Dungeon World ...

Anyone out there tried Dungeon World? (review: http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/15/15793.phtml)

I've been running a game in my home gaming group and it has been quite a bit of fun for us. A very rules lite, old school feeling system with a touch of "indie" RPG thrown in.

We've been talking about using it with some classic 1st ed. WHFRP modules perhaps next fall. Anyway to anyone looking for a really clean, simple, super fun system to run classic hack and slash fantasy with I would highly recommend this. I honestly prefer it for OSR style games to stuff like basic fantasy, Castles and Crusades and Labyrinth Lords (just my personal subjective opinion though as all of those are great systems).

I have heard plenty about dungeonworld but never read or played it. Given its based on apocolypse world and that I have heard terrible things about that then I doubt it will fit my play style. From what I gather its written by a different guy so I dont things like sex for XP is in there.

I am curious about what you think dungeon world brings to the classic warhammer campaigns. If its built for hack and slash it wont be much use for the enemy within or its like. Does it do something that makes you think "thats warhammery!"

I ask because I am running death on the reik and on the look out for good ideas to steal.

I've been enjoying the John Blanche art in Advanced Fighting Fantasy lately, but other than that I don't get around to RPG's much these days. I own Dungeon World but found it not to my liking... It's a little too focused on player powers for me, and thus violates the pathetic aesthetic that I dig about old school games. To each their own though!

This isn't a rant I swear ... love DW or wipe yer arse with it I don't care ... to each their own. I just happen to like it and thought I'd post here about it.

@Rob S. I don't know what to say about your AW comment. The "sex" thing was really a very minor footnote to the game itself. Also sort of a prudish take given we all love Warhammer and I'm sure I don't need to explain how Slaanesh works

Kidding aside. The reason I like the system is it is free and open and not constrained with metric crap tons of rules and tables, so yes that is different from many old "core" systems. So right there I guess most "old school" gamers might decide to close the book and call it a day. No massive random tables ...anywhere ... so how can it be "old school" ... I can't answer that one honestly.

DW has a simple 2D6 mechanic which I love and in general the system is very open and flexible to allow for endless customization. One big reason I would happily use DW for a game set in the Warhammer universe is it is a dangerous game where PCs can easily die if they start kicking doors in and acting without thinking, etc. The DM has many mechanisms to advance their own "fronts" against the party which would be very useful in a Warhammer style game. The game is balanced heavily towards the DM like most old school RPGs. So overall DW has the old school dangerous feel to it that I fondly recall from 1st ed.
Player failure is a constant threat, they have to work together and not be bone headed if they want to succeed, otherwise, they die, fast ... to me very old school. WHFB, Red Box Basic D&D, etc. It is very easy to convert the bestiary of 1st ed. D&D, WHFB, etc. into DW so running old modules is easy.

DW does not hold the DMs hand and do everything for them, to run a good DW game it takes creativity, intelligence and a little work on the side. Using classic 1st ed. D&D modules and I would argue 1st ed. WHFRP modules as well is very easy with DW.

Again if players are being fools and kicking doors in modules like the Enemy Within, the Temple of Elemental Evil, etc. they will party wipe fast. There are plenty of ways to run a more RP centric game with DW, in fact I think the game is really not being played properly if that isn't the case. I feel that DW would do just fine for Warhammer based games when it comes to providing opportunity for dark fantasy and more RP centered game play. DW is a system that calls for DMs to be creative, to create custom moves and custom classes, it would be very easy to build any of the 1st/2nd ed. WHFRP character classes in DW.

As far as hack and slash goes I would argue that defacto most old school Fantasy RPGs are ultimately built for Hack and Slash, in fact I believe that the very concept of hack and slash is an OS concept. Personally in my several years of 1st ed. WHFB, then years of 2nd ed. play and decades of D&D most games ended up with some heavy hack and slash at times. Sure there might be political intrigue and nefarious sub-plots along the way ... but at the end of the day it boiled down to fun, gritty hack and slash combats. Not long drawn out "chess-match" combats (3.5/4e D&D did that though) but fast, eventful, dangerous combats that have meaning to the game where players can and will die if they aren't smart and a little lucky.

