The Pundit asked me to come here and comment on this. I'd rather see the RPG hobby be about playing games we love than bickering between camps, so I've decided to follow through and post here. I may regret it.

I'm one of the authors of Dungeon World.

I think Dungeon World is not OSR.

I think Dungeon World is a roleplaying game.

In Dungeon World, you play a character in a fictional world. We talk about "the fictional world the characters inhabit" so much we shortened it to "the fiction." The rules are based on what's happening in the fictional world the characters inhabit.

Nobody in a game of Dungeon World is responsible for telling a story. The players say what their characters say, think, and do. In some cases, they get to add things to the world, just like writing up a character background. Most of these are through GM-invitation. The GM asks questions and uses the answers. Some GMs may have the players fill in entire nations, others may have them fill in the history of their village and people, or what written magic looks like, or whatever else.

The only "story" in Dungeon World is what occurs when the player characters are thrown into a dangerous situation and we find out what happens. It's explicitly not about planning a story, and nothing in the rules is there to make any kind of character arc or plotline or whatever happen. The rules are there to help the GM present a dangerous living world, and help the players interact with that world through their characters.

Some people won't like DW, and that's completely cool. We (my co-author and I) made the game because we were already playing D&D this way (with various editions) and we saw in AW a better way to talk about how we were playing. It was the right tool for playing the kind of D&D we were already playing (and yeah, there are plenty of other kinds of D&D too). It ended up being published because it turns out there are lots of other folks who like to play like this too.

We're not out to replace anyone. We made a game we love. Anything beyond that is pure icing on the cake. We're happy when we find that someone else gets something out of DW, but it could have just stayed on my hard drive and been all I ever wanted from it.

There are lots of wonderful RPGs out there. Some of them aim for story, some don't. DW is one of the ones that doesn't. I find the whole idea of "story games" a pointless divide between people who might otherwise like to play with each other, but that's not what I was asked to talk about.

The "old school style" in DW's Kickstarter tag line (which you'll note we don't use anymore) is about simplicity, open-endedness, and an emphasis on people making their own stuff. It's not intended as piggybacking on the OSR, and has unfortunately since become a pretty common marketing line. So we've worked out a way to more clearly say what DW is. I still think of it as influenced by older D&D, but that isn't always the same as OSR, I think.

Ultimately, you're welcome to call Dungeon World whatever you like. I don't think anything I said here is likely to change anyone's minds. For me, Dungeon World is a great ruleset for playing one particular style of D&D-ish fantasy adventure, and that's all I need it to be.

Welcome to the RPGSite, Sage. You will probably draw fire from some of the regulars (including me, maybe, if I reenter this clusterfuck of a thread at some point), but you got some balls to show up here, and I give you props for that. Have fun.

I've got a question about DungeonWorld, that I hope is not perceived as baiting, or any other nonsense.

A lot of what I've read about DW - from online sources and forums - seems to indicate that it can be great as an introductory Rpg. That its presentation and rules system might suit novice gamers. That the GM has a more guided, or focused (constrained?) role compared with other Rpg systems - serving to 'shape' a GM's skillset? There seems to be specific preset move mechanics that the GM interprets into game results. (Is this to take guess work out of the GM's hands?).

Does DW have more of a focus on the newb gamer? Getting newer gamers involved, and sent down the 'right' path at the start of their gaming career? Can it teach old gaming dogs new tricks? What does it offer an older gamer that has been there, and done that, and has seen what dozens of systems over the decades have had to offer?

I'm likely not the target market for this Rpg - because I just prefer d100 games better.  But I find all the debate, and heartburn about this Rpg to be interesting.

Quote from: K Peterson;673839Does DW have more of a focus on the newb gamer? Getting newer gamers involved, and sent down the 'right' path at the start of their gaming career? Can it teach old gaming dogs new tricks? What does it offer an older gamer that has been there, and done that, and has seen what dozens of systems over the decades have had to offer?

DW takes those relatively esoteric pages of DMing guidance and turns them into clear tools that a DM can implement in play. As such, I think it provides an excellent introduction to DMing for a newbie.

I also note that these tools actually do very little to restrain a DM's flexibility as the tools are themselves flexible and require the DM's judgement to operate. For example, on first glance the DM making moves on only one of three situations seems incredibly limiting. On closer examination, the three situations are:

1. Cause and effect.
2. When a PC fails.
3. When the DM considers there to be a break in the gameplay.

In effect, they pretty much cover any situation where a DM would do something in a more traditional RPG, just in a clearer way, through the same use of DM's discretion.

