I'm making a pretty simple game about the age-old tale of adventurers going off to kill a Lich, and for my first system I'm heavily considering Dungeon World because it looks simple to pick up and play but still has enough crunch to reward players with simple stuff like loot/xp.
Any Dungeon World vets (Players/GMs) who can give me some tips? Is Dungeon World a good system to start on? Is it mostly idiot proof?
Any help appreciated.
Is Dungeon World good for a first time DM?
Jeremiah Nguyen
Leo Rivera
Dungeon World is not a good game, period.
William Rivera
If you want a game that does Dungeon World better than Dungeon World, try Strike! Otherwise just run D&D 5e.
Ignore any posts that talk about their Dungeon World Barbarian. That is overly stale pasta. Dungeon world is basically a game for lazy GMs to run a murderhobo dungeon delver where all you're ever doing is fighting or delving.
Austin Sanders
I see why not.
If you are capable of reading and comprehending what you read, you can start GMing with basically any system. The amount of effort you have to put in beforehand just changes.
Dungeon World is easy in that the rules are simple, easy to grasp and remember.
But it's also hard in that it requires you to think up stuff on the spot a lot.
Also. No game is idiot proof.
Juan Barnes
It is and it is not.
DW is not a good Powered by the Apocalypse game. It takes the system and its philosophy and mashes it together abd withour much thought with "nostalgic" D&D-like mechanics. Its HP system doesn't work well, it has boring Moves and it does not facilitate interesting outcomes as well as base Apocalypse World and other good PbtA games.
On the other hand, it is simple, rather straightforward and easy to learn. For all its mechanical downsides it is still is rather freeform-like and allows some creativity. In that sense, it is good as a first system because it doesn't require reading lots of materials or system mastery and lets players do their thing.
I guess you can play it? Like a game or two, just don't stay with it because it is seriously not worth it and gets stale pretty fast. Or try something like Fellowship which is a much better PbtA fantasy game or so I have heard.
Xavier Powell
DW got a very good DM-ing section. It's still not easy to run, because it often requires the DM to think on the spot often, but that's where 90% of your DM-ing skill should come from anyway, but once you got that down, it puts everything else under your hand.
>If you want a game that does Dungeon World better than Dungeon World, try Strike!
I fucking love Strike! but... what? It hasn't got DW's helpful DM actions or fronts or anything that'd make DMing easier, and on top of that expects the DM and the players to put the time in for both fluffing things, and sometimes even for some homebrew mechanics.
Josiah Murphy
DW is fairly idiot proof, but it isn't player-proof.
I'd say that it is an alright system to start with, but if you don't plan to take advantage of the system's strengths and run something that can utilize the mild dramatic spice it'll insert, that something like D&D5e might be a better entry level product.
So really, it depends on your preference for narrative vs game. One is much better at game stuff, one actually bothers to put in narrative mechanics.
Charles Nelson
The best "new GM" games are Ryuutama and Apocalypse World.
Anything OSR should be easy to run too, as long as you understand the OSR mindset.
Keep on the Borderlands in particular was the "babby's first time DMing" module.
Chase Howard
First time DM should either run 5e or rules lite like Savage World.
Don't run rules heavy stuff since that will make you not having any fun.
Jayden Johnson
You should try old school D&D which actually does the loot/xp feedback cycle right
Oliver Gonzalez
No. It assumes a lot of expertise and skill on the part of both the players and the GM that are just not there in beginners.
It's for people who started on D&D and then hated it.
Daniel Wilson
I can advocate for Ryuutama
Very fun and insanely easy to pick up.
Elijah Butler
I ran it my first time GMing, and things went beautifully. My players were mostly experienced (though not with storygames), but the noobs took to it like a fish to water.
For its intended purpose, DW seems to work really well, no matter what the grumpy fa/tg/uys say.
Jayden Garcia
>Ryuutama
>good for first timers
>something on that level of unnecessary complexity
Jesus fucking christ.
Jose Hughes
Err, that should say "even the noobs."
The experienced players did fine, though the minmaxer was kind of straining at the leash after twenty sessions or so, so we eventually decided to switch to something crunchier to make him happy.
