I realize that much of Dungeon World  is up to the arbitration of the GM but I was wondering how other DMs handled these two issues.

1.) when using a cantrip, does the wizard still roll the [Cast a Spell] move?

2.) have other GMs allowed their wizards to use the Prodigy and Master advanced moves to reduce a spell to a cantrip?

Dungeon World is an amazing game breathing life into a genre that Wizards of the Coast have done their best to squeeze the life out of. There is, however, one area what DW is, to be frank, ass backwards/completely wrong - and that is the are of HP and the philosophy surrounding them.

"The best answer here is that fighting a dragon is harder because the dragon is fictionally stronger. Just stabbing a dragon with a normal blade isn’t hack and slash because a typical blade can’t hurt it."

I totally get that. Dragons and fabulous monsters are dangerous because, fictionally, they have extraordinary powers and abilities. Dragons can blast you with fire, fly, and are big enough to have lots and lots of reach on you. Thats what makes them dangerous, powerful, and interesting to fight. But lets really cash out that example. Rogar the fighter and his daring company, in an effort to defeat a terrible and powerful dragon, quest far and wide to assemble the ingredients necessary to enchant/craft/find a blade potent enough to pierce the dragons plate-mail like hide. No normal blade could POSSIBLE harm this great and terrible beast... but now, after a long and perilous journey Rogar has a weapon that... will STILL kill the dragon in one only marginally lucky hit. Now THAT violates the fiction of MY world. That would be like me going up to a whale, stabing it with a stake knife, and it dying instantly.

The fictional powers of monsters make them interesting and terrifying combats but in a system where HP exists AT ALL ultimately fiction and math will collide. It simply makes no sense that a terryfing and epic beast can be slain in essentially two shots - after all the questing to discover a weapon that will harm it, after all the trouble and the zig-zagging of even approaching the beast you're telling me that I'm going to drop such an enormous creature so easily? I think we're off the rails here.

HP should be an abstraction, a measure of how much punishment a creature can take - how many mistakes they can make before they fall. Surely, a tough as nails creature is capable of surviving several, if not tens of blows before falling. Dungeon World currently does not have HP system that supports this idea - it violates its own principle. A fictional dragon is going to survive plenty of blows before it goes down (Unless your magical weapon kills it instantly, which, IMO, is a really shitty/anti-climactic fiction).

So what do I do about it...? I just use the HP listed in the 3.5 D&D Monster manual. Creatures like gnolls, goblins and orcs have very similar HP and other monsters my players are interested in fighting stand to present a battle where more than 2 blows are traded with the BBEG. Everything else about dungeon world is rock solid, IMO. This is just one house rule that we use at my table and the reasoning behind it.

Defy Danger doesn't work at all, as written, as a replacement for imitating a class ability because on a 10+ roll "you do what you set out to, the threat doesn’t come to bear." but even when the Fighter ace's his "Bend Bars, Lift Gates" roll it doesn't go off completely without a hitch. Jeremy's suggestion works well I think - nerfing or offering a sub-optimal version of the same ability. As a second option, what do you think about just slapping on a -2 to their roll? Combine both ideas? Thoughts?

The party is trapped in a jail cell and the halfling thief has had his thieves tools confiscated. The cleric steps up to the plate and says "I've got this". He grasps two of the bars and declares that he's going to try bend them far enough apart for the halfling theif to scurry out. He rolls a 9.

The question I have is how is this different than when the Fighter utilizes his "bend bars, lift gates" move/ability. It MUST be different, or the fighters ability is a nonability. If the cleric cannot do it at all then that violates the fiction (if he's strong enough maybe he just can bend them). I'm curious as to how other GMs are handling this.


A secondary question I have is how do GMs handle the 1d6+1d8 that barbarians are allotted when pursuing their appetites. What sort of draw backs do other GMs inflict when the d6 is higher than the d8? Do they treat it like rolling between 7-9?