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Topics - noofy

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1
AW:Dark Age / Solo Play!
« on: September 24, 2014, 10:12:11 PM »
So I'm playing Dark Age as a solo playtest :)
Here's the Google Doc which I will update as I go. with comments and thoughts. Feel free to do the same.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1VxhbMkrsGhhXxGuWftAU1DSB7NZQ5hXWhIwID7m5S_c/edit?usp=sharing

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AW:Dark Age / Videography / bibliography
« on: March 16, 2014, 06:06:36 AM »
Hey Gang,
I know Vincent usually has a media-ography  section in his games, and many of his HBO watching angst has been shared with us via google+ and oh, how we love that level of personable opinion, its so great! :) :)
Anyways, are there any other films / TV / Books that inspire your Dark Ages?

I'll start:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3eb-EBdwRtk

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Two hard-headed mercenaries kill monsters and cause havoc in their search for money, fame and adventure.

So here's the idea - Skullkickers was made for DW, especially since Edwin does the line art. So what I propose is that we all contribute to using rules to mechanically (and narratively) describe the strip in DW nomenclature. Fiction first always :)
Of course this will lead to individual interpretation of what moves / GM moves / Bonds / Tags / Conditions apply when, as the story unfolds, but I thought it would be a great way for new and veteran players to analyse the fiction and draw out the way in which the AW engine can cope with such wonderful comic-book story telling.

In fact, each page is almost a move (sometimes two or three), all snowballing into each other. So I thought I'd start and leave the next page open for someone else to have a crack at how they see the strip in 'game' terms.

I'm assuming we have a Dwarven Barbarian and a Human Fighter; Baldy (who's signature weapon just happens to be a golden revolver). Our Heros have started the game in a tense situation - namely at the lair of a leech like monster who has been terrorising the local village.



Baldy attempts to spout lore about the leech like monster and fails miserably. The GM makes their move of revealing an unwelcome truth - that the monster is just about to burst from the hole....

4
Dungeon World / Heritage Moves from Dark heart for all.
« on: June 28, 2013, 12:57:06 AM »
The lovely heritage move from Mr. Walton's Dark Heart of the Dreamer is one of my favourites and we've taken to replace the standard race moves as a basic move when you create a new character, even in a 'vanilla' game of dungeon world.

Quote
When you create a new adventurer, decide on your species, ethnicity, and cultural heritage, choosing anything or any combination of things that sounds interesting to you and the other players.
For example, I might play a marsh-dwarf witch who has some spiderlord ancestry.

Then, pick 2-3 heritage moves to start with, selecting from the “monster moves” that best match your heritage. No matter where or whom you come from, in someone’s eyes, you and your family are monsters.

I pick the Dwarven Warrior move “Drive them back,” the Spiderlord move “Enmesh in webbing,” and invent a move based on the character’s training in wilderness survival, “Scavenge for food and medicinal plants.”

At the beginning of a session or when you invoke your rights of blood and tradition (however you do that), roll+Wis. On a 10+, hold 3. On a 7-9, hold 2. On a miss, you still hold 1. (but I get to make a hard move) Spend this hold 1-for-1 during play to make a heritage move, just like that.

When you gain new appreciation for your heritage, add a new heritage move or change an existing one.

Asari Spurnheart, our dark elf paladin of Lolth for instance, took:
*Inflict pain beyond measure
*Use the dark to advantage
from the Dark Elf swordsmaster monster and
*Pass on divine knowledge
from the deep elf priest monster.

This has revolutionised our games! The lovely interpersonal meshing between bonds, heritage moves and alignment moves is gold. In our game, Asari uses her heritage move pass on divine knowledge in combination with I am the Law for wonderful scenes. In one instance compelling the Grumble, the Dwarven fighter's priestly hireling that lolth will devour all in the darkness and he best placate her with the 'gifts' of treasure that he found. He backed away and fled the underdark with Thor (the fighter's) gold and treasure. The found him later cocooned in webs, waiting to be digested by cave spiders. This triggered Asari's alignment xp stricture; Cause suffering for its own sake. Awesome.

