Quote from: brettmb;683362Exactly. That's what it looked like to me - just a regular RPG that seems to take up more pages than it needs. What is so special about the style? What specifically separates this from any other game? Why can't I just play Tunnels and Trolls, for example?

It just a style that suits certain people's preferences. I would say that its a style that has not been well represented in D&D style fantasy RPGs IME.

Sure, you could run a RPG in the style of DW, but that says more about the beauty of the flexibility of RPGs. But T&T would do things differently from DW. Some better and some worse.

Ok, so can you explain the style?

If I had to identify one thing that appeals to me most about my experiences with DW is the way it encourages danger in the game. I find that this increases the tension and makes the play experience exciting.

It does this through various methods. The primary two being how the mechanics are stacked toward success but at cost and the GM Moves. There are others, such as the concepts of dangers and fronts and also how the players were often presented with choices about how things go wrong.

The result was that the PCs were often getting themselves deeply into trouble and yet able to get themselves out again, often setting up the next set of trouble organically from the first. You could replicate this aspect of style in your RPG of choice, but DW does a very good job of supporting and encouraging it, making my job as GM more enjoyable and easier.

Other things I like:

1. Initiative-less combat. I have used this before in Con games for many RPGs, but it was cool to see it embraced in the rules.

2. Ease of conversion. As described above, I like how it provides specific tools for converting AD&D modules in a way that I liked.

3. Broad appeal. I found it appealed to casual gamers, power gamers and method actors alike.

4. Fun mechanics. The rules are generally fun to engage with as players and GM.

Quote from: brettmb;683356Doesn't need to be new, but I'm not hearing anything that any other game can't do. I figured there were some new mechanics that set it apart, but I don't see it. It's 2d6 vs difficulty, right?

Dungeon World doesn't really introduce anything revolutionary compared to Apocalypse World. Apocalypse World does a couple things that are fairly uncommon:

First, it uses a multi-step resolution mechanic. You state your intention, start the resolution, and the mechanics generate an outcome that describes how the situation has evolved at roughly the halfway point. Unless things are going really, really well or really, really poorly for the character, the character makes a decision in response to the evolving situation and then you finish resolving the intention. (This mechanic tends to create more dynamic and detailed conflicts. It's literally impossible for AW games to turn into "I hit it with my sword (roll) I succeed / fail ... I hit it with my sword again".)

Second, it uses mostly player-faced mechanics. The GM basically never touches the dice. (Many GMs find this liberating. Many players find that it increases their engagement with the game.)

Third, the game strongly structures the GM's role at the table. It does this in a way which is ultimately non-constraining on the GM, but which forces a lot of GMs to really think about how they're running their games (in a way that a lot of GMs generally don't).

Fourth, the mechanical structure for Factions creates a unique prep structure for sandbox campaigns. (These made it into DW, right? I'm having a sudden doubt and the rulebook isn't convenient.)

Quote from: brettmb;683359OK. I've got a bunch of systems that do that. Something must set it apart.

The game is very abstract and heavily dependent upon GM interpretation of dice rolls.  There's not a yes/no answer when players roll the dice, and players won't make a move haphazardly because rolling 6 or less is always bad.  The GM is told, "Yes, when the players roll a 6-, you can hurt them, and you should."

A lot of Dungeon World's appeal is how the game is written and how the rules work.  In a tradgame, a player might say, "I want to examine the rune and see if I know anything about it," and the GM will say, "Roll your Spellcraft."  If the player rolls high, he learns some information; if he rolls low, he does not.  Dungeon World takes it a step further--the player gets information if he rolls decently well (7+ gets him a win), but there's a chance he'll roll a 6-.  What happens then?  The glyph of flesh to stone glows with purple energy.  How does he react?  Let's say he dives back from it and rolls +Dex and gets a 7-9.  He doesn't get out of the way entirely, but instead the GM rules his right arm has been turned to stone.

But the thing is that the GM doesn't have to do it like that.  If the player rolled a 7-9, the GM might rule that the triggering glyph awakened the lich from his slumber, or that the rune shot out a blast of violet energy that turned his backpack to stone, or anything else he could think of.

That's the beauty of Dungeon World, in my opinion.  In D&D, if the players trigger a flesh to stone glyph, they all roll Fortitude saves and success means they resist the effect.  There aren't partial successes or failures, and a failure does exactly what the rules says it does.

In my eyes, Dungeon World gives the GM explicit permission to fuck over his players, and that's a good thing.  It's baked into the rules that the GM has the ability to change how things work on the fly.  But, you might say, I already have this power in tradgames.  You'd be right, of course, but when you start making too much up in a tradgame, you're going to piss players off.  (If, for instance, you ruled that a player automatically took sneak attack damage without an attack roll against his AC, he'd probably balk.)

