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Messages - Nifelhein

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31
Dungeon World / Re: Fronts, needed for a one shot dungeon crawl?
« on: December 25, 2012, 05:37:15 AM »
I would do them to help them come alive, as said by noofy, and would try to think around what things could happen in that exact session for the first rim portent, that way it would have a slightly higher chance of coming into the game, you don't even need to create a second grim portent until the first one happens.

32
I like Grim Portents!

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Dungeon World / Re: Tremble in fear! Beware the Siege Troll!
« on: December 21, 2012, 09:02:19 AM »
Link is broken. ;)

http://partialsuccess.wordpress.com/2012/12/21/tremble-in-fear-2/

Fantastic, this is the kind of gem we get when we put fiction ahead of the system, something that can be done in every game, for sure, but thrives in a game like Dungeon World.

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Dungeon World / Re: That group stealth roll irks me...
« on: December 21, 2012, 06:48:50 AM »
The greatest problem I see is that we often apply the logic to these cases: The weakest link is the one who will define the action, but that just makes it a bad roll.

Instead, on games try to focus on the idea that the most interesting outcome is based on the character's strengths, the leader has to be whoever is good at it, as long as the players make effort to minimize their weaknesses. Otherwise, the good character will not even bother, heknows they will fail, he is that good.

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Dungeon World / Re: That group stealth roll irks me...
« on: December 20, 2012, 10:44:21 PM »
I would avoid making this kind of group roll into single rolls, but would enforce the idea that the thief can only lead if the rest make sense on what they are doing.

I would rather have the stealthy character shine because he told the dwarf to take his armor off if he wanted to have a chance of moving past the guards, and then have him roll in what he should be *da guy*, in place of making nearly assured to fail sicne everyone will be rolling.

36
Dungeon World / Re: That group stealth roll irks me...
« on: December 19, 2012, 04:36:39 PM »
AD&D 2nd edition had a table for that, but I believe it was a couple of minutes to put on and a few rounds to take it off without care for locks and things.

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Dungeon World / Re: That group stealth roll irks me...
« on: December 19, 2012, 04:12:44 PM »
Don't you love that kind of thing? Armor is good, sure but nothing like knowing it will slow you down or outright give your location. :)

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Dungeon World / Re: That group stealth roll irks me...
« on: December 16, 2012, 08:49:28 PM »
First I would only roll if the situation really has a built-in conflict in it, second I am mostly taking the Burning Wheel approach for most games ever since I read it: decide a leader for the check to be made, that is the most skilled person, the one that shines on it, that person makes the roll.

If you want to make everyone roll, let everyone else roll to see if they aid the other or not. That is, considering you can actually take the group as a single entity for the roll, if everyone is doing a different stealth action, each one of them will have their own roll.

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Dungeon World / Re: Using CC Attribution: a suggestion to homebrewers
« on: December 16, 2012, 07:07:44 AM »
I have been wondering, why the unported license instead of the share-alike, if I am sharing I actually want people to do the same, it is why the SRD worked so well for the hobby, it required your work to be shareable.

40
Dungeon World / Re: animal companion, labor & travel trainings
« on: December 14, 2012, 07:43:30 PM »
I still think we relate to death as a result of a direct conflict better than we would as a result of a travel though, dying during exploration, travel or labor would feel extremely arbitrary to the people I gamed with.

That said the people I gamed with have a strong classic rpg experience, and in those they actually don't see much risk on the game beside the actual combat.

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Dungeon World / Re: animal companion, labor & travel trainings
« on: December 14, 2012, 11:36:59 AM »
I think that comes more from the fact that failure in a fight has the risk of death, while travel and labor have a risk of failure that leads to different situations, but not death.

All in all it is a matter of focus, but I agree with you, giving some focus to these other situations is a good move.

42
Dungeon World / Re: The Druid and the "Shapeshifter" starting move
« on: December 13, 2012, 02:55:20 PM »
Hmmmm. This trade off between holding success and having moves to automatically succeed is quite interesting and a good reason to follow the advice you have given us, sage. I think that would be a great weay to approach it. Bookmarked for future reference :)

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Dungeon World / Re: Using CC Attribution: a suggestion to homebrewers
« on: December 13, 2012, 07:57:08 AM »
I will join the idea.

