Tag: Derek Jones

Here’s a magic item I’m working on:

The Sword of Leadership

My players are questing for an intelligent sword that will help them raise an army to reconquer the party’s fighter’s barony from his evil usurper brother. I figure a custom move is appropriate:

When you attempt to bend the Sword to your will, roll +CHA. Take +1 on your roll if you have recently proved yourself worthy. Take -1 to your roll if you have recently angered the Sword. *On a 10+, the Sword summons an army that will do your bidding for 5 days. *On a 7-9, the Sword will summon an army. Pick one: (a) The army will do your bidding, but only for 1 day. (b) The army will do your bidding for up to 5 days, but you must Defy Danger +CHA at the start of each day to retain control.

You can prove your worthiness by:

1. Doing what the Sword wants you to do.

2. Demonstrating great leadership.

3. Defeating a personal rival.

I have a few ideas on how to prevent the Sword from being abused:

A. Limit how often the Sword’s army-summoning power can be used (maybe once per month, adventure, or campaign; or maybe the Sword’s wielder can only use the power once ever).

B. The term “army” is not very specific. An army could be 30 soldiers or 100,000. The Sword may be capped at a certain number of soldiers (say 30 or 50 or 100) or maybe the Sword makes its own determination how many soldiers to summon each time.

C. The army may have a limited ability to recover from losses in battle. If the Sword has a 30 soldier army and 10 of them die in battle, maybe it takes a week or a month to replace each dead soldier.

I can see lots of ways to have fun with this as a GM. On a failed roll on the custom move, the army might be completely out of control or attack the party. Even on a successful roll, the army might be made up of orc soldiers or some other monster (how will the civilized world react to the party leading an army of monsters?).

I need some advice on how to cope with a power gamer in Dungeon World. I’ve played OSR games (particularly C&C) for years, but started a DW campaign a few weeks ago. Based on asking questions and using the answers, the campaign is initially centered around the party trying to recover a magic sword from a dragon. Sounded good to me. I suggested they can probably do some research and learn of a way to either defeat the dragon or snatch the sword. One of the players (playing a fighter, so we’ll call him Fighter) declared they should immediately go to the dragon’s lair. That sounded suicidal to me, but okay. They’ll figure it out during play. We’ve spent two sessions as the party hacked its way through the goblins living in the mountain below the dragon’s lair. Fighter has made it to level 4 after 2 sessions. Fighter is getting cockier and cockier. He insists he will be able to kill the dragon by the time the party gets to it. He appears to be relying on picking the right combination of advanced moves to guarantee a party victory.

Fighter used multiclass dabbler to get the paladin advanced move Bloody Aegis. He has mentioned the cleric picking up the Sever spell down the road so the dragon’s wing(s) can be removed and take away its ability to fly. I think he intends to take Evil Eye to basically paralyze the dragon while the rest of the party kicks its ass. I’ll be surprised if Through Death’s Eyes isn’t used, as well.

On the one hand, I’m supposed to be a fan of the players and smart play should be rewarded. On the other hand, there is something offensive as a GM to see a player smugly gaming the system to guarantee the supposedly toughest monster in the book can be easily defeated.

The question is how should I run the encounter with the dragon when the time comes. Should Through Death’s Eye be able to guarantee the dragon is toast if the player rolls successfully? It’s a high end advanced move that should feel powerful when a player uses it. But should it threaten autokill of every BBEG the party comes across (obviously, assuming a successful move roll)?

Some obvious ideas spring to mind. Through Death’s Eyes can still leave a lot of dead PCs on the field of battle, although how to get to the end of the fight narratively when the death of a BBEG such as a dragon is a little unclear. And while Fighter may be able to freeze the dragon with Evil Eye, that doesn’t mean the remaining PCs have the ability to actually harm it. One option with Evil Eye might be to have Fighter make a defy danger roll to even stare down the dragon before he can make the Evil Eye move.

I guess my real concern is Fighter is going to come up with a combination of moves and spells that he believes gives him control of the encounter. I don’t want to give up that kind of control. I have no problem with the PCs coming out victorious. I do have a problem with Fighter’s approach. How do I balance playing to see what happens, portraying a fantastic world, being a fan of the characters, and thinking dangerous when a player is trying to “beat” the game? I’m worried Fighter is going to execute his master plan, I’m going to fairly conclude it might not work for narrative reasons, and Fighter is going to get pissed because he feels I have cheated him out of the inevitable reward for his ingenuity. I’m also a little afraid that I will cling to so much narrative control that I do cheat the players out of a victory their smart play should ensure. I’m really bristling at the notion that a party of 1st level PCs thinks it can handle any BBEG through the right power gaming.

Any advice would be appreciated. I know this is all vague and a little rambling, but that is partly because I don’t know what all Fighter has in mind.