(Move if necessary to your feelings Mods, but see below.)

I played Dungeon World last night with my friend-gamers on Skype. We had Liam (Human Thief), Ceggus  (Dwarf Cleric), and me playing Thelir the Wild (Elf Druid.)

Playing the game felt like a traditional RPG to me, it didn't pop up any "uncomfortable" elements that felt deprotaganizing, or "move your playing piece." It felt pretty much like how most RPG's I run fall out in play. Giving players a choice to succeed for a price, making success give you more options (sometimes for a price) and so on. It feels very traditional, to me, despite being derived from Apocalypse World.


It also felt exciting, I mean I generally felt that some things wouldn't have happened in some other fantasy games without pulling teeth. Like our thief sliding off a roof after trying to knock the feet out under his foe and the foe grabbing his ankle on the way down. I know some GM's and some games do this, but it was nice the way this one handled it.

I haven't played it, but I've heard good things about it.

When getting a chance to succeed for a price, how is that decision arrived at from an in-character perspective?

Quote from: Exploderwizard;640715When getting a chance to succeed for a price, how is that decision arrived at from an in-character perspective?

Depends on the move, but for many, it's not.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;640715When getting a chance to succeed for a price, how is that decision arrived at from an in-character perspective?

I think he was just saying it wasn't deprotagonizing. But I think it would depend like CRK says. I could see if the individual move allowed you to succeed at a price by exposing yourself to more potential harm, it would still be an in character choice (for example if it was trying to simulate extending yourself recklessly to succeed). No idea how these work specifically in this game. I think in principle I wouldn't be opposed to such a mechanic. From how it is described it doesn't sound too different from things like bennies. But it probably wouldn't be my first choice either.

I played in this game as Geggus Copperpot, and he is a Dwarf Cleric of Moradin the Soul Forger.

I agree that, for the most part, it played like a regular RPG session.  It was my first playing the game as well, and I felt disconnect through the first fight.  The GM brought us into the game world in the middle of a fight, which was a great opportunity to highlight how combat worked in the game.  However, there was not a lot of structure to how the combat flowed from the perspective of traditional mechanics like initiative or a turn order.  After speaking with the GM after the game session, I learned that the combat is suppose to be more descriptive and reactive so next time I'll be better equipped with knowing how it's suppose to go down.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;640715When getting a chance to succeed for a price, how is that decision arrived at from an in-character perspective?

This was the most interesting point of the game for me, especially how it affected the dynamic of combat.  So my guy is a cleric with chain mail, a shield, and a warhammer and I think that he can probably stand up in a fight with the guards we were fighting in our introduction to the game world.  The seemed like 'typical' low-level guards so I figured that I could help the thief and fight them off.  It turns out that combat is fairly serious in this game because of the partial success thing...

On my cleric's first strike on a guard, he rolled a partial success which meant that I hit the dude but also exposed my cleric to the guard's retaliatory strike.  So I rolled my cleric's damage die of 1d6 and another player rolled the guard's damage die of 1d8, and I rolled a '1' and guard rolled a '7' for damage.  My cleric as 2-points of armor and takes 5 damage, which knocks him down from 21 HPs (max) to 16 HPs.  

This immediately caused me, the player, to realize that the mechanics of combat could quickly get my character killed if I pressed him full-bore into combat.  So I played it 'safe' after that and my cleric decided to flee and avoid these guys would be a good bet.  The party starts to bug out of the building, and thief takes to the roofs and the druid turns into a squirrel.  My dwarf cleric decides to climb on the roof tops and follow the thief.  We are spotted by the dudes chasing us, and the group gets separated.  The thief continues on the roof top with bad guys chasing him, and my cleric gets back down into the streets of the market area.  

A new bad guy, all in black with TWO daggers, comes after Geggus (my cleric), and tries to capture him.  My cleric resists and flees through the crowd trying to get away from the bad guys and the new all-black bad guy.  He fails to escape detection, so he stops in a doorway and casts Magic Weapon on his warhammer and gets a partial success.  I choose to loose the spell for the success.  The all-black dude shows up and talks with my cleric and tells him to surrender without getting hurt.  The all-black dude's swagger tells me that he's not really scared to square-off alone against my dwarf cleric.  

