MattCon RPG Post - Dungeon World
We started with character creation and wound up with the following party:
Frank - Aiden, Human Paladin of Geddon, a god of light and truth.
Greg - Jack, Human Thief.
Chris - Menoliir, Elf Druid from the icy north.
Jenni - Lanethe, Elf Ranger with a hawk called Scutti.
Things started with the PCs at the door to a subterranean complex, the former lair of two renowned adventurers called Fearsome Forbus and the Unknown Wizard. A combination of some probing questions from me and some exposition laid out the following backstory:
The adventure was to take place near a town called Westham-on-the-Haunt, a small city near the Haunted Forest. Up until about fifty years before the events of the adventure, the lands had been menaced by monsters of many kinds, which were mostly cleared out by a pair of adventurers called Fearsome Forbus and the Unknown Wizard. After pacifying the lands, the pair created a sanctum called Xallevyrx, but shortly after they completed it a wizard named Zamzomarr appeared and the pair of heroes disappeared. Zamzomarr essentially took over the area for several decades, running things from his iron tower. Several years ago, a group called the Dragon Army moved through the area, allying itself with Zamzomarr. A general called Lord Stefan raised an army and fought back, ultimately defeating the Dragon Army, executing Zamzomarr, and leaving an elf named Belrain Stormsinger in charge of Westham.
Lanethe was from Westham originally. Her father was jailed for refusing to cooperate with Zamzomarr, leading her to join the army to fight the evil wizard. Menoliir was not directly involved in the conflict, but came to help heal those wounded by the conflict. Jack was a young man whose father (among other relatives?) died in the fighting, leading him to develop a callous outer shell and to turn to less savory pursuits in order to make his living. Aidan was a young man who missed the fighting but who came to the area to make his name as a hero.
Jack stole a map purporting to lead to Xallevyrx, then put the rest of the team together, pointing out the possibility that evils could be lurking in the ruins. Thus, the group found itself inside the lair, slowing making their way deeper into the abandoned keep.
After a bit of searching, we switched back to a flashback in town, in which Jack found himself in a barfight at the Haunted Tankard tavern. He attempted to avoid trouble, but the sheriff and his men arrived, and Jack was hauled off based on his bad reputation in town. Aidan happened by and criticized the sheriff first for not doing anything to stop the barfight, then for using excessive force. The sheriff turned his back on Aiden, who proceeded to involve himself in the barfight by preventing a thug from escaping. Aiden ultimately ran the footpad through and was taken into custody along with the other combatants (he was arrested before he could heal the guy's wounds by laying hands on him). Aiden and Jack spent the night in jail before being released (I guess the guy Aiden stabbed recovered and declined to press charges).
Back in the dungeon, the PCs made their way through some hallways into a run-down laboratory area. From there, they went down a staircase into a more natural cave system. Menoliir transformed into a wolf and scouted the area ahead of the party, finding a strange room filled with bizarre fungus. As she investigated, the fungus wrapped itself around her, spores exploding and covering her with fungal powder. The others rushed to her aid and were also assaulted by fungal vines and shrieking, moving mushrooms. As the party battled this infestation, a young woman in expensive robes came screaming into the chamber, coming from the same direction the party had come. Shambling, moaning figures followed her through the halls.
Beset by fungus on one side and zombies (probably) on another, the PCs retreated down the third passageway leading out of that chamber - directly into a goblin shantytown. Menoliir, Aidan, and Lanethe charged through the goblins, but Jack and the wizard girl, Kirsha, were stuck on the other side of the goblin horde and were forced to retreat down a different path, hurling themselves over a barricade and into a room used as a refuse heap.
Jack and Kirsha wandered through the cave system and found a staircase leading back to Xallevyrx proper, ultimately making their way into a large feasthall filled with pillars. The rest of the group fled from the goblins in terror, rushing into a narrow corridor that led to a cramped chamber holding only an altar to the goblins' hideous god. The party battled the goblins, frantically hacking away at them - Menoliir, in wolf form, tore a goblin throat out. Luckily, Scutti set some of the goblins' driftwood homes on fire, and most of the goblins retreated to deal with the flames, though others ran in a different direction, muttering something about how "they will rise."
