Apparently the Dropbox links from my other thread have died, so here's a new set:

Here are the rules: https://www.dropbox.com/s/lpxhvnt7pw16cll/Wizard%20World.pdf?dl=0

And here are the reference sheets and playbooks: https://www.dropbox.com/s/n2kuefaipvux6j4/Wizard%20World%20Playbooks%20and%20Ref%20Sheets.pdf?dl=0

Enjoy, and let me know what you think!

but why make it an option for everyone?

I feel like there should be very good reasons to remove options.

I mean, I'm not saying characters w/out the move aren't allowed to punch people in the face.  But that can be handled with an "act under fire" type move, MC moves, and the conversation.

Absolutely. And the presence of Resort to Violence doesn't change that.

Sure if I have zero combat training, I'll be more likely to hold my own against another guy that knows how to fight.

I think you mean you'll be *less* likely to hold your own against another guy that knows how to fight?

But the move as written isn't about who is able to win.  It's about how someone achieves objectives (taking something, moving them, avoiding harm, etc).  I as an untrained fighter vs. another untrained fighter am less able to accomplish any of those objectives, even if I win the fight.

I don't follow you there. The move is definitely about who is able to win. The winner takes something from the loser, or moves them, or kills them, etc. The language I used in the description of the move is to clarify that the move is about how important the *relative* skill and equipment is in a fight. Two unarmed, untrained combatants are able to take stuff, move, harm and avoid harm from each other (though they probably look silly doing it) and so can two trained, heavily armed trained combatants. Why would I remove that option from the game?

If it's important enough to say "a guy with out training is bad at this, beyond just the fact that he has -1 body", then say it!  Don't hedge your bets with finnicky compromises.

To quote from the text in the Resort to Violence section of the book:

"If your weapon is incapable of inflicting harm on the target, or if your enemy is a trained combatant and you aren’t, this move will not trigger unless you’ve secured some kind of advantage in the fiction."

I think that's fairly clear in saying "a guy with out training is bad at this".

I do appreciate the feedback and if you can point out the finicky compromises I'd be happy to address them.

Cheers!

I wonder if "if your enemy is a trained combatant and you aren’t, this move will not trigger" isn't a little harsh -- the trained combatant has absolutely nothing to fear from the untrained combatant? Hmm, perhaps that fits the genre. You might want to articulate what happens if gear and training don't coincide -- i.e. the unarmed Bandit has insulted the Merchant so grievously that the Merchant comes at him with a bastard sword. Does the gear make the Merchant dangerous to the Bandit after all? Or does the Bandit just take the sword away without having to roll?

You're right, I shouldn't have phrased it so absolutely. I added a qualifier: "If your weapon is incapable of inflicting harm on the target, or if your enemy is a trained combatant and you aren’t, this move will not trigger unless you can gain some kind of advantage in the fiction."

The idea being that while training and gear are the most important factors, anyone can potentially be a threat to anyone, depending on the circumstances. The classic situation is the untrained peasant who manages to trip the armoured knight and then drive a dagger through the slit in his visor. In a stand-up melee the peasant is no threat at all, but if he can secure an advantage in the fiction he can still inflict harm.

Does the GM always choose the result of harm, in the harm move? What if a PC harms an NPC? What if a PC harms another PC? Is it still the GM choosing, or can the other PC pick what happens?

The GM always chooses the harm result. That wouldn't prevent the GM from "Turning the question over to the player or group", but RAW it's always the GM.

If you are already suffering the relevant debility for that kind of damage, and you take more of that damage, what happens? Does it spill over to another humour, or do you die, or what?

Good point. The intent is for the harm to spill over into a different humour (deep cuts cause bruising which imbalances melancholic; blood loss causes the body to cool which imbalances choleric; and so on). I'll have to do a quick review and make sure that intent is communicated in the harm section.

Thanks again!

First off, thanks for the detailed response! I was hoping for exactly this kind of feedback.

