Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
White Dwarf Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Nest
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions, OSR, & D&D Variants
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
EN Publishing
Twitter
BlueSky
Facebook
Instagram
EN World
BlueSky
YouTube
Facebook
Twitter
Twitch
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions, OSR, & D&D Variants
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
Dungeon World Meets Blades in the Dark
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Manbearcat" data-source="post: 8256084" data-attributes="member: 6696971"><p>Alright. [USER=16814]@Ovinomancer[/USER] and [USER=6785785]@hawkeyefan[/USER] .</p><p></p><p>You've both got many questions and I feel like its going to be less productive to answer them individually (we can do that later) for now. I think it would be more productive to lay out exactly what inspired my thought for this prospective game and unpack that with more depth. The opening sentence under the <strong>STRUCTURE </strong>heading is below. This is what I'm going to unpack:</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I bolded Torchbearer there because I haven't talked enough about this. This is the inciting thought that triggered this project:</p><p></p><p>"How would I best PbtA/FitD Torchbearer (its depth of decision-points and the consequential, Sword of Damocles nature of a play loop that gets away from you) but with more of a Dungeon World type of protagonism rather than the oppressive and brutal lives of adventurers in Torchbearer?"</p><p></p><p>So let me talk about what is necessary to extract from Torchbearer to hew to this idea:</p><p></p><p><strong>STRUCTURE (LOOP)</strong></p><p></p><p>* Town phase > Pending distance from town = TBD "Journey" phase (just Pathfinder Test or Conflict that is basically a mini-adventure Adventure phase?) > Adventure phase > Camp phase > Pending distance from town = TBD "Journey" phase (just Pathfinder Test or Conflict that is basically a mini-adventure Adventure phase?) > Town phase.</p><p></p><p>* There is also a Winter phase but I'm not including that.</p><p></p><p>What does this look like? It looks like Blades (if you take out the "Journey" phase). So what I did in the structural implementation is (a) map the necessary parts of Torchbearer onto this prospective game using (b) FitD Structure + (c) Dungeon World Journey mechanics.</p><p></p><p>1) I know the Torchbearer structure works.</p><p></p><p>2) I know the Blades structure works.</p><p></p><p>3) The two are entirely compatible, if not symmetrical, so just map job/reskin.</p><p></p><p>4) I know Dungeon World Journey mechanics works.</p><p></p><p>5) Integrating (3) and (4) is trivial (because, again, you're basically just subbing in DW Journey mechanics for TB's Pathfinder Test or Conflict).</p><p></p><p><strong>TOWN EVENTS </strong></p><p></p><p>* Torchbearer post-Adventure Town Events can be looked at like (a) Blades' Faction or Fortune Clocks ticking to full and going off at Downtime or (b) Blades' post-Score Entanglements (with the gamestate and mechanical fallout).</p><p></p><p>* Again, the level of compatibility or symmetry is there so its a trivial map job/reskin.</p><p></p><p><strong>ILLUMINATE (ORIGINALLY LORE) AND CONSORT (ORIGINALLY RAPPORT) VS WISES AND CIRCLES</strong></p><p></p><p>* So Torchbearer, being a Burning Wheel/Mouse Guard game, uses Wises and Circles. I'm fairly confident you guys are both very familiar with these mechanics (from our conversations if not firsthand yourselves), but I'll elaborate if not and/or for any readers:</p><p></p><p>1) Wises are dredging up <em>obscure facts</em> to help your situation.</p><p></p><p>2) Circles are dredging up <em>relationships with NPCs</em> to help your situation.</p><p></p><p>Those should look familiar because they map pretty much directly to Illuminate//Consort as I'm envisioning them and as Dungeon World uses them (as Burning Wheel was a primary inspiritation for the game); Spout Lore is the Wises Analogue and Carouse + tons of Playbook-specific moves are the Circles analogue.</p><p></p><p>If I'm going to hack this sort of game, those are necessary to have.</p><p></p><p><strong>WHY USE FITD AS THE ENGINE FOR THIS?</strong></p><p></p><p>* Simply put, I know it works as an engine...and I know it maps to this specific content I'm working toward. Functionality + Utility + Fun.</p><p></p><p>* The Faction/Company game provides:</p><p></p><p>- A certain type of player-facing hierarchical form to the setting that is missing from Torchbearer (Torchbearer has hierarchical structure but (a) its not player-facing and (b) its not a minigame - more on this below).</p><p></p><p>- The prospective hierarchical form to the setting that this gives allows for (a) greater diversity of obstacles (Fronts in DW) than Torchbearers and (b) Adventures to take place in the city that basically map entirely to Blades Scores.</p><p></p><p>- The hierarchical form it gives to the setting broadly and DW Fronts works beautifully in terms of mechanical interactions. If I need to (a) set Position/Effect with Tier-inequivalent parties (evaluating the level of threat/danger for Position and then assessing factors for Effect) or (b) come up with a Fortune Dice Pool or Opposing Faction Mission Clocks and resolve that stuff...its trivially done! Just use the Blades rules!