Interesting that everyone I’ve heard who likes Dungeon World likes it with a hack/supplement added. Not a bad thing exactly, but just something I’ve noticed.
Dungeon World
- Thread starter GothmogIV
- Start date
Ruin Explorer
Legend
I don't lol.
I like DW fine without anything. Class Warfare is fine, but it wasn't quite what I wanted.
jdrakeh
Front Range Warlock
Dungeon World is fine out of the box. Class Warfare simply adds a lot of playbook options that better adapt the system to other fantasy settings.
innerdude
Legend
So I'm going to plug Ironsworn one more time as a better gateway to PbtA-style fantasy gaming than Dungeon World for a few reasons. The two games are very much kith-and-kin in terms of the type/style of gameplay they're trying to emulate, but Ironsworn just does it better.
All that said, if your heart is set on Dungeon World, it's not a bad game, and fun can be had with it. But I agree with the general consensus of EN World that bog-standard, "core" Dungeon World is basically an inferior form of products that have now improved upon it. The one dissenting voice you'll hear on that is Manbearcat, who would tell you that Dungeon World can robustly stand on its own.
That just didn't happen to be my experience. The sum of the components added to Ironsworn is greater than each individual mechanic taken in isolation.
To make the contrast, I liked Dungeon World. But I knew within the first 90 minutes of playing Ironsworn that my hard copy of Dungeon World had just been relegated to a paper weight.
Ironsworn is simply better at delivering the experience I wanted and expected from Dungeon World and is easily one of my Top 3 favorite RPGs of all time.
*Final thought --- Don't get caught up in the idea that Ironsworn really only works as a solo-play RPG. It is fantastic in group play led by a GM. The biggest thing to remember is to really listen to what the text is telling you as a GM. This isn't D&D, where there's a lot of sort of unspoken assumptions and underlying "GM cultural history" you're supposed to draw upon to make the thing work. Take what the text tells you at face value and apply it.
- The explanations of gameplay / play loop / mechanical flow in Ironsworn are so vastly superior to original Dungeon World as to hardly warrant a comparison. Yes, the "core MC" rules about moves/responses to moves are there in Dungeon World, but they're scattered throughout the book in ways that aren't easy to digest in sequence, and are honestly lacking in constructive explanation. Ironsworn includes visuals and flowcharts, commentary on GM thought processes and adjudication that are missing in the Dungeon World text that make it much, much easier to digest and really comprehend.
- This is probably because in real life, author Shawn Tomkin is a UX/UI/graphic designer by trade, and it shows in every page in the Ironsworn series of books. Incredibly well laid out and indexed, well designed, outstanding visual illustrations of gameplay and flow.
- Ironsworn admittedly has less surface-level resemblance to D&D compared to Dungeon World, but if you're transitioning from D&D directly, there's actually more mechanical structures layered onto the proto-PbtA system in Ironsworn. For me, the additional mechanical structure (though still not anywhere close to D&D) gave me a more solid foundation to connect with the system as a player and GM.
- Along with this, the asset system is an absolutely genius way of implementing class feats + special skills to PCs to differentiate them that doesn't rely on the rigid "playbook" structure of PbtA and Dungeon World in particular.
- Ironsworn's core dice rolling mechanic + the use of the momentum mechanic as a tactical interplay is significantly more interesting than PbtA / Dungeon World's default 2d6 + modifier, reach 7-9 or 10+.
- Ironsworn's progression mechanic is more interesting via progress tracks + quest vows.
All that said, if your heart is set on Dungeon World, it's not a bad game, and fun can be had with it. But I agree with the general consensus of EN World that bog-standard, "core" Dungeon World is basically an inferior form of products that have now improved upon it. The one dissenting voice you'll hear on that is Manbearcat, who would tell you that Dungeon World can robustly stand on its own.
That just didn't happen to be my experience. The sum of the components added to Ironsworn is greater than each individual mechanic taken in isolation.
To make the contrast, I liked Dungeon World. But I knew within the first 90 minutes of playing Ironsworn that my hard copy of Dungeon World had just been relegated to a paper weight.
Ironsworn is simply better at delivering the experience I wanted and expected from Dungeon World and is easily one of my Top 3 favorite RPGs of all time.
*Final thought --- Don't get caught up in the idea that Ironsworn really only works as a solo-play RPG. It is fantastic in group play led by a GM. The biggest thing to remember is to really listen to what the text is telling you as a GM. This isn't D&D, where there's a lot of sort of unspoken assumptions and underlying "GM cultural history" you're supposed to draw upon to make the thing work. Take what the text tells you at face value and apply it.
Aldarc
Legend
Dungeon World is no longer supported by its own creators. One of them has received a Black Mark by the industry, and the other has walked away from the game and probably would do Dungeon World differently. So the Dungeon World torch has been carried by other creatives, and their supplements tend to flesh out the game in different ways.
I tend to fall into the Lampblack & Brimstone camp, which involves frequent collaborators Jason Lutes and Jeremy Strandberg. If you read their games and supplements, you can definitely see overlapping ideas between Jeremy Strandberg and Jason Lutes. That also means that it's a fairly compatible eco-system of supplements and games.
Jason Lutes wrote the highly lauded Perilous Wilds supplement, which some people in DW consider as mandatory. Jason is also the creator of Freebooters on the Frontier, which I previously mentioned as being in beta for its second edition.
Jeremy Strandberg created both Hombrew World and Stonetop. Stonetop is probably a Top 3 favorite game for me.
Most of the time if I want to run an easy DW game for friends, I will probably be running Homebrew World (and maybe using Perilous Wilds). If I want a longer-form game, then I will probably be playing Stonetop.
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All that said, I also have a separate issue with Dungeon World that has more to do with its brand of D&D sensibilities and aesthetics. When it was written, OSR was the rage. So Dungeon World leans a bit more heavily into the aesthetics of "old school" D&D. I tend to be more of a "new school" D&D person, so I think that I would have preferred a Dungeon World that leaned more heavily into well... 4e "new school" aesthetics and sensibilities. And considering that there is a "weird" overlap between 4e and Dungeon World fans, including myself, it seems that the game would potentially be better served in the long-term by a revision that leaned more heavily into that 4e D&D side of things. But that's just me.
NOTE: My biggest piece of advice for running Dungeon World or any spin-offs is DO NOT TREAT MOVES IN DUNGEON WORLD LIKE D&D SKILL CHECKS. This is one of the biggest mistakes, IME, when it comes to people coming into DW from D&D.
In D&D you roll dozens of ability/skill checks all the time for the most banal of tasks. Climbing a mountain? Roll an Athletics check. Attacking a dragon with your sword? Roll an attack roll.
A character in DW does not roll Defy Danger every time they climb a mountain because you only roll if there is an imminent threat. Likewise, character in DW may not have a chance to succeed in causing physical harm to a dragon with a regular sword, and so there is no need to roll Hack & Slash. (But if they had a Black Arrow passed down from the Lords of Dale and know that there is a missing scale on the dragon's belly? Roll Volley.) Read the Moves in Dungeon World carefully. They tell you the particular conditions when they are triggered.