As a DM of 30 years, I found that DW was very easy on me, and supported the free wheeling style of how I used to run AD&D1e. I don't know if it taught me new tricks but it certainly allowed me to do a bunch of things that I regularly do when running AD&D more easily.

I did find that some of the tools in DW also provided a fresh take on some ideas that I had long ceased thinking about. A good example is the focus on using the location based information in a more dynamic way when converting AD&D modules. This really helped sell me on some adventures that I would had previously bypassed.

Quote from: K Peterson;673839I've got a question about DungeonWorld, that I hope is not perceived as baiting, or any other nonsense.

A lot of what I've read about DW - from online sources and forums - seems to indicate that it can be great as an introductory Rpg. That its presentation and rules system might suit novice gamers. That the GM has a more guided, or focused (constrained?) role compared with other Rpg systems - serving to 'shape' a GM's skillset? There seems to be specific preset move mechanics that the GM interprets into game results. (Is this to take guess work out of the GM's hands?).

Does DW have more of a focus on the newb gamer? Getting newer gamers involved, and sent down the 'right' path at the start of their gaming career? Can it teach old gaming dogs new tricks? What does it offer an older gamer that has been there, and done that, and has seen what dozens of systems over the decades have had to offer?

I'm likely not the target market for this Rpg - because I just prefer d100 games better.  But I find all the debate, and heartburn about this Rpg to be interesting.

DW lays out how to GM it in the clearest language we could manage because how the game is GM'ed is just as important as what the players do and it's usually left to vague "advice" or trial and error for the GM to figure out what works with any given game.

Tangent: this is another point where I personally take some inspiration from old-school D&D, because Moldvay has some of the rocking-est GMing stuff anywhere.

Anyway, we wanted to be as straightforward and clear about DW's GMing as we could be. So we spelled out what a DW GM should aim for, and how they get to it.

It's not meant to be constraining so much as showing the plethora of options the GM has at their fingertips at any given moment. If you're an experienced GM, everything you do is probably already a DW "GM move." They're hugely broad things, like "put someone in a spot."

We call them GM "rules" because playing DW a different way is as much of a change as messing with how much HP each class gets, or the XP to level. It's not wrong to do it, but we don't know how it'll turn out. The "rules" are the entire system of play, and switching from being a GM finding out what happens to adventurers in a dangerous situation to being a GM telling a story is a huge shift that shouldn't be made lightly. They're both probably awesome ways to play, we just want to be clear that how the GM approaches the game is as important to the system as anything else.

That might make it easier on newbie GMs, but that wasn't really our direct goal. I can say that it helps me switch between games. I ran some DCC recently and DW's GMing rules both helped me run the game and remember how to approach DCC differently than DW.

For reference, the list of GM moves are:
•  Use a monster, danger, or location move
•  Reveal an unwelcome truth
•  Show signs of an approaching threat
•  Deal damage
•  Use up their resources
•  Turn their move back on them
•  Separate them
•  Give an opportunity that fits a class' abilities
•  Show a downside to their class, race, or equipment
•  Offer an opportunity, with or without cost
•  Put someone in a spot
•  Tell them the requirements or consequences and ask

It's a GM inspiration list. When the players fail a roll, that means something went wrong. This list is a way for the GM to figure out what that is, if it's not immediately obvious.

The GM's job is to portray a fantastic world, find what's going on with the players in the way and push it, and play to find out what happens. (These are actually stated in the book.) The moves are a tool to do that.

Quote from: sage;673832The Pundit asked me to come here and comment on this. I'd rather see the RPG hobby be about playing games we love than bickering between camps, so I've decided to follow through and post here. I may regret it.

I'm one of the authors of Dungeon World.

I think Dungeon World is not OSR.

I think Dungeon World is a roleplaying game.

In Dungeon World, you play a character in a fictional world. We talk about "the fictional world the characters inhabit" so much we shortened it to "the fiction." The rules are based on what's happening in the fictional world the characters inhabit.

Nobody in a game of Dungeon World is responsible for telling a story. The players say what their characters say, think, and do. In some cases, they get to add things to the world, just like writing up a character background. Most of these are through GM-invitation. The GM asks questions and uses the answers. Some GMs may have the players fill in entire nations, others may have them fill in the history of their village and people, or what written magic looks like, or whatever else.

