It is probable that I shall soon have to run Dungeon World for the first time, having read it through once and…

It is probable that I shall soon have to run Dungeon World for the first time, having read it through once and…

It is probable that I shall soon have to run Dungeon World for the first time, having read it through once and played it once. Obvs, I’m going to read it again.

Anyway, this may be a stupid question that I could perfectly well get from the book, but – do you actually have dungeon maps in dungeon world? I mean, do you plan out the detail of places the players might go, and stuff they might encounter, like you would with D&D? Or do you just sort of come up with a bunch of things they might come up against and then throw them in as needed, making up the detailed geography as you go, like you would (well, like I would) in Apocalypse World?

Anything else I should know about prepping and running DW?

12 thoughts on “It is probable that I shall soon have to run Dungeon World for the first time, having read it through once and…”

  1. I have run DW successfully both with mapped OSR dungeons and with vague “this section of the dungeon is goblin tribes, this section is abandoned dwarf mine, this is where the spider-thing lives” notes.

  2. I don’t use any kind of map (although you definitely can). I just use bullet points for things the players may encounter arranged by how “deep” they are in the dungeon. You can Change the Environment anytime you get a chance to make a move, and the time I MOST often forget about is “When the players look to you to see what happens”, so you can change to “deeper in the dungeon” anytime you need to.

    Entry:

    Bandit hideout

    Disarmed traps

    Early:

    Spiderwebs

    Goblins (or whatever)

    Sprung traps, with or without corpses

    Mid:

    Spiderwebs

    Spiders

    Desiccated bodies

    Sprung (maybe with bandit corpses) and unsprung traps

    Ghost (trying to warn about something deeper)

    Deep:

    Thicker Spider Webs

    Unsprung traps

    Spiders

    Giant Spider

    Dark Fountain

    This just helps me prevent “suddenly orcs appear” because I know what’s going on a little deeper in the dungeon, and helps me Point to looming threats, etc. I typically try to get this all of my bullet points onto a single notecard.

  3. I second Michael Sands, and fall back on any method you like from other games. If there’s ever a new edition, I’d like to see running encounters and mapping them more firmly brought into the fronts rules. Feels like there is a missing chapter on building dungeons.

  4. Have you read the Labyrinth move that Jason did? It’s real good for improvising dungeons. Other than that, I’d say run it exactly as the GM section says in the book. It’s pretty airtight.

  5. I tended to make general maps for the most likely encounters in a session. But not 80s style fully keyed maps. also would outline a few interesting potential encounters (I bought a set of monster cards and I’d go through the deck the day before the session and pull a dozen themed creatures out of it. plus my copy of the old MERP magic item book and grab a few interesting items that might show up.

  6. I do what Brian Holland said, sometimes with little random tables. My primary concerns are logic and narrative arc, not cartographical precision (this is true not only when I run PbtA but also many other games, and if you think about it it’s the way dungeons work in TV shows and movies – you never leave the theater with a complete map in your head, because you don’t need one). Basically: It dangers when it’s danger time.

  7. Joshua Fox it’s not a stupid question and you really won’t find any answer to it in the book. There’s almost nothing about prepping locations, other than a little sideways instruction about dropping the “room key” when you convert a non DW module.

    Personally: I like a map, something like a Dyson Logos map or a Monkeyblood Design map. Something evocative and good and empty. I really like and appreciate the creative constraint a map provides, and the sense that this really is a place and not just something we made up on the fly.

    What I don’t generally want or need is a room key. At most, I want a 1-5 word description of what I think might be there, or what the room might have originally contained or been used for. Like: “old mine entrance, orc guards” or “barracks, abandoned, dusty”.

    Even that, I’d probably save for prepping between session 1 and 2. For session 1, I grab a blank map with an evocative name and sketch out some questions. I always try to include the following:

    – what are you hoping/looking to find here?

    – what dangers do you expect to find here?

    – why can’t you dawdle or take you time?

    And maybe do a retroactive Perilous Journey roll tand questions to see how well provisioned they are, what sorts of thr they encountered, how much time they have left, etc.

  8. I’m going to echo a few other people here: I like having an unkeyed map handy to help spark ideas. I’m not that great at coming up with stuff on the fly, and having a premade map (either made by myself or someone else), helps me keep things moving. However, I’ve found out that sticking too slavishly to the map hampers creativity.

    So, in a nutshell, I use maps but only as rough guidelines.

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