Aaron, the concerted effort to be opened minded and make positive, measured, and thoughtful comments on things and not harp on toxic negative vitriol with obvious political leanings like many of your UA-cam peers (some of which you yourself have been a guest on) is the reason I still watch you.
I love the Moves but they are a paradigm shift of both design and approach. What I love about Moves is how synergistic they are with players role-playing their characters. They showcase the key fundamental of good PbtA, which is 'In order to do something, you have to do it.' IOW, in order to trigger a Move, you have to roleplay your character doing it. The synergy comes from how every time you roll a Move you get immediate consequences, and the consequences are reinforced by how Moves are structured, which only get rolled when you roleplay the character. Moves showcase Consequences of Action and each gives the GM the boundaries within which they can make their own GM Moves. And because the Players Know the Moves structure they can Trust it. Moves basically structure GM Fiat in such a way that it it both limits and yet gives a lot of freedom within the Moves parameters. So it's Roleplay - Move - Consequences - Roleplay. But they are a paradigm shift, and they can confuse people new to them. They present what seems limiting but within those 'limits' is incredible freedom to roleplay.
This is a brilliant comment. “Moves structure GM fiat” is a perfect way of putting it. The other side of the “to do it do it” coin is that, just as to trigger a move you have to do the thing in the fiction, you also can’t do the thing in the fiction *without* triggering the move. This sometimes leads to unexpected turns of events where the player wasn’t thinking in terms of moves, they were just roleplaying and were immersed in the fiction, and then the GM says “it sounds like you’re [doing move x”. They roll and something cool happens.
I'm reading through Dungeon World currently, and it's got a lot of really good ideas. I like its emphasis on mechanics flowing from the fiction of what the players are doing and its use of success at a cost/interesting failure. I already focus on the first, but will try to implement more of the second in my games.
I had the exact same experience when playing 5th Edition. Every character had a huge backstory, the GM had his own grand overarching campaign prepped, and all of us had to somehow make 6 completely different strangers come together into a cohesive group in the first session, which was a mess. From the start, I could never shake the feeling that we had nothing in common, nothing to bind us together, really, and even the campaign didn't seem to care much about who we were, which was obviously the case. I ended up dropping out of the campaign after like 4 or 5 sessions, and the railroad and lack of immersion was the main reason. I believe Dungeon World solves most of these problems by shifting the focus to the fiction and being very flexible about how things fold out. I can't wait to try playing it.
DW is a book every DM/GM needs to read because even if it's never played, it's filled with ideas that can be dropped into every game. I added Bonds (with mechanical weight) to every game.
Now that you've played in a few more sessions, and possibly completed a miniature campaign, I'd love to hear your thoughts now that you're more experienced with Dungeon World! Perhaps some specific examples of how the system handled certain situations or created memorable events. Do the move names take front and center or does the game just flow? The "moves" are just hyper simplified terms that you can call on to better categorize what your goal is. They're just tools to help you understand the game mechanics. Ideally with DW, you want to reach a point where you never even say a move by name. You say what you want to do, the GM will ask you to roll a 2d6, and the outcome will determine what choices the GM gives you, if any are even needed. For example, you never want to say "I want to use the hack and slash move to hit him with my sword." Instead, you just describe how or where you attack with your sword. The GM should know that you're attempting a hack and slash, and will tell you how to resolve the outcome of your roll without ever once mentioning the words "hack and slash." If you have a GM with intimate knowledge of the game and how to effectively use the moves (aka GM tools), I think DW is one of the best ttrpg experiences anyone could have.
Really glad you liked DW. I completely agree about backstory in 5E and the trouble with people making fully developed backstories for their characters in isolation, vs making characters together in DW. I usually say DW is the game people think D&D is before they play D&D.
Wait that’s not normal? I mean I am in my second ever game for any TTRPG with mates and we are all drafting characters together in D&D 5E. I’m the odd one out actually. My character is to be introduced later on still made it with friends though. and the interest in the party is for its (Myconid) own benefit to reach sigil. So once I accomplish my goal I will make a new character (Also a Myconid.) who’s goal is to fight a battle with the first one and tags along with the party because they are willing to show them to it. Second character will be a secret and as a surprise after the departure of the first one.
@@platinumsun4632 Just in my experience it’s much more common with modern D&D for players to make their characters in isolation, rather than work together to make a party. Sounds like you have a good group!
