Can the Dungeon World Bard heal himself with Arcane Art?

Can the Dungeon World Bard heal himself with Arcane Art?

>Inb4 Dungeon World is badwrongfun

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theweem.com/2013/06/how-dungeon-world-ruined-things/
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Did he remember to bring some Bardnages?

Is the Bard in question cute?

>>Inb4 Dungeon World is badwrongfun
I'm sorry but dungeon world is in fact bad wrong fun, you really should switch to something that isn't garbage.

can a bard give himself buffs?

Recommend something that isn't garbage.

I can't, all roleplaying games are garbage
have you thought about playing video games instead?

You dishonor the image of Carlos.

So how does one dual wield n Dungeon World?

Oh wait that's right you can't.

I seem to recall another RPG that punishes you for dual wielding. Can't quite remember the name...think it started with a P?

Most vidyas are garbage now.

roll 2d6, on a 7-9 do whatever the fuck you want

when a dragon only has 16hp letting someone dual wield would be too strong

Arcane arts specifies "choose an ally"

>when a dragon only has 16 HP
There's a very simple solution to this.

The trigger for the move is "When you [weave a performance into a basic spell,] choose an ally and an effect." The part about choosing an ally means that it's supposed to be someone else, so he'll need to pack some bandages or a healing potion if he wants to heal himself.

Now if your table wants to get weird with it and say that the bard can be his own ally, then go right ahead. The rules are open to some interpretation, by design, so you can stretch them to fit your setting. The roleplaying police won't arrest you for it. They're too busy spouting retarded memes upthread

why would you ever want to?

Ranger move. Vipers strike. In the core book.

Hold two weapons in your hand. You get the range tags and abilities of both weapons. If that's not enough, use a multiclass move to take the Ranger's dual wielding move.

That's not how it works.

Be careful about doing that. HP is asymmetric because combat is asymmetric -- the way it works, there's no upper limit to how many times the players may be threatened or damaged before they can get out of a situation.

Secondly, the dragon has massive situational positioning; because of the fiction first principle, you can't even roll hack'n'slash at all unless you can get into a place fictionally where you could conceivably engage it in a one-on-one fight. Seeing as how he breathes fire, can fly, is as big as a house, and is covered in massive fuck-off scales that ordinary weapons will likely bounce off of, you will likely need special gear to handle him. But if you've got one of those windlass thingys and the Ranger gets a good shot in, you should be able to bring him down without doing it five times.

Nope. Says an ally, ally suggests other person. I mean, you could rule differently, but seems fairly cut and dry to me.

>not two bards healing each other with bandages

also can't tell if bait to shitpost on dw or bait to draw antidw shitposters

Veeky Forums, we really, REALLY need to talk about the recent surge in popularity of "Dungeon World" around here, especially the trend of recommending it as a good system for "introducing" players to our hobby.

I understand that there is an obsession with being subversive and finding the most super specialest alternative to D&D possible, but having finally taken the time to read into Dungeon World and the reasons why this game has caught on around here and other forums I feel the need to be frank: this NEEDS to stop. I try as hard as I can not to be a "badwrongfun" style curmudgeon, but this is not a role playing game. Full stop. This is not a role playing game, and this disingenuous promotion of it as such is legitimately dangerous to this hobby. This is an exercise in self-congratulatory free form group storytelling.

This is a "game" where the danger of literally any challenge is by design arbitrary, not just from encounter to encounter, but from action to action. There's no actual combat or tactics at play, everyone takes turns basically describing a "cool fantasy battle" and resolve everything through "dodge danger" and "hack and slash" rolls triggered at the GM's whim. This is a game proud of being anti-structure, where the goal is to explain to the GM how many cool things your players do instead of actively overcoming any challenges in your way.

It's chaos. Consequences of certain failures are decided collaboratively. The GM is encouraged to be more of an antagonistic player than an actual referee of any rules. At Veeky Forums's suggestion I watched a few videos of people playing this. At one point the *GM* asked the *PLAYERS* what rumors they had heard in town.

