Dungeon World

[Yora]

I really like Apocalypse World and the way it handles rolling dice, NPCs, and supernatural powers. I also like a lot of things of early 80s Dungeons & Dragons, except for the way it handles rolling dice and spells.

This makes Dungeon World look like a perfect pick for me. I recently rediscovered how much I am really hooked on the slightly kitschy style of 80s fantasy that a reskinned Apocalypse World just doesn't have.

I had read it some years ago, understanding only half of it and feeling the other half being too similar to 2nd and 3rd edition. But now that I have a solid grasp on Apocalypse World, looking at Dungeon World again makes it look not nearly as bad. Not a fan of paladins, rangers, druids, and bards, but there doesn't seem to be any reasons to not play without them and making custom classes like people are doing for B/X all the time should also not be much of a problem if you know how classes in Dungeon World work.

But I am wondering what other people's experiences with Dungeon World are. What are the things that Dungeon World can do, and that it doesn't do? For what needs does it offer a great solution, and for which ones is it not that well suited?

[Silva]

Dungeon World is not bad, I play it with my son and his friends and we always have some fun. BUT it kills what's most interesting about PbtA for me:

1) AW's radical player-driven style (instead of ye old adventuring-party one) that makes player-to-player interactions so delicious by systematizing it through Hx, Moves, PC-NPC-PC triangles, etc. It's the best "social combat" I've seen. Dungeon World's Bonds and Moves don't get the same effect.

2) AW's highly improv nature that asks for creative inputs from players and makes each Apocalypse end up completely distinct from one another (damn, every Gunlugger ends up completely distinct from another!). It makes all those little names and looks sugestions (Vulk the Sculptor, small pig eyes, sado-masochist outfit) really shine because they evoke just the right dose of tone and imagery in everyone minds but stops at the right moment to allow for everyone fill in the rest. Dungeon World, on the other hand, assumes so much D&Disms a concrete thing that all those bits feel weak/useless.

BUT, then I think that's the goal of Dungeon World in first place, so take that with a grain of salt. Anyway, I recommend The Fellowship for a take on "adventuring party fantasy" that preserves more of AW's magic.

[Yora]

I think Dungeon World looks to have the advantage to be pretty easy to grasp. Hack & Slash and Volley don't require much explanation while Seize by Force and Suffering Harm in AW are a very unique and unconventional way to handle combat.

The main issue I have with DW id that all the classes seem really boring. The moves all seem to give a bonus to rolls, reduce damage, or remove the need to roll for certain things. Except for the fighter ability to see which NPC will die in a confrontation (which is hands down the best move in AW), I don't see anything that creates interesting new situations.

[Silva]

I agree with you there, Yora.

One thing I actually love in DW and even carry to AW is the XP per failed roll. I find it encourages players to go out of their comfort zone and take risks.

[Knaight]

An upside to the proliferation of PbtA systems is that if you don't like Dungeon World, do like Apocalypse World, and want to play in the general milieu of dungeon fantasy there's probably at least four other options. I don't know what they are, but I'm assuming they're out there.

[Yora]

Oddly enough, not with fantasy. There's a billlion PtbA games, but for regular fantasy I know of just two.

[Cluedrew]

The main issue I have with DW id that all the classes seem really boring.Yeah, I think the stuck to close to the general power style of Dungeons & Dragons, where I think they should have just kept the theming. Loosen up the D&Disms and go for straight generic action fantasy, or just forget about the mechanics and go for the D&D of the books that makes no mention of spell slots, rarely takes place inside dungeons and is often about the social interactions of the characters than their ability to effectively spend resources on random encounters so they can take the big-bad.

I would start with translating/reflavouring a bunch of playbooks. The Angle, Cleric. The BattleBabe, Fighter. The Gunlugger, Barbarian. The Brainer, Wizard. The Skinner, Bard. The Operator, Rogue. Not perfect, but a good starting point. Except maybe the Brainer->Wizard, maybe a psyonics class should become base and I should build the wizard from the ground up. I'm not really sure how to tackle spells. I would like to avoid spell lists (and would happily drop it for many of the other spell casters) but I'm not sure how else to do it. I guess that is why they kept the spell list.

Also I think the advancement system of Apocalypse World, where only some of them give you new moves and the rest give you other types of bonuses would probably work better. Or maybe not, but it might free up some of the less interesting moves.

