Dungeon World

My overall experience in a limited run (6 sessions) with Dungeon World was positive, but I later discovered Ironsworn, and Ironsworn was everything I had hoped Dungeon World to be and more.

Ironsworn plus the Delve supplement is all I would ever need for awesome narrative fantasy gaming. If you want more "high magic" options, check out the Arcanum fan made supplement for Ironsworn on Drivethrurpg.
I love Ironsworn, but have never tried the Delve supplement. It sounds like it's worth perusing?
 

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Delve is excellent for those times when you want to do a "dungeon crawl" like area in Ironsworn.

It adds some additional moves for dungeon / site exploration, some new Oracles for twists and unique discoveries while staying true to the core game.

Edit: it also has an excellent set of rules for generating unique treasure and magic items, which is almost worth the price of admission by itself.
 


Hate to be that person but, if you're interested in a fantasy PbtA focused on dramatic storytelling, I'd like to recommend my own game, Against the Odds, which is available here.

If you or anybody else has any questions about it, I'd be more than happy to answer them.
 

To copy what I wrote elsewhere about Dungeon World:
I would run just about everything over Dungeon World for running Dungeon World: e.g., Hombrew World, Stonetop, World of Dungeons, Freebooters on the Frontier, Chasing Adventure, Fantasy World, etc.
It's not that Dungeon World is "that bad," but, rather, that these other games have improved or changed DW for the better in some way or another.

Like Dungeon World has a bit of an old school D&D/OSR aesthetic. But if that's what you want, then I would recommend either World of Dungeons or Freebooters on the Frontier, which do that better.

If you want a more polished version of the Dungeon World base game, then I would recommend either Homebrew World or Chasing Adventure.

If you want fantasy adventure but more in the vein of other PbtA games, then I would recommend Fantasy World.

Finally, I love Stonetop, which is one of my favorite games, but I recommend it if you are looking for something more tonally different than Dungeon World, as Stonetop is oriented around adventuring to help your fantasy Iron Age village and the game includes new Iron Age appropriate playbooks.
This is also my first time learning of @Helena Real's Against the Odds game, so I would certainly be curious about where her game fits into my above assessment.
 

To copy what I wrote elsewhere about Dungeon World:


This is also my first time learning of @Helena Real's Against the Odds game, so I would certainly be curious about where her game fits into my above assessment.
Hi! I'd say it is firmly focused on modeling fantasy fiction without any of the hassles of traditional fantasy RPGs (e.g. no equipment, no wealth, no hp, no armor). The rules include a corruption mechanic and heroic sacrifice that you can use to save the day, but your character dies in the process.

Each Calling (AKA Playbooks) has a resource they manage. In most cases you want to use it, whereas a couple of them (Sorcerer and Witch) you don't want to get any of it.

If you have any specific questions, feel free to ask me.
 


I ran Dungeon World a few years back for my old D&D group. I would say, success was moderate. In general, it's a neat game and I do like it for being a very condensed form of old-school D&D (with a different rule engine) - in particular the playbooks are really neat and rolling just 2d6+stat has a certain appeal to me.
However, the downside is that people really need to be onboard with things escalating by design and moves being less about the competence of your character and more about driving said escalation. I also think that the design of some of the moves is not really great (especially something like Defy Danger is easily triggered too often when you don't have a lot of experience with the game or PbtA games in general). Still it was a good experience and I can recommend giving it a try.
Side notes:
1) I ran the German version which already includes some of the advice from the Dungeon World Guide, a free supplement that provides some useful advice on how to run the game. If you pick up the English rules, I recommend having a look at the DWG, too.
2) There is a supplement called Perilous Wilds, which is useful if you want to build up an adventuring location. I'd say it's even useful beyond Dungeon World.
If you could provide me a link to the Dungeon World Guide, I would be most appreciative.
 

Dungeon World is not great as a PbtA game, but it still works.

I keep meaning to check out Chasing Adventure, which is an attempt to make a more PbtA Dungeon World, but haven't gotten around to it.
I think a big part of what made Dungeon World a huge success and very popular for a long time, and ironically enough, thus contributed significantly to the success and spread of PtbA games is precisely that.

Dungeon World isn't really, design-wise, a pure PtbA game, it's almost like a hybrid that's mostly PtbA but also includes significant OSR/earlier D&D/AD&D heritage, and when you run it or play it, you can actually lean it significantly one way or the other.

Personally I'd say if you're a fan of PtbA games already, and want to try a fantasy one, there are better options. But if you're not already a fan of PtbA games, it might well please you a lot more than many pure PtbA games, or simply be a lot more accessible. It's also weirdly highly compatible with most D&D/AD&D (1E/2E) material, arguably even later stuff, where other PtbA fantasy games tend not to be.

I'm told World of Dungeons evolves Dungeon World into a more successful form. I have not played either.
I would say whoever told you that is flatly wrong. World of Dungeons simply a vastly watered-down/simplified version of Dungeon World. If you're an experienced PtbA game-builder, and you want to build from there, yeah it's a better chassis to start building your own classes and so on from. But the actual game? It certainly isn't "more successful", it's just hugely pared-down, which is kind of missing the entire point imho. It's also no better as a PtbA game than DW.

It's a pity because I'd love to see a game which was an evolution of Dungeon World, rather than a simplification or a completely different, more classically PtbA-ish direction, but the closest we've got is stuff like Class Warfare, which isn't quite it imho.

If you could provide me a link to the Dungeon World Guide, I would be most appreciative.
It should be on the page below on the official site:

 
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