Thoughts on the Dungeon World Basic Game

Before you do anything else, I want you to go read DM Samuel’s post about Apocalypse World, located here. Done? Okay. The reason I do that is because Dungeon World is what happens when D&D and Apocalypse World get together and spawn a new game. The game really has an old school D&D sensibility to it and it’s clearly meant to emulate and produce an old school experience in some ways, but not before being run through the filter of a modern narrative-focused indie game.  If you have Apocalypse World, you can just download the hack for that and get right to playing, however, and it actually has more classes and levels available than the Basic Game that I’m about to discuss. It’s also possible to get PDFs of the rules if you play Dungeon World, write about it, and then email the creators either with your thoughts or a link to your public post. What I have and am going to talk about is the short print run Red Book that was released at GenCon and will make another appearance at PAX Prime. It may not cover quite everything that’s available in the pdfs, but I personally like it better than having to learn a game and run it off of print-outs.

The basics of the game are rooted firmly in Apocalypse World. Every playbook has their own unique Moves and there are a further number of general Moves that everybody can use in the correct circumstance. The core mechanic is the same. Roll 2d6, add your appropriate attribute modifier and add them up. 6 or below is a complete failure, 7-9 is a success with complications, and 10+ is a complete success. There are 6 attributes in Dungeon World, the same as Apocalypse World, but this group is six is the D&D classic list: Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Wisdom, Intelligence, and Charisma. They are even given D&D-style ratings, ranging from 3 to 18, which corresponds to a certain value (positive or negative) to add to each roll. 9-11 is a +0 and represents the baseline.

Each class is presented as an AW style playbook, which is a decision that works extremely well. Currently in the Basic Game, there are only 4 classes: Cleric, Thief, Fighter, and Wizard. The classes do a pretty good job of feeling how they would in a classic D&D game. The Fighter is tough and relies on his weapons, the Wizard is extremely squishy but has a lot of power at his or her commend, etc. Character “creation” is extremely simple and can be done in literally less than 10 minutes. Probably less than 5, quite honestly. You choose your name from a list (or make one up), then choose your look from the options presented (or, again, make one up). Then you assign stats. You’re given a standard array to assign, but the game also gives you the option of doing old-school roll 3d6 methods if you’d like, after which you figure out the modifier that your stats give you. From there you get your HP, which is determined by your class and has your CON modifier added. Some classes choose some of their Moves at this point, but not all classes do. You get to choose Alignment, which basically gives you some extra ways to earn XP. Equipment is next on the list. It’s a pretty basic list (though it does include the infamous glaive-guisarme), but that’s partly because it has an abstraction I really like. Instead of having comprehensive lists of things like 10-foot poles, ropes, lanterns, bags, oil, and whatnot, you just have “Adventuring Gear” and it has a certain number of uses. Whenever you need a piece of adventuring equipment, you just mark off a use and produce the needed item as though you had it all along. Finally you introduce your character and figure out their Bonds with people, which helps get your characters connected and helps you know how much you can help (or hinder) the other players in the course of the game. Gaining XP equal to 10 times your current level (so 10 for level 1, 20 for level 2), gets you another level where you generally get stronger and learn more moves. The Basic Game only covers the first 5 levels of gameplay.

From the GM side of things, Dungeon World still works like Apocalypse World. You still design Fronts more or less the same way, just with some different terminologies (Grim Portents instead of Countdowns, Impending Doom instead of Dark Future, etc) and they’re also used pretty much the same way. The mandate to not tell a planned story exists here as well. Let the players and their actions dictate what story comes out. Adventures or dungeons are at most “planned” by writing out individual locations with monsters, NPCs, treasure, traps, and other situations.

The Dungeon World Basic Game comes with an adventure called the Bloodstone Idol, which I think is an excellent resource for GMs even if they never run the thing. Because it gives you an idea how Dungeon World really works from the GM’s side. How to organize an adventure, what Fronts look like, a decent number of starting monsters, what individual locations might be, and so on. I have plans to run Bloodstone Idol for some people online and, if I can, I’ll record it as an Actual Play podcast which I will then share here. Because sometimes hearing people actually play a game is far better for understanding than just reading about it.

So, the question you’re asking yourself very well might be “Why play Dungeon World instead of just old school D&D, or even one of the OSR variants?” and for me the answer is pretty simple. From a players side, Dungeon World is extremely easy to pick up and play. You can have a character done in just minutes and the rules are not at all difficult to learn. The focus is on the character and the story and you don’t have to deal with clumsy mechanics or extensive rules to remember. From the GM side, it’s much the same story. Most monsters are just a line or two of stats and maybe a few extra special moves or descriptors which makes using them or creating new ones very easy. Fronts and location-oriented adventure building can be done fairly easily and quickly and should run much more smoothly and quickly than your typical D&D adventure might. I admit, I’m not sure that Dungeon World would be my choice for an epic campaign meant to be played for years, but how many campaigns manage that anyway? This is a game you can pull out on short notice, get playing quickly, and have last for a good number of sessions. That’s a valuable commodity considering the investment in time that many other games require just to get started playing.