2017

Honestly, most of the good qualities of DW just look to me like things that any reasonable GM employs regardless of system.

>But yeah no seriously DW does suck

I'm interested in what you dislike. Could you be a bit more specific?

>and playbooks are quite limited in scope unless you decide to write the rest of the RPG out

I wouldn't say that that's the biggest flaw of playbooks. I like that they are flavorful enough to build a character around while being light enough that you don't have to spend hours on it. I don't like that there are so many assumptions being made about how to play them. My go to example is the Rogue, whose abilities are extremely centered around dungeon crawling with no real utility out of dungeon.

>Honestly, most of the good qualities of DW just look to me like things that any reasonable GM employs regardless of system.

I digress. I think DW's stroke of genius is to integrate good roleplaying into the rules. Especially the idea of fiction before rules and intent before action being made explicit. You might argue that these are things a good GM should know, but why set up a barrier for good roleplaying? Make it an essential part of the game experience rather than something to be slowly learned through trial and error.

>I think DW's stroke of genius is to integrate good roleplaying into the rules.
That's not DW's stroke of genius. It's AW's stroke of genius. DW just copied it and mangled it to the point where you need a fan-made guide to recover it.

Eat a bag of dicks

>That's not DW's stroke of genius. It's AW's stroke of genius.

You're correct. I messed up the publication chronology.

>DW just copied it and mangled it to the point where you need a fan-made guide to recover it.

I wish I could say that wasn't true but you're mostly right. The DW book is one of the most unhelpful rulebooks I have ever read.

DW's strength was taking the PbtA system and showing that it could be used for fantasy adventure, and I think there's some deserved credit in that.

>DW's strength was taking the PbtA system and showing that it could be used for fantasy adventure, and I think there's some deserved credit in that.
Not really. DW shows how PbtA can NOT be used for fantasy adventure. Or rather how it can not be used for D&D. AW Fallen Empires shows how PbtA can be used for fantasy adventure.

OK, rant incoming.
Apocalypse world is a good engine. It forces characters to make interesting narrative choices and propels the story forward in dynamic ways.
Dungeons and Dragons (well, the early versions, 3.X screwed the pooch) is a good idea for a game. Explore a tightly-defined space willed with rewards and threats. It works well.

The problem is that apocalypse world works for highly story-driven, narrative games. It works for games which are all about the characters and their motives, and hands a decent amount of narrative control across to the players. On top of this, the engine is designed to produce /interesting/ results, not to give an accurate model of the world.
D&D is about challenge. D&D is a game where you're somewhere that wants to kill you and you need to play smart in order to survive and prosper.
These two priorities in game design don't really mesh at all. Dungeon world makes it safe and even rewarding to make dumb choices because it makes the story more interesting, whilst at the same time trying to be a player-skill-testing dungeon crawl. Reconciling these two ideas at the gaming table is difficult, and mostly means ignoring either the story or dungeonchallenge sides.
The game takes a lot of mechanics from D&D because they're traditional, and sticks them in apocalypse world as window dressing. It's not /good/ design.

If you want a story-driven fantasy game, better ones exist. I, for one, reccomend looking into Torchbearer, which is unabashedly narrativist, but deliberately set up to evoke the survival-horror dwindling resources threat of a dungeon crawl. It knows what it wants to be, where DW kinda doesn't.

The thing that always gets me with DW is that, when the buzz about it started, here (in Italy) the storygame community - which is small, creative, but also pretentious as fuck, trying to ape the Forge - was wringing their hands, waiting for the day that DW came out and "rollplayers (not the term they used, they have their own lingo) will learn what a true RPG is".
Then it came out and nobody cared.
I'm happy that a couple of smaller companies have picked up AW and other Apocalypse engine games though. It's basically impossible to find players for non-translated games.

