Barf Forth Apocalyptica
powered by the apocalypse => Dungeon World => Topic started by: lucias on February 20, 2012, 02:26:58 AM
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I think Last Breath works great for one-shots or short campaigns, but I think there's a little bit of an issue with it as written for long-term play.
7-9, statistically, is the outcome that is most likely to come up since there's now +stat to the roll. This means that most people who have to take this move are going to get a bargain with Death.
In the short term, I love it. Great flavor. Great consequences. Just a really cool idea. In a more long-terms game, where Death will be making deals time after time after time I see two ways to approach it.
1) Death: The Master Manipulator - With PCs likely having multiple deals with Death, you can't just fall back on the whole alignment change option time after time. You have to start having Death make deals that either cause the PC to keep giving up pieces of himself (boring after the first time) or basically give out quests. If you fully embrace the latter, you have to dismiss that Death itself is impartial and instead has an active influence in the world. This line of thought can lead to some really cool events in play, I think, when you start to imagine the repercussions, but it isn't normally how we think of Death. Just think of the awesomeness that could spawn from the PCs being forced to become Death's hand in the world each time they die.
2) Death: The Flux - Each time you get the bargain result you make a deal that changes something on your character sheet. Alignment. Stats. Whatever. As mentioned above, this is something cool in the short term that would end up suffering as it came up, time and again, in the long term. It gets old.
My point is that I think there needs to be some other option for Last Breath for campaign play. Making continual deals with Death, if you don't go the route of #1 up there, will eventually get trite...which it should never be. I'm in favor of there being a more mundane 7-9 option for Last Breath for games that plan to go the long haul.
What do you think?
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I like your ideas Lucias. I haven't had much Defying Death - Last Breath rolls in our games though. Maybe the players (who have had no experience with 4e) are more conservative? When they get down to a few HP, they always want to retreat and recuperate.
But yeah, for groups who like to throw themselves into the fray week after week, someone is bound to re-encounter the Last Breath conundrum.
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In my games Last Breath don't result in dealing directly with Death impersonated, but rather some extraplanar forces - depending on the adventure - that are in some way connected to Death. For example, specific ghost, death goddess or in my "The Goblin Hole" (based on the starter by Marshall Miller) it was collective consciousness of cavern rabbits. :)
This way each bargain with Death is a separate thing, related to the current adventure. Multiple deals are not a problem because they most likely are concerned with very different issues.
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For more options with Death. When you are about to die and are not ready for the afterlife offer something to Death (or whatever other forces you may have that influence this sort of thing). This must be something valuable to you. GM and other players are welcome to call BS if you offer something inconsequential.
10+ Death accepts your offer, take +2 Forward on your Last Breath move
7-9 Death wants more and takes something else, make your Last Breath at +1
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If the player is rolling for last breath after doing something epic, consider The Walking Dead.
Thinking of craps,
When death knocks at your door a second time and you roll a 7-9, this time it's double or nothing. Roll again.
DW design is generally against multiple roles for the same thing but it makes the exceptions all the more powerful.
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I've only played as I'm trying to get my Dungeon World Fu up to snuff. I think that when I do run a game, I won't do Last Breath. I'd rather just let the player choose whether he or she is actually dead or just knocked unconscious for the rest of the scene (or until healed).
Death is rarely interesting. When the rolls indicate someone does die, I think the player (or the group if it's a true shared storytelling moment) should be empowered to look at the situation, determine if he or she wants the character to go out that way, and then make the call. Being able to choose the level of epic in your death is a fantasy trope I'd like to play up, rather than leave it to the dice (and possibly wonky results). Nobody's going to remember the time their character died to a goblin's arrow. They will remember being swallowed whole by a red dragon or being utterly destroyed by a sphere of annihilation. That feels more true to the genre to me.
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But they will remember that time with their friends, huddled over the table, dead silent, waiting to see the outcome of last breath's single unmodified roll!
As a counterpoint, I'd say that combat in RPGs is a lot like poker - if you're not playing for money its not the same game. If you're not playing for HP, with death on the line, then you're playing a very different type of game from old school D&D.
Furthermore, in DW, you play to find out what happens. Taking death off the line seems counter to that cornerstone of DW play. If it happens, it happens. You can make bringing them back from the dead a campaign goal, players could go to the realm of the dead looking for their comrade, you could use The Walking Dead mini-class. Also consider:
One Foot in the Grave
When you take your last breath and no one is there to witness it, on a miss, hold 1. Holds can be spent, 1 for 1, to:
-Bring your dying character back into play at a crucial moment
-Bring your corpse into back into play at a crucial moment
-Bring word of your death back into play at a crucial moment
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Furthermore, in DW, you play to find out what happens. Taking death off the line seems counter to that cornerstone of DW play. If it happens, it happens.