Yeah, and AW is pretty lousy for first timers as well. It doesn't really explain half its shit, it's too busy sounding cool to tell you what a lot of its system concepts mean.
Jeremiah Collins
Dungeon World is hard to mess up, but with first time roleplayers I'm not sure it's ideal. It assumes you already understand the concepts of oldschool RPGs, and sets things up in a way that'll give you a fairly easy to run experience depending on how good you are at improvisation. Mechanically, the game is very simple, and the book gives you only basic narrative tools. Therefore, it requires a large amount of creativity from everyone involved to enjoy. Your group may not be able to provide that since they're inexperienced and won't have the tools, tropes, and systems laid out in their heads to add detail to a fantasy world.
Anons here shit on it for its mechanical simplicity and the way it tries to rip DnD (which is the whole point) plus the relatively non-interesting narrative tools provided. Despite this, it can be fun with the right group. Just don't expect to be able to run a huge 3 year campaign in it. It's good for a short campaign a few adventures long, however.
Eli Ortiz
>the rulebook should dedicate space to explaining common concepts
No.
Nicholas Morales
>common concepts
>weird-ass storygame RPGs that, if Veeky Forums is anything to go by, most long-time gamers have MASSIVE problems wrapping their heads around
Michael Perry
After staring at tables and numbers for so long, it's difficult for people to wrap their head around an actual collaborative story telling experience.
Owen Sanchez
There's that, I suppose, but a lot of the problems that I see people on Veeky Forums have with these games are clearly caused by trying to run them with assumptions and habits learned from other games instead of viewing them as their own thing and running them accordingly.
Jordan Wilson
fpbp
Caleb Bailey
Nope. I suggest aWoD, which is basically a much simpler, much less dumb version of DW
analogkonsole.files.wordpress.com
Hunter Garcia
> the way it tries to rip DnD (which is the whole point)
Styling yourself after D&D is fine, doing it in a stupid way is not. HP was a mistake. Hack&Slash (the move) was a mistake.
That's why PbtA games are best with newbies. They require you to be creative, good with creating stories and narratives which can be a bit straining but is perfectly doable even with inexperienced people. Meanwhile, those very people do not work under the assumption of constraints that more crunchy, restrictive systems usually put on their players. You don't need feats or whatever in AW. Just say what you are doing and we will use a Move fitting that.
Evan Jackson
I like dungeon world for a lot of reasons, but I wouldn't necessarily run it for first-timers. DM needs to be fairly on the ball.
I'd run something like b/x d&d maybe- no worrying about builds or anything, just 3d6 down the line, pick a class, go.
Brayden Martinez
Dungeon world breaks down when the GM can't think on his feet and/or the players are stuck in the mindset of "it's not on my character sheet so I can't do it".
Also some players have fits about the failure = exp thing.
Adam Turner
Yes OP you should play Dungeon World.
It's pretty much objectively one of the best currently out there. It has fast easy to use mechsnics and is perfect for beginners, it's a lot cheaper than most of these other rules bloated systems that cost fifty dollars. There is no reason for extra rules when it is he role playing that matters. Dungeon World is fast and innovative and still feels exactly like the spirit of ADND before DnD 3.5 destroyed the hobby and ruined a generation of role players.
You want fast, intuitive combat? Dungeon World does that.
You want real, deep roleplaying mechanics? Dungeon World does that.
You want great mechanics that reward diversity of play? Dungeon World does that as well.
My last session of Dungeon World my human fighter wrapped a vampire in a bear hug and wrestled him out a window. This is real roleplaying we are talking about here, not babby 3.5 shit. D&D has ruined a generation of roleplayers. Do not start new players with the over-priced 5th edition that costs over 100 dollars to get into. Dungeon World is FREE online so you should definitely check it out.
dungeonworldsrd.com
dungeonworldsrd.com
dungeonworldsrd.com
Do not listen to the anti-Dungeon World people in this thread. None of them have any clue what they are talking about and pretty much everything they say has been refuted by the Dungeon World players on this forum. They are full of shit. Give the SRD a read before you read anything else in this thread, so you can decide for yourself, instead of listening to Veeky Forums's misinformed and incorrect opinions.
Carter Sanchez
>with first time roleplayers I'm not sure it's ideal.