The only "story" in Dungeon World is what occurs when the player characters are thrown into a dangerous situation and we find out what happens. It's explicitly not about planning a story, and nothing in the rules is there to make any kind of character arc or plotline or whatever happen. The rules are there to help the GM present a dangerous living world, and help the players interact with that world through their characters.

Some people won't like DW, and that's completely cool. We (my co-author and I) made the game because we were already playing D&D this way (with various editions) and we saw in AW a better way to talk about how we were playing. It was the right tool for playing the kind of D&D we were already playing (and yeah, there are plenty of other kinds of D&D too). It ended up being published because it turns out there are lots of other folks who like to play like this too.

We're not out to replace anyone. We made a game we love. Anything beyond that is pure icing on the cake. We're happy when we find that someone else gets something out of DW, but it could have just stayed on my hard drive and been all I ever wanted from it.

There are lots of wonderful RPGs out there. Some of them aim for story, some don't. DW is one of the ones that doesn't. I find the whole idea of "story games" a pointless divide between people who might otherwise like to play with each other, but that's not what I was asked to talk about.

The "old school style" in DW's Kickstarter tag line (which you'll note we don't use anymore) is about simplicity, open-endedness, and an emphasis on people making their own stuff. It's not intended as piggybacking on the OSR, and has unfortunately since become a pretty common marketing line. So we've worked out a way to more clearly say what DW is. I still think of it as influenced by older D&D, but that isn't always the same as OSR, I think.

Ultimately, you're welcome to call Dungeon World whatever you like. I don't think anything I said here is likely to change anyone's minds. For me, Dungeon World is a great ruleset for playing one particular style of D&D-ish fantasy adventure, and that's all I need it to be.

If we are welcome to call Dungeon World whatever we want, then it's strange that you just posted on why we should only only call it a RPG.  It seems to me that you do have a problem with people calling Dungeon World whatever they want, and that you really want to establish it as a RPG and only a RPG.

I would say if a person wants to play a D&D-ish type game they can just play D&D.  The only point to Dungeon World is to play a game with the same subject matter as D&D but without D&D rules and without standard RPG assumptions.  It's a game for people who don't like classic RPGs basically.  Therefore I don't think it's wrong to label it as something different then RPGs.  I honestly believe properly labeling a product can help people find what they are looking for.  The only reason to mislabel something is to deceive people.

Imagine going to a restaurant and ordering a vegetarian pizza, but the waiter brings a pizza covered with meat.  Then when you criticize the order, the waiter tells you that there is a "pointless divide" between meat and vegetarian pizzas and it's just all pizza so get over it. Pretty asinine right?

Quote from: hamstertamer;673857If we are welcome to call Dungeon World whatever we want, then it's strange that you just posted on why we should only only call it a RPG.  It seems to me that you do have a problem with people calling Dungeon World whatever they want, and that you really want to establish it as a RPG and only a RPG.

This has to be one of the most uncharitable interpretations I've read.  He doesn't say that.  He says why he thinks it's an RPG.  Nothing in that post you quoted says what you're paraphrasing him as saying.

And I have absolutely no dog in this fight.

Quote from: hamstertamer;673857I would say if a person wants to play a D&D-ish type game they can just play D&D.  The only point to Dungeon World is to play a game with the same subject matter as D&D but without D&D rules and without standard RPG assumptions.  It's a game for people who don't like classic RPGs basically.

The bolded bit is where you go off the deep end and into crazytown. What are 'standard RPG assumptions'? And why would you have to not like classic RPGs to play Dungeon World?

Quote from: hamstertamer;673857If we are welcome to call Dungeon World whatever we want, then it's strange that you just posted on why we should only only call it a RPG.  It seems to me that you do have a problem with people calling Dungeon World whatever they want, and that you really want to establish it as a RPG and only a RPG.

I would say if a person wants to play a D&D-ish type game they can just play D&D.  The only point to Dungeon World is to play a game with the same subject matter as D&D but without D&D rules and without standard RPG assumptions.  It's a game for people who don't like classic RPGs basically.  Therefore I don't think it's wrong to label it as something different then RPGs.  I honestly believe properly labeling a product can help people find what they are looking for.  The only reason to mislabel something is to deceive people.

Imagine going to a restaurant and ordering a vegetarian pizza, but the waiter brings a pizza covered with meat.  Then when you criticize the order, the waiter tells you that there is a "pointless divide" between meat and vegetarian pizzas and it's just all pizza so get over it. Pretty asinine right?

