So I have a meat space DW in a few weeks – yeah found so,e gamers in north Houston.
So I have a meat space DW in a few weeks – yeah found so,e gamers in north Houston. They will all be first time DW players so pressure is on. Most of the time I play with kids or others who have played DW. My style is pretty fluid.
Couple of questions
1 what is the immolator? I just listened to DR and saw link to recent playbooks. Mine are from sons ago, and didn’t have the immolator. What is this persons story or background flavor – I know all the other tropes.
2. What do you do when players run out of rations?
Listening to DR I think maybe some things I have missed in past play.
You people are ruining me for other podcasts. Blitzed through +1 Forward, Discern Realities, and I’ve just started the latest story of We Hunt The Keepers.
Meanwhile my backlog of other podcasts is building up! I snuck in some Spout Lore, but that’s it.
Sure, part of it that DW is my current obsession (it dethroned the Star Wars RPG from Fantasy Flight Games), but if the content wasn’t top-notch I would have lost interest.
The problem, I think, is twofold: First, I’ve been GMing for ~30 years. I started with AD&D and played or ran dozens of different systems in the decades since, but most of them were the prep heavy, mechanics-based systems (even the lighter modern games like Savage Worlds.) Second, I’ve never had the chance to actually play Dungeon World. I’d really have like to sit and play in two or three sessions so as to get the concept down before trying to run it, but I’ve got the GM curse (I’m the only one in my group who runs games.)
So right now I’m trying to simultaneously:
~Hold on to the core premise of the system, which I understand intellectually, but don’t grasp instinctively yet. The idea of being unable to act except through moves, for instance, or of having to worry about ‘cheating’ as the GM. I’ve read it, I get it, but 30 years of experience gives me the feeling that I’m simultaneously hamstrung and exposed, even when it’s designed to work within that.
~Remember the actual rules of the system and how to interpret and use them.
~Overcome the sense that I’m going into this completely unprepared, as I’m used to having every eventuality laid out in front of me before I ever sit down. I’m a heavy prepper!
~Get the campaign concept itself figured out
~Remember the triggers and uses of 8 basic moves, 13 special moves, a dozen class moves, 12 GM moves, 7 dungeon moves, all filtered through 3 Agenda points and 12 Principles.
~And keeping all of the above in mind while improvising content.
My brain hurts, and I only have one more day before the game. Ugh.
Symbaroum run by Darren Brockes last night was great (pic from the core book)!
Symbaroum run by Darren Brockes last night was great (pic from the core book)! I didn’t expect such a good starter adventure. Somewhat disillusions you as the colonizers escaping their dying land and going into a new one, where indigenous folks are already about without the knowledge of the PCs, who are fleeing their dying lands.
If you don’t mind spoilers for the adventure in the core book, continue reading!
Our characters were all a part of a caravan going to the new land. To get on we had to fight some guards to prove ourselves able and basically entertain the leader, who was fucking with us. It’s a fairly trad game. Somewhat like Dnd, but you roll under your target numbers. You take abilities, Boons, and Burdens; the later of which really help you create a unique character.
Variol Hope, my character, is a witch hunter that specifically goes after abominations. Blighted, corrupted creatures. But on a hunt years back sustained an injury from one such creature, twisting her nature with Dark Blood (Burden), granting her a Bestial trait (Boon). Her skin is tough as nails and she has unnatural strength, making her Robust (Boon) and bloodthirsty (Burden). As a witch hunter she now keeps this Dark Secret (Burden) from everyone. If people knew this there is a chance other witch hunters would strike her down for this corruption, for fear she too would become an abomination.
You can really see how these choices springboard character concepts. Originally I just was thinking I’d like maybe some sort of ranger.
Anyways, since we had to fight these caravan guards there is a chance Variol would be revealed. If she’s wounded she becomes blood thirsty and when she uses bestial traits, there is also a chance of being discovered.
I actually ended up being able to describe some pretty awesome combat maneuvers instead, though. Rushing in and attacking the guard and striking their armour, then using her bestial strength to push through it and draw just a bit of blood, which was all that was necessary for the challenge. The second guard got pretty messsssed up by me because I used an ability called Twin Strike, doing a double attack and a d8 and d6 of damage on the poor fella. but I still wasn’t discovered. Woot! Also, I remembered near the end of the session that if you did meet their HP you can choose to knock them out or whatever, you don’t have to kill them.
