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Dungeon World / GM help: New to Dungeon World
« on: September 13, 2013, 12:25:51 PM »
Hi,
I'm an experienced GM and player (I've run or played in DnD 1E-4E, Savage Worlds, Paranoia, Star Wars d20, Deadlands, etc.) I found out about Dungeon World from Sly Flourish's DnD blog, got the book, and decided to run it as an alternate campaign when one of the players can't make our regular DnD 4E game. We've played twice so far. For the most part, the fast character generation and little prep required have been ideal for the purpose of a fill-in game, but it hasn't been without some bumps.
First of all, some players get a deer-in-the-headlights look when you ask them a question that requires any creativity. Oddly enough, it's not my tactician/puzzlemaster player who has this problem -- for our group, its the oldest player with the longest and most varied experience with rpg games. (He's the one who is always going on about retro clones, academic RPG gaming theory [didn't know this existed before meeting him], and all sorts of other esoteric gaming things.) So far, I've given him a decent pause to see if he thinks of anything, and then if not, I make some suggestions or options. He is generally ok if you ask him yes/no questions, ask multiple choice questions, or ask a similar very limited question, but otherwise he's just stymied. Are there any suggestions for helping players out with this?
Even with traditional rpgs, I'm more in the wing it school than the ultra-prepared school. But, I still have problems with dungeon world. When a player fails a role and I have to make a move, I sort of go into an internal panic. The GM moves are so vague, and I’m trying to think fast, so I’m usually just grasping for the first complication I can come up with (to avoid destroying the pace), and sometimes these are not well-thought out. If there was a list of examples for each of the GM moves, it would be easier and would help me from using the same sorts of complications over and over. Do you know of any resources like that?
Another problem I have is with pacing. The game sessions start out slow, with a lot of pauses where people think of answers to questions and a lot of uncertainty about what to do. This is both for me and the players. I don’t know how to get the action going. By the middle and the end of the session, it is going a lot better – the momentum builds the longer you play, and by the end of the session it seems more or less self-perpetuating without a lot of conscious effort. But, how do you get over this initial hump?
I also need more help with preparation for subsequent games after the first one. I used an adventure starter for the first game (I used the Black Oak Ridge one), and this was very helpful. But, it didn’t help much with the second game. I made my fronts and everything, but since they are higher level, I still didn’t know how to deal with actual hooks and minutiae to get the game going. I feel like there needs to be another level to post-first game prep that is at least an outline or list of possible encounters, hazards, and other small events to fill in the gaps between the bigger events that happen with the fronts. When I play other games, I have sourcebooks with two-room dungeons or example encounters that I know I can pull from on the fly and insert as needed. I feel like I don’t have some of these lower level tools with Dungeon World, and (for me at least), I feel like they are needed. Has anyone done anything like this and do you have any suggestions for how to do this?
One last thing -- I made a rules cheat sheet for myself and my players. Keep in mind that I'm new so it's possible that I got some things wrong. But it did help the second session go more smoothly than the first. (I found the existing basic moves sheets too wordy and lacking some needed things.) My cheat sheet is located here is anyone is interested in using it:
https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B5RWb_pba4YrcFNOSWxmZ0ZDRzQ&usp=sharing
(By the way, the trivia questions at the bottom that you have to answer to post are hard. Vincent's game company is what games? Since I'd never heard of a Vincent who had/has a game company, it took a while to figure this out via google..)
I'm an experienced GM and player (I've run or played in DnD 1E-4E, Savage Worlds, Paranoia, Star Wars d20, Deadlands, etc.) I found out about Dungeon World from Sly Flourish's DnD blog, got the book, and decided to run it as an alternate campaign when one of the players can't make our regular DnD 4E game. We've played twice so far. For the most part, the fast character generation and little prep required have been ideal for the purpose of a fill-in game, but it hasn't been without some bumps.
First of all, some players get a deer-in-the-headlights look when you ask them a question that requires any creativity. Oddly enough, it's not my tactician/puzzlemaster player who has this problem -- for our group, its the oldest player with the longest and most varied experience with rpg games. (He's the one who is always going on about retro clones, academic RPG gaming theory [didn't know this existed before meeting him], and all sorts of other esoteric gaming things.) So far, I've given him a decent pause to see if he thinks of anything, and then if not, I make some suggestions or options. He is generally ok if you ask him yes/no questions, ask multiple choice questions, or ask a similar very limited question, but otherwise he's just stymied. Are there any suggestions for helping players out with this?
Even with traditional rpgs, I'm more in the wing it school than the ultra-prepared school. But, I still have problems with dungeon world. When a player fails a role and I have to make a move, I sort of go into an internal panic. The GM moves are so vague, and I’m trying to think fast, so I’m usually just grasping for the first complication I can come up with (to avoid destroying the pace), and sometimes these are not well-thought out. If there was a list of examples for each of the GM moves, it would be easier and would help me from using the same sorts of complications over and over. Do you know of any resources like that?
Another problem I have is with pacing. The game sessions start out slow, with a lot of pauses where people think of answers to questions and a lot of uncertainty about what to do. This is both for me and the players. I don’t know how to get the action going. By the middle and the end of the session, it is going a lot better – the momentum builds the longer you play, and by the end of the session it seems more or less self-perpetuating without a lot of conscious effort. But, how do you get over this initial hump?
I also need more help with preparation for subsequent games after the first one. I used an adventure starter for the first game (I used the Black Oak Ridge one), and this was very helpful. But, it didn’t help much with the second game. I made my fronts and everything, but since they are higher level, I still didn’t know how to deal with actual hooks and minutiae to get the game going. I feel like there needs to be another level to post-first game prep that is at least an outline or list of possible encounters, hazards, and other small events to fill in the gaps between the bigger events that happen with the fronts. When I play other games, I have sourcebooks with two-room dungeons or example encounters that I know I can pull from on the fly and insert as needed. I feel like I don’t have some of these lower level tools with Dungeon World, and (for me at least), I feel like they are needed. Has anyone done anything like this and do you have any suggestions for how to do this?
One last thing -- I made a rules cheat sheet for myself and my players. Keep in mind that I'm new so it's possible that I got some things wrong. But it did help the second session go more smoothly than the first. (I found the existing basic moves sheets too wordy and lacking some needed things.) My cheat sheet is located here is anyone is interested in using it:
https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B5RWb_pba4YrcFNOSWxmZ0ZDRzQ&usp=sharing
(By the way, the trivia questions at the bottom that you have to answer to post are hard. Vincent's game company is what games? Since I'd never heard of a Vincent who had/has a game company, it took a while to figure this out via google..)