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Messages - Gediablo

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Aid?:
I have a hard time getting the Aid system to work fluently in my group. Especially in regards to Spout Lore and Discern Realities. For the more physical moves it usually seems more intuitive who is the main actor and who aids.

Example: Group enter room , room appears empty except for 3 doors and a statue of an epic looking warrior. Everyone in the group wants to look for traps (magic and/or physical traps) and/or try to figure out more about who the statue is supposed to look like - possibly someone wants to be and guard/scout duty at the same time figuring out how if someone can be heard behind the doors.

  • Lets say I tell everyone to roll Dicern Realities. Sure I can come up with multiple moves to account for all the failures, but basically their chances of figuring out every secret in the room is generally too good for my taste.
  • Lets say the statue actually has a magical trap - so I decide to tell the Wizard to roll Dicern Realities and he fails - now the party still have a good idea that there is magic involved here - why would I otherwise have asked the Wizard to roll and not the Thief?
  • What I try to do at the moment is just assigning 1 person to do the roll and all who want to make assist rolls. Since each assist roll failing also can trigger failures the players are more careful here, which is good.  But who gets to do the roll and who gets to assist? The players decide or DM decides? Aways highest stat rolls? First come, first served is what I have tried to go for, but it does leads to the more silent players idling more, and the most outspoken players to powerlevel faster.
  • Character stats not a factor in assisting. Let's take an example with a group of 4 players: WIS is +2, +2, +1 and -1. Assuming equal amounts of bonds the +2 WIS player assisting would be as good assisting as the -1 WIS player. Same for other tasks involving other stats. That seems very weird unintuitive to me, and the assisting +2 WIS player can easily feel like his stat priority in WIS are wasted in this case.

Aiding Failures: What happens if someone fails an Aid move? I have been playing it like any other move failing, but that does lower the amount of Aids a lot. I generally like this, but it can lead to players sometime acts less than their character would otherwise have done. Also, the effect on failed Aid is often quite easy to just turn the +1 Aid to -2 Interfere instead, but that is more on me than a general thing I guess.

Main Move Failures: A second issue is that the players always know if someone in the group potentially missed something. In other systems I have GM-rolled all the players "perception rolls", so that when I tell them "You find nothing suspicious" the players don't have more information than their character. What players do when they know they failed such a roll is very individual - some roleplay it well treating the roll as a success. Others metagame it and suddenly becomes more careful. And yet someone goes to the other extreme and become more reckless. However, GM-rolling here goes against the Dungeon World rules, and also isn't as fun for the players. I was considering each player doing the roll, but only showing it to the GM and the player himself (easily doable as we use Roll20). Still 1 person who can potentially meta-game it, but better than the entire group, right?

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Dungeon World / Cantrips and Rotes - failed rolls
« on: September 01, 2014, 05:57:42 AM »
Hi,

I was watching someone else play Dungeon World and they said that Cantrips and Rotes didn't require dice rolls. I looked in the rules but can't see officially them being different than other spells.

In my own campaign we originally treated them like all other spells, but our spellcasters were powerleveling much faster than other classes. We discussed keeping them as normal spells xp and DM-moves-wise, but the whole nature of the spells are that it is like every day small magic tricks, and noone really liked that they could trigger hard moves.

In my campaign now we say that they still require dice rolls, but they don't give xp on failures and can't trigger Hard Moves. Seems to work fine.

How do you handle Cantrips and Rotes?

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Dungeon World / Re: Magical Moves List
« on: August 22, 2014, 05:49:36 AM »
Ok, most of them aren't really magical though. It is mostly just extra stuff your character can do. And it makes sense the classes can't pick freely from a huge pool of moves every level up, if you want each class to feel unique. Currently there is some freedom in picking moves from other classes by picking multiclass advanced moves, and for that I guess your list could be slightly helpful I guess - I guess you can just copy-paste that. Don't think it will save any one any significant amount of time though.

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Dungeon World / Re: Magical Moves List
« on: August 20, 2014, 09:02:56 AM »
By Magical Moves you mean Advanced Moves?

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Dungeon World / Re: God Amidst the Wastes
« on: August 15, 2014, 10:36:23 AM »
This is how I internally have decided to solve this issue.
  • In order for the Ranger-Cleric, Paladin-Cleric and Human Wizard not to have too many similar spells I decided to make some extra spells (based from inspiration from other system) to pick from. In case anyone is interested:
    http://depoilly.dk/ged/Roleplay/DungeonWorld/SpellBooks/ClericSpells.rtf
    http://depoilly.dk/ged/Roleplay/DungeonWorld/SpellBooks/WizardSpells.rtf
    This is first draft - I will probably update them as we go along.
    The number of possible spells for clerics to pick from during commune I didn't change.
  • In order for the Cleric class to be anything but a class other classes could steal from, I decided to change the Paladin and Ranger advance move give them their normal level divided by 2 as Cleric level and just 1 fixed Rote spell. That way they will never get above level 5 Cleric spells, but also isn't "forced" to turn cleric at level 2.
  • Inspired by zmook I also plan to introduce a house rule that noone can pick a Move as a Multiclass Advanced Move that another player already have if my players think it is a good idea. I assume they will though, since the concerns some of them have voiced is that the unique abilities of their class very quickly started to feel less unique and hence less awesome.