No, it is actually the most ideal. You clearly don't have the first clue what the fuck you're talking about, so I'd suggest you stop posting until you have read the Dungeon World SRD (link provided below). Veeky Forums doesn't shit on it because of its mechanical simplicity, they shit on it because it threatens Dungeons and Dragons the most powerful roleplaying game of all time, and you CAN run longer campaigns with Dungeon World easily, that is a troll meme started by Veeky Forums a few years ago to try to downplay the AMAZING impact that Dungeon World has had on the roleplaying scene. It has brought in so many people who never would have touched an RPG otherwise, because D&D's overly complicated rules scare everyone off. D&D shills work as hard as they can to bury Dungeon World because deep down in their hearts they know it is a flawless game that is infinitely superior to that d20 shlock they insist to playing.
Benjamin Lopez
>Also some players have fits about the failure = exp thing.
That's understandable, though. Dungeon World is built around 2d6 mechanics where the bell curve often puts you in that, "You do something, but something BAD happens" zone, meaning more often than not you're going to be mildly successful at a task rather than really succeeding. It happened to me one night where EVERY roll was 7-9, which means I never got the good successes of 10+ or at least the XP from the 1-6 failures like the rest of my group got.
Asymmetrical XP rewards are garbage in any system, and especially those that are supposed to be "group creativity exercises" where you're worldbuilding with other players from the very first session.
Xavier James
>Also some players have fits about the failure = exp thing.
Actually that is an incredibly innovative mechanic and gives consequences to both sucess and failure, I'm sorry if you are still caught up in the "kill everything for le ebin XP reward" bullshit, but that was 3.5, and 3.5 is over. Time to pack it up, delete your Giant in the Playground Games Forum Account, and realize it's now 2017. Not 2003. Time to move on.
>DM needs to be fairly on the ball.
That's true of any system, except for babby 3.5 games where all you need to do is blindly follow the plot hooks and roll your dice and you might as well kill yourself because the rules are too fucking complicated and casters auto-win anyway. At least in Dungeon World the classes are balanced. In 3.5 literally half of the classes do not function. It is a completely broken game. 5e isn't much better and is still over priced and full of overcomplicated rules that have ZERO function in the game's design space.
> I'd run something like b/x d&d maybe- no worrying about builds or anything, just 3d6 down the line, pick a class, go.
That is absolute bull shit. Way to ensure the characters start out unequal and with zero investement in their characters because if one of them rolls a 1 for starting hit poitns he'll just suicide and keep making characters. Early D&D is complete shit, I suggest you refer to Lindybeige's work on this topic, I am pretty sure he runs Dungeon World isntead of D&D now that he has realized how shitty the latter is.
Justin Lopez
That's a truly shitty troll pasta, did you write that yourself? You should be ashamed.
Also you linked the crappy srd, the good one is at darkshire.net
Levi Miller
is this the virtpost pasta?
Alexander Hughes
I think it's new actually. But regardless, "virt" has arrived to play his "le annoying DW fanboy" persona, so this thread's basically shot.
Josiah Fisher
> literally a stripped down Dungeon World missing most of the good mechanics and adding in the 12+ option for rolling.
It's the same fucking game.
No. See my other post, OD&D and AD&D are garbage-ass games. Daggers are utterly fucking broken in Moldvay too.
> spend 100 dollars on an inferior game that took FIVE EDITIONS to get it right (and it still sucks as a game) instead of a free RPG that is far superior and more free and open to what the players want, which is what matters
Get fucked, WotCshill.
> Ryuutama
It's worthless.
> Apocalypse World.
A decent RPG, but Vincent Baker really didn't know what he was doing, and it shows in the design. The setting is also overly edgy. Vincent Baker had some good ideas, but it's like he was a blind man fumbling around in the room, he had his hand on something, but it was Adam Koebel and Sage LaTorra who turned on the light so he could see where he was, by making Dungeon World. He owes those two a lot for perfecting his idea.
Strike and 5e are overpriced trash..
Nicholas Sanchez
Probably not. But if the group's expectations aren't that you'll be Amazo-the-GM, it's probably slightly less bumpy than trying to run D&D.