I get that the people involved in this game by admission shill it everywhere, but please stop pushing this as a system for beginners. It's dangerous to our hobby and the behaviors it promotes encourages entitled players with disruptive expectations for how parties are meant to work.

Stop.

Shitty copypasta is shitty.

It's relatively exploitable though.

And inaccurate.

Veeky Forums, we really, REALLY need to talk about the recent surge in popularity of "socialism” around here, especially the trend of recommending it as a good system for "introducing" workers to the economy.

I understand that there is an obsession with being subversive and finding the most super specialest alternative to captialism possible, but having finally taken the time to read into socialism and the reasons why this idea has caught on around here and other countries I feel the need to be frank: this NEEDS to stop. I try as hard as I can not to be a "badwrongfun" style curmudgeon, but this is not an economic system. Full stop. This is not an economic system, and this disingenuous promotion of it as such is legitimately dangerous to this country. This is an exercise in self-congratulatory, centralized planning.

This is a "system" where the setting of any price is by design arbitrary, not just from five year plan to five year plan, but from month to month. There's no actual market incentives at play, everyone takes turns basically describing a "proletariat economy” and resolve everything through "production” and “consumption” plans triggered at the party’s whim. This is a system proud of being anti-freedom, where the goal is to report how many boots you made instead of actively overcoming any challenges in your way.

It's chaos. Consequences of certain failures are decided collaboratively. The party is encouraged to be more of a CEO than an actual referee of any rules. At the state department’s suggestion I watched a few videos of planning sessions. At one point the industrialists asked the *GOVERNMENT* what the market needed.

I get that the people involved in this game by admission shill it everywhere, but please stop pushing this as a system for workers. It's dangerous to our economy and the behaviors it promotes encourages entitled workers with disruptive expectations for how markets are meant to work.

Stop.

>because of the fiction first principle, you can't even roll hack'n'slash at all

HURR DURR YOU CANT ATTACK MY BOSS UNTIL I LET YOU BY GM FIAT

>But if you've got one of those windlass thingys and the Ranger gets a good shot in, you should be able to bring him down without doing it five times.

PRESS CIRCLE TO PULL THE DRAGON DOWN

WOW, SUCH RICH ROLEPLAYING, SUCH FICTION, EPIC QTES LIKE MY VIDEO GAMES

People bash Dungeon World so much that I had to go and buy the books to see what the kettle banging and witch yelling is this time.

And I've been pleasantly surprised.

>HURR ...
I think you should go. Chill a bit. If you are in that state of mind, no wonder if you can't talk with your GM or other players and playing drolls. There are rules and guidlines for this in the books and apparently you know them. So why not follow them? I bet your GM isn't driving over you with his Fiat and if he IS and then he has to even reverse the FIAT to drive over you again. Then you are doing something wrong. Why play Dungeon World if it is so horrible for you?

>PRESS...
What? Oh. You play console games. Go back to them if you can't be human enough to be able to talk to other people and cooperate AND follow the rules to the intention.

>WOW, SUCH...
Hmm... You seem to be tangled in the rules and want to win by rolling dice. Not participate in actual story with cool action. Just roll and calculate statistics. Ok. Go ahead. Play some other game.

It's Dungeon World ? Rules don't matter. A consistent game world doesn't matter. The Bard can heal himself by praying to a healing god , rubbing nettles on his arms, drinking a glass of water or any other arbitrary action, as long as he rolls a 10. Even if you roll a 7 he heals , the glass of water can then just explode and destroy his sword

OP cannot inb4

There was a great vocaroo of it for a while. Sadly I didn't save it and it expired.


