New AP podcast ep using DW beta 1.1 rules

I released a new episode of my playtesting-focused AP podcast Designer vs. Reality that features my group playing a session with the Dungeon World beta 1.1 rules.

Cool, will listen this weekend :)

Sweet Dan, thanks!

Great podcast, Dan.  I liked some of the moves you used on failures, like having the lizards eyes pop open.  For the head butt, I recall the Red Book mentioned that weaponless attacks might do 1d4 stun damage, that's what I do in cases like that.  The poor players rolling 1 or 2 for damage then getting consistently whacked for full monster damage ... Ouch!  It highlights the brutality of the asymmetric damage resolution in DW.

The way I play it, when the fighter hacks and slashes with intend to hurt someone, he does d10 damage. Sword, bar stool, fist, ripping out throats with his teeth. Same with all the classes.

Interesting house rule, Anarchangel.  I could see how that makes for a fiercer game than the rule as written ...

"You have to be wielding a weapon to use your class's damage dice. Default damage without a weapon is 1."

Thinking about it more though, there must be some advantage to having weapons.  Otherwise the heroes could just saunter off unarmed and punch, bite, and rend their way through the dungeon.

Wow, it never even occurred to me that that was a houserule. I've never seen or played it any other way. It kinda doesn't even make sense to me any other way, actually.

Yeah, in any AP podcasts I've heard it seems that rule goes under the radar.  But I can definitely see the rationale behind it.  If characters are just effective unarmed, why bother listing weapons in the gear section?  I guess it depends on the tone you want.  If you want superheroes then sure, let them roll their full damage unarmed.  But if you want a bit grittier tone then I think the unarmed damage rule makes sense, but I like the version they had in the Redbook where they mentioned 1d4 stun damage.  This let me conduct a few bar-room brawls quite nicely.

If characters are just effective unarmed, why bother listing weapons in the gear section? 

Because my Fighter looks cooler with a big sword than without one. That is an exceedingly good reason, IMO.

Plus, it's a fictional-positioning thing.

To take that farther, though: If any weapon does damage according to your class, why buy a club instead of a sword?

(Answers are the same as above.)

@Glitch - Thanks. Glad you enjoyed it.

@Anarchangel - When we played DW Basic we played it that way, basically you do your character damage regardless of whether you're punching or stabbing (which is probably why Simon assumed it would work that way and why I didn't see anything wrong with it). But like Glitch said, the rule in the beta is that you only do character damage with a weapon. It stuck in my mind when I read it because it seemed like a change from what we did before, but I only remembered it specifically when I was trying to think of reasons why the monster might not do its full damage.

@Mike - Might the rule be in there to give some mechanical teeth to GM moves that separate PCs from their weapons? If dropping your sword is merely cosmetic then it potentially sucks some dynamism out of fights.

Hi Dan, you're right, I had thought about the move of separating the character from their weapon losing its teeth but forgot to mention it in the earlier post.  I think it boils down to the style of game you want.  Some folks want to ramp up the awesome and thus enable those great scenes where the fighter bites the throat out of the demon.  Other folks might enjoy a game where the event of losing one's weapon actually carries some grave consequences.

The fighter can also choose her fists as her signature weapon, so if chosen, she deals 1d10 damage with a weapon and her fists.

I also have a house rule that for any class other than the fighter, when a character uses a mundane weapon not listed under their gear lists it counts as awkward and or dangerous (in addition to its other tags). This has no mechanical effect, but has the undeniably awesome fictional tags: It's unwieldy and tough to use & It's easy to get in trouble with it. If you interact with it without proper precautions the GM may freely invoke the consequences of your foolish actions. Once they level up, if they have been stubbornly wielding an uncharacteristic choice, they can choose to add the awkward weapon to their list of 'proficiencies' if they like and remove the tags :)

"You have to be wielding a weapon to use your class's damage dice. Default damage without a weapon is 1."

Yeah, I didn't realise it was a house rule either. The perils of so many different versions of the rules floating around! That quote is from DW Beta, p.11, btw.

I'm going to keep using it as it makes for quite dynamic fights. I find that when you separate someone from their weapon, they usually still try to get it back. :)

I've been listening to this AP on and off, and I'm compelled to return to this thread to say the following:

Bluffing is Defy Danger using Int.

That is all.

Bluffing is Defy Danger using Int.

While clever talking might be a Defy Danger in certain specific circumstances I don't think it's true in a general sense that Bluffing = Defy Danger. In my mind AW-style moves aren't about how you could cleverly manipulate an existing rule to arbitrate something, they're about intuitive pattern-matching on the fiction. To me, Defy Danger is supposed to be about reacting to some specific fictional danger. Bluffing, on the other hand, is a character-initiated action to achieve some specific intent. Those don't feel similar enough to me that they ought to be pattern-matched by the same move. I suppose "does the NPC realize that you're lying?" could be a Defy Danger but I think what people mean by bluffing goes beyond that.