I think much of "old school" comes down to "I like my old stuff, it is awesome, not broken doesn't need to be fixed and I don't want to try new old school like stuff" and I hear that. For someone who can play the original games, who have groups who are willing to do so, etc. great, I envy you. I have no qualms with people who like their old stuff and have no desire to try new stuff, again I applaud and envy that and am trying to move in that direction myself.

I'd love to go back and play WHFRP 1st ed. though but that is going to be a long while off if ever ... I'm in a place where I am gaming with people in their mid-20s who are very casual gamers who look at those rulebooks and just laugh. So for me those systems aren't even an option , so I've had to look to easy and light systems that I can use to produce games that people will play yet have something of the feel and atmosphere that I want. Again each their own. DW is wildly popular right now for good reason, it is a great system, but again maybe not for everyone.

@ Galadrin -- Having read your post I would argue that in fact DW is set up well for a DM to run a game that is focused on the story, where they have the power to give the game meaning at every turn. I think DW is a bad game if the DM is not an old school storyteller. I think that there are so many elements of the game that actually facilitate really interesting game play. After having played 3.5/4e off and on for years and some retro-clone games I really much prefer DW to any of those options. I have found that DW facilitates story driven game play where "balance" isn't an issue, where there are real consequences to player actions and where there is a "real risk of failure" built into the game. So I think the Players learn that quickly, or they just run through characters incessantly and the DM gives up ... lol. I don't know if that is a good thing but luckily in our games that hasn't happened yet.

I will concede that much of what DW has to offer is it allows DMs to bring their own stuff to the table, it doesn't hold their hands and tell them how to do it step by step all the way, so I am sure that the experience with DW is quite variable and just depends on the DM and the group to a large extent.

Does dungeon world have random PC creation or charactet builds?

Not built into the core rulebook, but that would be something a creative GM could do if they wanted. Or just use the WHFRP lists and then quickly make a DW chr approximate to it, I could do that for a player in about 15 minutes. There are custom "moves" built into the game so you can do whatever you want with it as a GM.

But if someone has a group that is willing and able to play WHFRP 1st/2nd ed. I would recommend they enjoy the hell out of that and consider themselves lucky and skip DW. Sadly I am not that lucky. I had to start over again with gaming a few years back (leaving behind an amazing gaming group of old vets) in a new area that isn't really fertile for amazing gaming (Utah) so I have done what I can. That makes me biased for easy, light rule sets that I can teach to novice gamers. I guess I really like DW most for that.

Thanks for the response. I will have a read over it. Maybe give it a spin on it's own terms. Maybe I can hack it into something I can use.

I keep reading about moves and I don't understand what they are. I will do some reading and figure it out but any light you want to shed is appreciated.

I am also in the place where a light rule system is all I will bother with these days.

Indeed! Good way to put it and I think that is basically my attitude about the game. Rules as written for it ... dunno really ... I can see people being kind of blah about it. But it is a hack of another game itself and the game calls to be hacked how you want it, and if your willing to do that it can really be a good game.

I think the things I've learned after running a weekly game of DW continuously since last summer are:

Old school modules can easily be hacked to work with the game. Any old school element you like or want to add in the game, will probably work. So if you like a particular 2nd ed. D&D or 1st ed. WHFB table or something ... it will probably either just work outright or work with some minor hacking.

Moves and fronts are the only two currencies of the game really, and for being so simple the work very well.

Moves: Players use their moves to do whatever they want in the game. It comes down to the 2d6 rolls which get modified based on stats and moves. So for everything from making basic attacks to some sort of specialist lore roll, to a class special ability, etc. the moves are what is driving the game in terms of player/npc actions. It is nearly impossible for players to get to the point that they auto-succeed on every roll, yet the game isn't so random that players never feel like their PC is good at something. Failure is what drives the game, when a player fails a roll, that is the only way they get exp. I like that because to me there is a grain of truth to that. Most of us learn more from our failures than our wins.

