Dungeon World Meets Blades in the Dark

[Manbearcat]

THE WIZARD

Starting Actions: Attune * 2, Illuminate * 1


Dangerous Friends/Allies:

Mubome - Academic headmaster and secret sorcerer
Marquisa - "Witch" of the wood
Forstadt - Down on his luck, 4th generation of the pioneer who founded the Town
"Zombie Jane" - Half-elf who was resurrected after heart torn from her breast by a beast
Apothecary Gertrude - Annis Hag beyond the wall that "accepts" arcanists into her home
Zurpa - Kobold Priest constantly trying to enlist others into the service of Hestekyth "The Cinderlord."


Starting Abilities:

Unseen Servant: You have an invisible, non-expert Cohort Rover made of Force with the Loyal Edge. Name it. It can't do much, but what it can do is useful enough (carry Load 2 for you in invisible pockets, fetch something from across the room...slowly...but invisibly). If its destroyed, you have to fulfill a Downtime Project 4 to restore it.

Ritualist: You know the arcane methods to perform ritual sorcery. You can Study an arcane ritual (or create a new one) to summon a supernatural effect or being. You begin with 1 ritual already learned.

Book of Spells and Cantrips: Spells are ritual sorcery but take less time and pack less oomph but with the Volatile Drawback. You start with one of them. You can push to cast them to remove the Volatile Drawback (along with getting the normal effects of push). If you cast a spell without pushing, either some complication occurs or the spell vanishes from your mind and you'll have to recover it through preparation (1 Downtime Activity to recover all lost spells).

Spells can do things like unleash a stroke of lightning as a weapon, summon a storm in your immediate vicinity (torrential rain, roaring winds, heavy fog, chilling frost and snow, etc.), ensorcell someone, summon a thing into existence, ward you against a specified supernatural or mundane effect, give you sight beyond sight, etc.

A Cantrip is a lesser version of a Spell but it doesn't have the Volatile Drawback. It will have a Quality equal to Tier-1 (as if you rolled a 1-3 on Crafting), though casting it through your implement offsets that (bringing it to Quality equal to Tier+0).

You begin play with 1 Spell and 2 Cantrips in your book. Work with your GM and follow the Crafting rules for Arcane items to create them. Inventing new Spells or Cantrips or modifying the current ones follows the same framework.


Advancement Abilities:

Warded: You get 2 special armor to resist a supernatural consequence, or to push yourself when you contend with or employ arcane forces.

Counterspell: Stake a Spell and roll Attune to counter a supernatural effect on you or an ally. When you use it to Protect a teammate, take +1d to your resistance roll. You can Protect multiple teammates, but Stake a different Spell and roll Attune for each one.

Arcane Portent: Two times per Adventure you can assist a teammate without paying stress. Describe the vision you get and how it helps them (did you tell them beforehand/now?).

When You Stare Into the Abyss...You Don't Blink: You are immune to supernatural terror. When you make a resistance roll with Spirit, take +1d.

Witches and Warlocks: During downtime, you may consult spirits and entities not of this world to Acquire an Asset or Reduce Doom. When you do, you get +1 result level.

Golemlord: When you invent or craft a creation with arcane features, get +1 result level to your roll (a 1-3 becomes a 4/5, etc.). You begin with one arcane design already known.

Loremaster: Take +1d when you Gather Information about arcane forces or mysteries. You and your allies gain Potency when acting on the answer.

Necromancer: When you Attune with the corpse of the slain, Acquire an Asset. You gain an Elite Cohort for the rest of the Adventure with the Loyal Edge and Savage Flaw and with the Conspicuous Drawback and Volatile Drawback every time you use it.

Prodigy: During downtime, you get two ticks to distribute among any long term project clocks that involve investigation or learning a new formula, design, ritual, or spell.

Alchemist: When you invent or craft a creation with alchemical features, you get +1 result level to your roll (a 1-3 becomes a 4/5, etc.). You begin with one special formula already known.


Unique Equipment:

Fine Wand, Orb, Rod, or Staff (when you use it to channel a spell and resist the Volatile complication, take +1 to resistance rolls) - 1 Load
Veil, Spectacles or Goggles of Magic Detection - 1 Load
Hand Weapon (Close, Hand) - 1 Load
Crossbow (Far, Near, Precise, Reload) and Ammo - 2 Load - * * * * (Ammo)
Potion Belt - 1 Load - * * * (Uses/Slots)
Pointy hat with your arcane mark (because of course) - 0 Load
Arcane Kit (2) (satchel w/ rolled parchment/pen, stoppered bottles for samples to bring back to the workshop, tongs, charms, sanitizer) - 1 Load
(1 Coin) Adventuring Gear (crowbar, ropes/pitons/chalk/harness/clips, torches, winter cloak) - 2 Load * * (Uses)
(1 Coin) Camp Supplies - 2 Load * * * (Uses)

 

[hawkeyefan]

I like the wizard. Stress use to cast almost seems harsh, so I think you handled that well by allowing no stress use, but then the spell is forgotten or is cast with the volatile condition. I think I like that decision point.

