Category: The Gauntlet: How to Suck Less

Can anyone recommend and link to a discussion here or on another forum that gives advice for creating challenging but not over powered encounters in Dungeon World?

For the TL:DR folks, ran DW for trad players and had fun. Still here? OK I have played 5e Curse of Straad every Saturday for about 8 months. What is unusual about this group is nearly everyone in the group is mentally or/and physically disabled. So what we play is less important than being some of the only face to face social interaction some of us get. Also I am the oldest player but the only one into more narrative based games. And you may not be surprised considering how long this post is that I may tend to go on a bit about the games I like and want to run. However our 6th player is on vacation out of the country for the summer and we decided to take a needed rest from Ravenloft and give the DM a rest too. For two of the players in the 5e campaign this has been their very first tabletop rpg experience. They can also be a little shy and need some gentle nudging at times. The DM is straight trad D&D, whatever is the current edition is official. The last two are White Wolf and MtG guys but they played lots of WW larp. I know VtM larp has negative connotations in story game communities but these guys can bring their A game and are not shy about getting into character. They are also great about improvising and making up details on the fly. As for myself I started playing D&D in ’82 and rage quit when 2nd ed RUINED MY GAME LOL. I then had a shameful Paladium and GURPS period till Robert Bohl​ opened my eyes with Misspent Youth. My attraction to PbtA games is partially based on laziness as I hate homework.

I volunteered to run a pbta game and they picked Dungeon World. Truly I was pushing for Threadbare or Night Witches. During session one we had a tone discussion and we chose light and campy but not silly. And they wanted to be able to choose any DW class they found online. We wound up with; a human wizard, a human bard, an outsider barbarian, a human psion and a human artificer. All are either neutral or chaotic. As for content 3 of my five said they didn’t care as long as they never saw a single undead. The DM asked please use some classic scenario from the bad olden days when rocks were soft and dirt was still in the experimental stages. My Barbarian said I WANT TO KILL GIANTS!

First session went well but some folks didn’t fully grock it till session two yesterday. At session one I asked lots of questions and we had fun world building and using bonds to flesh out characters. the two WW guys got everyone to look at each other’s bonds. I loved hearing “look at your bond with me and my bond with you lets make up a story of how we developed these impressions of each other”. We then had a fight with a hill giant raiding party attacking their home town. They slaughtered 4 of the giants but after a few botches one of the party got captured and they had a daring rescue, a real hoot. It ended with them planning a perilous journey to find out why the giants attacked.

In prepping for session two I realized that in order to be true to my principles of GMing to the wants of my players I had to convert G1 to G3 Against the Giants into Dungeon World. Did I mention that I hate homework? Did I mention that I am lazy? I hastily read through them or perhaps scanned through and wanted to vomit. But I watched some reviews on YouTube and read articles on converting old school to DW and OSR. While driving and at work I listened to the first 7 episodes of Discern Realities and The Gauntlet whatever I am up to. It helped so much. I found the opportunities for role play and conflict hidden in the room descriptions. I cut out the slogging monsters with no reason for being there and drastically reduced the numbers. Filling out Fronts, Threats and Grim Portents was tough but super necessary. It was very different than my usual style of dropping a bunch of plot threads in front of my players, seeing what they bite on and making it up as I go. I am using parts of the wandering monster tables as ideas for complications. The important NPCs I gave an instinct and or motivation so I can react as appropriate when my players decide to do something unexpected. The unexpected happens so much it’s actually expected. DW is so sweet for my group’s chaotic play style as long as I do my prep I can zig and zag along with them. It all seemed to come together yesterday. I thought there was no way to make old trad adventures work in DW because the plot train is the anti-PbtA. It takes a lot more work than I prefer but forcing myself to do it for this campaign is showing me how crucial prep is for AW and other pbta games. My previous prep light style of MCing does tend to go off the rails. When I ran DW in the past perilous journeys seemed flat and a little booring. But with the questions suggested on the Discern Realities podcast, we had two of them yesterday and they both really sang. It was so beautiful to see trad players go “no, I am succeeding at everything I need more failures!” They are mining their alignment and bonds for xp and having dramatic scenes with each other and the NPCs and lots of conflicts and daring do. Inside my hippy Indy side is cackling “Yes, abandon the stoicisn of the proceedural Trad side. Come to the Story side. Simulationism is a lie, there is only passion. Through passion I gain drama, through drama I gain …” You get the idea.

Success and improvement aside, we still have issues to address. I have been sloppy about controlling folks rolling the dice when I haven’t called for a move. I don’t want to discourage enthusiasm and participation but it needs to be addressed. A tone problem is that one guy likes to bring in modern references that tend to yank us out of Elfland and into Poughkeepsie. (FYI From Elfland to Poughkeepsie is an essay by Ursula K LaGuin that I highly recommend.) But the other players seem to be reigning that in so I am letting it mostly resolve itself and I am keeping an eye on it. What I am most concerned about is my shy newbies, especially Cassandra the Bard. When I ask them for input “How does that look?” or “How come that is here?”. If they take a second to think someone else will jump in with their idea. Even when I say “I asked Cassandra, please give her a chamce” she will usually say “no I like that, lets go with his idea”. But it’s obvious to me, she really doesn’t like being interrupted, who does? Afterwards she will tune out for a while and we will loose her briefly while she cools off. I need to fix this without embarrassing her or making things uncomfortable. I also have to be certain that I address the “Character” clearly enough going forward. At least once the person who did that thought I was speaking to them. I don’t know if I should have a group chat with “I am not singling anyone out but I am seeing this behavior and we need to be considerate”, or should I have private conversation with my gun jumpers? Sorry for the rant, I needed to vent.