Try it, its wonderful.

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Dungeon World / My Display copy of Dungeon World :)
« on: March 04, 2013, 09:19:13 PM »
Dan (thebookguy) made me an AWESOME bespoke version of Dungeon World! Woo! It arrived not two days after my Hardback copy. He's the man.
 I just had to share its magnificence with you all :)





6
Mine hasn't arrived yet and I'm getting slightly nevous since other folks around the world seem to have recieved their bundles...

Anygood news down under?

7
Dungeon World / D&D next inspired primary dice mechanic drift.
« on: February 02, 2013, 01:06:58 AM »
OK, so DW has part of its roots in the long heritage of D&D play. D&D next is in the midst of an odd playtesting cycle, and one of the interesting mechanics to develop is the idea of advantage and disadvantage adding a second die to the primary d20 roll and choosing either the highest or lowest result (respectfully of advantage or disadvantage).

I like this idea, and because I'm so enamoured of assembling dice pools, I've been mucking around with my group and playtesting a drift of the primary DW mechanic. Instead of adding bonuses or subtracting minuses to the base 2d6 roll, I've been adding dice to a pool and rolling that instead. If its a minus bonus then you take the lowest two results, If its a bonus you take the highest two results.

So a fighter with a STR of +3 gets plus three dice to her (base) pool of 2d6 for a total of 5d6 when rolling hack and slash and takes the highest two results. Similarly, the cleric with WIS of +2 but distanced from their god only adds 1 die to their pool for casting spells, taking the best two results out of three.

The hapless barbarian who has INT of -2 and is also stunned adds three dice to his pool for a total of 5d6 when rolling spout lore and keeps the lowest two scores for his result.

The results have been interesting...
Players LOVE assembling and rolling dice pools. They even go to the extent or clamouring for aid in order to grab an extra dice or two. Even extra minus dice are looked favourably on 'caus y'know, there is still the chance of rolling ALL sixes and getting a critical success!'

The results seem to be more swingy. I'm no mathematician, so I'm not sure of the probabilities, but a 10+ still seems as rare as before, and a 12 is still treated as a 'crit' by the gang.

Conversely, a miss on a 6 or less is a little more frequent, especially for characters with high bonuses (+2 / +3 / +4) who would normally only have a like an 8-10% chance of missing. This in turn lead to rather a hefty collection of XP (on a miss)

Rather than gear the XP cycle to a higher amount to curb the levelling, I turned XP into a spendable resource inspired by Burning Wheel's fate mechanic:
Fiction first as always... Explain how you have learned from your mistakes and how that would effect the roll and Spend any number of XP to add one bonus die per XP to your pool prior to rolling for a move. AND/OR Spend any number of additional XP to re-roll any result (one XP per die) after rolling.

I'm really liking this variant, and only having played one and a half sessions with it am still wary of its long term effects, but its been lovely to throw dice of different colours into the pool to simulate the narrative influence of additional 'effects' to the base roll. The players are having fun and are enjoying the 'push your luck' element to the XP spend.



8
Dungeon World / Doug's Dungeon Goodies
« on: November 04, 2012, 04:05:47 AM »
Maybe you know, maybe you don't but in the OSR blogosphere, Doug of [url]http://blueboxerrebellion.blogspot.com[url] has some awesome dungeon design prompts for his Dungeon Teller game that work wonderfully well with Dungeon World. For your lonely GM fun or making it up with collaborative story telling on the fly!

A mad lib style dungeon 'on the fly' prompter. Make maps like crazy!


A handy 'setting' generator chart. Have the characters Spout Lore or Carouse and choose from the options...



Or how about an instant adventure path, with fronts, dangers (and their instincts) all laid out in a relationship map?



Stuck for ideas out the layout of your new steading? Try the Chitty City Tool! Make sure to ask lots of provactive questions and use the answers!


Or even as a your players start exploring and uncover rumours. Stuck for an evocative location? Use the Chitty World Building Tool :)



Insta situation or Impeding Dooms Chart.


