burning Wheel is exhausting in its breadth and TB2 (though certainly not the economical TB1) is a bit of a sprawl and difficult to reference for some folks during play. But any of those three games being unreadable or unplayable? That claim isn't exactly on sturdy empirical grounds!