I'm actually a little unclear now. So far I've only seen responses to the initiative idea, but none on the alternative dice mechanic, and I feel the need to understand that mechanic a little better before passing judgment as, say, "hashed" or "not hashed".

For example, how would one get a bigger die? Is it another stat that determines it? Or do you just have to choose? Taking the time to choose which die to roll would probably distract from the fictional choices you have to make. If no other stat determined which die to roll, you could simply start high and let it get bigger every time you got a hit, and smaller every time you got a miss. So say you start with a d8, then you rolled a 4, your next die would be a d6 (meaning that your +x stat would help you succeed much more next time), but if you rolled a 5, then your next die would be a d10 (meaning you'd be somewhat more likely to get into trouble). Any +2 or +3 stat would be extremely powerful at lower die levels.

It seems to me that there's some real value to your game play right there, even without any initiative element thrown in. I suppose if you find yourself unsure about how the PvP situation should play out, who should go first, and you can't seem to find the right questions that As If was talking about in order to find the most logical sequence in the story itself, then you could use the higher result as an initiative marker. But then again, I can imagine some initiative results being hard to interpret, such as if I rolled a 4 on a d4 (a success), and you rolled a 5 on a d10 (a miss), then your "miss" would come before my "success"? What would that look like? Maybe only hits would count? Misses would automatically go last?

In any case, I think it's worth exploring for certain implementations of a Powered-by-the-Apocalypse game, but you'd have to think carefully about the intention and what effect you want the die mechanic to have on play. These are just some of the ways I see, but you might see something else :) 

Titles is a good idea. Might be kind of hard to make them work for each class though. I'm not sure how BX managed it.

Also, of course Dungeon World in its current state requires levels for many of the moves and other things to work, but it needn't be that way. Apocalypse World doesn't work that way, nor do many other fantasy roleplaying systems other than Dungeons and Dragons. Yet all these systems also have good milestone rewards, and in my opinion a similar system of advancement would not spoil the old-school feeling.

None of us can presume to speak for him of course. I understand what you're saying like this, "how would you apply what you've learned from reading / playing Vincent's games if you were to redesign D&D?" which is a more reasonable question, I think. There are more things in Vincent's mind, WaitYes, than are dreamt of in our philosophy.

That said, according to the principles I gather from his designs, I'm not sure that keeping the fan base happy would be a huge priority. I'd rather somebody just designed an awesome game and let it be what it is, and let people decide for themselves if they like it or not. So much bad design in all fields comes from trying to "make people happy" rather than just trying do it right whether "people" are "happy" about that or not.

Also, the whole idea of a 5th edition of any game seems rather odd in the light of lumpley games publication history. Just like you don't see 5 different editions of Dogs in the Vineyard, but instead you get In a Wicked Age, Poison'd, Apocalypse World, and so on, it's seems to me that it's better to just design a new game instead of redesigning an old one. If one absolutely must keep the same branding and IP and so on, then fine, but make distinct games with distinct priorities that people can play or not as they like, (e.g. "D&D: Secrets and Spies," "D&D: Total War," "D&D: Epic Journey," and so on)  rather than remaking the same old game and fragmenting your fan base.

All that said, the most D&D-like game that Vincent has worked on was Storming the Wizard's Tower, which may provide some insights. That one ran into some problems though, and then Dungeon World came out. Its core is basically the same as Vincent's design in Apocalypse World, and although the secondary elements were designed by others, the game is an homage to both Vincent and D&D, and in many ways feels authentic in both respects.

Yes that clarifies things a lot for me, thanks! The part that confuses me is on page 169 under the special rules for harming a gang, there's a little countdown clock, copied also on your trifold character sheet for the rat-pack, where it shows this:

1-harm: a few injuries, one or two serious, no fatalities.
2-harm: many injuries, several serious, a couple of fatalities.
3-harm: widespread injuries, many serious, several fatalities.
4-harm: widespread serious injuries, many fatalities.
5-harm and more: widespread fatalities, few survivors.

Then, in the example, Dremmeler's gang inflicts 2 harm on Uncle's gang (Uncle's the PC), and two of his gang members just die, just like that, "looking through crosshairs" style. Uncle also takes 2 harm, since he's leading the gang. Trying to escape, Uncle's gang takes more harm, and ends up with just a few of his gang left alive, and Uncle himself badly hurt.

In your playbook, you wrote, "When you take harm as a gang, take harm as a gang," hence my confusion. How would you suggest we interpret gang "fatalities" on the gang harm countdown with the rat pack?

I come seeking Marmot. I had originally intended to support the Animal Detective game on kicktsarter but got too busy and didn't get to it before the deadline passed.  Anyways, I have all the other official LE playbooks for trade, as well as some fan made stuff such as the "valkyrie" and the "living god".

Please send me a message if you'd like to trade.

I'm working on a roleplaying game designed specifically as an activity that my students can use to learn English and have a good time doing it. I'm interested in any of you can give me some feedback for how to adapt the AW rules to this purpose. Obviously we wouldn't use the standard AW setting as it is, but something more kid-friendly. First, though, I'm interested in some questions about the rules themselves.

I've found the rules as they are have a 3 problems for ESL with children:

1. The moves are too dense in terms of language processing. For a native speaker to process a move just takes a few seconds and feels quite natural, but for a non-native speaker, it can be a real chore to parse it all, especially more idiomatic terms like "under fire," "read a sitch," and others. I have tried reducing the language to the simplest level possible, but it seems both too vague and too bland: "do something difficult" instead of "act under fire" for instance. I'd like to see if it's possible even to reduce it to a few strong words, drawn in a sort of mind-map or other diagram to show the choices visually instead of as text. Does anyone have an idea how to do this?

2. Cards work better than dice with these kids. Dice tend to get fiddled with a lot and it becomes a distraction, plus students always want to reroll negative results, but cards are final once they get turned over. I've tested both and cards seem like the way to go for me. Is it possible to adapt AW like mechanics to cards?

3. I'm using a system where students get to draw one card for each vocabulary word they use in their narration of how they try to solve a problem or do a move. It's more like Otherkind at the moment, and drawing more cards is sort of like rolling extra dice in that system. It lets me focus only on words instead of numbers, and this is something I'd like to try to keep in my system. Even stats like "cool +1" feel like too much math for my students -- I'd rather they focused on the words more, and I want the system to reward spontaneous language use.

If you have any ideas or suggestions about any of these questions, especially how to preserve the awesomeness of the AW system while still meeting these different needs, or apply some of the awesomeness of the AW system to another system that meets these needs, I'd love to hear them. Thanks in advance!

(As for the background of this project: I live in China, and I'm really enjoying this -- every week I have two classes where I get to playtest my game, and watch how my students, my game, and my own knowledge are all improving every time. I even get paid to do it. I'm hoping to develop this game to the point where I can publish it here and promote it as a tool for learning English, which is very popular in China right now.)

Interesting indeed. I suspect we're finding different sorts of meaning and importance in it. I'll be sure to report how this change works when I get the chance to try it out, whether it's more trivial or meaningful.