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Messages - Dracones

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1
Dungeon World / Re: prerelease comments / observations
« on: August 24, 2012, 10:13:36 AM »
Starting on p.255 some monster stat blocks have "w" or "b" indicated in their damage.  Is this defined somewhere?

It is defined somewhere. Hmmm or used to be.

B means to take the best of the two dice. I think W means to take the worst.

It should probably be added to Chapter 17, Elements of a Monster - Damage, to make it clearer though.

Might also be worth adding to Chapter 2 - Harm and Healing - Damage. Where it talks about monster damage.

But of the two areas the Chapter 17 would keep it fresh in the reader's mind as they look at the monster stats and see it pop up.

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Dungeon World / Re: Confused and need help
« on: August 23, 2012, 01:13:11 PM »
The traditional monster turn is "X attacks Y, roll to hit, roll for damage, Y roll to escape grapple/being-sucked-Elsewhere/save-vs".

In DW on a 7-9 you may hit the critter, and it 'launches at your throat' or 'throws a fireball at you' and you can defy danger to get out of the way, get an assist from someone tackling you down etc.  This is a soft move.

This is an interesting example, because I thought that with Hack and Slash a 7-9 response was "you were hit".

I suppose one way to look at it is that in a Hack and Slash situation where you're faced off against a foe, circling around and trading blows, the soft move is already assumed. So the 7-9 is a hard response "his jab back gets under your guard, take 1d6 damage".

But there could be situations where a new person moving into a hack and slash it wouldn't make sense to respond with a hard move. Say the foe is busily engaged with the fighter and the bard is at the foe's back and makes a slash at the guy's legs. 7-9 the guy goes down but the bard now has threat. The bard can continue hacking(7-9 = damage) or defy danger to try to get away from the threat.

Does that sound about right?

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Dungeon World / Re: Confused and need help
« on: August 23, 2012, 10:39:38 AM »
I know when I first read DW I was like "how is there no initiative for combat??". But then what rpg has initiative for social interactions?

Combat in DW seems to flow in the same way other rpgs assume you handle the PCs sitting at feast chatting with the king. It's a conversation and rolls only happen if what the players are saying triggers a mechanic(bluff, intimidation, diplomacy, etc).

It's rather interesting when you think about it the other way around. Many rpgs have a very natural flow for finding things in the world, using skills, acting socially and then they turn into a tactical tabletop miniatures game the moment you draw a sword.

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Dungeon World / Re: Confused and need help
« on: August 22, 2012, 06:50:06 PM »
Yeah, the events, outcome, method, etc totally lost me too.

I pretty much grok the idea of soft moves and hard moves, along with foreshadowing impending dangers.

This game will really benefit from some solid play session recordings.

5
Dungeon World / Re: My problem at being the GM
« on: August 22, 2012, 01:17:22 PM »
wizard: I cast magic missile!
*silence*
gm: fine by me.
*silence*
wizard (feeling awkward): shouldn't I roll for this?
gm: what do you think?
wizard: I don't know, should I?
*silence*
gm: yes. I already told you like ten times. Read on your sheet: "when you unleash a spell..." you always have to roll.
wizard: oh, I got it! Let's roll then!

I don't see the player doing anything wrong with this. How this would flow with me:

wizard: I cast magic missile!
gm: Okay, roll for cast a spell.

or

wizard: I cast magic missile!
gm: Okay, you're hidden from the monster and are able to take your time with the spell. It flies out and slams into him. Roll damage.

or

wizard: I cast magic missile!
gm: The Lich sees you casting the spell and waves his hand. A shimmering shield appears around him and your missile deflects away from it and slams into the ceiling causing debris to begin to fall. What do you do?

The player initiates the action but waits to see how the world(voiced by the GM) responds to it. They can't roll dice yet because they don't know if the world is going to treat it as a move.

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Dungeon World / Re: My problem at being the GM
« on: August 19, 2012, 05:30:07 PM »
I don't see how this is a problem. In most every rpg the GM is the person that decides which rules applies to character actions.

