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Messages - J. Trudel

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1
Dungeon World / Re: How to make a bad guy really challenging?
« on: September 10, 2013, 03:39:32 PM »
Another example might be: let's say I want to create a vampire lord or something. He's supposed to be totally badass, as in, not really possible to defeat without a trick or extensive planning or something, but he IS defeatable in theory. In the rules-as-written, he'd only have like 18HP/4 armor at most, which is less awesome than a L5 fighter, right? Even with scary moves, wouldn't he just drop really fast? (because my players might not fail enough rolls for him to exert his badassery.)

Fighter you cut the vampire head, but he turns into a strange mist. You are slowly choking. What do you do ?

Or

Your arrow strike straigth into the vampire head. He look at you with an evil smile, as if nothing happened. You feel your weapon starting to burn into your hands, what do you do Ranger ?

The first thing to remember is, HP are used only when characters CAN do damage. Have them work to know how to do damage.

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Dungeon World / Re: How to make a bad guy really challenging?
« on: September 10, 2013, 03:36:03 PM »
The wall of the house are crumbling, make the fighter do a defy danger to avoid the debris before he does a Hack n Slash. His sword hit the snake big scaly flesh, tell him how little it affect him, but that he succeed at turning the snake attention on him.

The more you give details like these, the more your players will need to roll, giving you more moves and they will also try to find a weak spot to be able to do any damage.

My favored aproach with ''Bosses'' is 3 fold.

* Characters usually need to defy danger to be able to get a hack n Slash.
* Many hits won't do anything against it, they need to find a weak spot.
* The monster moves will have the character defy danger constantly.

Have them do some special moves that will ''stop'' some characters temporary. Fighter is stunned and the wizard his busy casting his spell. The serpent open his mouth to swallow him whole, what do you do Ranger ?

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Dungeon World / Re: How would you institute a "haste" or "slow" spell,
« on: September 10, 2013, 01:13:57 PM »
HASTE                  Level 5             Ongoing
Choose an ally : he is now really fast. When doing a hack-n slash, on a 7-9 he get to choose one :
  • He can menage another hit doing + 1d6 damage.
  • He is fast enough to avoid  the ennemy attack.
On a 10 + He can menage + 1d6 damage without exposing himsefl to danger.

SLOW                  Level 5             Ongoing
Choose a target : it is now really slow. When someone does a hack-n slash against it, on a 7-9 he choose one :
  • You can menage another hit doing + 1d6 damage.
  • The target is too slow to be able to do any damage to you.
On a 10 + you can do + 1d6 damage without exposing yourself to danger.

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Dungeon World / Re: New Rules For Having Two Classes: Input Desired.
« on: September 10, 2013, 01:22:11 AM »
Well, with greater empowered magic and augmented magic. A fire ball cast within a cloud kill has a potential of doing 5d6 + 7 damage. It would be possible to cast this combination as low as level 8 with the proper moves. Something no warriors could ever hope to do.

Even if it does average damage, around 24 that ignore armor, it can essentially clear the whole bestiary with average damage, and even the apocalypse Dragon with one hit (unless of course the GM get's creative).  Yep it's true some class are powerful, but I think each has it's own strength and weaknesses that keeps the game interesting.

If a player, min max his character, let him do so, DW can still bring some challenge for him, and it can get quite fun to see how he can manage to go through all that stuff !

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Dungeon World / Re: New Rules For Having Two Classes: Input Desired.
« on: September 09, 2013, 11:24:15 PM »

The answer to that question is that I want specialized spellcasters to be better at spellcasting than the multiclassed ones.  Since spellcasting is based upon level, the fact that your level doesn't advance when mastering a second class is pretty essential to this.

If you take the spell-casting for example at Level 3, and your character is now level 6, he cast spells only as a 3rd level caster. This is already in the rules, so your multi-class caster is less powerful than another. If on the other hand you are a Wizard and chose moves from another class, then I am a full spell caster from 1st level however, the fact I didn't take the moves allowing a better spell-casting favoring a multi-class leave me a somewhat poorer spell-caster than if I did take them.

One way or another, your spell-cast IS a better spell-caster if he is only one class.

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Dungeon World / Re: New Rules For Having Two Classes: Input Desired.
« on: September 09, 2013, 09:29:42 PM »

It's not automatic, because they are losing experience to gain the moves, and therefore falling behind characters who don't do so immediately in levels, which hurts them in stats, and especially if they are spellcasters.