>Dungeon world makes it safe and even rewarding to make dumb choices because it makes the story more interesting, whilst at the same time trying to be a player-skill-testing dungeon crawl.
To highlight the retardation of this, when I made a thief in DW, I assumed that there was a move that would let me use Dex instead of Str for attacks, because everything in thief runs off of Dex. There isn't. But I had dumped Str already. Which meant that I was whiffing on most of my attack rolls.

>Any time you roll a 6- you get XP right away.

I SIGNIFICANTLY outleveled the rest of the party.

>You might argue that these are things a good GM should know, but why set up a barrier for good roleplaying? Make it an essential part of the game experience rather than something to be slowly learned through trial and error.
Thing is, once you've learned them, you can implement them in any system. Other systems will have strengths that DW does not, but DW's main strength can be ported without even changing any rules.

Why would you play that when Barbarians of Lemuria exists?

Real talk I enjoy DW a fair amount for particularly niche settings that have a lot of blank space on the map.

I think I like it more than 5e but I'd probably never post an advert for games here.

>2017
>be me
>be genre simulationist
>be offered choice between gamist system and narrativist system
How about no? Also:
Cute """viral marketing""", Adam Koebel.

/thread

>2000+10+7
>still playing RPGs
You're like a little baby. OP.

>The problem is that apocalypse world works for highly story-driven, narrative games. It works for games which are all about the characters and their motives, and hands a decent amount of narrative control across to the players. On top of this, the engine is designed to produce /interesting/ results, not to give an accurate model of the world.
>D&D is about challenge. D&D is a game where you're somewhere that wants to kill you and you need to play smart in order to survive and prosper.
Abso-fucking-lutely correct. And there is a 3rd playstyle: simulationism. You can see it in part in Harnmaster or Song of Swords. You can see it Conan 2d20, heck even in FFG Star Wars.

>These two priorities in game design don't really mesh at all.
Correct.

>they fell for the GNS maymay

>I digress
I do not think it means what you think it means

>I think DW's stroke of genius is to [...]
Name an example of how this is integrated in the rules? Some box with explicit DMing advice doesn't really count.

Absolutely. The 3 creative agendas are incredibly useful in understanding games or gaming groups. It doesn't matter how you call them -you can call Narrativism Drama if you prefer or Simulationism Exploration- but these 3 agendas or playstyles are valid tools for analysis.

It's better than Tremulus.

>2017
Still playing dungeon-themed shitty kitchen sink high fantasy instead of something acually nice and operating above pleb-tier of aesthetics

Because BoL operates in a traditional RPG structure and DW does not. Come on, I would rather play BoL too, but it's pretty easy to see the different approach to the games.

Daily reminder that GNS is about behavior at the gaming table, not games.

Tell me everything you know about GNS and coherent game design.

>Name an example of how this is integrated in the rules? Some box with explicit DMing advice doesn't really count.

Not him, but having moves "triggered" is a good example imo.

>Penis measuring contests

No thanks.

I was just pointing out that your reminder is completely false. To wit:
>Throughout this chapter, cut me some slack on the terminology. Saying "Gamist design" or "Gamist RPG," is a short way of saying, "RPG design whose elements facilitate, to any recognizable degree, Gamist priorities and decision-making."

>+ Playbooks are a nice alternative to classes and races, integrating the whole of a character rather than pieces of them.
>+ 'Fiction first' - you can't charisma save your way out of a falling rock because that makes no sense in the fiction.
>+ Easy resolution mechanic that is used for everything. No percentage dice for one mechanic, d20 for another.
>+ Intent before actions: You say what you want to do and the appropriate move triggers. No arguing back and forth.
>+ Everything is in the conversation. You put actions first and rules second.
Literally all of these are done in another system. The distinctions, if present, are so narrow as to not be worth mentioning.

This.
Apocalypse World is great because every roll has consequences. The "combat" moves and harm mechanics means things get fucked up very fast. There are no "damage rolls" or any of that shit. The setting is better (DW is just generic heroic fantasy), the rules are better, everything it better. DW took zero imagination to produce. It sold more because it had "dungeon" in the title. And due to relentless shilling by Reddditors.