Joseph Bennett
This statement has zero validity, you have not read the rules clearly, so please read them and then you can come back and comment on the system.
Until then:
dungeonworldsrd.com
dungeonworldsrd.com
dungeonworldsrd.com
dungeonworldsrd.com
Read this, then you are allowed to come back and discuss the game.
John Price
PbtA is a very robust chassis for RPGs in general, because it manages to be both rules-lite and clearly-worded and non-ambiguous, something that many rules-lite RPGs fail at.
However, Dungeon World is a rather misguided implementation of PbtA that misunderstands and breaks many of PbtA's core assumptions, particularly with the way its hit points, attributes, and moves work. It achieved popularity by riding on the D&D wave and impressing people who had never seen a PbtA game before, even if it is a mangled abortion of a PbtA game.
I would suggest Fellowship for a more intelligently-written take on PbtA-based fantasy.
Austin Howard
How is any of what I said a "shitty troll pasta"? Refute a single thing I said. Dungeon World is an excellent game, far superior to D&D, which is RAPIDLY losing ground to Dunegon World in the roll20 stats despite having all the resources and 40 years of tradition on its side.
D&D is dying. Dungeon World is rising. It's 2017 and I can see this being the year that tabletop RPGs finally get back on the right track after Gygax and his grognards' legacy have fucked them up for YEARS with garbage games like D&D 3.5 and 4e.
Camden Foster
>both
>lists three things
Well I can tell you're retarded right off the bat!!
> However, Dungeon World is a rather misguided implementation of PbtA that misunderstands and breaks many of PbtA's core assumptions
You mean improves them. Also just because the health system is different does not mean the game is any worse. Not everything has to be le edge maximum like Apocalypse World tried to be by saying "fuck" every other sentence.
> It achieved popularity by riding on the D&D wave and impressing people who had never seen a PbtA game before, even if it is a mangled abortion of a PbtA game.
No, it achieved popularity by being a good game, shut the fuck up.
> I would suggest Fellowship for a more intelligently-written take on PbtA-based fantasy.
No one will ever play Fellowship, it has no features that Dungeon World doesn't also have, and it also has a much smaller playerbase. Dungeon World is growing on a daily basis. I've introduced over a dozen people to the game in the past six months alone, and I think overall I have gotten about thirty (30) people to completely abandon D&D 5e to play Dungeon World, which they agree is (1) faster, (2) easier, and (3) more expansive of a game than D&D 5e which is full of restrictive rules and complex, confusing bullshit for mechanics.
David Morgan
Cost aside, 5e has a lot of good advice in its DMG for newbies.
I don't like the three-book format, either, but it is not a bad investment, especially considering it isn't a hipster hack of an SJW storygame about sex.
Oliver Price
Ignoring the false flaggotry for a moment.
Brody Bennett
OP here, I didn't know this was a thing, if I did I wouldn't have made the thread
Thanks for the recommendations, it was helpful while it lasted.
Please kill yourself
Aaron White
Yeah, we can't really have DW threads anymore, because sooner or later this faggot descends on them. I doubt it's the original guy anymore, but it's not like that matters. At this point "virt" just means "a stupid asshole who's not fooling anybody."
Levi Baker
OP, you should play Dungeon World, ignore these people being fucking twats.
>Cost aside, 5e has a lot of good advice in its DMG for newbies.
Dungeon World has better advice for less money.
Nice trips, but you're wrong.
Also:
> , especially considering it isn't a hipster hack of an SJW storygame about sex.
Apocalypse World may be a shitty game but it's far from SJW or being about sex. Just because it has sex in it doesn't mean it's about sex. Was Firefly about sex? No. The game is meant to Firefly set in a post-apocalyptic setting. Actually read or watch some of D Vincent Bakers interviews about how and why he made the game. Fucking educate yourself, stop using strawmen to get your "point" across because your argument collapses in seconds under the weight of someone who actually knows what they are talking about.
Asher Davis
Dungeon World is the newest title on that list except for 5e which had an easy run of it because they didn't do anything interesting with the game, just made a bland version of D&D to jew up the sales and make as much money as possible. Not caring that the game still has most of 3.5's problems as well as some new ones. Dungeon World has none of these problems and it is rapidly climbing up the mountain of obscurity.
