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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Messageboard Golem" data-source="post: 2011350" data-attributes="member: 18387">Dungeon world is a campaign setting that can be used in several ways, but basically it is a place where characters go when they die... maybe. It features a world that hovers between the world of the living and the world of the dead, maintained by the mysterious Caretakers. If the characters have their wits about and manage to complete one of the Caretakers' quests (or their heroic comrades barge in to save them), it is possible to cheat death and return to the land of the living.The product details a part of Dungeon world called Nex, which consists of a series of interrelated dungeons with a lot of strange denizens and several quests for characters to perform in order to escape from Dungeon World. Otherwise there is really no escape. If you die in here, chances are that you reappear somewhere in the dungeon, or else that you live on as a ghost.Let me say it at once: I found the concept of Dungeon World exciting. It is a potential way of solving inopportune character deaths by giving the character a chance to come back to the living when there is no raising available. Or characters could be trapped there by other means (like imprisonment spells) and need saving. Or you could stage an entire campaign there, if you like the bleak and gritty feel that would be a consequence of the conditions described in the introducition.The execution, though, is abominable. Many of the ELs are ridiculously high, especially since the characters are supposed to arrive alone and without equipment. The treasure is seriously out of whack, and many of the levels (including the maps) are poorly detailed and lacking in consistency. The product could usefully be mined for some cool encounters and NPCs but it's nowhere near presenting a viable campaign (or even a reasonable dungeon).Let's take a closer look. After a short introduction we are introduced to the basic characteristics of Dungeon world. Obviously you need to eat, drink and breathe in this world, and all of that presents problems. The air is bad, the food is scarce and the entire environment is so depressing that clerics eventually lose their faith (and their powers). Still, clerics abound in the dungeon part and there is no mention of level loss, nor is there any mention of food sources for the inhabitants. Now I am not picky about dungeon ecologies but this severely challenges my suspension of disbelief.There follows a discussions of ways to enter and exit Dungeon world. The default option is that you may end up there if you die (DM's discretion) and the only viable way to exit is to complete one of the Caretaker's quests. The Caretakers are not specified - all you know is that they are very powerful and seek to maintain the balance of the world. Really, I feel that they are merely a device of DM arbitrariness. If character actions disturb the balance of the world, a number of different creatures may be sent to harry them, from the CR½ Rock brats to the CR 12 Mud Urchins. Five new monsters are detailed, of which a few (Rock brats and Maze bullies) seem useful while the Tattler that screams to attract monsters if they detect strong deviances from a neutral alignment) just seem pointless.The caretakers are a kind of gods, which I find to be a problem. If Dungeon world siphons off souls of dying characters for an indefinite time, this should concern the gods of the campaign world. Yet there is no discussion about how to integrate it into the cosmology and the mythology of an existing campaign world. The bulk of the book is devoted to detailing a complex of interrelated dungeons called the Nex, which is described as "the heart of Dungeon World". Presumably the DM is supposed to detail other areas that connect to the Nex. It contains 25 levels of widely differing difficulty. Although they are all connected, each is described as a self-contained unit and the inhabitants don't seem given to wandering the levels (although many of them are quite small.Here the main problems start. The levels are crammed with powerful characters and monsters, but there seems to be no rhyme nor reason to their actions. There are several CR 20 encounters but no discussion of tactics or goals of these very powerful characters. There is generally way too much treasure (which might not be a problem, since it is doubtful whether you can bring any of it out of the dungeon. The cartography is bad, and many of the areas simply don't make sense.On the positive side, there are a number of interesting encounters and some of the art is good, with a haunting quality to it. Generally I think that this book would be most useful if you chose to run little pieces of it as a kind of dream-sequences. There is some kind of internal logic to some of the levels, but it the kind of logic you find in a dream. For a change of pace, some of the ideas could come in handy as mini-adventures, but as a campaign setting it is simply awful. At its relatively high price I am tempted to give it an 1 but it has a number of redeeming qualities, so I rate it as a 2.</blockquote>

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