However, it seems to me this needs some work. Mostly, the trouble is that you are hanging the mechanics onto fictional elements that seem subjective and muddily defined.

I agree; it definitely needs some work, and for exactly the reasons you've pointed out.

There's also a great deal left to the GM's discretion. This is fine, of course; the hard choice on the 7-9 and the hard move on the 6- are always ultimately the GM's call. But part of what specialized moves bring to the table is a quantification of costs, so that players quickly and intuitively know what they're risking when they roll. This can aid drama; the stakes being known only to the GM can feel arbitrary.

Totally in agreement.

In AW, combat move downsides are usually some flavor of "harm as established", meaning you know going in what weapons, and thus what damage, you're going up against.

I partially agree here. I'd argue that players often have no concrete mechanical sense of how much damage their opponent can do until they get hit, but your point is still valid.

In DW, the focus is on your enemies "attack" -- it lands on below 9, and lands if you go for the extra die on a 10 up, and thus how well you understand the stakes has to do with what the enemies attack is. This allows great flexibility, too, with different monsters being different, but also some clarity: a giant tentacle might just bind you, or do squeezing damage. The GM has time and a specific prompt, to reflect, when drawing up the monster, on what it's attacks are and what they do. Here, the issue seems a bit muddied: "an imbalanced humour or other resource". Also, what if you're humours are already imbalanced? Do you get to imbalance a different one? Or is it a feature of the monster, like something with a heat attack is going to imbalance one humor, something that cuts and bleeds you will imbalance another? Seems like a place there could be some crunchiness to the mechanics, giving both player and MC some clarity.

More good points. A lot of the guidelines for the humours are in a different section - for example the rule that a second imbalance on the same humour leads to a debility. The "other resource" provision is a bit of an invitation to the "use up their resources" move. I thought of it along the lines of the "hard bargain or ugly choice" from Defy Danger.

Similarly, as a GM I could use a little guidance in distinguishing between "serious consequences" and "something minor" -- it seems like I need here as crisp a distinction as hard vs soft moves, or "success at a cost" (7-9) and "failure" (6-). These are intuitively understood, so we know what's at stake when the dice roll. I need a succinct intuitive way of understanding what advantage "advantage" concretely confers.

For clarity, I might split it into three moves: "when you enter melee", "when you have the advantage and press the attack", and "when your enemy has the advantage, and you fight on".

What happens if you enter melée, but then decide to withdraw and not press the attack? Is there a move for that, or is it just defy danger?

What happens if you get a 7-9 on press with advantage and decide not to finish them off (because you don't want to pay the minor cost)? Does the battle go on? Do you retain advantage? Have you dealt any damage at all?

On a 7-9 on press without advantage, if you don't want the consequences, who decides whether you retreat or yield? Is it "retreat if possible, but the GM may tell you that you'll have to yield instead"? In which case, when does the GM have to tell you this? Before you begin combat in the first place, when you lose the advantage, or when? What about an enemy that wants to kill you -- in which case "yield" is a non-choice? Then a 7-9 just feels like a failure -- "you take serious consequences, or else accept being killed" -- which doesn't feel like a 7-9.

"You can either yield or attempt to withdraw" seems to invade the PCs' agency a bit too much. What if my character would NEVER yield or withdraw? What if he's bloody Conan, or he's declared he's going to fight to the death? Perhaps the advantage is simply no use to me then, and I am down or captured.  Or does combat just continue, with me having taken some kind of damage? That's not in the text.

If I'm unwilling to yield/retreat, having advantage actually makes no difference when pressing except on a 7-9. On a 10+ it's irrelevant because I win regardless. On a 6- I lose regardless. On a 7-9 the only difference it makes is the cost of the price I pay to win.

Since there are various ways in which combat can continue past the first press (for instance, i don't pay the price to retreat), what happens on the subsequent round? Is it the same move? It seems odd that advantage stays static -- that there's no cost called "lose the advantage".