To be honest many players are players because they don't want a huge amount of decision making or involvement in the game. It's sort of how most people in life prefer to work for a boss vs run their own company. Or how many people in a MMO group prefer to be DPS rather than lead the group as the tank. It's more fun for many people to just be pointed in a direction and be told to "kill it with fire!"

It's just easier to follow the lead, pick from a few choices and enjoy the depth involved in those few choices.

So players waiting on the GM to say "go ahead and roll hack and slash" would seem to be pretty normal to me and something you're not going to change.

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Dungeon World / Re: So, does Load use Strength or STR?
« on: August 17, 2012, 01:07:36 PM »
I read that as the +str and not the entire score. I believe when they reference the 3 letter abbreviation it's the ability score mod, while the entire name is the entire score.

Constitution + number for hp = Take the entire constitution score and add it to the base class value to get your hp.

Str + number for load = Take the bonus/penalty for str and add it to the base class value to get your max load.

Fighters start with a higher class load base as they've been trained to carry gear around while a thief with a low str is going to want to stick to lighter weapons. A thief with no bonus would have starting:

rations: 1
armor: 1
3 daggers: 0
rapier: 1

Leaving 2 left over for selecting the adventuring gear or a bow over daggers, etc.

For carrying loot out I'd figure on the players being overburdened a lot of the time but they could drop it pretty quick in a fight. Except where the thief decides to "check on the horses" while the party holds off the attacking goblins. :)

8
Dungeon World / Re: prerelease comments / observations
« on: August 13, 2012, 04:30:08 PM »
Just (Level+1) of spells prepared, really?

For this, there are moves a wizard can take to reduce the memorization requirements of certain spells. So magic missile could take nothing to memorize leaving that spell as an always prepared spell. Or you could take fireball(3) and reduce it down to 2. But generally spells in the game are pretty powerful so you aren't meant to be running around with a lot of them memorized. Also you can swap them out without a huge amount of rest.

As for the lack of a lot of specific mechanics in the rules, this game doesn't run on specific mechanics. It's very Old School in that the GM is going to have to make a lot of calls(along with player input) in how things operate. Walking the perimeter of a city for sanctuary or alarm? Sure, why not?

Part of the rules say "be a fan of the players" which means let the players have fun with things. I think the game could probably get a little gonzo or over the top, but that's fine. The PC's, their classes, are very unique in the world. Just because they can do certain things doesn't mean that the world at large has those things happen all the time. Your cleric might be the only cleric in existence who knows the sanctuary spell. So you don't normally see towns with that spell cast around them.

9
Dungeon World / Re: Pre-Release Character Sheets
« on: August 13, 2012, 10:58:15 AM »
I prefer the new portrait layout. It just seems a little more standard to other rpgs and are a little easier to print out front/back.

Either way though I think the character sheets are very well done in this game. Much better than most any rpg I've read. Also I love how they package them up. The PDF is designed perfectly to do a single print run of front/back for use at the table. 2 sheets of moves to pass around, 1 sheet for each class and 1 sheet each for cleric and wizard spells. I'm guessing someone spent a lot of time moving fonts and layouts around to make it work like that. It feels like one of those things someone spent days on but is invisible enough not to overtly appreciate.

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Dungeon World / Re: prerelease comments / observations
« on: August 12, 2012, 10:07:07 AM »
I asked about the exp for misses on the kickstarter page. It's still in and they're going to make sure it gets highlighted better.

As for the order of the basic moves and character creation, I think the current order is pretty good. The current flow I think is:

What is DW -> Basics of the mechanics -> Creating a character -> Basic/Special moves in detail -> Character classes in detail -> Gear/Magic -> GM stuff

So it's sort of light mechanics, light character, heavy mechanics, heavy character, no?

Or anyway, for me on the first time read I didn't really hang up on that flow. The hang ups I had was coming from a traditional rpg background and sort of groking how the mechanics themselves work. I think the book does pretty well with examples though.

