[AP] Playing with youngsters

So, over the past few years I've been running RPGs for a group of teenagers (I'm well past being a teenager myself), showing them the ropes of roleplaying games, starting with D&D, Call of Cthulhu... old classics... and then also showing them stuff like Lady Blackbird and DitV... good times! 

Before the group went its separate ways last Fall, as they started going to college in scattered cities, I ran a six session AW campaign for them... and they loved it!

They're all back for summer break and want to get in some more gaming with me... they wanted to go back to their "roots", the first adventures they'd played... the (sinister) Saltmarsh trilogy... but with a twist, playing the kids of their original characters in a "20 years later" type, and I thought it would be great to see if Dungeon World would be up to the task!

Last night we played a one-shot using the Red Box rule set pdf, plus Paladin from the $5 thing, and set off to explore the Hall Beneath the Hill in a quest to uncover the Bloodstone Idol!

Friar Hawthorne, a mean and abusive Human Cleric who ran an orphanage and was looking to Goblin slaves, was joined by reclusive and bookish Myke the Elven Wizard, who was seeking answers to ancient mysteries, with Gregor a grizzled old Human Fighter, looking to prove himself one last time, and the young, fresh, and eager Favious the Human Paladin new to his holy calling.

Bonds went well and tied the characters together nicely, with both Hawthorne and Gregor thinking there was no way Myke would survive the quest, while the Elf thought he'd be able to teach the old warrior "a better way" of doing thing, and Favious respectful of Hawthorne's... dedication, but also worried for his soul.

There was some exploration, some fights (including against a Ghost, which the Paladin used his Lay On Hands to "heal" its tortured nature), and a lot of spell casting ("If I roll a 10+ I can cast it again?!  COOL!").

Most of the moves flowed fairly smoothly from the fiction, though there was often the feeling that one only had to say the name of the move to do it rather than "what you were actually doing", but that's easy to correct.  The only basic move that this seemed a problem for was "Spout Lore" as it wasn't always obvious how to tap into that "character knowledge" without falling back on something like, "I remember reading about something like this at Wizard school...", so how do other people engage that move in play?

So, I'm hoping to start of this "Children of Saltmarsh" thing for the summer and would love to get access to the latest Beta so we can explore all the classes and such.

What do I do next?

Hey Chroma!

You should email the creators at gm@dungeon-world.com and they'll set you up.

On 'Spout Lore'.

The first game or two, I listen for the players to ask 'what is that' or 'what do we know about X'.  Usually in the spirit of cooperation, I pick someone and have him 'spout lore' then ask him a leading question about where he may have learned such a thing (Did you fight such a monster before? Did you hear about it in the stories of adventurers in taverns?  Was this in the histories you like reading?).  And listen to whatever they pick, and jot down notes ('likes reading battle tactic books', 'interested on esoteric knowledge about the afterlife') and then I'll ask 'would you have read about a famous battle here?' and have them roll.

After 2-3 times, we've established how this works, and usually the players will talk about something and initiate the process themselves.  "What do we know about this army?" "I dunno, fighter?" and roll.

As a note, I don't always bother making them roll.  Such as if the Ranger mentions he's been in this swamp before, and makes a roll on 1 thing, I keep asking them to author some info "tell me what you might have heard about these lizard men" or just provide the info to them unless it's something specific (ex: The Lizard Man Champion named Arrashar the Tootgnasher).

Does that help? :)

Wizard: "What do I know about the arcane runes on that door?"
GM: "Sounds like you are drawing upon your accumulated knowledge of magic. Spout Lore?"
Wizard: "Yep." (rolls 7+)
GM: (gives interesting or interesting/useful result) "How did you know that? Where did you hear about them or see them before? Who first told you about runes like this?" (GM writes down responses for use later.)

Thanks for the advice!

Remember that, like a conversation that doesn't involve dice, Dungeon World often steamrolls ahead with more and more power as you play - the more questions the GM asks the players, the more inspired they'll often become about the world.  When the Wizard tells you about the College of the Unblinking Stars, next time, ask them what professor taught them that fact - what class they liked best - what secret rivalries they carried out into the world with them.  Grill those players and get them to help you fill the world with stuff.  Once they get into the habit of giving you information, they'll learn that it's fun and cool to improvise that stuff on their own and you'll need to prompt less and less.

Great Ap Chroma!
Oh, and Adam speaks truth as always, listen to him and encourage your group to author cool setting stuff and sometimes have the dice re-affirm or cause complications with said tidbits of info :)