0:39 - #1 Draw maps, leave blanks 1:39 - #2 Address the characters, not the players 2:17 - #3 Embrace the fantastic 3:27 - #4 Make a move that follows 4:01 - #5 Never speak the name of your move 4:58 - #6 Give every monster life 5:59 - #7 Name every person (NPC) 6:29 - #8 Ask questions, use the answers 8:08 - #9 Be a fan of the characters 8:51 - #10 Think dangerous 9:35 - #11 Begin and end with the fiction 10:26 - #12 Think off screen too
Love Dungeon World. I was introduced to it last year, began a new campaign with the players all building the world with me as we sat around round robin style and each took turns adding some place next to some other place with rumors etc. Was a wonderfully fun session zero. We just played Session 20, and it's the best Fantasy gaming I've ran since 2012 when I ran Kingmaker sandbox style. I've given up on rules heavy games and constant changing of rules like we get with Pathfinder and D&D. Blades in the Dark plays a lot like Dungeon World and is my go to favorite if not doing fantasy RPG; but Dungeon World has now become my go to for fantasy. 2 great examples of the "ask the players, take notes" 1.) During a big annual celebration I asked them what their character would be looking for at such an event. The xenophobic cleric who despises the people of the neighboring country (due to past wars), said he would be looking for upstarts from that land to be trying to cause trouble and spoil the fun. When I asked him what he found, the play told the story of how his character overheard a food vendor with a cart of cabbages was from that neighboring land and the cleric overheard him speaking to two lackeys about setting the "opium tent" (not exactly opium but equivalent thereof) on fire. This led to a huge story arc dubbing the guy "The Cabbage Man" long after they stopped the two ruffians from burning down the tent. The Cabbage Man led them on a long hunt to catch him when they learned he was a necromancer turning the villagers into zombies. Was a great story. What's really cool is that cleric died a few sessions later, and the player created a new cleric - a wizard - who is the brother of the now dead Cabbage Man who was killed by the other heroes. 2.) Just recently (Session 20), they needed to retrieve a stolen relic from a tribe of beastmen (akin to forest bugbear savages). The same player (now a wizard) used telepathy to speak to one of their warriors and wanted to convince him that he was voice of their totemic god. I asked the player what his character knew of their religion and how he knows this. When a max result (two 6's) on his Spout Lore, he knew a lot. The player came up with the name Mourgbork, the lord of rot and decay, and told us all some facts about this religion on the spot - this has now been added to canon for the world. I am now writing a spin-off that the god of the dryad NPC ally of theirs is an enemy of Mourgbork, and that the beastmen were once men, who were cursed by her god of nature because they killed a sacred unicorn and dared to defile, a sacred grove and in honor of their new god after stumbling upon the ancient cult and awakening Mourgbork's presence. This will lead to more plot hooks and adventure ideas as their allied dryad and treant have an enemy on their doorstep. All because of player contributions to the story. That's the "ask questions; take notes" and "Make a map; leave blanks" principles. 2.)
I love Dungeon World and all of the Powered By The Apocalypse games! Thanks for a great breakdown of the GM principles in DW. As you say, they're fantastic principles for any ttrpg.
Thank you for this video. I am relatively new in DMing and I am newer in DW. This video gives me some good hints for my work in this world. My advantage is, that my players are new RPGlers, too. What I learned is, that new players are very, very creative when you give them the possibillity to be. So I am positiv, that this system will work perfectely for us ;) ...I hope :D
One thing I learned from the "#8 ask questions, use the answers" is to ask _leading_ questions. Instead of saying, "at the beginning of the scene, you find yourself at the village inn," turn it into a question... "Why are you at the village inn tonight?" or "What are you looking for at the village inn?" Use the "who, what, where, why, how" constantly... "Who are you worried might be at the village inn tonight?", "Where were you planning to go after your visit to the inn?" All of these questions make it clear that the characters are at the inn, but they also make a space for the characters to fill out the scene themselves and maybe even create their own adventure hooks.
Hey man, i really like your channel, when i first saw the editing and everything made me think that it was a very famous one, very professional, keep it up 👍
@Tabletop Sandbox I am not sure if you covered this one. If you can make a video about how DnD 5e lacks direction and focus in its language for DMing while PBTA has Agenda and Principles coded into each game to support that specific genre, it might help many GMs out there. It you want a suggestion for a spicy take. You could make a video about "If you have to fix a system to run it, it's not worth it". The ridiculous amount of videos 5e gets to "fix" things is astonishing. Darkvision, Perception check. Dungeons Dudes made a whole 30-minute video about perception checks. It's absurd.
Found your Channel. Liked & Subscribed. Point on good stuff to listen too. LotR, Star Wars, Wheel of Time... lets say I dig your stuff - reminds me of my own bookshelves :D + Everything that does keep the motivation up and burn out away is a pointer in the right direction be it GM and Players alike. + I like your Idea to involve Players in creating fluff a lot. It´s splendid. Nice Beard mate. Keep it up!