You're welcome to call it what you want, and I was asked to post what I think it is. I'm presenting my opinion, not telling you what to think. I tried to make it clear that these were my thoughts, that I'm sharing, particularly because some people seem to think DW is OSR (or is trying to be).

I do play D&D. Often. Along with OSR and old-school-inspired games, and a whole bunch of other stuff.

Our reason for making DW was to make a game that better suited a type of game that some people (apparently quite a few, based on the response we've gotten) have also gotten from D&D. We could keep doing that with various D&D rules, but we found that, for us, DW makes that particular flavor of D&D easier. That's just us, though. If your flavor of D&D isn't DW's flavor, or if you prefer any given D&D ruleset's tools to DW's, great! DW isn't for you, and that's no problem to me.

I know that myself, my co-author, and a lot of the people who have told us they like DW also like (or have claimed to like) DCC, Lamentations, Moldvay D&D, AD&D 1E, Red Box Hack, Rolemaster, Fiasco, 4th Edition, 3rd Edition, Stars Without Number, 13th Age, Amber, and a whole lot of other games. So, as far as I can tell, it is a product for (some) people who like classic RPGs. Our most common feedback from people who enjoyed the game (not everyone does) is that it reminds them of their first time playing D&D.

If, for you, DW is a meat pizza and you ordered veggie, that's a good reason not to play it. The reaction I've seen more often is that people think of DW as one pizza joint, and each edition of D&D as another, and that they hit some of the same spots and some different ones. It's like Papa Johns and Pizza Hut: some people prefer one all the time, some people like the deep dish from Pizza Hut, but the dipping sauce from Papa Johns, some people would rather have a burger.

Pretty much everyone here knows I'm part of the "grognard" crowd--preferring AD&D 1e over recent editions, and a fan of rulings over rules.

That all being said, I seriously don't get the hate for games like Dungeon World.  But the broad definition, it is an rpg in every sense.  Seems like a really silly hill to die on to me, to argue it isn't.  And looking at sage, who entered the lion's den knowing it, put together two responses I feel are more than reasonable and not from someone wanting to irrationally defend his product.  In fact, it makes me want to give DW a go.  I've had several "old school" players approach me at the latest convention I went to who all had good things to say about it.

But ultimately, it comes down to, "if you don't like it, don't play it."  I really don't understand the whole deal with the real rpg vs storygames war that goes on.

Shrug.

Quote from: sage;673864Our reason for making DW was to make a game that better suited a type of game that some people (apparently quite a few, based on the response we've gotten) have also gotten from D&D. We could keep doing that with various D&D rules, but we found that, for us, DW makes that particular flavor of D&D easier.

Which is pretty much the same reason everyone who puts out their "homebrew" or "fantasy heartbreaker" does, including me.  Seriously, I don't know why you're getting so much hate.  Us old schoolers all played "the game" differently, so there is no such thing as one-true-wayism in older D&D.  There can't be, because everyone played it a bit differently, and it no one was objectively wrong, really.

Thanks for the responses, sage and Skywalker.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;673867Which is pretty much the same reason everyone who puts out their "homebrew" or "fantasy heartbreaker" does, including me.  Seriously, I don't know why you're getting so much hate.  Us old schoolers all played "the game" differently, so there is no such thing as one-true-wayism in older D&D.  There can't be, because everyone played it a bit differently, and it no one was objectively wrong, really.

I don't think it's hate in most cases, just incredulity that in some quarters it's been marketed as an OSR game - mainly by fans, it must be said.

I don't hate it or Sage, it's like the ant i walked past earlier.

Well, I just bought the pdf.  It seems to have an excellent review history, combined with what word of mouth I already heard, and $10 isn't that much to figure out what the hubbub is all about.

If it's not my cup of tea, I've spent more $ on things I didn't like more, so no biggie.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;673873Well, I just bought the pdf.  It seems to have an excellent review history, combined with what word of mouth I already heard, and $10 isn't that much to figure out what the hubbub is all about.

If it's not my cup of tea, I've spent more $ on things I didn't like more, so no biggie.

Sorry I couldn't have saved you some money: the entire game is Creative Commons licensed and therefore freely and legally available from http://book.dwgazetteer.com/

That's the whole text of the game. The only thing not there is the art, nice layout, and some margin notes that vary from informative to just fun.

For anyone else unsure: feel free to read it yourself and see what you think.

We appreciate support, but our goal here is just to share something we made and feel is cool, hence the free version.