>Rules don't matter. A consistent game world doesn't matter

>he doesn't understand the fiction first principle

If it doesn't make sense according to the setting and what's happened before, it doesn't happen.
If somebody wants to do something weird, you talk about it at the table and figure out whether it's possible or not, before you start rolling for anything.

theweem.com/2013/06/how-dungeon-world-ruined-things/

>How dungeon world ruined things
Ok, OP you got my attention.
>For some 24+ years now, I have been what I call a “D&D guy”
Well, that's fine too, I guess. But this sort of shit makes you less credible about making comparisons other than to D&D.
>In some cases, we bring in elements from other games into ours.
Well if you are a headcanon badwrongfun whore who don't know how to play games, sure. Do continue OP
>I played Pathfinder last week, a game I really enjoy,
Oh my, now your credibility really is going down the drain, OP.
>The combat suddenly felt very stiff and rigid to me
Well you are playing shitty pf you whore
>that I was playing the Cleric wrong, or perhaps I should have built him differently
Well of course you are going to say that you shitty powergaming whore patherfinder tard
>I love D&D, as well as Pathfinder. I’m not sitting here at my desk, scoffing at how PF is now a terrible game while throwing my hands in the air, because it’s not.
but OP, pf is a shitty game, and weren't you talking about DW? What the fuck are you even doing?
>Thanks for stopping in and reading this, especially if you made it this far!
Kill yourself cuck

Singing to the god of bardic healing to heal me makes perfect sense in any high fantasy setting and in Dungeon World you will succeed most of the time as long as you roll a 7. You absolutely succeed on a 10. They can do this every time they're hurt.

The GM can't say no , only yes but or make an arbitrary move himself.

Long story short Dungeon World is a storytelling game not a role playing game.

A role playing game requires a consistent world and mechanical basis so that the players can role play I.E. Make decisions for their characters based on what they would realistically do in those situations and see the results. This isn't possible in Dungeon World.

A storytelling game allows a group of players to use loose mechanics to piece together a story ignoring consistency , mechanics , and verisimilitude in order to just have cool stuff happen. Which is find, the problem comes when people start saying one is superior to the other when they're entirely different genres of games that just happen to have the same fluff setting.

Are you on bath salts?

Amplitude Studios exist sempai

I haven't played Dungeon World but that honestly sounds like a good idea.
Dual wielding is not only stupid and impractical irl, it also extends combat by having double the rolls of any other set up.

>Why play Dungeon World if it is so horrible for you
protip, i don't, i am trying to educate people about why it is cancerous

>Go back to them if you can't be human enough to be able to talk to other people and cooperate AND follow the rules to the intention

my issue is not following rules it is that these rules are fucking shit and encourage bad habits

>You seem to be tangled in the rules and want to win by rolling dice. Not participate in actual story with cool action. Just roll and calculate statistics. Ok. Go ahead. Play some other game.

I want to play a GAME, something with actual rules and meaningful codified decisions, not literal meaningless prayer circle buzzword bingo

PLAY A GAME, not "participate in a collective storytelling experience in a safe inclusive space where we respect all viewpoints"

You know, actual rules not "roll 7+ to succeed but you hurt your feelings" and the cancerous ethos of "fiction first" and "fail forward"

You roll bad, you fail. You don't make a good decision, you let the dice fall. On the flipside if you can do.it RAW the GM doesn't get to hide behind "fiction first" to stop you going off his railroad and not being part of his storytelling experience

>Long story short Dungeon World is not a game

ftfy

This.

Roleplaying games ask you to act as your character would. The mechanics are there to support your actions having reasonable consequences ("reasonable" being determined by the setting, of course).
Storytelling games ask you to act as a director would want a character to. The mechanics are there to support your actions having dramatic consequences.

If the Dungeon Delver Squad runs into a dungeon half-cocked in a roleplaying game, their actions will have direct consequences: they may run out of torches, have forgotten to bring holy water for cleansing a curse, or not packed any healing potions. Any good roleplaying will have to rise out of these situation on their own.
In a storytelling game, those things are moot unless they directly relate to a dramatic scene; they are assumed to be doing fine until Bob's knight takes a spear to the gut (now the lack of resources is a dramatic point for the story), or maybe brash nature of the party leader, Mary's holy warrior, conflicts with Susan's more cautious priest (the conflict could boil over in a very dramatic scene).