This is all really well said and a very accurate series of takes. I strongly agree with everything you said here. The only thing I would really push for is to make sure that it is clear in your head that PbtA is incredibly wide, and Dungeon World is just one of them. The wide range of PbtA games don't all work along the same lines as Dungeon World, some of them function so dramatically differently, it is odd to think of them as too similar.
Yep, I've definitely got that just from the experience of playing DW and reading MotW. Even then, I'm sure the departures only grow larger the more you get away from the genres of "fight bad stuff." Good to hear from you!
Great assessment! I agree with what you said about the moves system, and from my experience it seems like they encourage you to play more heroically, even if an action is ultimately unsuccessful, whereas a lot of other games encourage a much more cautious play style. Mind you, I'm not saying that one is better than the other, but it's kind of a nice change of pace. Another commenter (@Indigo Dragon I believe) said that the consequences moves (especially in regards to when an action fails) act as a more strictly codified version of GM fiat, which I think can be nice since it gives both players and the judge an idea of what to expect, and like you said, they don't feel nearly as restrictive in practice as they do on paper.
Yeah this is very much it for me. I may be in a minority here but I think GM fiat is an integral part of every RPG. If the mechanics have complete control and you never need to interpret the fiction and make a call about what happens next, that’s a board game, not an RPG. The PbtA approach is to acknowledge this and then give the GM “principles” to guide their decisions, and also to emphasise collaboration and a certain amount of shared narrative authority, to avoid the GM becoming the sort of capricious god figure that ruins games.
I ran two campaigns in Dungeon World it really suited my cinematic DM style. I found it fun, flexible and fast but it certainly was different from OSR certainly. I liked the way that combat was no different from any other interaction in game so it never breaks up the flow of the adventure. You can even fast forward through combats and even run massive battles with a few dice rolls in a pretty satisfying manner.
5E is not terrible. It is repetitive, easy to break and really hard to create any sense of danger without having a huge gap of levels between enemy and monster...but it is not terrible. People enjoys it when they don't know other games.
I like PbtA games. My next campaign is going to be Monster of the Week. The players I have are excited about it, but weren't interested in Dungeon World. The Dungeon World campaign setting is a very generic, traditional fantasy world. My players balked at the choices of species, class, etc. No halfling sorcers, elven druids, or anything exotic at all. Many players who started with DnD 5e have all these expectations about the character they can play, the fantasy they can live out.
I'm glad to hear this! One of my favourite things about 5e/its players/community is the acceptance of DnD as a tool to tell these deeply personal stories. You said, perhaps jokingly, that its because they saw it on Critical Role, but I've seen it even before CR was really a thing. I cant say it's for everyone, but this newer style of play is popular for a reason!
Glad to hear your opinion on this! The D&D I often play is only personal for the characters in that they can craft their own legacies. But it is neat to play a game like this where it can be more about their relationships
You get it. DW is what most 'new generation' CR style gamers are trying to do with the 5e system. "Jared Sinclairs 6e" is a variant of this. All one needs to do is look at various message boards to see that so many of 5e's D&D-isms already get handwaved that Most would be better served going to a more rules light genre game like DW. But DW does not have "D&D" on the cover! A BIG strike against it...
They got you ! I was turned off by DungeonWorld / PbtA for the reason some are turned off by 5e. The "community" and some of the games based on it. Its like hearing about how amazing a place is to eat, then you go and its good but not the bestest evar. Good to hear your take on it.
The Dungeon World Discord is a great community and very welcoming for new players. The authors of DW have largely stepped back from their creation for reasons beyond here, but there's some very strong hacks in active development that serve as DW 2e.
I’ve played a lot of PbtA. I have Dungeon World but never played it. I worry that PbtA is very easy power game. You get to a point very quickly where a character has to roll 3 or less to fail. Did you experience this?
Nah, that hasn't been my experience so far. 7-9 is a success with a complication, 10-12 is a success without a complication, and 3-6 is an utter failure. With a 2d6, you're more likely to succeed but have complications than anything else, but the complications tend to pile onto each other as we play. We've had one character die and then almost die again immediately after (we had to go through a lot of crap to get them back to life so it's not really death not mattering). Since the DM doesn't roll, they can't pull punches. Which I have enjoyed. I'm sick of DMs pretending to be impartial but secretly giving you an out all the time.
