Quote from: sage;673949Man, I don't know. I'm trying to approach this as openly as I can. I don't know what I can do to prove anything.

OK. I get it. You're going to play the innocent moron. "Huh WTF 'Forge' what's that?"

Good luck with it.

Quote from: Benoist;673960OK. I get it. You're going to play the innocent moron. "Huh WTF 'Forge' what's that?"

Good luck with it.

I know what the Forge is. Never posted there, though. Never read more than the first paragraph of a Ron Edwards essay. Never thought much of GNS or The Big Theory or whatever other stuff came out of it (based on the Wikipedia articles about them) except some games I like. I do count a lot of people who were on The Forge as my friends, but I can't say I had any interest in it myself.

I'm not playing at anything, but I'm not sure how to prove that. It seems like the only thing I can say that won't be treated as an act is "I know the one true way of gaming and you're all wrong and the future will destroy you" which isn't me.

Like I said: I made a game, because it worked for me. I don't have an agenda. People don't have to like my game. I think its an RPG, but others can disagree, that's cool. I'll try to offer up points from what I actually wrote, not some imagined agenda, when I can.

Quote from: hamstertamer;673957A person can like a meat pizza and vegetarian one, and so what?  The point is to categorize pizzas because there are different types of pizzas.  A person might eat a different type of pizza every Friday, or a person could choose the same one every Friday, it's up to them, but the pizza providers need to have a menu so that someone can select what they really want without obscuration of what food they are really getting.  Which requires categorizing them, perhaps even down to every last ingredient. In other words, saying that you know a person who likes to eat a meat pizza just as much as vegetarian one does not mean that you shouldn't categorize them differently.

Yep, I totally agree. DW does some things differently from other RPGs for sure, and some of them might mean that DW is or isn't a game you want to play,  no problem.

I tend to think of an RPG as about as specific a term as "pizza." Within that we can talk about meaty pizzas, and how the crust is made, and what oven its made in, or the sauce, or the toppings, or how its delivered, or any number of other things. That's great, the variety of pizzas are why they're awesome, even if I don't care for sliced tomatoes on mine.

I think some other people put "RPG" at a different level of specificity. I don't agree, but its cool to have other opinions. Maybe pizza is more like "games" and "RPGs" are more like meat pizzas: a fairly specific kind of thing.

Quote from: sage;673946Wait, what? We also have a free PDF, free HTML version, and more.

Where is this pdf?

Once more, for the record, however:
NO ONE WORKS IN HTML.

Even if they did, you have each and every sub-section on a separate  page, making it labour intensive and time consuming to even read, let  alone collect in a single 'volume'.

Quote from: StormBringer;673988Where is this pdf?

Once more, for the record, however:
NO ONE WORKS IN HTML.

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/

QuoteEven if they did, you have each and every sub-section on a separate  page, making it labour intensive and time consuming to even read, let  alone collect in a single 'volume'.

Dude, of all the things you could criticize DW for, "they used the wrong tool to write it" and "I don't like one of the distribution methods they used" are pretty weak.

Which reminds me, I must write up yesterday's session, when I get home tonight.

Quote from: StormBringer;673988Where is this pdf?

It used to be available from http://rpggeek.com/rpgitem/132015/dungeon-world-srd, though I can't seem to find the link. That may just be RPGGeek's interface, though. I'll look into that today.

Quote from: StormBringer;673988Once more, for the record, however:
NO ONE WORKS IN HTML.

Even if they did, you have each and every sub-section on a separate  page, making it labour intensive and time consuming to even read, let  alone collect in a single 'volume'.

Hey, fair enough. HTML (well, XML that's 90% HTML) made a lot of sense for us to write in, but it may not be the best reading experience. I'd always thought having each section on its own page made it easier to read (instead of one long stream of text) but I've ever been able to read the HTML version as a first time reader. It sounds like it sucks for that, and we'll work to improve it. I'm also lucky enough to have a fast internet connection, so a move between HTML pages doesn't seem like much more than turning a PDF page, but I'm lucky in that regard.

It sounds like for first time readers it sucks, so we'll figure out some ways to make it better. I hadn't heard complaints about the free HTML version before, and since I can't read it like a first-time reader, I don't see how it falls down.

I feel like it's worth stating that nothing we did here—not the free HTML version, the XML->InDesign stuff, or the Creative Commons license—is new, revolutionary, or how anyone else should decide to make their game. I'm super happy with our process, because it worked for me. I'm happy with the free HTML version, because I use it all the time to reference the game. Other people may have better ideas though, and that's awesome. We're just making our game, with the tools that best suit us, and trying to make it available in the most convenient formats.

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.

It speaks to your credit that you actually had the guts to take me up on coming here, and that you have the backbone to state explicitly that your game is neither old-school nor OSR.

Now, it seems to me from what I understand of the rules, that the player is not only "saying what he does", he is, AFTER rolling, on certain results getting to pick what retroactively happens, from a list that the GM cannot alter and must present as-is.