I don't know about the rest of Veeky Forums, but both of those approaches sound fun as hell to me.
I still find DW's melding of PbtA and AD&D mechanics to be exceptionally clunky, though. There are good PbtA games out there, but I'll be damned if DW is one of them.

Agreed that one of the main issues with Dungeon World is its shoehorning of the AD&D mechanics which don't fit it as a storytelling game rather than a role playing game.

Apocalypse World does it a lot better as it doesn't pretend to be anything other than what it is. Dungeon World is like if Apocalypse World had a bunch of mechanics from GURPS: Fallout randomly in it.

During the peak of DW's popularity/virt's shitposting, World of Dungeons got bandied about a lot as an alternative. Anyone know if it lives up to the hype of "DW but not as shitty"?

> Shit poster using a battle network image
Why would you hurt me so user. Don't taint my nostalgia like this.

It's not as shitty because there isn't enough to be shit.

Seriously, it's two pages.

>A role playing game requires a consistent world and mechanical basis so that the players can role play I.E. Make decisions for their characters based on what they would realistically do in those situations and see the results. This isn't possible in Dungeon World.

What.

Why wouldn't you make a decision for your characters based on what they would realistically do in the situation?

What they would realistically do in the situation is affected by the rules the universe operates under (e.g. the game mechanics).
If everything is effectively GM fiat rather than a coherent set of rules with predictable set of results, it becomes less about what the character would realistically do in the situation and more about what the group/GM thinks is cool or dramatic; it's that extra layer of disconnect seen in games like FATE where you don't play your character as much as play the director that orders the character from behind the camera.

At least I think that's what he's going for.

I wonder how many people have picked up Dungeon World specifically because of all the upset noises. I know that's what prompted me to start playing it.

Wait really? I thought that was a quick demo or something.

What the everloving fuck, there are tons of one-page not!D&D games out there, I thought it was an actual system. Basically all they did is get rid of predefined moves and the GM advice.

I did. Then I put it right back down. I can't understand people willing to suffer through a half-baked system stappled on to Robin's Laws of Good Gamemastering after it was run through a filter of pompous smuggery.

There actually is a rulebook I think, which is basically the DM advice from DW, and some further support for it (such as Funnel World, for when you want to send a dozen randomly rolled losers into a grinder for one to prevail and become an actual PC).

>I did. Then I put it right back down
Same. Got curious to see if it was any good, and then decided it really wasn't.

I looked at it, realized FATE was better for narrative and 5e was better for D&D, and left.

I started DMing via Dungeon World and ran a campaign and several short games with the system.
That being said Dungeon World is a shit game with terrible rules and a bunch of half baked ideas.
Anyone who has ever played an RPG before should not have any reason to play DW

This is what I expect my reaction to be

Does DW possess any upsides to Fate Core? Better Conflicts or ease of use, maybe?

>I still find DW's melding of PbtA and AD&D mechanics to be exceptionally clunky, though. There are good PbtA games out there, but I'll be damned if DW is one of them.
This. Vincent Baker has proven himself to be excellent at making games that facilitate telling a story between friends in a very narrow defined scope, just like Dogs in the Vineyard just like Apocalypse World. AW in specific is about a group of miscreants working loosely together and creating personal drama while needing each other to keep on keeping on in a shithole.

Dungeon World, on the other hand, does its damnedest to make an open world where a group works together to overcome challeneges in perfect unison. Playing DW isn't about trying to one-up each other or to hash out beefs and romances, it's a party interacting with NPCs and even the bonds are just here to be +1's and XP and nothing else.