Suddenly, Thelir the elf Druid, as a fox, rushes in and attacks the all-black dude with the Defend Move and stops him from hitting my cleric.  I rolled a full success for my cleric's warhammer attack and rolled 7 damage with the extra d4 of spell damage.  This knocked out and/or dazed the dude so my cleric just took off running and Thelir came with him.

We hooked up with Liam, the Thief, a little bit later and fled the city and our hunters therein.  He had his own harrowing experience with escaping from the guards via the rooftops of the city.

It was a cool first experience to game system and its dynamics.  Now that I know what to expect and how I am suppose to interact with the system and GM, I think that the initial disconnected and lost feeling will evaporate quickly.  I was genuinely concerned that these opponents were fully capable of killing our characters and/ or capturing us so I had that vicarious thrill and exhilaration of 'Oh shit!  We gotta flee!' moment and feeling that my character had.

I played a DW hack and also found it to be rather trad, as has been discussed elsewhere on these boards quite recently.

AP report here.

Don't like the dissociated mechanic of choosing 7-9 results myself but fair to say it had minimal negative (or any) impact on session for me, as narration was down to GM.

I've read Dungeonworld, and it doesn't seem too far out there. I don't think my traditional-minded players would have a problem with it.

Regardless of the mechanics, they absolutely nail fantasy archetypes and the key features that make games like D&D fun. Whether or not I play it, I really enjoy how Dungeonworld evokes classic fantasy RPG adversary types, and I'm already using its advice on fronts and threats  in my D&D game.

DW felt pretty traditional to me. When I played it at gencon, my pc died in combat.

Sounds like this is a game similar to Old School Hack.  That is to say, if you just read the rules, it doesn't read like traditional D&D necessarily.  But when you actually play it, it plays like traditional D&D.

Why play this instead of the real thing?

Quote from: FASERIP;640771Why play this instead of the real thing?

Because I don't like D&D? Unless we're talking  BECMI/Cyclopedia. Plus this game was new and we wanted to try it.

 I felt it evoked a better flow of combat  because of the tradeoffs, they're made by putting your character at risk. The GM would take that "risk" and turn it into something (often damage.) So you open yourself up with a risky or poor attack and get hit in return.

It actually plays a little more "lively" than traditional D&D.

I didn't have to concede much, either rolling well or rolling poorly. I didn't do "average," so my choices were more limited but from a player view to me, its no different than any other mechanical RPG choice a tabletop game gives. (Like do I move up and attack with my best weapon and suffer Aoo in 3E, or stay ranged?)

In general it felt more fluid than any version of D&D I played, the combat felt risky and dynamic without a "one hit kill" mechanic built in--meaning I worried about being hit, but was still willing to jump in and take damage for a friend (and it mechanically supported that as a game result.)

Mind you, I love Cyclopedia D&D, but Dungeon World feels very solid and exciting to me.

Of course "Why play this instead of High Valor?" could be your question or insert any fantasy RPG of your choice. Some games do things better than others, and create a different feel.

Quote from: Silverlion;640782I felt it evoked a better flow of combat  because of the tradeoffs, they're made by putting your character at risk. The GM would take that "risk" and turn it into something (often damage.) So you open yourself up with a risky or poor attack and get hit in return.

If that's the height of the innovation, 2001 called and wants its ideas back.

Quote from: The Traveller;640785If that's the height of the innovation, 2001 called and wants its ideas back.

Of course. Most Indie ideas are a bit older. They took a while to to trickle down it seems.  For example my own High Valor offers concessions on a tie and it came our in 2010!

Quote from: Silverlion;640710Playing [Dungeon World] felt like a traditional RPG to me...

Did your session contain any of the hallmarks of a storygame? Dramatic, scene-editing by players and GM, alike? Focus on the development of a story in-play mutable by GM and players? Shared worldbuilding? Player-permission required for character death? Are these standards or options in the RPG?