The problem with your alternative suggestion, for my desires, is that I *want* the players to have more moves.  I want them to be able to be two classes fully, given enough experience and fiction development, without sacrificing their higher level moves.  Ultimately, a "maxed out" character under the system I'm suggesting here, would have the basic moves of two classes, and a total of 12 (instead of 9) advanced move picks.  It would take him a total of 50 additional experience points to reach that "maxed out" point than a standard character.

Another comparison, is that the same amount of experience would get you to be a 10th level character without taking a secondary class, or to be a 7th level character with a mastered secondary class (technically, a few experience points short of 7th level).  So, it's not "for free".

Usually a character needs Level + 7 Xp to gain a new move (and a level). If the character lose Xp to gain a move (or a level), isn't it just easier to let him gain a Level ? You may allow characters to go at a higher level than 10 if you truly need a character with more moves. Why wanting to work with a different system when the one in place does the job ? If your character have more moves than other characters, I think it's just fair to let him be at a higher level since he will obviously be more efficient or at least more versatile than another character with a fewer moves.

So I don't see any troubles allowing for higher level characters with more move and a more flexible multi-classing system.

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Dungeon World / Re: New Rules For Having Two Classes: Input Desired.
« on: September 09, 2013, 04:55:24 PM »

Yeah, that's a good point, and one I was worrying about, too.  I do want the gaining of the second class to slow down the advancement in the other, so that it's not an automatic thing.  What do you think about the following:

SECONDARY CLASSES

Once justified in the fiction, you may designate a secondary class.  You do not gain levels in this class, nor any immediate benefit.  However, from that point on, you may spend 10 experience to gain a basic or level 2-5 advanced move from the move list of that class; this does not increase your level.  You may gain a total of 5 moves in this way.

Once you have a total of two basic moves and three (non-multiclass) advanced moves from the secondary class, you are considered to have mastered the class: you gain any basic moves you had not already chosen for the class, and may choose the best of hit points, damage and load from each class.  You may also change your racial move/background to one from the new class, if appropriate.  From then on, when gaining a level, you may freely choose from the move list of either class.

You may only ever have one secondary class; multiclassing beyond this is limited to the availability of multiclass dabbler/multiclass initiate, etc. moves in your two classes.

END

Experience point cost subject to adjustment.  This makes it a real choice between mastering a second class, and continuing to the advanced moves of the first, I think.

I think automaticaly gaining moves gives too much moves to a single character.

How about this :

Multiclass

When you level-up you may select a move from another class provided you have the requierements for that move (Level or Move). This move can be taken multiple times. You may continue to gain moves from another class even after you have mastered that class.

Multiclass Mastery
When you have obtained all the Starting Moves of another class, you have mastered that class; at this time, between your starting and mastered classes you may choose the best from each of hit points, damage, and load.  You may also choose a Racial Move/Background that is appropriate to either class.

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Dungeon World / Re: New Rules For Having Two Classes: Input Desired.
« on: September 09, 2013, 01:29:05 PM »

I didn't intend for that to be a "restriction" on alignment; I was merely trying to express that one couldn't get experience from both class alignments at once.

I do very much like your concept of Multiclass Mastery, and I may try to adapt from there.  There are only two things that I don't like about it.  One, different core classes have different numbers of basic moves, so I would probably tweak it to say "Once you have selected three basic moves from a second class, you gain any basic moves of that class you had not already selected, and are considered to have mastered that class; at this time..."

The other thing is that it doesn't achieve the *number* of moves that I'm interested in player's achieving; I truly want them to (eventually) be able to do the full job of two classes without having to give up higher powers eventually.  This could be altered by simply granting two moves per level, or something like that, though.  I need to think about it.

Just having the Mastery itself as a rule is a very helpful suggestion, though; thank you.

I only see one major issue with your multiclassing. What about my single class Bard ? The guy who multiclass has way  more manoeuvers than I have, it's unfair.

In this case nobody can have a single class character. If you trully want a character to fulfill two classes at the same time, why not just give him both classes starting moves, and 2 new moves per level ?

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Dungeon World / Re: New Rules For Having Two Classes: Input Desired.
« on: September 09, 2013, 10:02:40 AM »
Zarathud option is simple and elegant, I'd go with that. Another thing you may want to do is to go for a class-less system. You can't have more flexibility than that, but I didn't try if it was balanced or not.

You let the players choose their starting HP and Damage, and it gives them the number of Starting moves they get. They can choose any Starting moves they want.

D4 damage and +4 HP : 5 Starting moves
D6 damage and  +6 HP : 4 Starting moves
D8 damage and + 8 HP : 3 Starting moves
D10 damage and +10 HP : 2 Starting moves

Other combinations are possible. You just go with the average numbers of starting moves.
Example : D10 damage and +6HP would yield 3 Starting moves.