Again, the abilities seem on point. I like the unseen servant and the ritualist. I think it’s a good idea to split rituals and spells into two things.

Quick question....in Counterspell, does “stake a spell” just mean sacrifice/expend a spell?

 

[Manbearcat]

I like the wizard. Stress use to cast almost seems harsh, so I think you handled that well by allowing no stress use, but then the spell is forgotten or is cast with the volatile condition. I think I like that decision point.

Again, the abilities seem on point. I like the unseen servant and the ritualist. I think it’s a good idea to split rituals and spells into two things.

Quick question....in Counterspell, does “stake a spell” just mean sacrifice/expend a spell?

If there’s a complication, “lose the staked spell” may be what the GM does (basically Dungeon World Counterspell exactly).

 

[Manbearcat]

I like the wizard. Stress use to cast almost seems harsh, so I think you handled that well by allowing no stress use, but then the spell is forgotten or is cast with the volatile condition. I think I like that decision point.

Again, the abilities seem on point. I like the unseen servant and the ritualist. I think it’s a good idea to split rituals and spells into two things.

Quick question....in Counterspell, does “stake a spell” just mean sacrifice/expend a spell?

My intention was the following:

a) Make magic both thematically and mechanically powerful but dangerous. Every time you cast a spell, danger may increase locally for you or somewhere in the world. For instance, a Burning Hands spell might catch the building on fire nearby (oh no, burning building complication!) or the Wizard may get an image of the barrier between the world and the Elemental Plane of Fire fraying...in the middle of a forest; Clock 6 to resolve "The Fire Elemental Cometh." Wizard would need to locate the breach via divination and personally fix the breach as a Downtime Project...or it would be an Adventure for the Company. Or, the spell may just vanish from the Wizard's mind (the least interesting outcome in my opinion so, for me personally as a GM, the one I'll deploy the least).

b) Give the Wizard player an interesting decision-point every time they cast a spell. Push and remove Volatile and also get my Push affect (but eat the 2 Stress), spend Special Armor to ignore it, or resist Volatile because I'm casting it through my implement (which gives me +1d Resistance here). I'm imagining a lot of creative Pushing for Effect (more targets, ensure the Charm is forgotten by the target, have something cool environmentally happen) but you've got both the tactical and the longterm, strategic layer of Stress management to consider.

c) Make the Wizard's implement precious (because it helps Resisting that Volatile complication). This creates a cool magic item angle and, more importantly, creates a nice pressure point for GM complications/threats against the Wizard.

d) Create angles for team synergy to help the Wizard get their payload off while managing the Complication exposure (perhaps someone else capable in Attune is going to to do a lot of Setup moves for the Wizard to turn Position to Controlled...or someone will be Protecting the Wizard from their own Wizard-born complications).

 

[Manbearcat]

So I need a 3rd playbook for the playtest I'm going to be running. I was initially going to be putting together Arcane Duelist (swashbuckling F/M), but that player isn't going to be available for the playtest so another player is going to be playing in their stead. But that player is agnostic on what playbook they run.

Anyone who is viewing this thread who has any input on what the 3rd playbook should be, please chime in.

 

[Ovinomancer]

I, unsurprisingly, don't like the spellcasting mechanics regarding stress. This is because it either locks the Wizard into a downtime cycle of either spending lots of downtime activities to recover lost spells or spending lots of downtime activities to recover stress. The other option is that the Wizard just accepts every spell has a Volatile drawback, which, I suppose, is a thing, but unless I'm earning XP for each one this is disincentivized. I'm not quite a fan of the idea that I either have to spend downtime activities (the stress cost is a middleman, we're actually trading downtime activities) to be magical or have consequences that don't aid me in any way.

So, my suggestion, then, would be to offer the following choices -- casting a spell cannot be a controlled action to start (magic is too volatile). You will usually lose that spell when you cast it. You can keep the spell if you accept a one step reduction in Effect.

This then can operate within the normal Blades decision matrix -- I can choose to keep the spell and then Push to recover the Effect loss. Or I can choose to have the spell be fully Effective, but I know I will lose it. Or, I can take a devil's bargain to get some special effect to the spell. These, tied with the fact that spellcasting is always at least Risky to start (unless you trade Effect for Position, still viable, to get a lesser Effect for a Controlled Position) and a heavy hand on offering Devil's Bargains, really drives the chaotic nature of magic while not locking in the cost of spellcasting is a downtime activity. It might still be, but this is a more in the moment choice that I think adds weight.

