I’m thinking of writing my own AW Playbooks for a fantasy setting, including character creation choices for ‘why you adventure’ tied to Hx and the place they come from. I was thinking off trying it with some DnD adventures.
1) Is there advice around on writing your own AW Playbooks?
2) Has anyone taken AW and tried to run a DnD module with it (with fantasy playbooks)?
Basically, I like DW but I love AW more.
Um…you mean like Dungeon World? Or World of Dungeons?
Richard Smithson You might want to check out AW: Fallen Empires. It’s basically AW (I agree with you, not a fan of DW, but love AW) re-skinned for fantasy.
apocalypse-world.com – apocalypse-world.com/AW2ndEdFallenEmpiresPreview.pdf
Tom Harrison DW = Dungeon World
Richard Smithson I ran a campaign of Fallen Empires using those playbooks and some custom moves stolen from all the Dark Age playtest stuff (if you can still find it — if not ping me and I can try and dig up the old files). Turned out to be a great game if you are into Dark Ages Fantasy. Might not work as well for high fantasy.
I’ll aim to answer 1, as the above have answered 2!
“Is there advice around on writing your own AW Playbooks? “
Make your playbooks broadly applicable. By this I mean that for any given setting, you probably only need 10 playbooks, possibly only 8. Remember that D&D started with 6, and still has only 12 main classes. Leave room for your players to tweak it.
Make lists to direct the flavor of your game and of each book. Too much open-ended choice can bog your players down, so leave it open where you really want it open, and tighten up where you can. An example: the names lists in AW have a purpose, and each set is designed with that playbook in mind. Vonk the Sculptor is where they are for a reason.
Make books you are curious to see but not too attached to being any certain way. If you really really want to have people play that Whatever in a way you envision in high detail, probably you should play them as an NPC instead.
Meguey Baker woah thanks! Advice from the writer is most appreciated! Michael Pfaff cheers mate, good to know it can be done!
You did not specify what kind of fantasy you are interested into, but there are other complete PbtA alternatives too:
Ironsworn
ironswornrpg.com – Ironsworn – Tabletop RPG
City of Judas
http://www.daimongames.com/judas.html
Fellowship
http://www.drivethrurpg.com/m/product/177662