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I wish! ;)

I just wanted to share what actually opened my eyes as I was readign the book. =D

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Dungeon World / Re: First Trip to the Dungeon (World)
« on: December 12, 2012, 07:32:30 AM »
HyveMyind, I can relate to your players in those places in particular because I haven't really liked them myself, even though I can see them work I can see that it requires more extrapolation that the rest of the game has already built into the other moves.

Regarding magic, the revoke spell mechanic is basically D&D homage and root showing itself, something old time D&D players will quickly recognize and is easy to understand from that perspective, harder to emulate in fiction, as D&D has always been for me. You can make him compromise to that but you can't make him like it if it doesn't make sense to him, and it probably never did in D&D as well.

Drawing unwanted attention, in my opinion, immediately calls to my mind the put the character on a spot move more than the unwanted attention part, but the wording is meant for the player and yet makes more sense to the GM. A better wording that wouldn't correlate anything to him but would to GMs, for example, could be:

• Your spell has unintended side effects. The GM will tell you how.

This would give him an idea that something went awry with the spell itself, but the GM would be free to use any moves along with it, an example:

"Meeko is facing a group of orcs, all his companions are already face down on the mud and there are still 3 of them left, he casts a fireball spell at the 3 of them, the small space they are in has forbidden him to up until now. He rolls and gets an 8, browsing the list he picks the "your spell has unintended side effects" choice.

The GM consults his moves and decides that the fireball could trigger a separate them move. He tells the player: "You cast the spell with all your might, but you feel the energies being charged by your own desperation, the fireball explodes higher than you would normally, hitting the ceiling. This causes a minor cave in between you and your party members who are all unconscious. The orcs are dead, you have seen them die just before the rocks came down, there is a passage behind you, a small breeze blows through the area, making the dust settle towards the corridor. What do you?"


In my opinion it is the same option, just this one would make it clear to player that is is more open ended.

The -1 penalty is boring indeed, because it is not descriptive, it could be substituted by something more interesting, maybe fold the penalty and revoke into the same option.

The spell disturbs the fabric of reality as it is cast, but you can take them into yourself to prevent mishaps — you can either take -1 ongoing to cast a spell until the next time you Prepare Spells or you can forget the spell and be unable to cast the spell again until you prepare spells.

You then have a left over spot for a third choice, if you want, but the same choices are all there, just with more fictional meaning.

As for discern realities, that is a tougher one, I can understand the mechanical choice, and the questions are not spot on because that also leaves more space for creativity to bring new things even after they were answered. The player wants to ask whatever he wants because he wants control over the answers, the list is there to avoid the game crawling to a halt as a player decides what questions to ask and formulates them.

In D&D he wouldn't even ask anything, he would be so far away from it that all he could ask for is to roll the dice. Here he knows what he is searching for, the character may even be on the same page as he is, but he does not know what actually is there, if anything, the move, imo, evokes me to actually create something that may not even have been there originally, the player tells me that this is actually relevant by wanting to trigger discern realities, then I elaborate, they may use the move because I created something they want to understand more closely, sure, but to me the untapped potential is on creating something on the spot.

Discern realities is a metagame mechanic imo, mostly because it is not really about making something in the fiction, but about asking about something that the players got intrigued/ curious/ interested/ cautious of. This means it is something the players trigger out of their own minds, much less than the characters would willingly.

The questions are a bad ting if you just want to ask whatever? Sure, but they also give room for more than they give to be there. Asking "What here is not what it seems?" can tell you the same as asking "Is there a trap in here?", but it can also tell you a lot more, and of something else as well.

If he truly wants to ask something else that is not on the list, tell them to, as long as the question is generic and open enough to not pertain a single situation. This would make him struggle to find something, and if he does, the game actually gains for it, they will learn to ask the questions that actually contribute to the game instead of the ones that uncover something that is there.

In short, I see Discern Realities not as a way to uncover a pre-planned thing, but as a means to trigger new and interesting things based on player interest, it is not about what I prepared but about what can come to the game right now that would make it more fun / interesting.

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