@@28mmRPG OH MY GOD it is a gateway Game...OH NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. Next, he will start playing FATE, talking about forge, dying his hair green and talk about his charcters feelings
I've never played Dungeon World but I have read the rulebook. It seems like a fun system and yet I could never wrap my head around why they bothered with this strange system of Moves (and Fronts? I think that's a thing), other than possibly a very anal-retentive way of controlling what people can do. Now, after watching your video, I have to admit that I still have no idea why they bothered. Good video though!
It comes accross in reading the book that moves are not meant to limit what players can do, but meant to guide when to call for a roll. It's hammered home that the GM is supposed to decide if what the players are doing just works, doesn't work at all (jumping to the moon or something), or triggers a move which has some rules and, normally, a roll involved. So if I'm stabbing a sleeping guard, that's not a move. That guard is dead. If I'm attacking a guard with whom i'm engaged in combat, that's probably a hack and slash move.
@@johnathanrhoades7751 I breezed through the book again and I kinda get that a Move is that thing that you do when it's your chance to go. Eye of the Tiger lets a druid see through the eyes of an animal, which makes it like a spell in D&D. Still, having them for everything feels a bit over-whelming. Like you can't do something unless you know the title of the move which presides over it. Hack-N-Slash itself feels like it has too much too it, especially when it comes down to figuring out who you can auto-kill and who you have to fight. But if it works for you it works.
No, Aaron, 5e IS terrible. But that's so obvious as to go without saying. Personally, I often put together sample parties for homebrew adventures that give everyone some motivation for being there and together. But you need players who are willing to embrace that.
Aaron, the concerted effort to be opened minded and make positive, measured, and thoughtful comments on things and not harp on toxic negative vitriol with obvious political leanings like many of your UA-cam peers (some of which you yourself have been a guest on) is the reason I still watch you.
Shucks! Thanks Finnigan! 😁 That's exactly what I go for.
I love the Moves but they are a paradigm shift of both design and approach.
What I love about Moves is how synergistic they are with players role-playing their characters. They showcase the key fundamental of good PbtA, which is 'In order to do something, you have to do it.' IOW, in order to trigger a Move, you have to roleplay your character doing it.
The synergy comes from how every time you roll a Move you get immediate consequences, and the consequences are reinforced by how Moves are structured, which only get rolled when you roleplay the character. Moves showcase Consequences of Action and each gives the GM the boundaries within which they can make their own GM Moves. And because the Players Know the Moves structure they can Trust it. Moves basically structure GM Fiat in such a way that it it both limits and yet gives a lot of freedom within the Moves parameters.
So it's Roleplay - Move - Consequences - Roleplay.
But they are a paradigm shift, and they can confuse people new to them. They present what seems limiting but within those 'limits' is incredible freedom to roleplay.
This is a brilliant comment. “Moves structure GM fiat” is a perfect way of putting it.
The other side of the “to do it do it” coin is that, just as to trigger a move you have to do the thing in the fiction, you also can’t do the thing in the fiction *without* triggering the move. This sometimes leads to unexpected turns of events where the player wasn’t thinking in terms of moves, they were just roleplaying and were immersed in the fiction, and then the GM says “it sounds like you’re [doing move x”. They roll and something cool happens.
I'm reading through Dungeon World currently, and it's got a lot of really good ideas. I like its emphasis on mechanics flowing from the fiction of what the players are doing and its use of success at a cost/interesting failure. I already focus on the first, but will try to implement more of the second in my games.
I had the exact same experience when playing 5th Edition. Every character had a huge backstory, the GM had his own grand overarching campaign prepped, and all of us had to somehow make 6 completely different strangers come together into a cohesive group in the first session, which was a mess.
From the start, I could never shake the feeling that we had nothing in common, nothing to bind us together, really, and even the campaign didn't seem to care much about who we were, which was obviously the case.
I ended up dropping out of the campaign after like 4 or 5 sessions, and the railroad and lack of immersion was the main reason. I believe Dungeon World solves most of these problems by shifting the focus to the fiction and being very flexible about how things fold out. I can't wait to try playing it.
DW is a book every DM/GM needs to read because even if it's never played, it's filled with ideas that can be dropped into every game. I added Bonds (with mechanical weight) to every game.
I haven’t actually read the book, but I’ll give it a shot sometime. I can say that there are some very neat things we did, though!
I agree with this whole-heartedly.