Hx or Strings are 1000% what PbtA games are about and in that critical function Dungeon World fails miserably. DW could have been a d20 or d100 OSR and be identical to what it is now.

Ease of procuring dice. Honestly, FATE Freeport is so much better than DW it makes me feel bad for the people that have only ever heard of DW.

Ok. I can understand your point then. People have differing preferences. I like the way Dungeon World does things. Been playing Fate, Straight-to-VHS, Dread, Shock etc. myself where the story is on the focus more than what the mechanics the game is running on. I think them as role playing games.

You seem to want a game with role playing as bonus or just role playing game with more gaming. I can also understand this but the older I've gotten the more I just want to get rid of the mechanics. This is not for everyone but I'm happy to see that there are people who like the style of playing I'm comfortable with.

So I'd say it this way. Tastes differ. I can agree to that. But I also think that it is good to know the whole range of options before making a decisions what to focus on. Especially for beginners. Try out everything. There is no 'correct' way to play except you and your group should enjoy themselves when playing.

Do you agree with this?

Not playing Dungeon World?

no following the rules and advice given in the book that clearly and repeatedly that most of the time you're not going to be able to just walk up and hit a dragon like in D&D.

instead are going to have to climb up the thing Shadow of the Colossus and stab it in the eye or something, or get some sort of special weapon like magic sword of dragon slaying, or even just a properly placed balista or something along those lines depending on how dragons are in your given game do even get a chance to roll at that 16 HP

I get that DW (and all PbtA games) are a little pretentious, but I honestly feel the "16 hp dragon" is a little ridiculous.

If you're going to go to all the effort to justify why it's so hard to kill something with 16 hp, it's not the fact that it's hard to kill, it's that the GM is essentially playing keepaway with the monster. In the aforementioned example, the GM also turned one of his players into an amputee. If that isn't that GM, I don't know what is.

TL;DR it has some good ideas, but they're tainted by only being one step away from being "do you catan" level of ego and idiocy

Roleplaying games should be focusing on roleplaying. One thing is the DM not railroading, another is completely turning the DM into the designated number-cruncher. In any other system if the DM didn't want you to kill the dragon he'd just bullshit a reason why you can't kill it, too. Or give him numbers so huge you can't feasibly kill it unless you cheese the game hard, which a good DM would also avoid. DW just makes that into a formal feature of the game.

>One thing is the DM not railroading.
>Another is the DM having no say in the story.
>DW deals with the latter issue by embracing the former one as a formal feature of the game.

How come you anti-DW guys can't just dislike the game without being a shithead about it?

And how come so many of you can't seem to tell the difference between a genuine fan of the system and a blatant troll capitalizing on your butthurt?

Now play three games of it and see how much fun you're having.

Around the third game, you realize that babby's first roleplaying game is boring and you need something with actual depth.

Railroading happens regardless of the system. It isn't even always a bad thing. Complete sandbox games rarely get anywhere

Some people don't have a lot going for them, so they tend to focus on aspects of their lives that they can control. Unchecked, this can become a defining feature of their personality.

That already happened with me while playing 5e.

DW is at least rules light.

How is talking about the system being a shithead about it? Dude says "There's a middle ground to GMing," which is 100% correct. He then talks about how DW fails to address one of the extremes, but acts like it does.

How come DW guys are so oversensitive?

Also, >implying Veeky Forums at this point isn't just trolls trolling trolls trolling trolls. We're all here for the same reason: to scream at anonymous people over the internet in fake anger and provoke fake anger in others.

That does not justify ingraining it into a system and treating it like it's okay.

>That does not justify ingraining it into a system and treating it like it's okay.

DW doesn't promote railroad tho. Like, at every turn it says "railroading in DW: don't do it". It goes opposite to involving the players in building a world.

The DM can adjust the difficulty somewhat by requiring more rolls, but he is even less able to railroad things than in standard D&D (assuming he largely plays by the rules outlined in the DM part of the book).

