Racial Moves

I've got a few things to say about some of the existing racial moves—it turns out more than I thought, so I'm going to put those in subsequent posts.

I've also been thinking about making some new racial moves, partly because of my complaints, and partly because I've been thinking about having other races available in my campaign instead of the standard ones. And maybe you have some ideas like that, too! So here's a thread for them.

So first, I want to point out that the halfling racial move is identical for both the fighter class and the thief class, unlike any of the other racial moves. I expect that's just an oversight. If it's intentional, it's boring, as well as inconsistent with the variety of other racial moves.

Second, that existing halfling move is "Your small size makes you hard to hit. You get +1 Armor." Shouldn't they instead get +1 to the Dodge basic move? Or maybe to Position? An Armor bonus suggests that they're tougher than normal, not that they're harder to hit. I realize in D&D they do get an AC bonus for the same kind of reasoning, but since Dungeon World has a dodge basic move, the bonus might as well be applied there.

The human racial move for the thief class—"You start with an extra 5 gold"—seems pretty weak. It's a one-time advantage, unlike all the other racial moves, and although there are probably ways to finagle things so that the extra gold literally buys you some longer-term or important advantage, by default it's really just not effective in the long term compared to any of the others.

I don't have a complete alternate suggestion in mind yet. I'm thinking about something to do with the universality of humans, either something that lets the human thief blend or easily slip away into a crowd, or something that lets the thief disguise him or herself as some other kind of humanoid.

Finally, it's late and I'm tired, which is why I ended up failing to suggest a second halfling move or devise a full alternate human thief move. However, I do want to mention that I'm planning to add half-orcs to my campaign setting, so I need to come up with a few half-orc moves.

In first edition AD&D, half-orcs could be clerics, fighters, or thieves (or assassins). I figure I'll definitely want moves for half-orc fighters and thieves, but I don't know if I'll give them clerics too; I probably will, given some of the setting details I've come up with.

Anyhow, I figure I'll give the half-orc fighter the move that halfling fighters currently have, as it makes more sense to me.
Fighter—Half-Orc: You're tough enough to shrug off some damage. You have +1 Armor.

Because the original AD&D half-orc could advance unlimited levels only as an assassin, it seems like a good idea to give the half-orc thief a move that reflects that origin. Maybe something like this.
Thief—Half-Orc: You have a sharp eye for your victim's weak points. Your attacks always deal +Piercing 1.

One thought for a half-orc cleric is to give them a move similar to the human wizard move: a +1 to any rolls made for spells with a particular tag (but not for casting such spells). Due to considerations of my particular campaign setting, I'm inclined toward Death spells, but currently there's no level 5 spell with a death tag, and the level 7 and 9 Death spells do not feature any dice rolling. So Damaging would be better, though I wonder if that's almost too good. It may be counterbalanced by the fact that clerics don't automatically have access to Damaging spells, they have to choose the Inquisitor move to get them; on the other hand, that may just make the whole idea lame.

Cleric—Half-Orc: Take +1 to any dice rolled for a Damaging spell (but not for casting Damaging spells).

Incidentally: Inflict Light Wounds = 1d6, Inflict Moderate Wounds = 2d8, Inflict Critical Wounds = 1d10. Shouldn't Moderate be 1d8 rather than 2d8?

Inflict - Yeah, it should be. I've been rebalancing (for a pretty vague definition of "balance") damage, that got missed.

Halflings - Yup, same move, intentional, but only because I couldn't think of a better one. I had a hell of a time figuring out what a halfling does that makes them special that I can easily reflect in the rules. I need to come back to that some more, and suggestions would be great. The +1 Armor was written before Dodge existed, a bonus to Dodge seems like a good idea.

Humans - You're right, 5 gold is pretty lame. And now I'm looking at the starting Thief moves for inspiration for the human move, and I'm hating them. Blah. Rewrites coming.

Half-orcs - +1 Piercing makes sense. +1 damage isn't a big deal, but it does suck that they wouldn't see the bonus until second level at best. So maybe Half-orc clerics get Inquisitor for free, possibly +1 damage as well? There's also nothing that says you couldn't write your own dice rolling spells for those levels.

Lots of stuff for me to mull over here. Thanks for the suggestions.

Some race ideas:

Halfling Fighter: You get +1 to Position and Dodge against larger opponents, and any weapon you throw is effectively Precise.

Halfling Thief: Nimble fingers and small size make a great thief.  You get to Choose 2 on a Thief Skills roll of 7-9.

Human Thief:  You are a professional.  When you Spout Lore or Discern Realities about criminal activities, take +1; when you use Thick as Thieves, they always know you are a professional.

Half-Orc Cleric:  Your people understand pain; start with the Inquisitor move.

Half-Orc Fighter:  You are a brutal warrior.  Any attack you do has +1 Piercing.

Hal-Orc Thief:  There are victims and there are victimizers.  Add your level to damage you do when you have advantage over your target.

Halfling - When you sit down and have a relaxing smoke of pipeweed, +1 Forward to your next Discern Realities Roll.
Halflings may choose to substitute CON with CHA when making the Carouse Move.

Heh heh.

Feast
Fancy food, halflings take +1 temporary hit point, Expendable 1, Cost 1

Or something similar for pipeweed.

With Humans, perhaps they just have the adaptability to score a free advance (from their class) on creation? This would be on par with some of the other 'move' like racial bonuses.
Just a thought.

Lovin' the Halfling Moves now. What do you think Sage?

Some of these exact moves have been added to the text. We'll send out the update soon. The Thief in particular is getting a lot of love, there's one new move that I cannot say enough about. Adam and I worked out something really cool.

Are these for the Hack version or the standalone version?

If for the Hack, can you let us know when the updated version is up. I'm hoping to run this for some family soon to get in on the Adventurer's Guild, and would prefer to have the latest and greatest version.

Thanks!

All the classes are exactly the same between Hack and Full. I'll probably post a minor update with this stuff this weekend.

Halflings - Yup, same move, intentional, but only because I couldn't think of a better one. I had a hell of a time figuring out what a halfling does that makes them special that I can easily reflect in the rules.

Well, that's because halflings are lame and boring. (Actually, third edition made me like halflings again, by moving them away from the hobbit model toward active adventurers, more like Dragonlance's kender but without the childlike / compulsive kleptomaniac nature.) d.anderson's suggestions are good, and along the lines of what I was thinking.

Half-orcs - +1 Piercing makes sense. +1 damage isn't a big deal, but it does suck that they wouldn't see the bonus until second level at best. So maybe Half-orc clerics get Inquisitor for free, possibly +1 damage as well? There's also nothing that says you couldn't write your own dice rolling spells for those levels.

Yeah, I thought about giving them Inquisitor (or Life and Death) to start, but I wasn't sure whether that'd be too much. That works. d.anderson's half-orc suggestions are also good, but I think I'll stick with mine for my campaign.

"Too much" is an odd beast in Dungeon World. The Cleric, in general, does less damage, so letting them start doing that damage at first level isn't game breaking, but it does weaken the Wizard's niche protection a bit. I think racial moves are probably allowed to break niches a little, after all if I decide to play a half-orc cleric we may not even have a Wizard (no niche to protect) or the Wizard can focus on other things.