Preamble
Once a month there's a local gather of gamers in the area called GASP (Gaming Association of South Western Pennsylvania). Fifty to a hundred gamers descend together to play pickup board games, RPGs and share food, drink and stories. It hasn't gathered in 2 months while moving localles, so all of us were excited to re-gather and play.
In interesting side-stories, I met a guy who had an absolutely outrageously pretty hand-bound leather copy of dungeon world (Dan Cetorelli). Dyed leather cover, the 4 core class symbols on the edges, a carved dungeon map, aged and yellowed pages - it was really nice.
So apparently I must be making a name for myself as a story gamer, since the organizer for the RPG section of the Game Day dragged a couple people over to introduce them to me for potential games. Of course, I had a handy copy of the sheets to show to folks, and it was decided that people wanted to try out DW. We only had a little under 2 hours to play, so we jumped in and got started.
Setup
Everyone picked characters. Our roster was:
Halwyr, the Elven Wizard
Wesley Human Cleric of Helfereth
Pendrel, the Elven Bard
Celion, the Elven Ranger with a mule named Bill
The game went a little differently right off the bat. Usually I run high fantasy, but as the dragon story shows, it's grim and reminiscent of early editions. The cleric picked the name Wesley (he stated it as a joke, while laughing) and Pendrel the bard asked him what he wielded as a weapon. It was a warhammer, so he dubbed him Wesley ... the Crusher. Now I actually haven't seen DW run before a little more over-the-top, heroic or Gonzo, but when you run a game at a game con who you get in your session is kind of arbitrary, and I decided to run with what the group was doing and see how the game held up.
World establishment: We found out Wesley was the Human Servant of Helfereth, who was the god of Light, Fire and War. He was his strong arm on the mortal plane, and a sworn vanquisher of the undead. Yeah, their front line fighter was the cleric (it worked out way better than I expected).
We found out that most elves lived only 30 years (contrary to standard tropes) and our bard was elderly at 29 and a half, and this was his last hurrah before the end. We also found out that Elven Wizards were immortal, stealing the power from the other elves (where their magic comes from) and living forever once they accumulated enough power.
We found out that the Ranger Celion and his dancing ferocious mule Bill (MVP for the night) were guiding Wesley to Shadow Vale which had been created at the dawn of time when Helfereth had killed the god of Death and Darkness, and that undead appeared wherever his blood had hit the earth, and the valley was created from the remnants of the dead god.
Game
So game begins. The first fight was against a number of zombie goblins and orcs, and an undead ogre. Wesley charged forward, and Pendrell riding on bill egged him on, blending hymns to Helfreth with stories of bravery (adding to his damage). Wesley didn't pay attention to the well-being of his friends, so he charged ahead of the group, and the rest of the party got swarmed. While the wizards spells, the rangers arrows and Bill's mighty hooves fought off the clawing undead, Wesley went toe-to-toe with the Ogre, whose knee he shattered.
The Ogre brought to his knees was in range for a sudden charge from bill, and a well placed headshot from the ranger. Pressing on, they roleplayed dealing with the priests zealotry as opposed to the rangers more down-to-earth approach to problems. Pendrell negotiated a peace between the two, and Halwyr identified the ogre's club, finding it to a mystic weapon with the Messy tag, capable of shattering bones in addition to any damage that it does, but it is tied to the power of Havrok the god of death which she conceals from the rest of the group.
The party presses on, Ranger first. As they walk through a series of stone spikes with corpses chained to the top, the ghostly spirits exit and assault the ranger. He sends Bill off with the bard to safety, and bets that fire which purifies will work even on the ghostly. He suffers their chilling touch, while wrapping his arrows in cloth and setting them on fire.
The bard huddles with the Bill, and both are protected by the ferocious mystic bolts of Halwyr, while Wesley charges forward to aid Celion. They group is victorious, and Havrok uses their victory to call down the notice of his god and cleanse and sanctify the area long enough for them to rest. I ran the 'end of game' move here to show the how XP worked, and everyone leveled up once
At this point we were running short on time, so I had them simulate getting to the final confrontation by undertaking a Perilous Journey (which turned out to work pretty well). We creep up on the evil altar of the god Havrok contained deep inside the bone structure of his ribcage. Several named opponents were there (including Sheldor, the morningstar wielding champion of the evil god).
The ranger and bill sneak up, using a sneaky headshot to take out one of the enemies. Sheldors arch-lich compatriot casts withering spells at the party, whih the mage blocks (interetingly she rolls a 7-9 but only takes 1 damage, considering the over the top description of the enemy spell everyone agreed that this was a fantastic representation of the block).
Wesley brings a crushing strike down upon sheldor, rolling a 12+2 assist to hit (bard), and max on his 4 damage dice (d6, +d4 magic weapon, +2d4 bard boost), and the Wizard uses her ritual ability to cleanse the area, finishing the story for the night.
Review
The game was (as I mentioned) alot more fast, loose and over-the-top than the usual DW sessions I run, but it held up well. Moreover, when our cleric decided to be a front-line fighter I winced. But he not only held up well, but showed me a build pattern using sacrifice and empowering to add magic weapons to his strikes, becoming quite the combatant. Wasn't a combo I had considered, but it's pretty awesome because the cleric-as-a-fighter is a D&D trope that while i don't necessarily care for, didn't seem very well supported, but wow did it work out great.
The bard is really strong. Their healing is constant (meaning it never goes away or fades) but the ability to heal enemies on a jump is interesting. Moreover, the additional damage is awesome, but I think their assist ability is potentially the most deadly. Not broken strong, but strong. I'm hoping to see the class again in play to compare it to others. Overall it was a great addition to the party.
The wizard was still one of my favorites, and I like how Ritual and Arcane Shield were used here.
The ranger was pretty strong. The extra damage isn't necessarily too out of line at higher levels, but at lower levels it gave some folks a sense of sticker shock. I ran some math on it vs the original driver that the build seems based on and came up with some math that I'll share in a future post.
In terms of the game, how would you handle something like 'multishot'? Namely 3 goblins were attacking Bill the mule. If the ranger was trying to save him by rapid-firing some arrows to try and scatter the assaulters. He hit, and killed one, but everyone wanted to know since you guys have mob rules against a PC if there was an attack-a-mob-back series of rules for the PCs in return (attacking 3 goblins? roll 3dDamage*w?)
Getting ready to run a couple games at Games on Demand at Origins, and this has already been requested :)