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Dungeon World / Re: Animal Companion
« on: August 14, 2014, 07:17:22 AM »
Good suggestion. I guess it is the same regarding the move "Unnatural Ally".

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Dungeon World / Re: God Amidst the Wastes
« on: August 08, 2014, 07:00:56 AM »
My comments here might sound like min-max speculations for a system, where this is not intended to be a factor. But the thing is that players usually would like their character to be unique and as useful and power to the group (or at least their own succes) as possible. And the dungeon world rulebook actually say this too. You are not playing a fighter or a cleric - you are playing The Fighter or The Cleric - a unique character unlike anyone else with (supposedly) unique abilities.
1.) You wouldn't want to JUST be a "ranger cleric" because you wouldn't get the Turn Undead or, more importantly, Divine Guidance moves.
Sure Divine Guidance is nice, but so are e.g. the ranger and paladin starting moves not to mention more hitpoints and better damage dices. I still don't see why anyone would ever pick playing cleric as their starting class in this system going by the written rules, when you can get the most of their special bonuses by just 1 advanced move, as well as the special bonuses of another class, at level 2. In my group both the ranger and paladin (independently of each other and my influence) decided to pick Cleric as a multiclass at level 2. In their words: it seemed like gimping themselves (and hence the group) by not doing so. I had come to the same conclusion. This just emphasize the problem to me - it can't just be me and my players who can see this, can it?. The group also had a cleric (he decided to quit the game), who had no similar nearly equally as powerful Advanced Move to pick at level 2 - far from it actually. I would currently advice our replacement player against picking a cleric as his class, as I fear he will feel like a gimped version of our paladin and ranger.
 
The rotes and the 2 level cleric spells they get from level 2 plus additional level ups every level seems much more powerful than anything the cleric could pick at level 2 - plus the ranger and paladin starting moves to me looks to have more a or at least equal useful applications than the cleric starting moves.

I'm kind of leaning towards a house rule where rotes and cantrips are cleric and wizard only and not gained through multiclass. Also, I kind of decided already that the rotes and cantrips doesn't give experience points on failures, as our wizard has gotten more than double experience than anyone else mainly from failing his cantrips. I hope this will help not to further advocate for future characters to multiclass a spellcaster.

Alternatively I'm considering just removing the multiclass talents for future characters too, but I think that would be a shame too.

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Dungeon World / Re: Animal Companion
« on: July 25, 2014, 03:12:50 AM »
Good comments above (sorry about reviving ancient thread, but seemed appropriate). However, what happens if the ranger's companion dies? I understand that you could add several things to reduce the likelihood of that happening, but ultimately if your adventures live in a world where they have a more than a theoretical chance to die so does the companions. If not elsewhere then at least when Death is offering the adventurer a deal between the ranger's life and the companion's life.

Besides mourning the previous companion, will the ranger be able to get a new companion? Of any creature or it has to be the same? How long does the new companion need to be trained to be able to do the same thing.

Anyone has any experience with this?

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Dungeon World / God Amidst the Wastes
« on: July 01, 2014, 04:30:57 PM »
I got a few questions from one of my players regarding the ranger advanced move God Amidst the Wastes.

- If he picks it at first level up does that mean that as level 10, he will also be a level 9 cleric in regards to spells (pick spells of total level of 10). Where as if he picks it at level 10 he will only be a level 1 cleric in regards to spells (pick spells of a total level of of 2). So basically, if you want this you would be stupid not to take it as early as possible - and then, why would anyone not pick Ranger instead of a Cleric?

- Clerics can't pick Elves as a race - does that mean an elven ranger can't pick God Amidst the Wastes?

- Can a Fighter with Multiclass Dabbler become as good a cleric as a ranger picking God Amidst the Wastes? Or is it not possible to pick Starting moves like Commune with the Multiclass Dabbler?


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Dungeon World / Re: Barbarian: Musclebound vs Smash
« on: May 22, 2014, 12:49:06 PM »
Ok, thanks for clarification.

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Dungeon World / Barbarian: Musclebound vs Smash
« on: May 21, 2014, 12:57:39 PM »
I don't understand the point of the barbarian advanced move called Smash when he has Musclebound as starting move. Can someone explain it to me?

