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Answulf
April 15th, 2013, 17:21
I know it's the new hotness and has been getting a lot of buzz lately. I picked up the rulebook but haven't had a chance to read it yet.

Anyone tried it with FG and formed opinions on it?

sehmerus
April 15th, 2013, 18:45
is it another D&D retro clone?

Answulf
April 15th, 2013, 18:55
Kind of - from what I gather it is pretty original. Was a highly successful kickstarter last year and the new old-school game that everyone seems to be playing now...

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/sage-kobold/dungeon-world-a-game-with-modern-rules-and-old-sch-0

opusaug
April 16th, 2013, 01:16
"The Barbarian" character sheet at the official site has "Advanced Moves" you can choose from. This sounds more 3e+ than 2e-.

hawkwind
April 19th, 2013, 14:48
"The Barbarian" character sheet at the official site has "Advanced Moves" you can choose from. This sounds more 3e+ than 2e-.

its not really 3e either , its a indie story telling game that uses DND themes but the rules don't resemble any version of DnD oh its free as well in electronic form

Indarien
April 19th, 2013, 15:06
It's actually a story-telling game based heavily on DnD 2nd edition tropes. It is more in the vein of tremulus and Apocalypse World than normal DnD.

As to how it works in FG, my group has been playing DW and tremulus in FG fairly well. We use FG for the purposes of maps, notes, and keeping the albeit very small character sheets - HOWEVER - given that it is, as my group calls it "a cooperative story-telling game" FG ends up being used more for whiteboarding and note taking while most of the dialogue and game play takes place in Skype sessions.

S Ferguson
April 19th, 2013, 17:03
its not really 3e either , its a indie story telling game that uses DND themes but the rules don't resemble any version of DnD oh its free as well in electronic form

And if you purchase it, it comes with e-reader versions (mobi and epub) as well. A good product package if I do say so myself.

opusaug
April 21st, 2013, 13:53
its not really 3e either , its a indie story telling game that uses DND themes but the rules don't resemble any version of DnD
I've got an aversion to anything that smells like feat.

In any event, it certainly doesn't sound like "Classic D&D". Perhaps DW stuff should go in "Other Game Systems"?

Answulf
April 22nd, 2013, 20:41
It's definitely trying to capture the classic D&D style, so I think this is the best forum for it. But the rules aren't old school - I picked it up last week and gave it a read through. It's trying to capture the back and forth improvizational style of old school D&D with a lite ruleset supporting storytelling.

Looks pretty interesting. Everyone over at rpg.net is raving about it, so I plan on seeing what the fuss is about.

I originally found it on a search of Cult of the Reptile God, where a guy was blogging about converting it to Dungeon World:

https://grandexperiment.livejournal.com/

Here is the post that really got my attention:


As I prepare myself for Against the Cult of the Reptile God and Treasure Hunt with Dungeon World, I have learned something else. DW seems better suited for translating my old D&D experiences than other RPGs that I have looked at so far.

I have had a hankering to revisit the classic D&D module for a while in a hope to recapture some of the play style of that time (which now eludes me). I had looked at doing this with both modern rule sets like D&D4e and RPGs based on those older rule sets like Castles and Crusades. However, neither provided easy or satisfactory results in this regard.

During those efforts, I came to realise that the old D&D modules look pretty awful on paper and much of what I remembered liking about them was added to the game during play. However, to say that the D&D module did nothing to encourage the later aspect would be wrong. D&D modules generally are a snapshot of a dangerous environment. This at first appears woefully static and dull, but implied in the presentation is an expectation that this environment is merely a tool through which the group forges all the narrative flow and drama by playing in it, interacting with it, and changing it. When I read them, I quickly begin adding my own events, personalities and dangers, as that was how I read them in my youth. I think it was simply not considered the job of the module designer to write about certain parts of an adventure that now are, probably due to the most narrative approach of adventure writing pioneered by Call of Cthulhu and the like.

So why is Dungeon World suited to this particular approach? There are a number of reasons. Two of them actually touch on my last two posts. The first is the Discussion. This approach along with the GM Moves pushes the GM hard not to treat any environment in a static way. When the GM has a turn in the discussion, they are looking for how to bring in danger, signal danger or set danger up somehow. If the GM just focusses on the immediate environment then the GM soon runs out of danger to use in an interesting or believable fashion, so instead the GM views the environment as a dynamic one, with each part related to other parts of that environment. The GM is also encourages to fill in those blanks as needed to link the environment together to suit the needs of the drama as it unfolds.

The next is the Difficult Situation. The natural flow from PCs going into one dangerous situation and then out again adds a sense of dynamism. This is along with DW's rule set being forgiving on the GM, allowing them to easily brave any situation from a mechanical perspective, allowing the situation to evolve however it may.

The last main reason is the way the way scenarios are created. After some initial playing with Adventure Fronts (and they are very much a "that's how we have always done it" part of the RPG) I have found that it became very easy to break down D&D modules in the manner suggested and also improve on them. The simple process of identifying the adventures in the module, the various dangers within those and the agenda and ultimate goal of those dangers, immediately provides a dynamic antagonism to the seemingly static environment.

In fact, viewing old D&D modules in this light not only captures a lot of that older play style, it can also improve them in a few instances. There seems a lot of times in old D&D modules where some antagonists are directionless and do things to support a wider story without any real reason. Giving them an agenda provides reason for their actions, and though this can change some of the things in the original module, it generally seems to work better.

S Ferguson
April 22nd, 2013, 20:44
It's actually a very well put together system. Like you said: rules light, but one heck of a game. Try it.