How is that not 'controlling the story'? Granted that its the player + game designer in the form of rules that are creating story, but its still very clearly not the kind of Regular RPG play where the Player has to state pre-roll what he would like to see happen, and where the GM has the power of final arbitration. In DW, the GM is powerless.  The Rules get to determine the progression of events, with the Player (but never the GM) occasionally allowed to interceded and make after-the-fact edits on what happened in the world.

It doesn't matter that these are little tiny edits and not big sweeping edits like you see in some other storygames where suddenly a player might be able to rewrite the whole world to suit "the fiction", its still an edit.  Its still narrative manipulation of reality.

Or no?

RPGPundit

Taking the shameless opportunity to say "thanks," for Dungeon World while an author is available.  

While I haven't had time to seriously sit down and read it through cover-to-cover, I do appreciate its design and the stuff I've seen so far.

Good luck and good fortune!

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?).

This doesn't "Shape" a GM's skillset, it lobotomizes it. It makes the GM an impotent powerless monopoly-banker.  The whole orientation of the AW/DW type of game is to re-train GMs into feeling like they have no right to be the authority in their own gaming groups.  Even the fact that the GM never rolls dice is clearly a tactic to make the Gm feel like control isn't in his hands (if he can't roll the dice, he can't fudge dice results, don't you know?).  The whole mentality is based on the idea that if a GM isn't stripped of all power he will most certainly become a tyrant and abusive, and no doubt this is based on experiences people like Luke Crane or Vince Baker had of being bad-touched by a GM in their past, so their solution is that the GM needs to be neutered.

Mind you, the real evolution in DW and other recent storygames is that the Story Swine seem to have decided that PLAYERS can't really be trusted anymore either. They aren't reliable to be true to the Game Designer's vision. Its really amazing, how a movement that started as a rebellion against the player-disempowering Metaplot-from-on-high White Wolf style, has now evolved into thinking that its probably best that the Game Designer be the one to control the Story, from afar, in the form of Rules that control almost all of the interaction, leaving players with a very limited and tightly-controlled scope of options, and GMs with none.  Its because those gadawful human beings with their free will can't be allowed to ruin the Game Designer's vision of what their game is supposed to be about, and Game Designers (well, Forge-trained Storygame Designers, anyways) are a special elite that know what's best for everyone anyways.

So no. If you want a game that will train a GM to develop an awesome set of skills, go get Amber.  Or Lords of Olympus, if you like!

RPGPundit

Quote from: sage;673851DW 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.

Seriously?

QuoteAnyway, 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."

Emphasis mine. Ok, let's test this out, I'm game. do you believe that in DW the GM should be required to follow the Rules As Written explicitly and is not allowed to change them? (and presumably, that if a GM does so then they are not really playing DW anymore?)
If not, will you state publicly that you feel that in DW a GM should have the authority to change any rule as needed when he wishes without requiring consent from anyone?

RPGPundit

I am still fascinated by the mindset that a gm must obey RAW rules.

So if the rules say "The GM may override the rules" do heads explode?

I am not an advocate of gm's ignoring the rules. I like a sound rule system.

It just makes no sense at all to me to constrain the gm.

Quote from: RPGPundit;674135This doesn't "Shape" a GM's skillset, it lobotomizes it. It makes the GM an impotent powerless monopoly-banker.  The whole orientation of the AW/DW type of game is to re-train GMs into feeling like they have no right to be the authority in their own gaming groups.  Even the fact that the GM never rolls dice is clearly a tactic to make the Gm feel like control isn't in his hands (if he can't roll the dice, he can't fudge dice results, don't you know?).  The whole mentality is based on the idea that if a GM isn't stripped of all power he will most certainly become a tyrant and abusive, and no doubt this is based on experiences people like Luke Crane or Vince Baker had of being bad-touched by a GM in their past, so their solution is that the GM needs to be neutered.

Mind you, the real evolution in DW and other recent storygames is that the Story Swine seem to have decided that PLAYERS can't really be trusted anymore either. They aren't reliable to be true to the Game Designer's vision. Its really amazing, how a movement that started as a rebellion against the player-disempowering Metaplot-from-on-high White Wolf style, has now evolved into thinking that its probably best that the Game Designer be the one to control the Story, from afar, in the form of Rules that control almost all of the interaction, leaving players with a very limited and tightly-controlled scope of options, and GMs with none.  Its because those gadawful human beings with their free will can't be allowed to ruin the Game Designer's vision of what their game is supposed to be about, and Game Designers (well, Forge-trained Storygame Designers, anyways) are a special elite that know what's best for everyone anyways.

So no. If you want a game that will train a GM to develop an awesome set of skills, go get Amber.  Or Lords of Olympus, if you like!

RPGPundit

If these games are so restricting and unfair to GMs, why do people buy them and run them? And if they are so restrictive and controlling of players as well, why do those players come back for another session the following week?