I'll give you a specific example from our game.  The wizard was repeatedly casting invisibility on party members.  He rolled a 6-.  The GM ruled that the arcane energy of the wizard blasted out of control and triggered a reaction within the temple that caused the rooms to shift around, rendering our map useless.

Now, if you're comfortable enough with your tradgame group to pull something like that, go for it.  You probably don't need Dungeon World.  But the overall simplicity of the system is still great for con games.  As I said before, it's probably not the best for a long-running campaign because of how mechanics-light it is.  If you're interested in deeper mechanics and character customization, you'll probably want a tradgame.

Sorry. Still don't get it, but that's OK. Just sounds like any other game to me.

EDIT: Actually, re-reading parts of the previous two posts, it now sounds like the rules mean nothing, as the GM can just screw over the characters whenever he wants. Rolls don't seem to mean much.

Quote from: brettmb;683384Sorry. Still don't get it, but that's OK. Just sounds like any other game to me.

You're being deliberately obtuse, then.

Quote from: brettmb;683384Sorry. Still don't get it, but that's OK. Just sounds like any other game to me.

Tell me any other game that has "sucess at a cost" built-in on the resolution.

Quote from: Archangel Fascist;683386You're being deliberately obtuse, then.

No. I'm just not following anything here. You're telling me a 6 is a failure (or botch) and a 7-9 is a success. So the GM improvised the results. Am I correct or did I miss something again?

Brett, there are 3 possible ranges for each roll of a 2d6:

1-6: shit happens
7-9: you suceed at a cost, or the GM offer you an ugly choice
10+: you suceed

The mid range is where Apocalypse World (and its hack, Dungeon World) differs from most games.

Quote from: brettmb;683384EDIT: Actually, re-reading parts of the previous two posts, it now sounds like the rules mean nothing, as the GM can just screw over the characters whenever he wants. Rolls don't seem to mean much.

No more so than any RPG. DW does more mechanically to get players to buy into complications and costs though.

Quote from: brettmb;683384Sorry. Still don't get it, but that's OK. Just sounds like any other game to me.

EDIT: Actually, re-reading parts of the previous two posts, it now sounds like the rules mean nothing, as the GM can just screw over the characters whenever he wants. Rolls don't seem to mean much.

Then if you're interested, I suggest you download a copy of the rules and see what they say for yourself - the rules don't give the GM to just screw players over, and on a 10+, the characters basically get what they want.

Even better, find someone that's running a game on G+ and join it.

Justin Alexander's description of how the mechanics work is pretty much spot on.

The basic mechanic is you describe your character doing something.  The GM (and you, possibly) figures out which mechanical move that is.  You roll the dice and an a stat modifier.

On a 10+, you generally get what you want.
On a 7-9 you get some of what you want, or you get what you want with complications.
On a 6 or lower, you don't get what you want, and something bad happens to you.

For instance, a 10+ on "Hack and Slash", the "I'm fighting in melee" move, means that you can either do damage to your target with none to you, or you can deal double damage at a cost of the opponent getting to do damage to you.
On a 7-9, you and your opponent both do damage.
On 6 or less, the GM can make a "hard move".  The most common is probably dealing damage to you, especially on a Hack and Slash, but other things are possible.  Offering a hard choice is one I'll often use on a 6-.

If I had to describe the overall feel of the game, I'd probably say "early D&D, 150 proof".  For what it's worth, the last game of DW I ran was an impromptu game because our normal GM was really late.  They were all new DW players, but experienced roleplayers.  The engagement and "energy" of the game was some of the highest I've ever seen, especially from that group.

The scenario?  About a dozen kobolds in a cave.  And they didn't even realize it was "just" kobolds in a cave until I pointed it out later at a different game.

There's some other interesting mechanics in there, too.  Monsters don't really have turns - rather, the GM makes a "soft move" (which is basically "something bad is happening, what do you do about it", as opposed to a hard move which is "something bad just happened to you"), and your response to the soft move determines what happens.  This has some interesting side effects - you don't track initiative in any strict sense, and that's balanced out by the fact that any character that's getting to do a lot of things is *also* put in a lot of danger.  That's an AW thing which DW just inherited, but it's not something I've really seen outside of the *W games.

Quote from: robiswrongyou don't track initiative in any strict sense, and that's balanced out by the fact that any character that's getting to do a lot of things is *also* put in a lot of danger. That's an AW thing which DW just inherited, but it's not something I've really seen outside of the *W games.

I would like to reinforce this statement. Due to this, the *World games tend to empower the players much more than the average game, in my experience.

Quote from: silva;683387Tell me any other game that has "sucess at a cost" built-in on the resolution.

Story Engine and Kult off the top of my head.

Thank you, silva. That helps.

robiswrong, it's too long. I'm a simple man and the rules are all over the map. For rules-lite, it really needs less.