We all made it on. Iomigoi, played by Agatha was doing some pretty epic action, too. Shadow stepping about and what not. We also had a new player, I think? I hadn’t played with Angel before and so I won’t go into detail about his character just in case.
Anyhow, along our path NPC rangers in the party hunted in the forest for food. On one such trip, they were set upon by a Hunger Wolf (kinda like a dire wolf) and we rushed in to help. I’ve the slowest Quick stat in combat so I always go last. A great and quick (hah) way to handle initiative. Iomigoi got a massive hit in first so when I went I let off a well aimed shot that was pretty epic. I described it kind of like a Princesses Mononoke scene, racing toward them on a horse and using my bow to bury my arrow in the wolf’s head. But just then, to my/our horror, the wolf transformed into an elf. So I pretty much murdered someone when Variol’s personal goal is to find a way to rid herself of her bloodthirsty nature, as well as start anew and leaving her past behind. Thematically this was so damn compelling and kicked me right in the feels.
As we proceeded two elves approached and demanded we give over the two rangers, claiming they were corrupted and as good as dead. Importantly, though we had killed one of their companions, they were nothing like what our lore of elves suggested; essentially painting them as rabid forest creatures.
Obviously, the characters’ preconceptions were entirely wrong. Though we had murdered one of their own they did not want to start a war and were there to make sure abominations weren’t born from the ostensibly corrupted rangers of our group. Even though they definetly had some righous anger re: you know, murder.
After some deliberation, Iomigoi purposed we ask that the elves to follow us and if the rangers “turned”, we would end them. When this was purposed to the elves though, already during this discussion a ranger turned. The talk turned into a fight to slay the abomination instead. Clearly the elves were right all along about this as well.
I really liked this because it showed the massive biases we had as playing the main human colonizer folk. And struck a cord with the themes I was going for with my own character. The other players were also great and Darren ran the game very well! I am stoked to play more.
Greetings, all! The weekly Gauntlet Hangouts video roundup post is now up on The Gauntlet Blog! Check it out, and be sure not to miss all the other great Gauntlet Blog posts from the week!
Thanks go out to all our Gauntlet Hangouts videos game runners, facilitators, and players this week, including: Agatha, Andy Hauge, Angel Ortiz, Auzumel S, Bethany H, Bryan Lotz, Chris Thompson, Darren Brockes, Eike K., Fraser Simons, Gerrit Reininghaus, Jason Cox, Jason Mills, Jim Crocker, Joshua DeGagné, Kyle Hodnett, Larry S, Lowell Francis, Luiz Paulo S F, Marissa Chabon, Mark Causey, Noella Handley, Pat Perkins, Patrick Knowles, Rachelle Dube, Richard Rogers, Robbie Boerth, Robert, Robert Angus, Robert Ruthven, Sabine V, Sam Zeitlin, Steven desJardins, Taylor W., and Yoshi Creelman.
Lauren McManamon and I bring you the public beta of our duet tabletop RPG Strange Birds, with layout by the very…
Lauren McManamon and I bring you the public beta of our duet tabletop RPG Strange Birds, with layout by the very talented Jay Iles! In Strange Birds you pick a beautiful, fantastical, dorky, bird species to play and explore their eccentricities and foibles with a partner. Duet play has been getting more love in The Gauntlet lately, and I’m very excited to see the community playtest this game! Get it now! http://ow.ly/zXTc30msY1D
Today on The Gauntlet Blog, I wrote about Gauntlet Con: Test Fire, a game design and playtest-focused version of our…
Today on The Gauntlet Blog, I wrote about Gauntlet Con: Test Fire, a game design and playtest-focused version of our online convention. It’s just a proposal for now, but if you have any thoughts, please chime in here or directly on the post.
I’m stoked for Symbaroum tomorrow, run by Darren Brockes.
I’m stoked for Symbaroum tomorrow, run by Darren Brockes. My character, Variol Hope, is a bloodthirsty witchhunter with a bestial affliction from one of her previous hunts and carries a gunmetal grey shadow. She is not to be fucked with~ although, of course in the game she will be more heavily attired.
I have to say the character creation process for the game was excellent. I have a number of interesting burdens that add mechanized backstory elements, I feel like Variol is already very cool and there’s a lot to work toward, both in the fiction as well as things I want to purchase with XP in the future.