That's a fair point that I hadn't considered. I'll rethink my position. I'm not in love with Last Breath though. It needs... I don't know... something. Maybe once I've played more, I'll have some better ideas.
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There are potentially plenty of second-chance-granters other than "Death," though. This past weekend, f'rinstance, we had second-chance bargains offered by Graz'zt the Demon Prince and Blackrazor.
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Yeah, what Mike said.
After our Barb sold her soul to Death for ritual sacrifice into perpetuity (More skulls for the skull throne!) I wrote her this GM love-letter:
DEAR HERN
You're death-contract with was recently acquired by the Raven Queen, for a price only comprehensable to gods. The terms seem laxer but broader in scope. Write down “Debt: My Soul, to the Raven Queen.”
Please kindly roll two six-sided dice. On a 10+, pick one. On a 7-9, pick two. On a miss, I'll pick three for you.
• You murdered a sexton at in a neighbouring church. There's currently a price on your head.
• The Raven Queen has marked you with leucism; you've taken to wearing a veil to prevent sunburn.
• The Contract now includes service, in addition to sacrifice.
• You have to take an additional taboo to appease your ancestors.
• The ancestral spirits have abandoned you, lose Shamanism, but gain Haunted.
Love and Kisses,
Your GM
ORLY
She missed the roll, became Haunted, marked and cast out by her family-spirits. She seems to be turning into a sort of wyrd bloodthirsty acolyte of death. Much fun for all.
The Last Breath thing allows you as a GM renegotiate the terms of the characters existence. Make it interesting.
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Nathan, that is GOLD. There needs to be section on advanced Delving in the rulebook that deals with writing Letters from the GM. This is one such example of how awesome (and completely tied to your specific DW) they can be!
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Like Marshall/mease points out, there's a reason for it being that way.
That said, with the new Party rules and hirelings we're adding easier ways to bring a backup character into play.
We've considered some PC insurance. Something like:
When you would otherwise make a Last Breath roll, you can instead take an injury appropriate to your circumstances (adjust modifier based on new score) to stabalize at 0 HP:
-If the injury is something that just isn't right deep inside, -2 Constitution
-If the injury reduces your mobility, -2 Dexterity
-If the injury weakens you, -2 Strength
-If the injury impairs your senses, -2 Wisdom
-If the injury clouds your thoughts, -2 Intelligence
-If the injury hampers communication, -2 Charisma
And yes, you can even take the same one more than once, though your character will eventually be hopeless. At least you can see the downward slide and get a new idea ready.
The reason this isn't a core rule in some form is that it felt too gritty for the game. We just didn't think that D&D characters should be so burdened down by their past wounds. That said it's a pretty workable rule.
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Those injuries sound really painful. I bet a healing potion wouldn't help, would it. I wonder where you'd have to go and what you'd have to give them to heal that type of injury?
I bet a death could cut you a deal to heal that kind of injury, I wonder how one gets that kind of audience?
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So, like, Joe does this thing in MH's where he just strait quotes the goods from AW. MH, DW and AW are all very different games, but they share a lot too. With some rigorous thought, principles and rules can be imported between the three (not all or just anything, mind you). I don't think DW needs a section on Love-Letters but when I GM DW, I write Love-Letters.
All the good stuff about custom moves is in AW - I mean, how do you think DW came into being?
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Those injuries sound really painful.
On the contrary, you could hit your 15 your 11 and your 8 stat the first three times you "died" and feel zero mechanical effect to any of your modifiers.
Not saying that as an argument for or against a rule like that, but simply to clarify what it is doing.
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That may be so Nathan, and I see your point of view, (and I've been playing DW since Tony first came up with his idea in Apoc D&D) but Sage and Adam are trying to prodce a published game, that already 'mimics' (for want of a better term) large parts of the AW text - Guide to moves, playbooks, guide to advanced moves (mistake and correction), The GM Agenda, principles and Moves, Fronts and Dangers, Sage's latest suggestion in this thread for injuries (straight from AW disabilities) etc..
So why not a section on 'Advanced Delving'? The concept of Love letters is a brilliant way for the GM to tie the characters in to the fiction with a custom move between sessions, and so, so worthy of inclusion into the ruleset. In fact a whole section on writing custom moves is already included! Why not include love letters? Ensuring that there are examples specific to DW and the ways you can use these tools in a fantasical, heroic setting (instead of a post-apocalyptic one) I would have thought is vital.
Many folks will pick up Dungeon World having never played AW, they just want to try the cool indie dungeon delving game they have heard about. The rules they buy later this year may be the only *World game they have read. I support and encourage Sage and Adam to have their own game, not just a supplement to AW that you need to 'port' the rules you need from the 'advanced fuckery section'.
