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Worlds In Peril Conditions Hack

Worlds in Peril Conditions were very awkward for me. I found it difficult to try to come up with unique tags for every bit of damage that fit into the Minor, Moderate, and Critical categories. I didn’t like that the severity of the condition applied to PCs was solely determined by my (as a GM/ EIC) interpretation of the fiction. Most of all PC’s had to spend choices from their roll with the Take Down move to increase the severity of the conditions, but, other than my narration, there was no difference in a Minor and Critical Condition effects on a villian. It seemed awkward and didn’t really add to the fiction of our game.

But I always liked the Cortex Plus Marvel games stress tracks so here is my first stab at adding them to Worlds in Peril as well my attempt at modding the moves to cover the change.

I’m pretty new to writing PbtA moves, so feedback is definitely welcome.

Another Long post about Hacking Worlds in Peril

Worlds in Peril Bonds / Plot Points

In general, I love the idea of relating “success guaranteeing” bennies to superhero relationships. Interpersonal drama is a big part of superhero stories and often are absent from ttrpgs. Since bennies are perfect for supers games, I think it’s a great idea for the PCs to earn them by creating drama.

In practice, however, some of my players didn’t like them. Use in our game usually went something like this:

Spider Man really wants to knock Doc Oc out by swinging into his face, feet first. So he burns a bond with Aunt May and gets to step up his result. (PbtA: -6 to a 7-9, or 7-9 to a 10+). He nails Doc Oc and super powered action ensues. The EIC (GM) makes a note to introduce some drama with Aunt May at a later time.

The player asks, “What the hell does kicking Doc Oc have to do with Peter Parker’s relationship with Aunt May?”

I (the EIC/GM) say, “Nothing really, fictionally speaking. But (insert something like the first paragraph above.)

So I thought about it and here is the first draft of what I came up with.

New PC’s start the game with a free Plot Point (the new name for bennies stolen from MHR). You can no longer just burn a bond, get a success, and then figure out the fiction later. However, you do have to trade some drama for triumph. Now you earn Plot Points when you trigger the “Burn a Bond” move.

Burn a Bond

Being a superhero is tough on relationships. It seems like the better you are at being a hero, the more drama you have in your life.

When a scene involves straining a bond relationship, roll +bond

10+ burn 1 bond and get 2 plot points “that went better than expected”

7-9 burn 1 bond and get 1 plot point

-6 burn 2 bond and get 1 plot point. EIC will tell you how it’s turned out worse than you expected.

My hopes for this change is that PC’s would proactively think about their relationships and narrate or frame scenes to earn Plot Points and add to the narrative. Also, the move could be triggered organically as the story progresses. If something happens fictionally to strain a bond as a result of a scene the move would also be triggered. In addition, if the EIC saw that a PC was low on plot points he could also use the GM move “Threaten a Bond” to trigger the “Burn a Bond” move to introduce some dramatic spotlight and plot point bennies to that PC.

If you made it this far, what do you think?

I think some people around here would like to contribute

Originally shared by Lonnie Spangler

Worlds in Peril thoughts?

I really enjoyed running Worlds in Peril and found a lot that I preferred to Marvel Heroic (my previous “go to” supers game). However, there were some things that I felt weren’t quite fully baked.

I have been thinking of trying my hand at hacking it.

If you are a supers fan and have played WiP, what were some things about the system you think could be improved?

Initial reaction after my first partial read of “Worlds in Peril” and skim of the rest:

Solid mechanics, great artwork, and many explanations. In fact, the mechanics are better than i assumed based on YouTube videos of gameplay, as I think they got one or two rules wrong. Bravo on the artwork, game and generosity of explaining PbtA principles!

The weaknesses appear to mainly be the organization of the text, and a needless reliance on a complex vocabulary.

I work as a newspaper journalist, and the vocabulary makes me cringe because it is clearly outside of the range of an average reader. I think that unnecessarily limits the potential audience of the game, which is a shame. For the widest readership, your safest bet is to aim mostly for a 6th-7th grade vocabulary with a minority of more complex words and concepts.

A good rule of thumb that writers for older children use is to minimize the use of words longer than two syllables. You don’t have to outlaw such words in your writing, but make them exceptions. That limitation forces one to downshift one’s word choice.

You may also want to avoid abstract concepts such as “agency” and such in explaining game rules. Or better yet, use simpler terms to express the same idea. Rather than “agency,” you can talk about when player’s actions still matter in the story.