This.
Dungeon World created nothing.
Every single one of its mechanics comes from either Apocalypse World, or Dungeons and Dragons.
None of it is original.
The only good parts in it, are the Apocalypse World parts.
The rest is just mind-numbing trash put in by the nu-male devs to make some quick money.

>Real talk I enjoy DW a fair amount
Why?
It offers nothing as a system.
Nothing it does cannot be adapted without effort to another system.
You like the cooperative worldbuilding? Do it in D&D. Or whatever D&D-esque system you like.
I have never seen a compelling reason why I should play Dungeon World instead of D&D on this board.

Kek. No it's not.
You can say GNS are three quantities by which you could measure an RPG, almost pie-chart like.
Denying its relation to RPG systems, is just retarded.
It is flawed and outdated and better models exist, but GNS is still legitimate and relevant.

Not that it's much of an accomplishment, tremulus is almost as bad as COC.

DW is okay.

I'm going to go with the Wikipedia definition because I can't be bothered to look up the original one, but it's the same thing:

>GNS theory is an informal field of study developed by Ron Edwards which attempts to create a unified theory of how role-playing games work. Focused on player behavior, in GNS theory participants in role-playing games organize their interactions around three categories of engagement: gamism, narrativism and simulationism.
>The theory focuses on player interaction rather than statistics. Analysis centers on how player behavior fits the above parameters of engagement and how these preferences shape the content and direction of a game.

Labeling a game according to the GNS is imprecise, and is stretching the purpose of the theory.
You can analyze a game mechanic by how it facilitates a certain behavior, but I stand by my initial assertion.

tl;dr: stop meming the GSN

>Labeling a game according to the GNS is imprecise, and is stretching the purpose of the theory.
never mind that edwards did just that in his series about GNS
indie-rpgs.com/articles/6/

>Forgeshit

Show us where Edwards touched ya user

>parts of activity == goals of an activity

Frig off, Randy

>Analysis centers on how player behavior fits the above parameters of engagement and how these preferences shape the content and direction of a game.
>how these preferences shape the content and direction of a game.
>the content and direction of a game.
It's right there in what you quoted.
>tl;dr: stop meming the GSN
I'm not, because it's not a meme.

Just discovered this system and started playing g recently. It's ticking off a lot of boxes as far as grievances with d&d and what I've been looking for in an alternative. I personally have been loving the hell out of it.

Well, as I present it, DW is more or less a more proper answer to what DND told us it would've been about, not to DND as it is.
So, great adventures, cinematic sequences, all that shit. Not tactical thinking.

The other problems it bears are kinda "it's an old hack", more than anything.

I guess Torchbearer does the second thing you mention, but it's not my thing.

>and I honestly think people spewing out "it doesn't work" are retards, even if trolling

For the non-trolling people that like AW and not DW;

What would you insert in DW to make it better? Just canceling ability scores is a tiny bit too little.

And don't tell me "just play Fellowship".

Can someone sell me on Torchbearer? I just recently started playing Dungeon World as an alternative to D&D 5e, and it's everything I'm looking for right now, but I keep hearing about how Torchbearer is flat out better. What do I need to know about that system?

Less unintuitive "attributes" is a start, but in order to start fixing DW you need to completely overhaul the way combat and health works.

Combat in Dungeon World often turns into a blow-by-blow affair that's at odds with how conflict resolution in other, better PbtA games work. A dungeon world revamp needs to replace HP as a numerical scale with the harm clocks and a "Take Harm" move like every other PbtA game uses so you can resolve large chunks of combat in a few rolls like it's supposed to work.

Kill yourself and your """logic""", Gleichman.

Hrm. But DW has the different class damage, a thing which I think should be left there. If every monster has the same clock...

What is it? Is it a design paradigm or is it a player preference?

Well, it can't be the latter after that part of GNS got BTFO'd by Wizards trying to do actual research, Ron.