How does that square with instances like what is talking about, where rather than let things go the way the players OR the dice want them to go, the GM is expected to take control of the fiction entirely?

I understand the need for GM control in story games, but I feel DW is exceptionally stronghanded in this regard. Story games like DRYH, where roleplaying and drama grow naturally from the mechanics and dice results rather than 99% GM calls, do the job better in my opinion.

Porld of Darkness?

>the GM is expected to take control of the fiction entirely?

He isn't?

He's supposed to keep the game going smooth. That's his primary purpose. GM moves kinda also stop him from doing anything really obnoxious.

this, dungeon world is decent but is so obscenely shallow that it CAN'T be used for campaigns.

Everything DW claims to do was done better by Amber Diceless.

The game is got major issues but I can see why it's popular.

If you are sort of person who only experience of role playing games is DND 3.5 and you want to have the dungeon adventures years without having to learn lots of rules it's perfect

You're also scum.

Literally it is for others, but personally I'd allow it without a second thought, if the party wants ist. It's not like it's gonna break the game.

I just love how a not really that great AW hack can spew forth so much butthurt.

I mean, it's not like THIS shit destroys control freaks GMs obsession with "YOU PLAY MY STORY" that much. There are way more radical dungeon crawlers out there.

But I guess the popularity of this game make them feel threatened. I can only hope they really are.

There are a lot of good posts talking about how DW has good and bad, but it's always refreshing to see the fan base is as reasonable and well-versed as Pathfinder fans.

It's pretty normal to react like this when the whole contrarian camp is telling lies about the game and even about what RPGs are supposed to be.

The. Whole. Camp.

>you as well, as much as you imply I'm not talking about cons of the game

>The. Whole. Camp.
Becuase nothing makes you sound more reasonable than grouping everyone that disagrees with you into one easy-to-despise faceless mass.
Note that this isn't directed at DW fans as a whole. Just you, you colossal faggot.

I don't have to sound reasonable: I am right. Every single hater post here is lying.

The guy that asks if dual wielding isn't impossible like in PF, the guy saying it doesn't work in the long term, the other even going about how DW doesnt' allow "realistical" decisions.

They're all control-damaging with lies.

I hate L5R and COC, but I don't lie about them.

You said "the fan base," don't try to pretend it's all about him and you weren't doing the exact same thing you're decrying, just one post above his. We don't even have to scroll up, dude.

>I don't have to sound reasonable: I am right.
Holy shit nigger are you for real?

Is an attack on one insane user really a condemnation on a fanbase as a whole?

I can't remember, why the fuck was Dennis so sweaty and almost braindead in repeating that phrase in that episode?

>it's always refreshing to see the fan base is as reasonable and well-versed as Pathfinder fans.

>an attack on "one insane user"
>not "the fanbase" like it explicitly said

Jeez, man, don't hurt yourself.

...Wait did you think there's only one person that thinks you're acting like retards here? I'm
and a few more posts from earlier in the thread. Not the guy you're getting your panties in a bunch over ().

That being said, there's no way to really prove it due to this being an anonymous imageboard and basic photoediting software existing, so feel free to scream samefag/falseflag/whatever helps you sleep at night.

Well, you did jump in to defend the guy painting everyone on one side with a broad brush, by attacking the second guy for painting everyone on the other side with a broad brush.
It was pretty reasonable to assume you were him, because that would explain your bias.

Watch any Let's Play with it that makes it more than 5 sessions in.

Every one I have seen playing it, or have played with, want to move on to another system and campaign within this time. It is so meh I can not even try to get back into it again.

And as we all know, you are your own worst enemy, which means you don't count as your own ally.

Seriously, though, does DW state anywhere that you don't count as your own ally? Because that's a very common issue that comes up in games these days, is exactly how a given system defines "ally".

True enough, my appologies for that. Both people in the initial argument were colossal faggots and should grab the nearest pen (no wussing out with a pencil) and commit sudoku.