Menoliir, Lanethe, and Aidan found their way to the same staircase Jack had used, and the party reunited in the feastall. They searched that room for a while, but were ambushed by a group of filthy "adventurers." The party hacked their way through this group fairly easily, killing three before they retreated in defeat. In the fracas, Kirsha disappeared and did not return.
Pretty badly beaten up, the party decided to rest for a while to recover some energy. When they recovered, they did some exploration of a small secret chamber, at which point they heard a human scream coming from deeper into the dungeon. Following the sound, they discovered a group of three orcs and a goblin shaman attempting to enact some kind of ritual by sacrificing Kirsha. Aidan demanded that they cease their activities, and was divinely shielded when the shaman attempted to burn him with magical flames in response. The party engaged with the orcish warriors, and hard-fought battle was joined. The goblin shaman caused an earthquake within the dungeon, bringing part of the ceiling down upon Aidan, then turning the ground to mush beneath him. It wasn't enough to save his life, as Lanethe took him out from afar with an arrow. Menoliir changed into a polar bear, but two of the orcs flanked her and opened huge slashes in her flesh. Jack attempted to fight his way through the orcs to save Kirsha, but after being stuck in a crack in the ground he also found himself run through by an orcish blade. Lanethe and Aidan did manage to kill the remaining orcs, save Kirsha, and stop their ritual, but Jack died of his wounds, meeting Death at a tavern in the afterlife.
Overall, I really enjoyed the system - it was really easy to generate exciting scenes and combats that felt cinematic and weren't boring at all. Basically, whenever the players try to do something, they roll 2d6 modified by a relevant skill like Strength or Charisma. If they get a 10 or higher, everything goes off without a hitch. If they roll from 7-9, they get what they want, but the GM gets to introduce a complication. If they roll a 6 or less, they fail and the GM gets to make a move, which can be an attack against them or something more nefarious, like a rockslide or even a plot development completely offscreen.
Also, instead of having a dungeon map with a bunch of planned encounters for the PCs to bash their way through, you set up some threats which slowly advance as the players fail rolls, or as the players deal with other issues. You also ask a bunch of leading questions, allowing the players to help mold the setting and the background. For example, in this adventure the opening threat was other adventurers messing around in the dungeon. The first sign of other adventurers making trouble was listed as the adventurers causing trouble in the nearby town, which led me to set the flashback in the Haunted Tankard. Some of the players had gave answers to questions indicating problems with the town's elfin sheriff, so I had his men show up and arrest Jack just based on his reputation, then brush Aidan off and arrest him when he interfered with the fight. Other threats in the adventure included a group of quasi-undead orcs preparing to rise from their slumber to summon a dragon, a plague of fungus, and another plague of zombies. I was able to use each of them to punch things up when there was a lull in the action, and the system provides you with ideas on how to move each system along. The one thing the adventure I was running didn't really do was provide ideas for potential climaxes for each plotline, which is something I would definitely do going forward - trying to come up with something like that on the fly was difficult. One of the mantras of the game is "play to see what happens," but I think it would be helpful to at least give some thought to cool set pieces for endpoints. Like, the game said that the orcs' end goal was to sacrifice a human to summon forth a dragon, but without having thought about that at all, I scrambled to figure out where the ritual would take place and what kinds of things it would entail.
Ultimately, I'm a big fan of the system, and I think I would get better at running it with some more experience. I also think you could pretty easily convert D&D adventures into the system and have them work even better than they would in D&D. You can also really easily build campaigns and individual adventures which flow in really interesting ways and feel like an actual book or a movie. The scene where the PCs ran into the killer fungus was another thing that never would have happened in a game like D&D. The fungus was keyed to the location they entered, but when Jenni failed a roll I decided to introduce an NPC wizard being chased by a few zombies. The PCs decided to retreat down a path rather than fight their way past the zombies or the fungus, only to run into a goblin settlement. The system did a great job of escalating things, and I think everyone was having a good time.
The final battle also benefited from the system, as I was able to do things like have the goblin shaman cause a cave in which buried Aidan and trapped Jack's foot in the floor, then turn the rock under Aidan into mud rather than just thwacking away at them with swords turn after turn or painstaking picking a spell, then applying its effects.