From rulebook:
Starting Move Musclebound: While you wield a weapon it gains Forceful and Messy tags.
Advanced Move Smash!: When you hack and slah on a 12+ deal your damage and choose something physical your target has (a weapon, their position, a limb): they loose it.
Weapon tag Messy: It does damage in a particular destructive way, ripping people and things apart.
Weapon tag Forceful: It can knock someone back a  pace, maybe even off their feet.


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Dungeon World / Re: Bloody Aegis - how to deal with it?
« on: May 19, 2014, 02:54:02 PM »
Currently I'm thinking I end up nerfing it in a way that if the last roll you made before it failed was e.g. a +STR roll the debility would become Weak if you choose to trigger the Bloody Aegis. Same with +DEX and shaky and so on. That way I can do as you suggests and enforce the descriptions of their debilities, but also force them to do alternative thinking, rather than continue to do Hack and Slash moves until they burn down the boss, or at least risk having to take damage after 1 debility. The move is still good, but I think I would be able to live with this in my campaign.

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Dungeon World / Re: Bloody Aegis - how to deal with it?
« on: May 19, 2014, 02:41:36 PM »
My job as a GM is not to kill them - I can count the players I killed on 1 hand over many years of GMing. But it is my job to make combat fun - to me that includes that the fights have to have some sort of tension to them. The characters don't have to be on the risk of dying all the time - but they have to fear the risk of dying every fight. To me Bloody Aegis appears to suck out a LOT any tension I can come up with. If you watch Barcelona vs some shitty 2nd division soccer team you know who is going to win - the game is not even fun to watch. Or maybe it is one time - but watching matches like that week after week? Boring.

Worst case scenario after a few sessions any GM could have a group like this: a level 3+ Bard with Multiclass Initiate(Bloody Aegis), Level 5+ Cleric Multiclass Dabbler(Bloody Aegis), level 3+ Warrior with Multiclass Dabbler(Bloody Aegis), level 2+ Paladin with Bloody Aegis. Noone broke any rules at all. I don't want to go to this spot - I want to balance the skill before people start choosing it, so I don't have to deal with an overpowered move or nerf characters later on. I want balance ideas to Bloody Aegis - not just the option of Barcelona playing against 22 crap players (hordes) in all their games or Barcelona's players being given LSD (aka debilities) before the matches.

I want to be able to throw anything at them, and anything feeling like a challenge in its own unique way. I don't want to need keep 1 advanced move in mind for any encounter they might face - that is not fun for me, and hence it won't be fun for my players. I want to fix the root of the problem before it becomes a problem.

Ps: I said The Paladin - not the paladin in my group. I meant the paladin as a class.
Pps: IRL my job is to look for worst case scenarios all the time and come up with workarounds for them - it comes natural for me to do so. I see a problem here - I would like some help with someone more experienced with the system to give some input how to solve it. Telling me it is not a problem doesn't help ease my mind, unfortunately.
Ppps: I have seen some streams of paladins using this talent, so I know I can't be the only one with concerns about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6nHWpYd3kM, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHiKP64sLu0

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Aaah, then it makes sense. Thanks for clarifying!

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Dungeon World / Re: Bloody Aegis - how to deal with it?
« on: May 19, 2014, 12:53:55 PM »
I cannot make him pray for damage when he can just always decide himself when to use this moves and when to take the damage. Having 6 debilities is still better than dying 3 times. Also the paladin would also find it unfair that I "kill" him 3 times each session and only "kill" the wizard 1 time pr session - and that with the wizard having fewer hp. And where is the thrill of combat, if you hardly ever have a real risk of dying?

My coming players are all coming from old school table top games and computer video games, just like I think many players coming to dungeon world are. It is natural for them to think min-max when making their character even if they don't put it like that. They look at the list of advanced moves, and pick whatever they see themselves being able to use in situations that might happen. When I put myself in their place doing the same I would pick this Advanced Move for any character I could as fast as possible - seems insanely overpowered and near impossible for the GM to bypass this mechanic and to put the character in any real danger I have to go to extremes like the Dragon example. We haven't had our first session yet, so I'm not yet a fan of any of their characters yet. However, if he did something like the dragon example I made I would never become a fan - I would simply let him die horribly to his sickness debility and forbid him from making a new paladin with that move - which is the solution I'm already leaning towards. Alternatively I'm thinking of adding extra limitation to the use of it. Like only work in humanoid vs humanoid combat with melee weapons, you need 3+ seconds to foresee the damage to pray to your God, you need to announce you use it before any damage roll is made, or maybe even before I declare whether I do damage or some other hard move.

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