Friends at the Table Podcast did about 30 sessions, planning on picking it back up later this year.
(Right now they're doing a thing where they alternate between a gonzo Mechnoir game, and another game that's a cross between Microscope and the Stars Without Number faction turn to shape the large scale events in the Mechnoir game's background. Pretty clever, IMO)
friendsatthetable.net/

I think we can agree on that. There are reasonable folks on both sides, IMO, but they get drowned out by loudmouths and trolls.

Up to the GM, like most other things.

Friends At the Table only works because Austin Walker approaches GMing from the storygames mindset. It's's kind of cheating, like pointing to Adam Koebel running a PBtA game as an example of how the system works.

Running these games efficiently requires a mindset and an approach so different to how the average GM and the average player approach tabletop roleplaying games that unless everyone already knows what they're getting its not going to work.

Storygames, DW in particular, are great for dedicated storygamers and often produce very interesting games to listen to or read about, but the real problem with DW is that you can't transition a D&D group into it and have it 'click.'

I actually had a group so fed up with DW that they went over to shadowrun 4e because they wanted to find the thing farthest from it.

The game may be great for you but it was fucking terrible for our group.

This is particularly funny to me, since my group started playing The Sprawl specifically because nobody could stand Shadowrun 5e's rules.

>the real problem with DW is that you can't transition a D&D group into it and have it 'click.'

While I agree pretty strongly, and I think this is a big part of the rage against the system, I don't think that's "cheating" to point to a DM and group who run the system the way it should be run.
I'm an old D&D grognard, and I learned to run DW by watching good DMs run it, and my players (who were not storygamers) loved it. (But the minmaxer is itching for a more crunchy system. Once I can deal with my IRL health problems he'll get his wish, heh.)

Fair enough. It's every group's job to find the right system for them, IMO.

You know, honestly, this encapsulates my main beef with dungeon world.
I'm not particularly "REEEE STORYGAMES GET OUT", but what gets my goat about Dungeon World is that the rules just don't *work*, for lack of a better term.
Stuff like bonds being so weaksauce compared to other Pb&J games, coupled with inconsistent rulings and smug (albiet sound) advice make it just plain mediocre

If you want a fantasy Pb&J game play Fellowship, it's pretty good if you don't mind the tumblr-tier art

I'll admit that "cheating" might have been too strong a word for it. My point is that, as a huge fan of Friends at the Table, a lot of the success behind those games comes from the fact that Austin is the sort of GM that PbTA games are practically made for. His narrative style, his way of introducing and expanding on characters, the way he designs threats and encounters, and the way he approaches worldbuilding are all reliant on playing in a "fiction first" game. The two compliment each other brilliantly, and that's what makes Friends at the Table a really good podcast.

That being said, it also serves to highlight that a good D&D gamemaster and a good Dungeon World gamemaster need a very different toolbag to run a game efficiently. A lot of the neat little touches that Austin brings to the table wouldn't really be supported by the mechanics of D&D - his on-the fly improv skills mean that we might have still seen the players take an unexpected trip to an undead island, but we probably wouldn't have seen anything like the trial or the drama with having to kill the captured captain they came to save take place. The rolls that led into and supported those circumstances, I feel, just wouldn't have arisen organically in a D&D game.

That's the big disconnect between people who love or hate DW, when compared to D&D. It's not just a rules-lite fantasy game, it demands that a DM and the players learn an entirely new style of play more than it demands they learn any new rules. For some people, what they want out of an rpg means that transition is natural, but I also feel DW doesn't have what a lot of other people are looking for in a game and as a result I understand why some people's reaction to its popularity and how often its offered up as an alternative to D&D can get so visceral

>Fellowship
Dude nah I only see one red-nosed dwarf. That ain't tumblr.

pic related is tumblr

Fellowship is actually what drove me to take a break from games. If this is the future, fuck it.