Are they all being brainwashed?

Quote from: soviet;674149Are they all being brainwashed?

Objection! Leading question m'lud.

Quote from: RPGPundit;674128It speaks to your credit that you actually had the guts to take me up on coming here, and that you have the backbone to state explicitly that your game is neither old-school nor OSR.

Now, it seems to me from what I understand of the rules, that the player is not only "saying what he does", he is, AFTER rolling, on certain results getting to pick what retroactively happens, from a list that the GM cannot alter and must present as-is.

I don't know where you're getting that. Here's an actual move (note, also, that moves don't limit what a character can do, they just provide mechanics for certain things):

When you attack an enemy in melee, roll+Str. On a 10+, you deal your damage to the enemy and avoid their attack. At your option, you may choose to do +1d6 damage but expose yourself to the enemy's attack. On a 7–9, you deal your damage to the enemy and the enemy makes an attack against you.

I guess the phrasing here might not be the most clear. Let's pick it apart:

On a 10+, you've got the edge. You can push it, or you can stay safe, but it's your call.

Gameplay:

Player: "I got an 11 on my Hack and Slash"

GM: "Cool, you've got the orc where you want him. You can push your luck and do some extra damage, or you can play it safe and guard yourself, what do you do?"

Player: "Screw it, I go for the extra damage. Do your worst, orc!"

On a 7–9, there's no particular choices to be made by the player. They roll some damage and the GM says what the orc does.

On a 6-, it's all the GM.

Quote from: RPGPundit;674128How is that not 'controlling the story'? Granted that its the player + game designer in the form of rules that are creating story, but its still very clearly not the kind of Regular RPG play where the Player has to state pre-roll what he would like to see happen, and where the GM has the power of final arbitration. In DW, the GM is powerless.  The Rules get to determine the progression of events, with the Player (but never the GM) occasionally allowed to interceded and make after-the-fact edits on what happened in the world.

The player has stated what action their character is taking. There's a rule for that, so we use it. (Or we can change the game, there's an entire chapter on that. But rules-as-written, there's a rule for that.) The rule fills in how attacking a person can go: you can trade blows, you can have the upper hand and some control over what happens, or you can blow it and be at their mercy.

We may have different definitions of "Regular RPG play" which is fine, but this is the way I was playing when the only thing I had were the core D&D rules, some Dragon magazines, and a lot of Knights of the Dinner Table comics. It's not some crazy thing that I started doing after a friend ran Burning Wheel for me.

It's worth noting that one move, Defy Danger, is explicitly about the player stating pre-roll what their character is attempting to do and then the roll saying either "they do it," "they don't quite do it, the GM will come up with some way it goes wrong and give you a choice," "the GM will say how it goes all wrong."

The GM always says what happens in the world. It's the GM's job in DW to say that. A few moves give the player/character choices, because their action results in an opportunity or tough decision. Those choices are about what the character does, not rewriting the world.

For example, when the wizard casts a spell, they may cast it no problem, or they may face a choice:
-Focus on casting the spell and let the GM do whatever they want as your character does whatever they have to to cast the spell
-Pour more power into the spell, taking -1 to further spell casting until you prepare spells again
-Just let the spell go and forget it after it's cast

Admittedly, the phrasing in the book focuses on the actual thing that will happen at the table, not how it looks to your character. These are presented as, for example, "-1 to cast a spell until you prepare spells," not "pour more power in (etc.)," because it's the GM's job to say what's actually happening. We're game designers, we're done before the game hits your table. We can't tell you what will happen to your wizard, Avon, when he fumbles a spell. We can provide some tools for dealing with it that you apply to the actual world your characters inhabit.

Quote from: RPGPundit;674139Do you believe that in DW the GM should be required to follow the Rules As Written explicitly and is not allowed to change them? (and presumably, that if a GM does so then they are not really playing DW anymore?)

Nope, the GM can totally change the rules if they feel like it. There's an entire section of the rules on changing the GM-ing framework.

Rules, all rules, everywhere in DW (or any other RPG) are a framework. People should ignore them or change them if they feel like it. If a particular rule isn't helpful, trash it or replace it. If an entire system of rules isn't helpful, don't use them.

The GM rules are in DW because we found them useful, and we want to make it clear how we GM DW. Nobody needs our permission to change them, and if they ask for our permission, we'd give it.

Quote from: RPGPundit;674139If not, will you state publicly that you feel that in DW a GM should have the authority to change any rule as needed when he wishes without requiring consent from anyone?

Uh, yeah? I don't see why this would be contentious, or something I'd ever say a GM shouldn't do.

As I said above: the rules are there because we found, in our play, they were a really useful framework for GMing. We also found that they were a really effective way to communicate to others how we GM.

"Authority" probably isn't the word I'd use, but everyone everywhere should ignore, change, replace, or otherwise hack any rule they care too. That's part of what's so awesome about RPGs.