Hello rpol! I can't remember the last time I was on the site, let alone played or DMed a game. Anyway, I'm proposing to start a Dungeon World game with a few stipulations.

1)I've been DMing homemade campaigns for an extremely long time. I probably began to really take off as a DM when I was in college, which was from 2001-2005. I've DMed dnd3.5, dnd4e, and most recently Pathfinder. For this game I want to use Dungeon World because it's simply an easier rules system designed for rping and storytelling... Not combat encounters that take 3 hours to complete.

2) Here's the catch... I've never played nor DMed DW. My experience 'behind the screen' should help the learning curve easier than my continued efforts to pick it up all by myself. I'd be stoked if you're a DW DM who wants to play and offer to give me a hand if/when I need it!

3)Two weeks ago I had a pretty major surgery. My recovery is going fine... Which consists primarily of bedrest, 5-minute walks, and meds. Since I can be on bedrest for up to 10 weeks, I still might have 8 weeks to go.

4) Maybe this game could make the jump to playing remotely with video with Discord or whatever other methods there are (which I can't say I know of since I've never done that before). Pbp is much better now bc I'll be looking pretty 'hospital-ey' even though I'm at home recovering.

5) In other words, I'm completely bored. I've basically watched my entire Netflix and Hulu queue and am desperate for human contact! Even if it's pbp!

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So with that bit of info out of the way, here's the gist of the game I've been trying to write while on recovery as well. Bc I'm nowhere near full strength or brain-smart-making, it might be a little cliché, but it should be fun anyway!

Game takes place initially in Sigil, the City of Doors. In this game, Sigil is at the center of the multiverse. Your characters and my NPC-player will all be from different campaign worlds which we'll either decide randomly or during character development.

In case you're unaware, DW characters are developed together while starting the game. It's okay to have an idea, but a lot of your character will be made with the others so everyone already has connections to one another and already have individual and group backstories when we actually begin. DW characters use what are called Playbooks as their sheets. The typical number-crunching crum-nunching doesn't really happen. You can be a race and a class, just a class with racial flavors, just a race, and a myriad of other options.

Anyway, each character is from a completely different campaign world. I would like to stick with the stereotypical 'fantasy' campaign settings like Eberron, Golarion, Dark Sun, Forgotten Realms, and so on. There are so many freely available Playbooks in addition to the standard DW ones, you'll have a plethora of options! ... Unless it's completely OP, I'll probably be incline to let any cool, brief, character idea into the game initially.

These characters work together at an agency (for lack of a better word) who monitor the historical tapestries of every multiverse. Sometimes parts of these tapestries fray, and alternate histories spring up as anomalies. Your job is to use Sigil's doorways to travel into a multiverse with knowledge of how the tapestry is suposted to look. Once inside, it's up to you to either put things right or decide that the alternate history being woven is a better version of what should have happened and ensure that this history is preserved instead of the previous one.

(I kind of got the idea after trying to wrap my head around all the changes that happen in comicbook all the time. It drives me crazy when comics decide to reboot and change things. It makes trying to understand what the hell is going on extremely difficult, right?!)

I think that's probably a good gist of what I'm looking for in the game idea. I'm happy to talk it over before we begin! Please ask me any questions you have, give me any input you'd like, and generally tell me if you think this is the sort of pbp DW game you'd like to take part in.

Thanks very much!

I'd be interested in this.

The character background creation aspect of Dungeon World sounds like a good fit to your game, but you might find a better fit to the setting by using D&D 5e which links automatically to all your listed campaign worlds, and lacks the problematic complexity of previous editions.

In any case some mix between Sigil and Chronomancers sounds like what you are trying to create, if you haven't run into them before the AD&D 2nd edition book for them has the better flavor text and is easy to find in PDF format.

In the end it probably doesn't matter what system mechanics you use, just that they are easy to access for your players and something you can use to support your story.

Color me interested.

Or Aqua.

Are you two related, aguy777 & CrazyIvan777? Or is it a 777 coincidence?

Thanks for that input, Hendell. I hadn't heard of Chronomancer before, and it's kind of cool that you pointed it out. My very first TTRPG was adnd2e way back in middle school 25 years ago. Thanks for that tip!

