Yesterday my regular group came around to play Pathfinder. We hadn’t seen each other for a little while and had some exciting news so we were all talking for a while. We ran out of time to play our normal game, but I decided that we’d try Dungeon World Hack. If you haven’t heard of it, it’s a free download, a D&D-style hack of Apocalypse World.

Including character creation we played for under two and a half hours. Normally we wouldn’t get a whole lot done during that time, but with Dungeon World gameplay was quick, simple, streamlined and fun. We formed bonds amongst the characters, had a bit of fun character interaction, filled in some details of the world, delved into a mine, fought the monsters within and defeated the menace that had driven the miners away. It was great fun! Read on for a more in-depth report of play.

Character Creation

I’ve read Apocalypse World and Dungeon World Hack but my players and I have never run or played either. Even so, we threw ourselves into Dungeon World and fun began almost instantly, starting with character creation itself. Often, character creation is a chore, a bore and a confusing mess of numbers and choices. Dungeon World streamlines all of this and actually makes it enjoyable and part of play.

Everyone picks a class (no doubling up) and starts ticking boxes and filling in blanks. No reading through a big player’s guide, all you need is right there on the sheets. Character creation is self explanatory and very quick. Everyone feels unique with their cool powers and the choices you make are meaningful.

Dungeon World’s treatment of alignment is probably the best I’ve ever seen. You tick a box to choose from a few alignments available to your class. You can only tick one box and each describes a method for you to gain XP. For example, the Ranger can choose from Chaotic Good, Good or Neutral. Chaotic Good rangers mark XP when they free someone from bonds (literal or figurative). Good rangers get XP for guiding someone through a dangerous area. Neutral rangers get XP for helping or defending an animal.

Straight away the player has a class- and alignment-based goal that they very much want to achieve over and over again. This is a great help for roleplaying and I saw all of my players trying to gain XP this way rather than rankling at the perceived restrictions of traditional alignment.

One last example: the Paladin. Lawful Good (Defender) gets XP for protecting someone weaker than themselves. That makes me want to be a paladin, someone who protects the weak, not a stuffy goody-two-shoes crippled by alignment. And if you’re not into that, choose Lawful Good (Avenger) and get XP every time you deny mercy to an unbeliever. Sweet :)

Alright, on to bonds, the other super roleplaying tool in character creation. Everyone has four sentences with blanks on the back of their character sheet where they fill in the names of the other characters in the party. These are called bonds and they live up to their name, instantly creating a sense of friendship, rivalry and history amongst the characters. One player likened this part to Fiasco and the relationships did form themselves and complement each other perfectly.

Our paladin worries for the soul of the thief; the bard has stood by the paladin in battle and is one of her closest friends; the paladin believes the ranger to be a brave soul and learns much from them. Meanwhile, the bard treats the paladin as the butt of a lot of her jokes. Our players said this is because they’re such close friends. Bam! Instant history and an indication of how to relate to others.

I’m definitely going to use bonds in other systems. They work really well, giving the player an idea of what their character class is like, but giving them choice and making them mini-GMs, giving them control over facts about other characters and the history of the group.

The Adventure Begins

Once we started playing the bard jumped straight in, using her Charming and Open move which lets her ask another character a question from a set list when speaking frankly, and in turn must answer a question from that same list. She asked the elven ranger what she was really feeling right now about the mine they were investigating, wondering why the elf would help clear out threats to this mar on the natural landscape. The ranger responded with an understanding that people need metals and resources and controlled mining is required but should be moderated and balanced.

I liked this as it got the players into character straight away. What was the best though was when the ranger got to ask a question in return. Both the bard and ranger were wild haired. So the ranger asked “How can I get you to… cut your hair?”. It was hilariously and the laid-back bard told the ranger she need just ask, which she did. So the party made their way up the hills to the mine with the bard hacking at her hair with a pocket knife. Off to a memorable start!

Moves in Dungeon World are great, because when you succeed and roll high you get the best results, choosing several questions to ask when discerning the situation or spouting lore (like knowledge checks but more fun). If you roll not as high, you have to make some compromises or ask a few less questions, etc. The best part here is that the player’s get to choose how they succeed and fail from a list. If you have a list of five questions and can only ask one, you still get to choose it and that gives you control and power, rather than “No, you don’t know anything about this”.

If you fail utterly the GM gets to make as hard and direct a move as they’d like. In some cases, I didn’t want to do anything too nasty and in some I got a bit tougher. I don’t need to be a jerk, but rolling 6 or lower tells the players that something bad might be about to happen. This also stops players (and GMs) requesting rolls every step of the way. The more you roll, the more you might fail. However, XP is linked to making certain rolls so you have incentive too, even if you fail you still get XP. It’s a great balance.

Combat

So, the paladin failed a Discern Realities roll and saw some strangely moving dust in the mine. They continued down and eventually came across some monsters I whipped up on the spot, which were basically a toned down, tweaked and reskinned ghouls from the monster list included in Dungeon World Hack.

Yeah, this was a zero-prep session, by the way; I wasn’t expecting to run Dungeon World any time soon, let alone last night during our normal session. Using the mosnters was easy. I think I need to read the game again, but if I was doing it right, the GM doesn’t ever roll. PCs roll to attack and if they partially succeed at a Hack and Slash roll they deal damage to their foe but it hits them too. You’re always just rolling 2d6 aiming for at least 7 and hopefully 10+. You roll other dice for damage, but you don’t really need to worry about AC or anything, as PCs instead roll to defend.

It was a quick and fun fight against the corpses of the dust-animated miners. Everyone got a chance to help out. Our paladin defended her hireling and marked XP. Our bard spouted lore to help the party defeat the strange dust monsters. Our ranger was deadly with her bow. And our halfling thief was under attack the whole time, but managed to keep that monster away from everyone else, got a hit in and survived in the end. Even the ranger’s owl was effective. After that, the party used the lore the bard had spouted to defeat the dust before it animated any more miners.

Wrapping Up

I’m not sure if this is part of the game or not, I seem to remember it is, but we went around at the end and everyone said a cool thing someone else did and that person marked XP. Including character creation and a brief rules explanation, it took under two and a half hours. In that time I feel that we had more roleplaying from some players and as much fun as we often have in a Pathfinder session of twice the length.

We will definitely be playing Dungeon World again. I love fantasy roleplaying, but I am much more in the low-prep, improv, streamlined school of thought these days. Dungeon World fills all my requirements and begs to be hacked further, with the easy creation of moves, monsters, organisations, magic items and more.

I’m excited too, because according to this I am now eligible to join the Dungeon World Adventurer’s Guild, an email list that gets the full PDF of Dungeon World as well as early access to other new material. I can’t wait! When we play again or after I’ve read the full PDF I’ll post again with further thoughts.

Have you played Dungeon World? What did you think of it? What other streamlined games have you hooked at the moment? Let us know in the comments below.



You might also be interested in reading...