I Love his 'Wondermorphs'! They are so epic and the illustrations just beg for questions about the dungeon.


His Villian-o-matic is pretty nifty too :)

9
Dungeon World / Spellbooks and spells
« on: June 09, 2012, 05:02:59 AM »
So, I was reading this gem of a blogpost by Jeff:
http://jrients.blogspot.com.au/2012/06/giants-in-dying-earth.html

and it struck me...
Spells are AWESOME. Just like with a fighter's signature weapon or a ranger's companion, or a Bard's instrument, they should be personalised and significant.

So, when we next have a wizard in our game, I'm going to have them write out their spellbook especially, just like we used to in Moldvay, and encourage them to name their spells. Its not cage, its The Charm of Forlorn Encystment! Its not detect magic, its Houlart’s Blue Extractive!

Ooooh, this is cool, I just need to make up some parchment like, blank min-spellbooks for future use.

10
Dungeon World / Dungeon World Kingdom Level Stats and Moves
« on: May 24, 2012, 10:37:48 PM »
Hey Gang!
Since some of you asked, I transcribed notes from my notebook on our recent 'sandcastles, schliech and seaweed' game on the beach whilst camping a few weeks ago. It involved two high level characters (a Wizard and Thief), a swathe of NPCs, Kingdom level moves and PvP leadership and diplomacy at an epic scale.

I stole shamelessly from Greg Stoltz's Reign Company Rules, but he wanted us gamers to use it that way, so since I bought and paid for the hardcopy I see no foul.

Hope it is of some use to you folks, we had an absolute ball with it!

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1QxJTstB7QM5GUEIGWaHGEyEOXSkQI1RB7PjgVfreZ7Q/edit

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Hi gang,
I recently was working on a Front for the 2012 One Page Dungeon Contest, heavily inspired by the Mad MAx 3 Film 'Beyond Thunderdome'.  I blew out of the one page restriction, and I never really came up with a good map. So here it is. I ran it last weekend for Branvion and Tonks and they had a balst. Please use it in your games :)

https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1uCfI7byxjYy8sACn4n3zqnowGTXoWSDo5zqAjFWskeM

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Hi everyone,
This thread is in response to P2's problems that (he?) has with the Beta 2 playbook. Specifically that he feels the Bard's beginning moves of Charming and Open and Any Port in a Storm are not particularly useful or 'iconic' to the class. Bards are his favourite character and the moves obviously don't speak to his concept of what a Bard should be. He prefers the concept of multi-class dabbler and the opportunities that signifies as a Bard 'diversifies'.

His response made me sit back and mull it over. I haven't played DW with a Bard in the group yet, though I really like the concept and implementation. Any Port in a Storm (in its old NPC-focused iteration) has long been used as a model for our group as the DW equivalent of the Burning Wheel Circles mechanic. I personally, really like the new version though, as it encapsulates any change in the town, and what with the new steading tags! Woo Hoo! If the GM is liberal in their use of the ask questions and use the answers principle, can support all manner of player authorship. In my mind, this is the iconic Bard move. But that's just my preference for what the Bard should encapsulate.

To me, the classes are the first 'flagged' choice that a player makes. They are unique, varied and not repeatable. They make me as a GM sit up and take notice. Why do you want to play the Bard? Why do you want to create your own signature weapon? Why to you want to cast spells? Why do you want to use deadly poisons?

They are very specific fictional (or in some cases mechanical) cues to the player (and thus me) on the type of story they want to tell. The smaller choices during chargen; look, stats, bonds, gear, and move details focus these flags and make my job as GM even easier. I know what the players want the game to be about.

Once that broad iconography is established, the fiction develops via the focus of these flags. But what if the initial playbook moves aren't what 'flag' you as iconic, or envisage the class the way you want? Is making a custom 'multi-class dabbler' move going to satisfy that discomfort?

