Another strong recommendation from the 'best books of the OSR' crowd, this was my first real interaction with the Dungeon World system - or any Apocalypse World system. I have looked at this with this 'outsiders eye', less judging it on its merits as a Dungeon World book but more as someone coming to it cold.
For the size of the book a lot gets packed in - both from a point of system and useful generators for a setting. Lots to like here whatever system you may normally use at your table.
Cover by Keny Widja
I think I grabbed by copy from a DriveThru PoD sale and got a slim ~80 page A5 booklet, black and white on the inside with what looks like a sepia-toned cover. Over all I like it, the art-style is quirky and evocative and sets a nice cartoonish-yet-fierce note throughout.
So what do you get in the book? The clearly named section headings give a good sense of the content:
Learn the language - 6 pages of terms and tags
Draw the Map - 8 pages of creating the world
Lead the Way - 6 pages of rules for hirelings
See the World - 8 pages of travelling rules
Weather the Storm - 2 pages of mechanics for weather
Live to Tell the Tale - 6 pages of new classes
Ask the Fates - 14 pages of adventure generators
Plumb the Depths - 8 pages of dungeon creation
Trust Your Gut - 4 pages of DM principles
Name Every Person - 5 pages of NPC name lists
Learn the language - terminology and how the Dungeon World system works.
Draw the Map - collaborative map building workflow with 6-steps. Interesting as breaking the usual set up of world-building being the exclusive burden/privilege of the DM. Goes around the table for each step starting with centring yourself on the map, then adding regions, known places, personal locations, connections between places and then rumours and legends. This makes between my shoulders tense up because surrendering world-building is completely counter to my deeply ingrained habits however I can see how this would be lots of fun with an appropriately primed group.
Lead the Way - alternative rules for followers and hirelings compared to the Dungeon World core, I like this set. There are also generators to create some followers.
See the World - travel & exploration moves as per Dungeon World. I like the strict guiding nature of the moves system - it sets up the game we are at the table to play and helps simplify decision making by reducing the palette of options. Limiting, but in a constructive way. This is of course the core mechanic of Dungeon World but this is also my first encounter with it. You declare a move, roll to see how well or badly it goes and either you succeed or the DM gets to make a response move. I like the potential for the story just tumbling out of the dice rolls as one thing follows another, guided by the fixed set of player and DM moves.
Weather the Storm - mechanics for weather.
Live to Tell the Tale - classes tuned to the 'wilderness exploration' theme including the leader of hirelings.
Ask the Fates - great, universally useful adventure generators. This is a helpful toolkit for anyone looking to populate wilderness hexes. Includes thoughts on how much to do beforehand, how much to do on the fly.
Plumb the Depths - more handy generators, this time for dungeons but also some neat guidance on when to do prep work at all. A solid step up from the 'create everything' grind that sometimes seems necessary.
Trust Your Gut - 3 more prompts for the DM added to the existing list for Dungeon World. Much of this should be familiar if you have some campaigns under your belt but it is great to get these distillations of wisdom down for those who might be coming to this new. Even for those who might consider themselves very familiar with such things, it is always helpful to read what others do for those one or two nugget of wisdom that are new.
Name Every Person - lists of names for a selection of different cultural backgrounds. Always helpful to have.
Overall we have great generators and an interesting view on how to 'mod' Dungeon World to get the overland adventure experience. Even where you might use this with other systems, these thoughts on what moves to do are good guidance on where to focus attention. Quite a lot of 'how to run wilderness exploration' and even 'how to run a game' advice is salted in here amongst the mechanics. Worth the read, and at $8 for the pdf, a bargain.
For other reviews see Save vs Total Party Kill, Adventure Rules or RPG.net
No comments:
Post a Comment