Human beings may be visual creatures, but hearing is the last sense lost before total loss of consciousness. Therefore, describe sounds first, smells/touch/taste sensations, and finally, visuals.
Huh yeah, so it’s like a crescendo then decrescendo, with visuals being the target climaxed in the middle, and sounds serving as both your first attack/transient and final release/decay…the first and final things you experience, but leading toward sight in the middle
Love it. Would love a video on how you organize your npcs and what you do to remember their characterization when you haven’t visited them in game in a while.
A lot of your points, I also picked up due to a PbtA game, Ironsworn. That , along with Ironsworn: Starforged have both made me a better GM and solo gamer. Loving your content. You remind me of Justin over at The Alexandrian. Keep up the great work.
I find Dungeon World to be a pretty good game. I would love to see more Dungeon World content. Maybe you could review the classes and alternate classes. I have seen a lot of strange ones, and I'm curious if others find them half-baked.
Thanks for the idea! I'll definitely add it to the list of potential videos. I enjoy Dungeon World a lot too, but I haven't delved into the alternate classes at all
I love these ideas, and I love these rules light systems. Complex games are great, but the audience would be much bigger if they were able to get into the hobby thru simpler rules sets. Learn to have fun before you take on a lot of book-keeping. Engage players with the world, not the mechanics. (Except dice. Dice are awesome. Real dice. Not app dice. imho)
I'd like to learn more about Dungeon World. I play Ironsworn so mooves are familiar to me in the way the story triggers them. I've tried to get my 5e players in that mind set of creating the moment into which a move is played to propel action.
What I suggest is to run a one-shot or two between sessions. Dungeon World might feel weird at first (it took our group 2 months to clean up our 5e mentality) but now, no one in my circle plays any game with initiative Order. Some of my players even GM now. In our first session I told them "We are going to take turns because my 5e brain hurts now" after a few sessions I became better at switching between players.
@@dm4life579 the best part is no one sits at my table looking at their phone waiting for their turn to come up - they're all eagerly listening to the action and looking for an opportunity to hop in and make a difference. Fast paced and exhilarating. I hate initiative in PF and D&D waiting for your - especially when you're near double digit levels, rounds take like 25 minutes to go through because each person has so much they can do and calculate, and plot/plan their movement and rules to adjudicate. Then after 25 minutes it's your turn, and you roll a miss or fail your spell, and suddenly that was a complete waste. In Dungeon World (or other PbtA games) something ALWAYS happens when you make a move - it may not be what you intended - but there's no just "you miss". There's always something happening.
For tip #2 I have to partially disagree: Mostly new players tend to feel unconfortable when talking in first person. If it is a matter of "I grab this", "I go there", "I attack that enemy" it is ok, but as soon as they need to describe what the character is feeling or what are their concerns, they usually get blocked and you can feel a certain amount of disconfort. Also, it makes a lot harder for them to make decissions based on what their character would do even if it's a bad decission, instead of what they would do. When the approach is "ok, you are a script writer and you have to decide the actions and feelings of this character" is a lot easier for new players (or some experienced players), than when the approach is "you are this character, so what do you do?".
The answer to this pitfall is "know thyself". We are comfortable answering what WE would do in a given situation because we (hopefully) know ourselves pretty darn well. Whereas for inexperienced players (and even experienced ones with a new character); may not quite know their character yet. One way I've learned to help get around this is for the GM to ask player who they (their character) feels or thinks about something; some stimuli that just occurred. The agency for the player to consider "what their character is thinking or feeling about it" will help them get inside the psyche of the character - and in short order will eventually at an instant know what they would do in a given scenario because they've explored their inner thinking and psychology of the character. Example: Early on in my dungeon world game, the characters were in a mine - being pursued by corrupt law agents. The cleric "animated" the corpse of the orc they fought and killed to use it to chop down the stabilizing beam; the rigged it all to fall eventually, the heroes left, and about an hour later, the zombie finally cut through the last beam and the area in the mine collapsed sealing the tunnel and preventing (or at least complicating further pursuit of them). When the heroes rested that evening, I posed to the three other characters "as you reflect back on your day, you remember seeing your cleric friend delve into necromantic arts to raise a zombie out of the corpse of the foe you had just slain....how do you feel about the cleric using that kind of magic". Each player gave a thoughtful response from their character's perspective. This gave some insight to everyone about how each player thinks about that hot-topic. This is just one example of many. I am constantly asking a player (character) or challenging them on some grey area moral or ethic - how do you feel about this? What are your thoughts on this? A person who is starving that stole food and now being punished by the authorities. What does the character feel about this. The more Q&A like this that unfolds, the better a player and GM understand that character, and this leads to very good roleplaying and immediate understanding of what their character would do in the face of certain stimuli because the player now knows themself.