Frank - Aiden, Human Paladin of Geddon, a god of light and truth.
Greg - Jack, Human Thief.
Chris - Menoliir, Elf Druid from the icy north.
Jenni - Lanethe, Elf Ranger with a hawk called Scutti.
Things started with the PCs at the door to a subterranean complex, the former lair of two renowned adventurers called Fearsome Forbus and the Unknown Wizard. A combination of some probing questions from me and some exposition laid out the following backstory:
The adventure was to take place near a town called Westham-on-the-Haunt, a small city near the Haunted Forest. Up until about fifty years before the events of the adventure, the lands had been menaced by monsters of many kinds, which were mostly cleared out by a pair of adventurers called Fearsome Forbus and the Unknown Wizard. After pacifying the lands, the pair created a sanctum called Xallevyrx, but shortly after they completed it a wizard named Zamzomarr appeared and the pair of heroes disappeared. Zamzomarr essentially took over the area for several decades, running things from his iron tower. Several years ago, a group called the Dragon Army moved through the area, allying itself with Zamzomarr. A general called Lord Stefan raised an army and fought back, ultimately defeating the Dragon Army, executing Zamzomarr, and leaving an elf named Belrain Stormsinger in charge of Westham.
Lanethe was from Westham originally. Her father was jailed for refusing to cooperate with Zamzomarr, leading her to join the army to fight the evil wizard. Menoliir was not directly involved in the conflict, but came to help heal those wounded by the conflict. Jack was a young man whose father (among other relatives?) died in the fighting, leading him to develop a callous outer shell and to turn to less savory pursuits in order to make his living. Aidan was a young man who missed the fighting but who came to the area to make his name as a hero.
Jack stole a map purporting to lead to Xallevyrx, then put the rest of the team together, pointing out the possibility that evils could be lurking in the ruins. Thus, the group found itself inside the lair, slowing making their way deeper into the abandoned keep.
After a bit of searching, we switched back to a flashback in town, in which Jack found himself in a barfight at the Haunted Tankard tavern. He attempted to avoid trouble, but the sheriff and his men arrived, and Jack was hauled off based on his bad reputation in town. Aidan happened by and criticized the sheriff first for not doing anything to stop the barfight, then for using excessive force. The sheriff turned his back on Aiden, who proceeded to involve himself in the barfight by preventing a thug from escaping. Aiden ultimately ran the footpad through and was taken into custody along with the other combatants (he was arrested before he could heal the guy's wounds by laying hands on him). Aiden and Jack spent the night in jail before being released (I guess the guy Aiden stabbed recovered and declined to press charges).
Back in the dungeon, the PCs made their way through some hallways into a run-down laboratory area. From there, they went down a staircase into a more natural cave system. Menoliir transformed into a wolf and scouted the area ahead of the party, finding a strange room filled with bizarre fungus. As she investigated, the fungus wrapped itself around her, spores exploding and covering her with fungal powder. The others rushed to her aid and were also assaulted by fungal vines and shrieking, moving mushrooms. As the party battled this infestation, a young woman in expensive robes came screaming into the chamber, coming from the same direction the party had come. Shambling, moaning figures followed her through the halls.
Beset by fungus on one side and zombies (probably) on another, the PCs retreated down the third passageway leading out of that chamber - directly into a goblin shantytown. Menoliir, Aidan, and Lanethe charged through the goblins, but Jack and the wizard girl, Kirsha, were stuck on the other side of the goblin horde and were forced to retreat down a different path, hurling themselves over a barricade and into a room used as a refuse heap.
Jack and Kirsha wandered through the cave system and found a staircase leading back to Xallevyrx proper, ultimately making their way into a large feasthall filled with pillars. The rest of the group fled from the goblins in terror, rushing into a narrow corridor that led to a cramped chamber holding only an altar to the goblins' hideous god. The party battled the goblins, frantically hacking away at them - Menoliir, in wolf form, tore a goblin throat out. Luckily, Scutti set some of the goblins' driftwood homes on fire, and most of the goblins retreated to deal with the flames, though others ran in a different direction, muttering something about how "they will rise."