</p><p></p><p>- The hierarchy game is fun! And it maps beautifully to 4e's aesthetic of play (which, again, I know works). Growing your Company and making decision-points within that mini-game and expanding your profile/exposure (Folktale) in order to martial further resources to take on bigger threats is fun! This already happens in Dungeon World, Torchbearer, et al! The Blades mechanics just gives it form and well-oiled machinery to make it happen!</p><p></p><p><strong>DUNGEON WORLD (PERILOUS WILDS REALLY) JOURNEY MECHANICS MEETS BLADES ACTION RESOLUTION</strong></p><p></p><p>* Who is Scouting? Who is Navigating? Who is Making Camp and Managing Provisions?</p><p></p><p>* Great * 3. Risky/Standard across the board for day 1 of this Journey. </p><p></p><p>* Scout, here are the conditions of the journey (describes the scene and including topographical features with likely a decision-point on where they're scouting from and some potential threat info). How are you Scouting? <Describes and picks Action Roll> Ok. Success with Complications. You take point and do your thing. Choose 1 of these; Did you find a Discovery...did you find a beneficial aspect of the terrain...if the Navigator gets you guys into a Danger you can ensure that it doesn't get the drop on the Company.</p><p></p><p>* Move to Navigator > rinse repeat > resolve any Danger/Discovery.</p><p></p><p>* Move to Make Camp/Manager Provisions > rinse repeat. </p><p></p><p>* Do Camp phase > Downtime Activity * 1 > Take Watch + Fortune Roll for Danger > resolve.</p><p></p><p>* Make Engagement Roll if at Adventure Site or move to Day 2 if multi-day Journey phase.</p><p></p><p>* Just like in Torchbearer, Adventures further from the Town are higher threat (Tier in this case) and the danger/resource drain is more significant (because Journey goes from being elided to just a single Test to an actual Conflict).</p><p></p><p><strong>ENGAGEMENT ROLLS AFTER A JOURNEY? WHAT?</strong></p><p></p><p>- I'm not feeling the weight of the concern here. When you make an Engagement Roll, we're already adding +1 d for Major Advantage or subtracting -1 d for a Major Disadvantage. This trivially mapped to the outcome of the Journey phase:</p><p></p><p>- Did the journey go as expected (Danger didn't snowball out of the ordinary, resources weren't disproportionately burned through, exposure wasn't above normal)? Swell enough, no take +1 or -1.</p><p></p><p>- Did the journey go particularly badly (Danger snowballed above normal, resources were burned through disproportionately, the exposure was above normal)? Crap! Take -1 to Engagement Roll which increases the chance of bad Positioning when I frame the opening scene of the Adventure phase (maybe the bad guys had a scout and saw the Company on the move...maybe the Company is particularly road-weary or demoralized).</p><p></p><p>- Did the journey go particularly well (Danger was either minimal or it was handled beautifully, resources were stabilized entirely or perhaps a Discovery was made along the way and a cache was found, the exposure was below normal)? Great! Take +1 to Engagement Roll!</p><p></p><p>[HR][/HR]</p><p></p><p></p><p>Alright, all I have for tonight. I'll pick out things from you guys' specific posts tomorrow or early next week and respond (or I'll get a response up to a response to any of the above should there be one).</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Manbearcat, post: 8256084, member: 6696971"] Alright. [USER=16814]@Ovinomancer[/USER] and [USER=6785785]@hawkeyefan[/USER] . You've both got many questions and I feel like its going to be less productive to answer them individually (we can do that later) for now. I think it would be more productive to lay out exactly what inspired my thought for this prospective game and unpack that with more depth. The opening sentence under the [B]STRUCTURE [/B]heading is below. This is what I'm going to unpack: I bolded Torchbearer there because I haven't talked enough about this. This is the inciting thought that triggered this project: "How would I best PbtA/FitD Torchbearer (its depth of decision-points and the consequential, Sword of Damocles nature of a play loop that gets away from you) but with more of a Dungeon World type of protagonism rather than the oppressive and brutal lives of adventurers in Torchbearer?" So let me talk about what is necessary to extract from Torchbearer to hew to this idea: [B]STRUCTURE (LOOP)[/B] * Town phase > Pending distance from town = TBD "Journey" phase (just Pathfinder Test or Conflict that is basically a mini-adventure Adventure phase?) > Adventure phase > Camp phase > Pending distance from town = TBD "Journey" phase (just Pathfinder Test or Conflict that is basically a mini-adventure Adventure phase?) > Town phase. * There is also a Winter phase but I'm not including that. What does this look like? It looks like Blades (if you take out the "Journey" phase). So what I did in the structural implementation is (a) map the necessary parts of Torchbearer onto this prospective game using (b) FitD Structure + (c) Dungeon World Journey mechanics. 1) I know the Torchbearer structure works. 2) I know the Blades structure works. 3) The two are entirely compatible, if not symmetrical, so just map job/reskin. 4) I know Dungeon World Journey mechanics works. 