At level-up, they can choose another Starting-move, or choose from the whole move list (If they have the level requiered or any pre-requisite).

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Dungeon World / Re: New dungeon world GM question
« on: September 03, 2013, 05:20:07 PM »
Yep, talking it out is usually a working solution. Describe your setting to the players and ask them to contribute. One of the most improtant job of the GM is to describe a setting that will have the players wanting to be a part of it. I guess that your players didn't really get what your setting was about, and this is why talking with them is so important. If the setting is too ''open'' you have good chances to end up having for character funny teen girls running around with pink hairs and chainsaws. ;)

While it might be welcome in some settings, the case isn't true for many others.

Okay I think I know what the problem was now. I misunderstood the freedom of Dungeon World which is my failing. I gave them too much free reign. Next time I won't ask such broad questions at the start. For the next session I'm running it for people who are actually interested in a campaign. This one was just kind of a test of me to work out the system and such. Mainly combat which was chaotic but a lot of fun. The next session is for five people from my local game store's facebook page. I posted up I was running Dungeon World and these people jumped at the chance. I think it's a testament to the game that within seconds of posting the ad I had five people going. "Do you still have places? I'd love to join!"

Next session for the start of the campaign I'm going to be introducing a cult called the "Jade Mask." I have some basic ideas about them written down but I've left blanks in the narrative. The game is going to start with the adventurers investigating the sounds of moaning and screaming coming from a cavern in the forest. What would you say would be a good way to open this? What kind of questions should I ask?

I think that's one of my problems is I ask far too broad questions leaving it open to crazyness and basically turning it into medieval saints row.

Before asking questions, I suggest you introduce your setting. Then even broad question will have the players answer with revelant information about your setting. I would begin somewhat like that :

The land of ........ (your setting), is a dark place where habitants struggle to live. Hard days of work are hardly enough to put bread and dirty water on the table. Peasants revolts seldom occurs, but the lords of the land are quick to put anyone who oppose them to the sword, or worse. This is why many try their luck to escape a hard life by becoming adventurers, you are amongst them, on your way to investigate some strange ... (introduce the mission).

How have you become involved in all this ?




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Dungeon World / Re: Universal character sheet
« on: September 03, 2013, 04:43:49 PM »
I don't like to double post, but I do think that my character sheet is a good asset for players. Since there is no other ''official'' universal sheet out there,  maybe pinning this post would be a good idea ?

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Dungeon World / Re: New dungeon world GM question
« on: September 03, 2013, 04:38:54 PM »
Yep, talking it out is usually a working solution. Describe your setting to the players and ask them to contribute. One of the most improtant job of the GM is to describe a setting that will have the players wanting to be a part of it. I guess that your players didn't really get what your setting was about, and this is why talking with them is so important. If the setting is too ''open'' you have good chances to end up having for character funny teen girls running around with pink hairs and chainsaws. ;)

While it might be welcome in some settings, the case isn't true for many others.

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Dungeon World / Re: New dungeon world GM question
« on: September 03, 2013, 11:06:12 AM »
Many starting GM are having issues like this when new at this stuff, don't worry too much about it. If I can give you only one tip, reward your more serious players with interesting stories coming from their background. This way, it may interest your ''trolls'' to actually care a bit more about the story you are creating with them, and they might stop beign trolls.

If they don't,  kick them out of the game. Having fun is what this game is about. If some players ruin the experience, there is no point at all in keeping them playing. Also don't be afraid to refuse something to the players, as a GM it's your job to display an interesting  world to the players. You have all rights to discuss with the players on how their background make sense. If it doesn't simply say : no, you can't be this or that way, this doesn't make sense with the world.

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Dungeon World / Re: Players want a more Gameist Combat
« on: September 01, 2013, 01:42:27 PM »
I agree, maybe your players are just not looking for DW. However, combat is as much tactical as YOU want it to be in DW. You can always give bonus, add or remove a defy danger based on player choices during combat. This will give clever tactics a notable advantage in play. The thing is, it is not a ''usual'' gaming approach to tactics, but it does the job of granting a tactical advantage that may be in fact closer to a real life encounter.

Assumptions in the form of rules may give the players more insights about tactics in the game, but you can always let them know that some tactics will remove defy danger or give them bonus etc etc. It might do the trick.

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Dungeon World / Re: Universal character sheet
« on: August 30, 2013, 04:07:30 PM »
Great ! Also, next to the move you can see a    +    , that's where you can write a quick reference of the effects of the move. For example Roll + DEX  or Armor + 1, or DMG + 1d4. But I guess that you figured that out if you roll + INT 10 + ;)

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