As far as exp goes the Gm has to keep the party from rolling constantly, for every little thing (its tempting to let them do that because all of your counter moves, fronts, etc. are driven BY the players failure ... literally even in combat you don't get a "turn" your "turn" occurs in reaction to PC failure). I instruct my players to always ask before they roll for anything (sort of a chore early in the campaign as people were used to 3.5 era games where they just did whatever they wanted and told the DM after the fact ... but I have them trained well now).

Fronts: The DMs bread and butter and really this is what keeps the game a little honest and keeps things from just being a complete fudge game (which is what keeps me from getting board running the game). The DM creates fronts, either pre-set fronts in the case of say a module (you'd just define what forces the party is facing, what those forces want, what will happen if the party fails, how those forces will react/grow/cause calamity, etc.) and then those fronts are in a subtle way announced to the party via the DMs game play. So if the party angered a powerful orc tribe by slaying one of its partrols on the way to the dungeon, then maybe the DM decides to start a front "angry orc tribe" ... they might or might not develop that into a full blown part of the campaign. Then the DM decides how or even if that front advances (there are of course more mechanics to it but that is the basic premise). To me that is simply what I do when I'm running a sandbox storyteller style game anyway so it fits in well with my style. I like that there are some mechanics to the fronts, it helps me keep the pacing of the game moving but also doesn't let the pot boil over with too much happening all at once. To me all the mechanics of the game lead back to the story, which I like.

Bonds: built in mechanics for "bonds" between PCs or between PCs and NPCs is really a cool thing and I've enjoyed how it helps the story and how it helps get players more involved in the story.


There is more to the game of course but really it boils down to just moves, fronts with minor little "seasoning" elements like bonds, etc. There is bestiary of basic creatures (a decent one actually) but you can quickly and easily build any beast/NPC you need and building encounters is really easy. Again most old school games almost work without any hacking, 1st ed monsters, WHFRP monsters, etc. you might have to adjust the hit points just a little and the damage but that is it, their special abilities, etc. etc. usually work great as written. I do about 15-20 minutes of prep before each session and that is more than enough. I've run a several sessions completely on the fly and they all went great.

I think the system shines if your a story teller DM. I am. I am not a good rules heavy system GM. I would be a terrible 3.5/4e or hell even 2nd ed D&D DM, I'd never be able to run games like GURPs, RIFTS, Shadowrun, etc. I just am not good at paperwork and I am always too busy to master 300 page rulebooks anymore, there was a time 20 years ago when I was all about that sort of game but they are just non-starters for me. So games like DW are really my only option, not that I'm lamenting that in this case because I have really come to prefer the rules light style of RPGs (I'm searching for the same thing in mini games anymore as well!).

As far as my house-rules/hacks -- I have a "fate point" mechanic where I give the players all three poker chips. They can spend all three to avoid a PC death (within reason) but that just means they are dropped to zero HPs and then if the rest of the party survives that player is still barely living. Even then I usually impose some ongoing conditions suited to whatever happened to them, that causes them trouble for a reasonable time. They can also use the fate points to influence the story a little bit, though my group tends to do that sort of sparingly (I've caused them to fear PC death enough that they only ever use their fate points for story purposes when they really, really need to or want to and even they its fun to watch them agonize while they push the poker chip towards me).

I've adjusted some minor mechanics on classes here and there to suit the game but nothing major. I've made several custom character classes by using the core rules for making new classes and moves. Players have legitimately leveled up past level 10 and we have our own custom mechanics for that, which seems to be working really well.

The game is really endlessly hackable and there is pretty decent amount of info out there on what others have done, I've used some of that advice and much of it was just easy to come up with things on my own for.