AW-hack combat (and other) moves usually scale so that you can decide if "one roll for the whole battle" or "blow-by-blow" is more dramatically appropriate. Here, it seems like you've tied it to a 2-move combat every time, whether I'm just trying to show my brother who's boss down by the creek, or fighting singlehandedly to escape from belowdecks of a pirate ship against its  entire 30-pirate crew, or (does it work for gangs?) trying to take an entire castle with my siege engines and leigionnaires.

My instinct is to get much closer to "Seize By Force"...

Thanks again for the feedback. You've given me a lot to ponder.

Glad you liked it!

Yeah, the 3 player minimum can be tough and you're absolutely right that it's intended for a longer campaign.

Please steal away! Do keep in mind that while I based all the rules on AW and DW, many of the specific terms (hermetic magic, covenant, the names of the houses) are trademarks, so be sure to come up with your own names if you're hoping to dodge potential conflict. From what I've seen of Shtetl World that shouldn't be a problem.

The "we draw a map together" idea solidified for me when I read another hack on these forums called 'hood. Highly recommend checking it out - many interesting takes on the AW rules.

I've done a fair bit of playtesting of my own, but I'd love to hear how things play out for someone else. I spent a lot of time on the 'Running Wizard World' chapter - hopefully I was able to communicate both my intent and what I learned from my playtests.

Not sure if Vincent will move this to its own forum or not, but I thought I'd get started :)

I've been working on this hack for a while now. It's very much a love letter to Ars Magica - you know, like those love letters you wrote in high school to the person you were never going to get. The ones with the crappy poetry and gag-inducing metaphors. Well, at least it started like that, but (to continue the analogy) I cribbed some language from much smarter people (thanks Sage, Adam, Joe and Gregor!) and I used a copy of the letter that scored with the prom queen as my outline (thanks Vincent!)

I think the analogy has probably fallen apart, so I'll get to the point. Wizard World is my attempt to take the comprehensive beauty of Ars Magica and distill out the homework parts, hopefully leaving some belly-warming goodness that won't make you go blind (remember what I said about metaphors?) Rest assured that any original thoughts you see in the work are entirely accidental, but I'm very proud of some of them and I hope they help you realize all your wizardly dreams.

The first thing I wanted this hack to capture was the completely wide open nature of magic through the forms and techniques:

Open Magic System
Rather than a list of spells and a somewhat Vancian casting system, Wizard World magi divide their spell casting into two categories. The first category is Spontaneous magic, which is governed by the Arcane Moves. At their heart, the Arcane Moves are just ways of making the Basic Moves but using magic to "do it". Unpacking them a bit reveals a number of differences, including considerably wider application in the fiction as well as some mechanical differences that increase their overall power level. Arcane Moves also typically have a harsher down-side than the Basic Moves to reflect the risk inherent in magic.

The other category of magic is Formulaic or Spellbook magic. Each formulaic spell must be fully detailed and can only be used in exactly the way it was written. Within that limitation, however, Formulaic magic is only bound by the player’s imagination (and the GM’s interpretation of the Limitations of Hermetic Magic).

Magi in ArM World increase their power in a granular fashion by improving their mastery of the 15 hermetic arts. Each art has a score ranging from -1 to +3 and the control a maga has over her magic is determined by the lower of the scores she is using to create an effect. While this inserts more stats than a typical AW hack, it also allows a high degree of differentiation and helps create meaningful character-advancement decision trees. It was also very well received by the play testers ;)


I've got a few more sneak peaks available and I'll have a nicely cross-linked PDF for people to peruse in the next day or two - if you're interested...

I had an identical struggle while I was working on my Ars Magica hack. After a bit of playtesting I decided to add the Dexterity stat back in (called Quick in Wizard World). The primary reason was related to your observation about differentiation. Players felt pretty unsatisfied with a single stat that made their character tougher, faster, stronger and better with both melee and ranged attacks. Now, if you're going for a highly abstract style of combat where fights are intended to be resolved with a single roll, you're probably OK with the amalgamation. Otherwise, I think there is definite value in separating fast from strong & tough.