5) Integrating (3) and (4) is trivial (because, again, you're basically just subbing in DW Journey mechanics for TB's Pathfinder Test or Conflict). [B]TOWN EVENTS [/B] * Torchbearer post-Adventure Town Events can be looked at like (a) Blades' Faction or Fortune Clocks ticking to full and going off at Downtime or (b) Blades' post-Score Entanglements (with the gamestate and mechanical fallout). * Again, the level of compatibility or symmetry is there so its a trivial map job/reskin. [B]ILLUMINATE (ORIGINALLY LORE) AND CONSORT (ORIGINALLY RAPPORT) VS WISES AND CIRCLES[/B] * So Torchbearer, being a Burning Wheel/Mouse Guard game, uses Wises and Circles. I'm fairly confident you guys are both very familiar with these mechanics (from our conversations if not firsthand yourselves), but I'll elaborate if not and/or for any readers: 1) Wises are dredging up [I]obscure facts[/I] to help your situation. 2) Circles are dredging up [I]relationships with NPCs[/I] to help your situation. Those should look familiar because they map pretty much directly to Illuminate//Consort as I'm envisioning them and as Dungeon World uses them (as Burning Wheel was a primary inspiritation for the game); Spout Lore is the Wises Analogue and Carouse + tons of Playbook-specific moves are the Circles analogue. If I'm going to hack this sort of game, those are necessary to have. [B]WHY USE FITD AS THE ENGINE FOR THIS?[/B] * Simply put, I know it works as an engine...and I know it maps to this specific content I'm working toward. Functionality + Utility + Fun. * The Faction/Company game provides: - A certain type of player-facing hierarchical form to the setting that is missing from Torchbearer (Torchbearer has hierarchical structure but (a) its not player-facing and (b) its not a minigame - more on this below). - The prospective hierarchical form to the setting that this gives allows for (a) greater diversity of obstacles (Fronts in DW) than Torchbearers and (b) Adventures to take place in the city that basically map entirely to Blades Scores. - The hierarchical form it gives to the setting broadly and DW Fronts works beautifully in terms of mechanical interactions. If I need to (a) set Position/Effect with Tier-inequivalent parties (evaluating the level of threat/danger for Position and then assessing factors for Effect) or (b) come up with a Fortune Dice Pool or Opposing Faction Mission Clocks and resolve that stuff...its trivially done! Just use the Blades rules! - The hierarchy game is fun! And it maps beautifully to 4e's aesthetic of play (which, again, I know works). Growing your Company and making decision-points within that mini-game and expanding your profile/exposure (Folktale) in order to martial further resources to take on bigger threats is fun! This already happens in Dungeon World, Torchbearer, et al! The Blades mechanics just gives it form and well-oiled machinery to make it happen! [B]DUNGEON WORLD (PERILOUS WILDS REALLY) JOURNEY MECHANICS MEETS BLADES ACTION RESOLUTION[/B] * Who is Scouting? Who is Navigating? Who is Making Camp and Managing Provisions? * Great * 3. Risky/Standard across the board for day 1 of this Journey. * Scout, here are the conditions of the journey (describes the scene and including topographical features with likely a decision-point on where they're scouting from and some potential threat info). How are you Scouting? <Describes and picks Action Roll> Ok. Success with Complications. You take point and do your thing. Choose 1 of these; Did you find a Discovery...did you find a beneficial aspect of the terrain...if the Navigator gets you guys into a Danger you can ensure that it doesn't get the drop on the Company. * Move to Navigator > rinse repeat > resolve any Danger/Discovery. * Move to Make Camp/Manager Provisions > rinse repeat. * Do Camp phase > Downtime Activity * 1 > Take Watch + Fortune Roll for Danger > resolve. * Make Engagement Roll if at Adventure Site or move to Day 2 if multi-day Journey phase. * Just like in Torchbearer, Adventures further from the Town are higher threat (Tier in this case) and the danger/resource drain is more significant (because Journey goes from being elided to just a single Test to an actual Conflict). [B]ENGAGEMENT ROLLS AFTER A JOURNEY? WHAT?[/B] - I'm not feeling the weight of the concern here. When you make an Engagement Roll, we're already adding +1 d for Major Advantage or subtracting -1 d for a Major Disadvantage. This trivially mapped to the outcome of the Journey phase: - Did the journey go as expected (Danger didn't snowball out of the ordinary, resources weren't disproportionately burned through, exposure wasn't above normal)? Swell enough, no take +1 or -1. - Did the journey go particularly badly (Danger snowballed above normal, resources were burned through disproportionately, the exposure was above normal)? Crap! Take -1 to Engagement Roll which increases the chance of bad Positioning when I frame the opening scene of the Adventure phase (maybe the bad guys had a scout and saw the Company on the move...maybe the Company is particularly road-weary or demoralized). - Did the journey go particularly well (Danger was either minimal or it was handled beautifully, resources were stabilized entirely or perhaps a Discovery was made along the way and a cache was found, the exposure was below normal)? Great! Take +1 to Engagement Roll! [HR][/HR] Alright, all I have for tonight. I'll pick out things from you guys' specific posts tomorrow or early next week and respond (or I'll get a response up to a response to any of the above should there be one). [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
Dungeon World Meets Blades in the Dark
Top