[Morty]

I ran Dungeon World. It was fun, but the D&Disms weigh it down. The worst offenders are the hit points and spellcasting, I think. Hit points just don't mesh with a fiction-first approach. Random rolls + straight DR from armor means that a damaging move or consequence can sometimes do nothing. Which is bad.

Spellcasting classes use old-school D&D spells and slots, which are bad enough on their own but become worse when squeezed into the PbtA model. Sadly, the replacement classes we found and used turned out to be too spontaneous and versatile.

[Lapak]

My main experience with it is in play-by-post environments. While I agree with l a lot of what people are saying about how it works as an AW variant, as a PbP-friendly D&D variant it works exceptionally well. It keeps the flow and flavor of a normal D&D session but with mechanics that are easier to run in such an environment and which encourage freedom in how players describe their actions. That freedom is pretty important to enjoyable, well-written adventuring in a text-heavy format.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

Dungeon World was a very early PbtA game (I think it came up around the time of Monsterhearts and slightly after Tremulus), so yeah, there's a lot of wonky elements. I've still had a lot of fun with it, because the core moves are fast and fluid, and for me, they wind up giving an exciting pulp adventure feel to my D&D fantasy. I'm a big fan of that.

I dig the earlier suggestion to reflavor Apocalypse World for fantasy, though.

In terms of other fantasy games, I do think it's just Fellowship and Sword, Crown, and Unspeakable Power (generally abbreviated to "SCUP" in online discussions). The latter is more Game of Thrones PbtA, a niche that Vincent played with for a while and then abandoned with Apocalypse World: Dark Ages. Robert Bohl (designer of Misspent Youth) is working on a fantasy game called Demihumans that looks interesting, playing with provocative takes on different fantasy races' tropes.

[Actana]

Dungeon World was a very early PbtA game (I think it came up around the time of Monsterhearts and slightly after Tremulus), so yeah, there's a lot of wonky elements. I've still had a lot of fun with it, because the core moves are fast and fluid, and for me, they wind up giving an exciting pulp adventure feel to my D&D fantasy. I'm a big fan of that.

I dig the earlier suggestion to reflavor Apocalypse World for fantasy, though.

In terms of other fantasy games, I do think it's just Fellowship and Sword, Crown, and Unspeakable Power (generally abbreviated to "SCUP" in online discussions). The latter is more Game of Thrones PbtA, a niche that Vincent played with for a while and then abandoned with Apocalypse World: Dark Ages. Robert Bohl (designer of Misspent Youth) is working on a fantasy game called Demihumans that looks interesting, playing with provocative takes on different fantasy races' tropes.

In addition to those, there's a few more:
Ironsworn, which is about questing in a Viking-ish setting. Can also be played GM-less and solo.
City of Judas, an alternate history Crusades setting in Jerusalem. A bit old, and with some clunky mechanics.
Legacy - Life Among the Ruins 2e has the upcoming Free From the Yoke, a multi-generation game about empire building (and reclaiming) in a Scandinavian/Eastern European setting.
A Storm Eternal, a 19-page microhack that is free but surprisingly tough to track down last I tried.
World of Dungeons is another microhack about dungeon crawling.

As a bonus, Monster of the Week is extremely easy to hack into a fantasy setting. And as another bonus, Blades in the Dark has a low fantasy Black Company style hack called Band of Blades.

There are quite a few fantasy hacks, but they're all rather specific in tone. There's very little for the D&D niche besides Dungeon World and World of Dungeons.


For DW classes in particular, Class Warfare is a good start for freeform classes, and there are various setting/tone books that can provide more focused classes/playbooks. And if you haven't already, The Perilous Wilds is a good book for wilderness travels, and Freebooters on the Frontier expands that into a bit different direction. Might be worth looking at if you're interested.

[Yora]

I dig the earlier suggestion to reflavor Apocalypse World for fantasy, though.

In terms of other fantasy games, I do think it's just Fellowship and Sword, Crown, and Unspeakable Power (generally abbreviated to "SCUP" in online discussions). The latter is more Game of Thrones PbtA, a niche that Vincent played with for a while and then abandoned with Apocalypse World: Dark Ages.
There is now Fallen Empires, which is a 95% unchanged reaskin of AW (though doesn't adapt the Driver and Maestro).

It's certainly a very valid option if one is looking for the original Apocalypse World experience.
Though I am also finding myself quite interested in Dungeon World, precisely because it uses the same resolution mechanic but is otherwise much more conventional. It's much less daunting.