Now that you've played in a few more sessions, and possibly completed a miniature campaign, I'd love to hear your thoughts now that you're more experienced with Dungeon World! Perhaps some specific examples of how the system handled certain situations or created memorable events.
Do the move names take front and center or does the game just flow? The "moves" are just hyper simplified terms that you can call on to better categorize what your goal is. They're just tools to help you understand the game mechanics. Ideally with DW, you want to reach a point where you never even say a move by name. You say what you want to do, the GM will ask you to roll a 2d6, and the outcome will determine what choices the GM gives you, if any are even needed. For example, you never want to say "I want to use the hack and slash move to hit him with my sword." Instead, you just describe how or where you attack with your sword. The GM should know that you're attempting a hack and slash, and will tell you how to resolve the outcome of your roll without ever once mentioning the words "hack and slash."
If you have a GM with intimate knowledge of the game and how to effectively use the moves (aka GM tools), I think DW is one of the best ttrpg experiences anyone could have.
I'll make something on it. :D
Really glad you liked DW. I completely agree about backstory in 5E and the trouble with people making fully developed backstories for their characters in isolation, vs making characters together in DW.
I usually say DW is the game people think D&D is before they play D&D.
Seems to be the case, at least with the desire for interwoven backstories and things like that
Wait that’s not normal? I mean I am in my second ever game for any TTRPG with mates and we are all drafting characters together in D&D 5E. I’m the odd one out actually. My character is to be introduced later on still made it with friends though. and the interest in the party is for its (Myconid) own benefit to reach sigil. So once I accomplish my goal I will make a new character (Also a Myconid.) who’s goal is to fight a battle with the first one and tags along with the party because they are willing to show them to it.
Second character will be a secret and as a surprise after the departure of the first one.
@@platinumsun4632 Just in my experience it’s much more common with modern D&D for players to make their characters in isolation, rather than work together to make a party. Sounds like you have a good group!
@@hideshiseyes2804 Yah they are all my best mates.
This is all really well said and a very accurate series of takes. I strongly agree with everything you said here. The only thing I would really push for is to make sure that it is clear in your head that PbtA is incredibly wide, and Dungeon World is just one of them. The wide range of PbtA games don't all work along the same lines as Dungeon World, some of them function so dramatically differently, it is odd to think of them as too similar.
Yep, I've definitely got that just from the experience of playing DW and reading MotW. Even then, I'm sure the departures only grow larger the more you get away from the genres of "fight bad stuff." Good to hear from you!
Great assessment! I agree with what you said about the moves system, and from my experience it seems like they encourage you to play more heroically, even if an action is ultimately unsuccessful, whereas a lot of other games encourage a much more cautious play style. Mind you, I'm not saying that one is better than the other, but it's kind of a nice change of pace.
Another commenter (@Indigo Dragon I believe) said that the consequences moves (especially in regards to when an action fails) act as a more strictly codified version of GM fiat, which I think can be nice since it gives both players and the judge an idea of what to expect, and like you said, they don't feel nearly as restrictive in practice as they do on paper.
Yeah this is very much it for me. I may be in a minority here but I think GM fiat is an integral part of every RPG. If the mechanics have complete control and you never need to interpret the fiction and make a call about what happens next, that’s a board game, not an RPG. The PbtA approach is to acknowledge this and then give the GM “principles” to guide their decisions, and also to emphasise collaboration and a certain amount of shared narrative authority, to avoid the GM becoming the sort of capricious god figure that ruins games.
I ran two campaigns in Dungeon World it really suited my cinematic DM style. I found it fun, flexible and fast but it certainly was different from OSR certainly.
I liked the way that combat was no different from any other interaction in game so it never breaks up the flow of the adventure. You can even fast forward through combats and even run massive battles with a few dice rolls in a pretty satisfying manner.
5E is not terrible. It is repetitive, easy to break and really hard to create any sense of danger without having a huge gap of levels between enemy and monster...but it is not terrible. People enjoys it when they don't know other games.
I use 5e content in my Dungeon World games. Its like a dream pairing.
I like PbtA games. My next campaign is going to be Monster of the Week. The players I have are excited about it, but weren't interested in Dungeon World.
The Dungeon World campaign setting is a very generic, traditional fantasy world. My players balked at the choices of species, class, etc. No halfling sorcers, elven druids, or anything exotic at all.
Many players who started with DnD 5e have all these expectations about the character they can play, the fantasy they can live out.
