Author: J. Walton

Here’s a quick thing I just wrote up for Dungeon World. There’s a couple of ideas in these moves that could be useful for other hacks, specifically the “stacking” effect of the first move and the “GM+player map together” effect of the second one, which is a different take on Workspace, essentially. It’s easy to imagine collaboratively diagramming some sort of mechanical problem in a tech-oriented game, giving the player the fictional context they need to try to fix it.

Originally shared by J. Walton

Decided to write up a fun new compendium class after work, based on that earlier thread on thieves. The PDF is available here: http://corvidsun.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/pathofghosts-050613.pdf

Another one. This one’s for world-weary Wolverine and James Bond types. (Apologies for continuing to spam you with AW moves; it’s just nice to have some external accountability for making progress on finishing it).

One more from the supplement with Joe Mcdaldno. This has some of my favorite custom moves on it (Lead by example, Confidante, Social engineering, Reciprocity). Also, love that picture!

Another updated mini-playbook from the upcoming AW supplement by me and Joe Mcdaldno. This one’s about a Quarantine out of space and includes a shout-out to the SMM, because of course. (Also lots of classic rock references.)

Posted this on SG, in a discussion about the “theory” behind Apocalypse World, and thought some folks might be interested. The question was explicitly about “when to roll dice,” which is kind of a side issue actually, because there are plenty of moves that don’t involve dice at all.

It’s nothing you haven’t heard before, probably, but it bears repeating. It’s easy to be distracted by the outer layers and miss what’s actually driving play down below. Most of the really successful AW hacks have internalized this at some level:

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The philosophy is: if you’re not making one of the limited number of moves available (all of which have explicit fictional triggers), then you don’t roll for it. But also, the AW system collapses down (in onion layers, as Vincent describes on Anyway) so that if you forget to roll for something, you’re missing out on a part of the game, but it’s no big deal; the game still functions.

The core of AW is a conversation between the various players about what happens (totally functional, by itself). Then the GM’s agendas, principles, say alwayses, and moves are layered on top of that (which creates a totally functional diceless system for play). Then the player’s stats and moves and gear and other stuff are layered on top of that (creating the full system). But there’s always the basic conversation and the diceless core functioning beneath the layer where dice are rolled.

It’s not a big problem if you don’t roll dice when you’re supposed to! The principles and other stuff will carry you through (though you may be missing some aspect of the game). But sometimes it’s a problem to roll dice when you’re not supposed to (i.e. when there’s no fictional trigger), because then the stuff you’re supposed to do afterwards may not make any sense.

P.S. If something doesn’t require a roll or move, then the players decide what happens according to the GM’s agendas, principles, say alwayses, and moves (sometimes the GM just says what happens and goes “what do you do?”; sometimes they ask the players questions; sometimes the players just say stuff that happens; all of these are fine).

Here’s the current version of The Survivor too, so it’s clear what Tim Franzke is talking about. Again with Joe Mcdaldno on art.

Slightly updated version of The Howl of the Storm from the upcoming AW supplement Aftermather by myself and Joe Mcdaldno (that’s his art here). Haven’t gotten a chance to test out these moves in play yet, because I haven’t been in a game with the Solace yet, but pretty excited about them.

Happy Valentine’s Day! Here’s what me and Joe Mcdaldno have been secretly up to. No time table yet, but we’re super-excited about it. He’s illustrated the best of my AW content, and I’m revising it based on actual play. I’m picking Joe’s brain for The Afterborn too. Love to you all!

My plane-hopping multi-cultural mini-supplement for Dungeon World and World of Dungeons is finally available to the general public. On page #33, as a shout-out to this community, it contains a custom move for intercultural communication written in response to a question posted here. Thanks!

http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/110283/Dark-Heart-of-the-Dreamer

Hey, so to trade for some new stuff I made two new playbook supplements for the Driver and the Solace. There’s a third coming for the Gunlugger but it’s not ready yet.

The Survivor is for a Driver that has decided to lay down some roots. The quote for it is: In the end, you either have to hit the breaks or hit the wall. That expresses the concept pretty well. It has moves that allow you to do some car stuff without being in a car, and other moves where you pick bits of the fiction and get cool perks when you demonstrate your commitment to them. I made this one for Ben Wray.

The Howl of the Storm begins When you tell the Solace that you’re one of the Maelstrom’s wolves or it later turns out that you are one… and has a bunch of fun moves for what that means. However, all of the wolf moves can be transformed if the Solace spends advances to give wolf PCs certain corresponding Solace moves. I made this one for Nathan Orlando Wilson.

You can either trade with those folks for them or you can trade with me. This is what I want in return:

I’m running a AW game tonight where the apocalypse is werewolves. Amusingly enough, we decided on this theme before I ever saw the Solace playbook. The idea is that canine influenza (H3N8, a real thing) mutates into something that humans can get, making them hairy and crazy. The saliva of the victims carries a much more potent form of the virus, of course, so getting bitten is a bad thing. The PCs are the survivors, holed up somewhere after civilization totally collapses.

Post below some cool ideas about a world overrun by werewolves to help me out in brainstorming for the game. Then, probably sometime tomorrow, I’ll send everyone links to both playbook supplements.

Thanks in advance!