I would start with translating/reflavouring a bunch of playbooks. The Angle, Cleric. The BattleBabe, Fighter. The Gunlugger, Barbarian. The Brainer, Wizard. The Skinner, Bard. The Operator, Rogue. Not perfect, but a good starting point. Except maybe the Brainer->Wizard, maybe a psyonics class should become base and I should build the wizard from the ground up. I'm not really sure how to tackle spells. I would like to avoid spell lists (and would happily drop it for many of the other spell casters) but I'm not sure how else to do it. I guess that is why they kept the spell list.

Also I think the advancement system of Apocalypse World, where only some of them give you new moves and the rest give you other types of bonuses would probably work better. Or maybe not, but it might free up some of the less interesting moves.
This weekend I've been dabling in taking the best class moves from DW and the supernatural moves from AW to assemble them into new classes.

Where DW really didn't do itself a favor is to give every class 20 moves to pick from while also barely making use of "multiclass" options and not making magic spells moves. With 180 moves it's really no surprise that most of them are bland bonuses to rolls that don't add anything to characters. The template that I work on gives every class eight moves, plus four multiclass move options, plus options for their own steading and a gang of followers. When you start with 2 moves and can get 9 more through advancement, that selection pool is plenty big enough.

Still not sure if this is worth the effort or you get something better by just using Fallen Empires.
DW certainly uses a lot by reverting back to handling combat as meleee and ranged attacks. But when you want to have a campaign in the style of old D&D editions but with a better resolution mechanic, i can see that actually being a selling point.

[Cluedrew]

There is now Fallen Empires, which is a 95% unchanged reaskin of AW (though doesn't adapt the Driver and Maestro).
[...]
This weekend I've been dabling in taking the best class moves from DW and the supernatural moves from AW to assemble them into new classes. [...]Still not sure if this is worth the effort or you get something better by just using Fallen Empires.I feel you could get a very interesting animal companion class by re-tooling The Driver.

Anyways, it might be worth it if you are not looking for D&D ported to Powered by the Apocalypse's resolution system (Dungeon World) or fantasy flavoured Apocalypse World (Fallen Empires?). I feel there is a space between that for a D&D setting and archetypes used as a base for a new Powered by the Apocalypse system. I mean maybe I should actually look at Fallen Empires before speaking but reskining does not have the same appeal to me. Mostly because the bits I want from D&D don't feel that close to the Apocalypse World playbooks. I think you could get a paladin out of the faceless...

Still if you get anything out of your adaptation I wouldn't mind seeing it. This stuff interests me.

[Morty]

I would like to see a second edition of Dungeon World that's a bit bolder in marrying classic D&D features with the PBtA model. As I've said before, the biggest offenders to me are hit points and magic, but Yora is also correct about too many moves being a boring +x here or there.

[Yora]

What exactly is the issue with hit points? Are there too many?

[Morty]

As I said above, I feel like they clash with the system's assumptions. They're too easy to regain, for one thing, though I suppose that's fixed easily. But more importantly, random damage rolls and DR mean that sometimes a roll to damage as a consequence just won't do anything. You roll 3, the player or enemy has 3 DR and, well, nothing happened.

[Yora]

That's a problem Apocalypse World doesn't have, with attacks doing more than just damage.

[Razade]

I've poked around with it though of all the PbtA games, I think Masks has got my attention the most. It really drives the failure first, social combat that the system seems to do really well.

[Morty]

That's a problem Apocalypse World doesn't have, with attacks doing more than just damage.

I wouldn't know, since I've only played Dungeon World. But I get the impression other PbtA games aren't as combat-intensive, so DW might need its own solution, regardless.

[Yora]

Does anyone know about interesting resources for Dungeon World? It's a complete game out of the box that doesn't need more content or addons, but I am curious if there's anything worthwhile out there.
The only things I know are The Perilous Wilds and Perilous Depths.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

Does anyone know about interesting resources for Dungeon World? It's a complete game out of the box that doesn't need more content or addons, but I am curious if there's anything worthwhile out there.
The only things I know are The Perilous Wilds and Perilous Depths.
I know there's heaps of resources for DW; Class Warfare seems to be very highly regarded around the internet, but I can't speak to it personally. Grim World was pretty popular for a bit, and I think a lot of players like the idea of borrowing Death Moves from it.

EDIT: the Dungeon World subreddit apparently has a treasure trove of supplements linked (https://www.reddit.com/r/DungeonWorld/wiki/supplements) in their sidebar, so that's a good list to explore from.

[Yora]

Here is my idea (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?575547-Alternative-Classes-for-Dungeon-World-in-progress) for alternative classes.