Great review. I'd like to hear what you will have to say after your next session.
Thanks Rodrigo!
Looking forward to your take on MCC!
I'm loving reading it and writing campaign prep for it has been awesome so far. Looking forward to getting some experience with it.
I'm glad to hear this! One of my favourite things about 5e/its players/community is the acceptance of DnD as a tool to tell these deeply personal stories. You said, perhaps jokingly, that its because they saw it on Critical Role, but I've seen it even before CR was really a thing. I cant say it's for everyone, but this newer style of play is popular for a reason!
Glad to hear your opinion on this! The D&D I often play is only personal for the characters in that they can craft their own legacies. But it is neat to play a game like this where it can be more about their relationships
You get it. DW is what most 'new generation' CR style gamers are trying to do with the 5e system. "Jared Sinclairs 6e" is a variant of this.
All one needs to do is look at various message boards to see that so many of 5e's D&D-isms already get handwaved that Most would be better served going to a more rules light genre game like DW.
But DW does not have "D&D" on the cover! A BIG strike against it...
They got you !
I was turned off by DungeonWorld / PbtA for the reason some are turned off by 5e. The "community" and some of the games based on it. Its like hearing about how amazing a place is to eat, then you go and its good but not the bestest evar. Good to hear your take on it.
Oh, man. Well, good news is I don't plan on getting involved in any community with it. 🤣
The Dungeon World Discord is a great community and very welcoming for new players. The authors of DW have largely stepped back from their creation for reasons beyond here, but there's some very strong hacks in active development that serve as DW 2e.
@@hermesalexandria thanks for the info!
I’ve played a lot of PbtA. I have Dungeon World but never played it. I worry that PbtA is very easy power game. You get to a point very quickly where a character has to roll 3 or less to fail. Did you experience this?
Nah, that hasn't been my experience so far. 7-9 is a success with a complication, 10-12 is a success without a complication, and 3-6 is an utter failure. With a 2d6, you're more likely to succeed but have complications than anything else, but the complications tend to pile onto each other as we play. We've had one character die and then almost die again immediately after (we had to go through a lot of crap to get them back to life so it's not really death not mattering).
Since the DM doesn't roll, they can't pull punches. Which I have enjoyed. I'm sick of DMs pretending to be impartial but secretly giving you an out all the time.
i tried to talk him out of it
its a gateway game to FATE... sad days ahead...
@@28mmRPG OH MY GOD it is a gateway Game...OH NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.
Next, he will start playing FATE, talking about forge, dying his hair green and talk about his charcters feelings
@@TheOGGMsAdventures As Malal on the Discord server says, "He got Koebel'd".
@@TheOGGMsAdventures Green? Why not flamingo pink, with a sidecut?
@@fioretheeccentric Nooo arraon noooooooo
I've never played Dungeon World but I have read the rulebook. It seems like a fun system and yet I could never wrap my head around why they bothered with this strange system of Moves (and Fronts? I think that's a thing), other than possibly a very anal-retentive way of controlling what people can do.
Now, after watching your video, I have to admit that I still have no idea why they bothered.
Good video though!
Hahaha maybe I do a more in depth look when I've got more experience with it
It comes accross in reading the book that moves are not meant to limit what players can do, but meant to guide when to call for a roll. It's hammered home that the GM is supposed to decide if what the players are doing just works, doesn't work at all (jumping to the moon or something), or triggers a move which has some rules and, normally, a roll involved. So if I'm stabbing a sleeping guard, that's not a move. That guard is dead. If I'm attacking a guard with whom i'm engaged in combat, that's probably a hack and slash move.
@@johnathanrhoades7751 I breezed through the book again and I kinda get that a Move is that thing that you do when it's your chance to go. Eye of the Tiger lets a druid see through the eyes of an animal, which makes it like a spell in D&D. Still, having them for everything feels a bit over-whelming. Like you can't do something unless you know the title of the move which presides over it. Hack-N-Slash itself feels like it has too much too it, especially when it comes down to figuring out who you can auto-kill and who you have to fight. But if it works for you it works.
@@chameleondream Yeah, maybe. I don't really play it, I just think it has some good stuff to offer.
No, Aaron, 5e IS terrible. But that's so obvious as to go without saying.
Personally, I often put together sample parties for homebrew adventures that give everyone some motivation for being there and together. But you need players who are willing to embrace that.
Adam Soyebel