Every day, more people find out about Dungeon World and other D&D alternatives, and D&D sales are only going to drop more. They have only been increasing due to increased awareness of RPGs in general, thanks to the recent popularity of "nerd culture."
It's like water building up behind a dam. It'd been 5 years since the fourth edition had been released and shows like Communty and Big Bang Theory had thrust D&D into the spotlight. As soon as 5e came out, hordes of "normalfags" rushed in to purchase it and see what the fuss was all about. Just go to your local FLGS anytime, you'll see at least a couple hipster types come in and buy the 5e basic set. They aren't playing on Roll20, by the way, they are playing in real life with actual friends. Now, Dungeon World is making waves, and in the next few years it will overtake and replace D&D completely.... just in time for 6th edition to come out and fall flat on its face.
Colton Green
The DW hype has already died and the game has no other legs to stand on, so no matter how hard D&D continues to fuck up, it won't fall behind DW.
Robert Sanders
> Dungeon World will never be popular!!
> t. increasingly nervous Merals shill
Andrew Martinez
Make no mistake, D&D is also irredeemable garbage.
But it at least has inertia, nostalgia and marketing going for it, which is more than DW has to offer.
Xavier Miller
Played a campaign built on RNG and dreams.
It's a horrible system for autistic DMs and that autistic DM's friends. Please reconsider, thanks, OP. May you not be a faggot.
John Powell
> Dungeon World is rly rly gud!!!
Alright, kiddo. Get back in the play-pen, daddy's gotta go back to work.
If you're serious, then explain > Immolator
Jaxon Russell
>responding to trolls
>bumping a dead thread
>after even the OP gave up and left
Jacob Myers
>Strike and 5e are overpriced trash..
Does anyone even have a physical copy of Strike?
I think it's like 10$ on drivethru
But it's a pretty shitty book anyway, even if the game is fun
and you can have it for free sendspace.com
Lincoln Rivera
Stop shilling Strike!
Why does Veeky Forums keep shilling Strike!?
Jaxson Turner
>Why does Veeky Forums keep shilling Strike!?
It's the perfect game for Veeky Forums. Pointlessly complex, full of buzzwords, basically D&D but not named D&D.
Jace Jenkins
What is there to explain?
Grayson Clark
Not really. It teaches a new GM to be lazy and subservient to players.
>OSR
Just say D&D instead of using your buzzword.
Angel Wood
Just play Apocalypse World, DW is just a mishmash of AW and D&D without really understanding the high points of either.
DW adds on sacred cows from D&D, such as the rather poorly thought-out stat system (while AW has a great and well-designed one, which DW throws out), weight tracking, and overly specific defined abilities, while still trying to keep the light chassis of AW- two very incompatible ideas.
Nicholas Kelly
Meh. It probably is, but considering what the alternatives are, as a not-too-formalized RPG is good.
Fellowship is really DND-like, tough.
Caleb Howard
>Dex for initiative
>Bad
Haven't even read past the first page and this smells of bullshit.
Jeremiah Diaz
TSR D&D is an entirely different game than the abortions bearing its name today.
Camden Green
It's a troll, that's why.
Angel Collins
Yeah, I posted that before reading further and hearing that they are virt posts, I don't get on Veeky Forums that much these days and am not usually in DW threads because I don't play the game.
Ethan Phillips
DW is D&D but good.
It's great for a beginning DM. You don't have to think much.
Veeky Forums hates it because it's not autistic when it comes to rules. Also apparently the guy that made it is an SJW or some shit, but that doesn't come out in the rules at all.
Ian Clark
>they didn't do anything interesting with the game
5e's "story first" publishing format's probably the most interesting thing D&D has done since 2e's setting boxes, but without the implication that every setting *needs* very particular rule modifications.
Gavin Nelson
>5e's "story first" publishing format
Different user here. What's this? First I'm hearing of this. I don't follow DnD these days.
Chase Long
>What's this?
Wizards of the Coast is run by Jews who realized if they release a prepublished adventure with a box of miniatures and custom GM screen to go with it, they can make even more money without having to do any game design work and release actual splat books. They call this "story first publishing" to conceal their greed and fool the consumer into thinking that they actually give a fuck about their enjoyment of the game.