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Man, if I had my way with the world, you'd have to buy all three at once. ;)
I take you point well and it's well argued. Really, you're right that no one should have to piece together a game from another game. Having a section on "Advanced Delving" is absolutely necessary.
I suppose that what I was trying to get is that I'm not convinced that Love-Letters, in particular, fit into what Sage and Adam are doing. They fit in wonderfully with my game but I'm not really running DW on the rails. I've rewritten all the playbooks more or less, add two new ones in and have changed a few really core things about how some of the basic mechanics work. All this because none of my players are all that interested in OLD SCHOOL or NUSKOOL D&D of any edition really. I have one grognard at my table and mostly, he's interested in metatextually exploring in a sincere way what it means to be "LAWFUL GOOD" in a world where Good and Evil are metaphysically real - a notion that all of us find abhorrent in the real world. Oh, if that wasn't enough, I take to heart some of the things that Vincent and Joe put in their games, that if you're running a game about Dungeoneering, have no place being there.
I guess my point is that the Town Moves are the Love-Letters. Love-Letters are suppose to make up for fictional a down time that doesn't really exist in the structure of D&D because the players don't have gigs and they aren't integrated into the community. It's Town for shopping and healing and getting new missions and the rest is Dungeons. Defeat the Monsters in fantastical Locations, get the Treasure and save the Princess. While it's more complex than that, I don't know where I'd put the Love-Letters in or what function they'd serve that's intrinsic to DW.
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Oh of course! Town moves *forehead slap*. I've never stopped using the town moves (I think they are awesome - especially the adventure hooks move) and was too blind to see they are an exact 'iteration' of Love Letters. Sorry Nathan!
Oh and I have backed / bought AW, MH and will most certainly support DW as a high level backer :)
Your game sounds a lot like mine, though the last two sessions I have been beta testing the rules as current to provide some feedback without 'tinkering', and the old hands at DW have been a mite disgruntled at not having access to the town moves (other than carousing and outstanding warrants). Defy Danger in its broadest interpretation has been my go-to friend.
Love Letters is a disconnected name for DW at any rate. Maybe 'Tales from the Inn' or some such is much more fitting as a custom move, with example moves of these 'Tales' (in the advanced delving section of course) being versions of Tony's original Town Moves? As players reach higher levels I've been copying gigs and gangs and strongholds from AW as 'Prestige Moves', I even wrote a thread about it here somewhere. Currently the thief has a few gigs after ousting the Guildmaster of Dingledale, and Tonks (the Wizard) has built his very own (but rather slipshod) Wizard's Tower, complete with thorny briars, a simpleton assistant and magical apparatus!
Anyways, thanks for discussing all this, and I'd love to play a session with you guys some time to learn how other folks play (I'm a lone GM in the wilds of country Australia) if I can cross the pond in the near future!
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Well if you're ever in Montreal, just let me know.
Yeah, the current rules don't support high level play that well but I expect that'll come later.
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How high have you played, Nathan? I'm really curious to try that myself. I have a lot of experience of various iterations of the game at levels 1-5, but none beyond. Are there specific problems?
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Do you mean me (my name is Nathan too!) Or Nathan O.W.?
Anyways, my camping buddies have been playing on and off for a year and are up to levels 6 and 8. They have some 'prestige moves' hacked from AW, but otherwise they are pretty Vanilla. Brancino always wanted to be an assassin since day one, and I'm thinking of making a 'compendium' advance to cater to this (though his actions would classify him as one anyway, despite his celebrity in Dingledale).
Otherwise we are having no issues and feel rather well supported by the ruleset. The players are having a blast (this is the ONLY rpg they have played), and ritually pull up around the campfire each night when we are away to once again tell stories about Tonks and Brancino. The moves develop easily from the fiction and the tales we spin are suitably Heroic. I LOVE DW.
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I was meaning Nathan O. W., but the question is open to all comers!
I don't see any reason why the moves wouldn't work at high levels, but there are often unforeseen interactions with these things.
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We have an advanced delving chapter (we call it Hacking)! It was in versions of the full game a year ago, got cut from the Red Book, and hasn't been updated since, but it's coming back. I think it's actually better than the AW section on the same, since we've had more time to hack. It also covers stuff like changing the Agenda and Principles to make an entirely different game.
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That sounds cool. I'm excited to read it!
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Hey Sage, are they the rules that came out in Landscape format (prior to the adventurer's guild)? still have those rules and reference them all the time. I agree that in some ways they are more user friendly than Vx's version and have more DW specific examples! :)
I can't wait for the new, updated version! Thanks so much for being so thorough with all of your revisions and not rushing the 'final' product. Its going to be brilliant.