YMMV.

 

[hawkeyefan]

So I need a 3rd playbook for the playtest I'm going to be running. I was initially going to be putting together Arcane Duelist (swashbuckling F/M), but that player isn't going to be available for the playtest so another player is going to be playing in their stead. But that player is agnostic on what playbook they run.

Anyone who is viewing this thread who has any input on what the 3rd playbook should be, please chime in.

I would say go with one of the two remaining classic core classes, cleric or thief. I feel like that’d help you cover a bit more ground as far as playbooks go.

Although I’m interested in the idea of an Arcane Duelist and how it works as a kind of hybrid/dual class playbook. Would it just have its own set of Starting Abilities and then choose from the Fighter and Wizard Advancement Abilities? Or would you come up with a specific list of Advancements for the Arcane Duelist playbook?

And more generally, are Veteran Advances still a thing in this game? Can any character take an Advance from any playbook as in Blades, or will you restrict that in some way?

 

[Fenris-77]

The obvious playbooks would whatever the equivalents of Thief or Cleric. If the Cleric is going to have healing magic, especially if it's going to be able to clear stress, that's the one I'd try.

 

[Ovinomancer]

The obvious playbooks would whatever the equivalents of Thief or Cleric. If the Cleric is going to have healing magic, especially if it's going to be able to clear stress, that's the one I'd try.

Oh, goodness, no. Clearing stress would be a terrible mechanic! IMO, of course.

 

[Manbearcat]

I, unsurprisingly, don't like the spellcasting mechanics regarding stress. This is because it either locks the Wizard into a downtime cycle of either spending lots of downtime activities to recover lost spells or spending lots of downtime activities to recover stress. The other option is that the Wizard just accepts every spell has a Volatile drawback, which, I suppose, is a thing, but unless I'm earning XP for each one this is disincentivized. I'm not quite a fan of the idea that I either have to spend downtime activities (the stress cost is a middleman, we're actually trading downtime activities) to be magical or have consequences that don't aid me in any way.

So, my suggestion, then, would be to offer the following choices -- casting a spell cannot be a controlled action to start (magic is too volatile). You will usually lose that spell when you cast it. You can keep the spell if you accept a one step reduction in Effect.

This then can operate within the normal Blades decision matrix -- I can choose to keep the spell and then Push to recover the Effect loss. Or I can choose to have the spell be fully Effective, but I know I will lose it. Or, I can take a devil's bargain to get some special effect to the spell. These, tied with the fact that spellcasting is always at least Risky to start (unless you trade Effect for Position, still viable, to get a lesser Effect for a Controlled Position) and a heavy hand on offering Devil's Bargains, really drives the chaotic nature of magic while not locking in the cost of spellcasting is a downtime activity. It might still be, but this is a more in the moment choice that I think adds weight.

YMMV.

There are a lot of moving parts here that create a holistic picture of how I'm envisioning this emerging. Check out my post #144 to hawkeye for reference.

I'm seeing Casting Spells like a Leech with a lot of powerful grenades with the Volatile Drawback. Like a Leech, they would have Special Armor to deal with 2 * Spell deployment complications (the only Leech I've run that was a grenade lobbing fiend took Fortitude...I expect a lot of Wizards would take Warded earlier for the same reason). Further, like a Leech, having Golems/Zombies (like the Leech can make constructs) will help them not be entirely reliant upon Spells. However, unlike the Leech, this iteration of a Wizard would have:

a) The ability to Push themselves and not just remove Volatile but also get Push effects.

b) Spellcasting implements that would buff their ability to Resist Volatile (+1d).

c) Their Spell Loadout wouldn't be reliant upon and restricted by Bandlier boxes. They could continuously cast so long as they don't loose the spell.

Finally, as I mentioned in that #144 post, personally, just like I don't rely a lot upon Harm (new and interesting obstacles or the escalation of the situation is a lot more interesting to me) as Complications (unless Harm is profoundly more sensical in the situation than any other Complication), "Losing the Spell" as the Volatile Complication would be my last resort. So a lot of Wizards are just going to let those Complications pile on (like Wizards in my Dungeon World games do...they almost always opt for "Danger" as their complication rather than "Losing the Spell" or -1 ongoing to cast a spell...the split is probably 80/15/5 %).

I mean...I could be wrong (and a playtest will bear that out), but I think there are a lot of tools here to create interesting decision-points and mitigate the Stress fallout without entering a Stress > DTA Death Spiral.

I'll let you know what it looks like once I run it and if I have to tweak it. Just not seeing the spiral you're seeing at this point.