I agree that dnd5e would probably be the best option for this game based on what I wrote above. I soured on WOTC after they abruptly abandoned ship on 4e only to begin 5e immediately afterward. And while I agree that it might be best, I have neither the time, re$ources, nor interest in learning another dnd edition. If I wanted this to be a more 'rules-heavy' game, I would absolutely use Pathfinder. PF is my favorite TTRPG after all. I don't want the game to take forever to complete objectives, especially combat/magic encounters. No, my heart's pretty set on using this to learn how to play DW well enough to host real-life DW TTRPG games after I've recovered form my major operation.

Let me also say that I wouldn't limit the campaign worlds to be paizo or wotc. The characters could me from Midgard or any other high-fantasy setting. Hell, even the Final Fantasy and other video game rpg worlds could also probably work. So in that regard DW seems like a better fit than dnd or PF, at least to me!

After writing all that, I'm considering posting another one of these for the same type of game using PF if there's a way to speed things up. My real-life group are primarily PF players and given the choice I think they'd rather play PF than try to learn DW. (Naturally, after I've healed up, I'll still get to use the 'I just had surgery so we're playing DW bc I'm brittle' card).

I'm still not going to start this game til I have a little more feedback. If this doesn't generate enough interest for a party of 4-6 then I'll probably rethink the idea and go with a PF version as mentioned above.

Thanks guys!

The 777 is totally a coincidence, but I occasionally confuse CrazyIvan's posts for mine in some threads when I'm not paying close enough attention (my mind just sees the three 7's, and assumes it must be me).

I'm very familiar with D&D 5e, so I'd still be interested if we went that route, but I have no knowledge or interest in Pathfinder. DW would likely be the best system for this, in my opinion.

One other pretty cool aspect of Dungeon World is that there's a ton of freely available fan-made balanced Playbooks out there. Try searching Google for terms like...
Warforged dungeon world
Dark sun dungeon world
Free dungeon world playbook
Etc


Someone even has compiled several dozen (hundred? thousand? 13.8 billion?) free, pay, donate, and pay-what-you-want playbooks and their links onto their github site here
https://exposit.github.io/dw-playbooks/

I'd be interested as well. I've been meaning to get into PbtA games and DW seems like one of the more straightforward ones.

Since you are asking for feedback, I'll toss a couple points your way.  I don't plan on playing in the game, but I have experience running Dungeon World.

1. 4 PCs is a large party for Dungeon World.  For a face to face group, 6 PCs is really large and difficult to manage in terms of giving everyone the level of screen time DW assumes.  The game really shines at the 3-4 player size.

2. I'd be leery of running a GM-PC in Dungeon World.  Aside from the all of the traditional dangers that come from GM PCs, Dungeon World is extraordinarily party-facing.  The game has the GM describe a situation (narrowly or broadly defined) and asks the players what they do.  How does your GM PC fit into that dynamic?  Do you ask yourself what you do?  I'm assuming you intend for this character to be more than a standard NPC.  And, to circle back to the traditional dangers of GM PCs, I think it is particularly dangerous in Dungeon World.  One of you principles is to be a fan of the characters.  Being a fan of your GM NPC creates all sorts of risks of shifting the focus to the GM PC and favoring the GM PC whether intentional or otherwise.  I really think you are much, much better off focusing the game on the PCs and leaving GM PCs for a different game.

I'd be interested as well.

Since you're asking for feedback, one thing that most new DMs to Dungeon World seem to forget is that you don't run DW with pre-written plots in mind. That's not how the game works. "Play to find out what happens." They mean that bit literally. If you've got rails in mind, the game will fight you every step of the way.

The best advice is to check out the Dungeon World Guide, it's a fan-made guide on how to bring D&D and more traditional gamers into Dungeon World. It's freely available over here: https://dungeon-world.com/downloads/

I've played and run Dungeon World (and Apocalypse Engine games) quite a bit. I'm glad to give advice or pointers, but I'd rather play than co-GM.
This message was last edited by the user at 17:07, Tue 07 May 2019.

Hey there. Sorry for not replying for a little while. As I said, I'm still recovering from surgery.

Anyway, it definitely feels like I have enough interest and feedback to start this game, which is awesome! I'm going to get to work setting it up and I'll post a link as soon as I've much of the various rpol 'first-things-first' stuff out of the way!

Okay, so I've got a little bit of the game forum set up! I expect I'll have it in working order for us to start with the DW character creation roundtable soon! Thanks for your patience!

Here's what I've got so far, so if anybody wants to, please feel free to ask to join the game and I'll add you!

link to another game
This message was last edited by the user at 08:30, Tue 04 June 2019.