The game’s authors are intelligent adults. Don’t require game players to be so. Some are but not all.

Overall verdict: Good game 🙂

Okay, the general backstory and the system in this is specifically geared toward Fate Core since that’s the…

Originally shared by Thrythlind aka Luke Green

Okay, the general backstory and the system in this is specifically geared toward Fate Core since that’s the community that was asking for more information. But I figured I could link it here and get y’all’s thoughts on how to run this mythology in MotW. Will likely cross post to Urban Shadows as well. Maybe Masks and Worlds of Peril. Superhero, Urban Fantasy and Modern Horror have a lot of crossover these days.

http://thrythlind.blogspot.jp/2016/03/living-spells.html

Hi

Hi,

Love WiP! I start my game next week, and I already have a plan for my group’s first nemesis. However, I do have a question about the EiC sheet. At the top, there’s a section marked ‘Organisations’, with four lines headed ‘Instinct’ underneath. Am I missing something? I didn’t see reference to this anywhere in the rules. I assumed it was meant to represent organisations not directly linked to the villain’s plot (the police, city hall, etc), but a little clarification would be great. Also, do Heavy Hitters & masterminds get their own sheets? There doesn’t seem to be room for them on the EiC sheet. Thanks for your time. I love this game! 🙂

If I’ve made a mob that is huge, and has taken over a library or stadium or something, with a factor of five or ten,…

If I’ve made a mob that is huge, and has taken over a library or stadium or something, with a factor of five or ten, and my players move in sneaky like, and take out just two out three guards on the perimeter of that mob, can they choose “Reduce the Size of the Mob by 1?” How many are reduced, then? Is it equal to their Factor or just the two they positioned to take out? Do they have to, like, sneak attack 8 more before they can choose that option with the move?

Basically, what do I do if the players fictionally position themselves to be up against less than the Mob’s Factor, and want to reduce the Mob with Take Down?

So, I’ve been tinkering with a Star Wars hack of WiP to take over for FFGs Star Wars RPG, given that I don’t always…

So, I’ve been tinkering with a Star Wars hack of WiP to take over for FFGs Star Wars RPG, given that I don’t always have the time lately to deal with all the stats and balancing that comes along with a crunchier system. And I figured I would put the very early ideas out there and get some feedback!

This Hack changes the stats, as well as alters the Power Profile a bit. It does away (at least in this version of the idea) with Drive Books and replaces Achievements with Destiny, which are a cross between Bonds and Achievements, as well as a reward for rolling 6-, ala Dungeon World.

Overall its still pretty basic and early, but I’d be interested in getting some feedback. Its currently based off the results of running a single session of Star Wars in more or less vanilla WiP, which actually worked really well, but definitely revealed a few things to tweak (such as changing the idea of “Difficulty” for the Power Profile to the idea of “Risk”, as asking how difficult it was for certain things sometimes drew a confused look, but once I switched to framing it in terms of risk of things going wrong, everyone was much more comfortable with their Pushes.

Anyway, yes, enough rambling. Any feedback is greatly appreciated. 🙂

As threatened, here’s a draft of the first 8 pages of the Parallel Worlds supplement from the WIP Kickstarter.

As threatened, here’s a draft of the first 8 pages of the Parallel Worlds supplement from the WIP Kickstarter. Feedback and suggestions are welcome, though there’s a lot that will be covered in later sections.

https://corvidsun.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/parallelworlds-p01-08-20150820.pdf

Hey Imperilers!

Hey Imperilers! After numerous life delays, I’m finally getting around to wrapping up my commitment to the WiP Kickstarter. Apologies to all the backers for falling behind. Here’s a draft of the new cover (and tweaked title). Kyle Simons suggested that I consider running some of the content of the supplement by the folks in this community, since you’re the prime audience for it, so I may try to do that over the next few weeks.

As a reminder, here’s what this project is about:

On an alien planet, in a magical land, in a zombie apocalypse, in an alternate reality, in a far-future dystopia, or if supervillains take over… the world’s heroes still rise. How are they different and what do they fight for, across a series of worlds gone mad?

PARALLEL WORLDS is a mini-supplement for Worlds in Peril that provides guidelines for playing superheroes in a variety of alternative settings beyond urban heroics. It also provides a streamlined ruleset for use in pick-up games and one-shot adventures.

These two portions can be used together, but the guide to alternate superhero settings is also meant to be used alongside the full, standard rules for Worlds in Peril, particularly in an ongoing campaign.