I'm hesitant to 'hack' the playbooks most of all. Muddling their moves with others, focusing largely on the mechanical iteration instead of the powerful fictional potential of moves, dropping a move you feel is 'useless'; all seems backward to me. Heck, just playing with the basic moves as per the villager playbook leads to wonderfully disparate and 'iconic' characters based on the moves players (and GMs) make in the story and the resultant fictional choices.

It has made me seriously ponder the significance of the choices that Sage and Adam have been making. I've been 'hacking' DW ever since it first developed, as have most of the playtesters and folks giving this grand game a shot. Despite the old story games adage of 'don't hack the hack'. This feedback process however,has tempered the development of the game and the 'vision' that Sage and Adam (and Tony!) have  considered over the last 2 years. As the final iteration draws ever closer I think I'm going to leave well enough alone.

Like with any other RPG, I'm going to use the Flags as written. Rather than replace, discard or modify I'm going to encourage folks to play the game with what is on the page for a good few sessions instead of ripping it apart at chargen. Just because there is a chapter on Advanced Delving, doesn't mean you need to use it straight away before the players have had a chance to 'flag' their intent with the choices given to them already.

I'm embracing the Bard as is. I think its a wonderful, balanced class and hope that someone decides to play one this weekend so we can all see what type of stories we can craft with the moves as written.

13
Dungeon World / Ranger's companion - ferocity?
« on: March 20, 2012, 02:27:10 AM »
Love the new beta rules :)

My regular ranger player and I are curious about ferocity in the companion animal's statblock...
 Do you roll the number once at creation? or is it an added die (or two) for subsequent rolls? We've assumed its a one off roll (though I've offered the mean of 2d4 instead of rolling if she wants), since it really only effects the number of strengths of her wolf, and how he adds damage in battle.


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Dungeon World / Bonds Compendium
« on: February 28, 2012, 11:42:24 PM »
In the interests of writing new bonds as per the Beta XP rules and end of session move, I thought it best to give a collected list of all the bonds written for all the versions of the game so far.

The idea being to spark players and the GM to write new bonds using these concepts as inspiration. I'm aware that usually the bonds will be very specific to your particular game, but if you have any more that your group has written, please feel free add them to the list!

*I have a long-standing bargain with _______________.
*I sang stories of _______________ long before I ever met them in person.
*_______________ is often the butt of my jokes.
*I am writing a ballad on the adventures of _______________. *_______________ trusted me with a secret.
*_______________ does not trust me, and for good reason.
*_______________ has insulted my deity.
*_______________ is a good and faithful person; I trust them
implicitly.
*I worry about the ability of _______________ to survive.
*I am working on converting _______________ to my faith.
*_______________ owes me their life.
*I have sworn to protect _______________.
*I worry about the ability of _______________ to survive in the dungeon.
*_______________ is a weakling, but I will make them tough.
*I have worries about the soul of _______________. *_______________ has stood by me in battle and is one of my closest friends.
*I respect the beliefs of _______________ but hope they will someday see the true way.
* _______________ is a brave soul, I learn much from them.
*I have guided _______________ before and they owe me for it. *_______________ is a friend of nature, so I will be their friend
as well.
*_______________ has no respect for nature, so I have no respect
for them.
*_______________ does not understand life in the wild, so I
will teach them.
*I stole something from _______________ and they don’t know it.
*I stole something from _______________ and they found me out. *_______________ knows incriminating details about me.
*_______________ and I have a long con running.
*_______________ will play an important role in the events to
come. I have foreseen it!
* _______________ is keeping an important secret from me. *_______________ is woefully misinformed about the world; I
will teach him all that I can.
*_______________ refuses to let me explore the full depths of magic.
*_______________ has been the subject of my experiments before, and hates me for it.
*One day _______________ will stop laughing at me. One day...






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Dungeon World / Instant Dungeons
« on: February 26, 2012, 05:19:09 AM »
Oh man, just saw this via Lord Kilgore's Blog!!

Djeryv's Generator + Dyson Map + DW = Instant Game. Oh yeah.

http://www.djeryv.com/

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