Mason Phillips
>implying one or more book every month is somehow less greedy
It's kind of amazing how little context you have for anything to do with RPGs and how obvious it is you don't get to play often. If it wasn't for your persistence I would have assumed this was all a gag or a strawman to make people dislike DW.
Leo Young
That's like saying "your first videogame should be ether Call of Duty or Battlefield".
That's extremely limited set of games to suggest from almost infinite loop of possibilities.
Anthony Richardson
Problem is long time gamers. When you are stuck to one style and mindset of playing, any game that requires something else is hard.
First timers don't have such issues.
Isaiah Watson
What do you think is a good system then asshole
Christian Cooper
7+ is success though. Partial one but still should always be a success.
Which means that with 2d6 characters succeed most of the time.
Just by statistics, characters in Da are competent, but not perfect, they succeed, but not without struggle and hardship.
Samuel Jones
>Pointlessly complex
wat
How the fuck can you get simpler than "d6 with no midifiers"? Flipping a coin?
Xavier Sanchez
Not him, but the presentation of a lot of the optional and non-combat stuff is really weird and implies certain interactions which aren't there. I can see how that might make someone think it's complex if they aren't reading it very closely.
What immediately comes to mind for me is kits. Each kit is broken down as a numbered list, which obviously implies a baked-in progression. That doesn't exist though, and you're supposed to pick those advances a la cart.
I really hope Strike gets an editor and a second edition, because it definitely needs a bit of TLC to soup up that half of the book. Especially because that's what puts a lot of people off about it.
Sebastian Long
The book just takes way too much time elaborating on non-combat mechanics when the main draw of the system is combat. I don't mind all the extra options (I quite like team conflict, for example, and it gives some pretty good ideas for how to inject some of your own mechanics to enhance the campaign's theme), but you really shouldn't spend 90 pages on them before even mentioning the tactical combat.
Jayden King
>only draw of the system is combat
Fixed that fr you.
After all, who doesn't love an entirely arbitrarily controlled combat where hitpoints aren't just an abstraction, but a way for the GM to tease you into thinking you might be able to kill the dragon who has six hit points and a bunch of descriptors that make it impossible to kill except through GM fiat?
Samuel James
>so butthurt about Dungeon World that he can't even follow the conversation well enough to tell that people are actually talking about Strike!
Bentley Peterson
>uneven EXP distribution in a world where we have made mechanics that allow for things which ameliorate failures and can be used for character growth but don't objectively put players at a disadvantage
If you hack all the bullshit about how EXP works out of DW, then it's functional. Otherwise it's just an endeavor in long-form, RNG-induced cruelty.
Jayden Rogers
The core mechanic isn't the problem. Don't be ridiculous.
>the presentation of a lot of the optional and non-combat stuff is really weird and implies certain interactions which aren't there
This is what I was getting at.
>but you really shouldn't spend 90 pages on them before even mentioning the tactical combat.
^^
Jonathan Phillips
>> I'd run something like b/x d&d maybe- no worrying about builds or anything, just 3d6 down the line, pick a class, go.
>That is absolute bull shit. Way to ensure the characters start out unequal and with zero investement in their characters because if one of them rolls a 1 for starting hit poitns he'll just suicide and keep making characters. Early D&D is complete shit, I suggest you refer to Lindybeige's work on this topic, I am pretty sure he runs Dungeon World isntead of D&D now that he has realized how shitty the latter is.
Then fucking play B/X but give lvl 1s average or max HP, OR just fucking tell players to grow up, grab their dice, and if their character dies roll up another one.
Xavier Smith
Dungeon World has the most obnoxious fans, and the most autistic haters.
Other than that DW is thoroughly mediocre and really not worth it. Unless you just got to embrace your inner hipster - and even then you have better options.
Zachary Gomez
It's still not "pointlessly complex". Just terribly laid out.
Grayson Morris
This. DW is not irredeemably bad. It is just not worth it. It does not require that much work to learn and play but it is still rather bland and misguided in its application of PbtA rules and old D&D elements. There are better oldschool RPGs, better hipster storygames and better "normal" systems.