Menoliir, Lanethe, and Aidan found their way to the same staircase Jack had used, and the party reunited in the feastall. They searched that room for a while, but were ambushed by a group of filthy "adventurers." The party hacked their way through this group fairly easily, killing three before they retreated in defeat. In the fracas, Kirsha disappeared and did not return.
Pretty badly beaten up, the party decided to rest for a while to recover some energy. When they recovered, they did some exploration of a small secret chamber, at which point they heard a human scream coming from deeper into the dungeon. Following the sound, they discovered a group of three orcs and a goblin shaman attempting to enact some kind of ritual by sacrificing Kirsha. Aidan demanded that they cease their activities, and was divinely shielded when the shaman attempted to burn him with magical flames in response. The party engaged with the orcish warriors, and hard-fought battle was joined. The goblin shaman caused an earthquake within the dungeon, bringing part of the ceiling down upon Aidan, then turning the ground to mush beneath him. It wasn't enough to save his life, as Lanethe took him out from afar with an arrow. Menoliir changed into a polar bear, but two of the orcs flanked her and opened huge slashes in her flesh. Jack attempted to fight his way through the orcs to save Kirsha, but after being stuck in a crack in the ground he also found himself run through by an orcish blade. Lanethe and Aidan did manage to kill the remaining orcs, save Kirsha, and stop their ritual, but Jack died of his wounds, meeting Death at a tavern in the afterlife.
Overall, I really enjoyed the system - it was really easy to generate exciting scenes and combats that felt cinematic and weren't boring at all. Basically, whenever the players try to do something, they roll 2d6 modified by a relevant skill like Strength or Charisma. If they get a 10 or higher, everything goes off without a hitch. If they roll from 7-9, they get what they want, but the GM gets to introduce a complication. If they roll a 6 or less, they fail and the GM gets to make a move, which can be an attack against them or something more nefarious, like a rockslide or even a plot development completely offscreen.
Also, instead of having a dungeon map with a bunch of planned encounters for the PCs to bash their way through, you set up some threats which slowly advance as the players fail rolls, or as the players deal with other issues. You also ask a bunch of leading questions, allowing the players to help mold the setting and the background. For example, in this adventure the opening threat was other adventurers messing around in the dungeon. The first sign of other adventurers making trouble was listed as the adventurers causing trouble in the nearby town, which led me to set the flashback in the Haunted Tankard. Some of the players had gave answers to questions indicating problems with the town's elfin sheriff, so I had his men show up and arrest Jack just based on his reputation, then brush Aidan off and arrest him when he interfered with the fight. Other threats in the adventure included a group of quasi-undead orcs preparing to rise from their slumber to summon a dragon, a plague of fungus, and another plague of zombies. I was able to use each of them to punch things up when there was a lull in the action, and the system provides you with ideas on how to move each system along. The one thing the adventure I was running didn't really do was provide ideas for potential climaxes for each plotline, which is something I would definitely do going forward - trying to come up with something like that on the fly was difficult. One of the mantras of the game is "play to see what happens," but I think it would be helpful to at least give some thought to cool set pieces for endpoints. Like, the game said that the orcs' end goal was to sacrifice a human to summon forth a dragon, but without having thought about that at all, I scrambled to figure out where the ritual would take place and what kinds of things it would entail.
Ultimately, I'm a big fan of the system, and I think I would get better at running it with some more experience. I also think you could pretty easily convert D&D adventures into the system and have them work even better than they would in D&D. You can also really easily build campaigns and individual adventures which flow in really interesting ways and feel like an actual book or a movie. The scene where the PCs ran into the killer fungus was another thing that never would have happened in a game like D&D. The fungus was keyed to the location they entered, but when Jenni failed a roll I decided to introduce an NPC wizard being chased by a few zombies. The PCs decided to retreat down a path rather than fight their way past the zombies or the fungus, only to run into a goblin settlement. The system did a great job of escalating things, and I think everyone was having a good time.
The final battle also benefited from the system, as I was able to do things like have the goblin shaman cause a cave in which buried Aidan and trapped Jack's foot in the floor, then turn the rock under Aidan into mud rather than just thwacking away at them with swords turn after turn or painstaking picking a spell, then applying its effects.