Down the road a bit if they wanted to aim this game at pure newbies I'd recommend a separate 10-15 page starter guide. Have 4 simplified pre-made characters(fighter, wizard, thief, cleric) and a short adventure that has specific moves each character can do and how to react to the moves written out. Very much an A, B, C of how to play a rpg and DW in particular. Something like how 1983 red box Basic Set D&D walked the reader through the mechanics.

11
Dungeon World / Re: Custom class: the Witch
« on: August 10, 2012, 01:34:42 PM »
Personally I think I'd keep the damage rather low and focus on the effects. Ever seen Stardust? That movie has cool examples of witches. Mirrors shattering with shards flying everywhere, pulling out a small voodoo doll and breaking limbs/drowning the person.

Perhaps the mechanical advantage over just swinging with a staff for d6 is that these effects ignore armor and are obviously at range. Maybe have moves that allow you to bewitch more targets at once?

I guess I'm sort of a "niche" person and to me it feels like the wizard is the damage numbers niche class. 2d4 or 2d6 with the ability to maximize the spell and pump enchantments into them as damage adds.

As for what the bewitching can do, I don't know how to define that. I almost feel like there should be a list of effects you can pick and choose. Like maybe one of the effects is "can do damage", other is "can force a shape change", "can cause 1d4 buff", "can cause 1d4 debuff", etc. Where the -1d4 might be the guy puking up frogs and the +1d4 might be a love hex which inspires. The player would handle describing what he's doing.

Maybe at start you can pick 1 or 2 effects and add more as moves later on? This will build up to really big things at level 6+ when you can start to yell down a mountain.

But I don't know if that's the way to do it. My worry as a DM is it can be really hard to sort of understand what the "power level" of something is supposed to be. Vague is nice because it creates a lot of potential for flavor and creativity, but it also makes me feel like I have to balance every idea the player came up with. And as a player I'd worry that one DM would let me do everything while another one wouldn't let me do anything. Meanwhile the wizard's fireball is always 2d6 ignore armor no matter what table he plays at.


12
Dungeon World / Re: "Missing" race / class combos
« on: August 10, 2012, 01:01:01 PM »
Yeah, these are really nice. I love how they sort of have a theme along each race.

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Dungeon World / Re: Custom class: the Witch
« on: August 09, 2012, 11:50:23 AM »
I like it. My only thing is it looks like bewitchment is a pretty core thing and there isn't a lot of guidance for how to use it in play. Given spindle and thread it can be used for damage, but should it just do the class damage?

Also I think the class could use choices in the equipment part.

14
Dungeon World / Re: Using Conviction with DW
« on: August 06, 2012, 02:12:42 PM »
However, this almost requires the referee to allow plentiful opportunities for resurrection.

Why? When I got back into rpgs about a year back I started in on playing 4e with a group. I died at around level 3 or so and being able to come back after paying 500 gold really turned me off of the game. I felt like anything I did in the game just didn't matter anymore.

I have that same group in Savage Worlds right now and so far 1 PC has died and another one has had his face terribly scarred when he took a 30 cal round to the head. The game is pretty lethal and there's 0 ways for a PC to be raised in the current campaign. It's really not a big deal, a PC dies and a new one just comes in.  It's an opportunity for the player to create something new, play with some new ideas and even try out a new class or power set.

I don't make them start out at "level 1" again though. In Savage Worlds that'd be too much of a penalty since advancement is pretty static(2-3 exp per session). I'm not sure how I'd handle starting in replacement PCs in DW.

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Dungeon World / Re: Within Your Reach!
« on: August 06, 2012, 01:47:53 PM »
Picked this up to get some ideas on how to setup DW adventures and fronts. I'm still wrapping my head around how DW does things a bit and I've been trying to fine tune my "prep for the table" methodology.

I haven't read Reach yet but I have to say that the design and layout is fantastic. Nice use of artwork, well placed, everything seems really easy to read. It's visually beautiful.

I also love the monster descriptions. The wolves "Drag you screaming into the cave" is just fantastic.

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