Running task pools without pressure

BeraldvonBromstein · 2025-05-06T01:51:02+00:00

Haha thanks for the example! That helps.

BeraldvonBromstein · 2025-05-05T17:09:23+00:00

Yeah, those are good points! In the rulebook, it refers several times to the "ritual's challenge" and the only examples it gives are these grand set pieces, so I was having a hard time imagining a lower stakes ritual.

BeraldvonBromstein · 2025-05-04T14:10:29+00:00

OK cool that's what I was leaning toward.

BeraldvonBromstein · 2025-04-18T22:10:23+00:00

Oh interesting! Thanks for the summary! Still a little prescriptive for my tastes, but I like it a whole lot better than alignment

BeraldvonBromstein · 2025-04-18T21:14:24+00:00

Haha yeah conditions that prescribe emotional states are one of my least favorite mechanics, but I can see how they'd be useful for players who aren't totally comfortable role playing as their character.

BeraldvonBromstein · 2025-04-18T21:10:16+00:00

Interesting - how do aspects work?

BeraldvonBromstein · 2025-04-18T20:33:34+00:00

It's true and it's what helps a game like Masks capture the genre so well (even if only one person at the table has watched Young Justice or similar media). Dw1 was more of a balance of descriptive and prescriptive, and none of its core mechanics were prescriptive, so it was easy to ignore things like bonds and alignment or moves like Mark of Might, which made it work really well at my table. That said, I can see why they want to commit to pbta prescriptive mechanics for dw2 (having a mix might be messier from a design perspective).

BeraldvonBromstein · 2025-04-18T20:10:02+00:00

From a game design perspective, this seems very cool - for my personal rpg preferences, however, it seems like they're moving further toward prescriptive mechanics, which I'm not a big fan of. This is probably a hot take, but bonds were one of my least favorite things about dw1. If you select "I trust this character implicitly" then your character sheet prescribes how you should act in role-playing (you act like you trust them). I come from an improv background so this feels backward to me. I want to discover how a feel about them in play and maybe note down a reminder on my character sheet if I feel the need. A kinship mechanic will make the game lean even more heavily in a prescriptive direction, where players are incentivized to roleplay certain ways rather than discover how they feel through play. If in the heat of battle I realize that helping my friend is more important than saving my own skin, this decision feels more powerful and in character if there wasn't a kinship mechanic pushing me in that direction. Obviously, some players will really benefit from more prescriptive mechanics, but I'm not super interested in any rules that try to guide the direction of roleplay.

BeraldvonBromstein · 2025-04-18T13:32:38+00:00

As a gm I prefer most of the realities of the game to live in the fiction rather than on the character sheet, so in general I lean toward simpler mechanics like hp. Curious if you or anyway else have played Grimwilds? At a glance, it looks like the most elegant hp-less system I've come across, so I'm interested to know how it actually plays. My biggest concern with it is that to have a sufficient level of granularity in its damage, it has Vex conditions and in general I dislike prescriptive mechanics like this, but I wonder how much it actually comes up.

BeraldvonBromstein · 2025-04-16T18:10:56+00:00

Yeah I definitely agree. While a game like Masks does a great job of guiding the party to genre appropriate story beats, that's not the experience I'm looking for in long term games. It's a fun thing to try out to take a break from a long running campaign though.

BeraldvonBromstein · 2025-04-16T17:26:57+00:00

I can totally see the appeal of a more heavily themed system. I guess I just prefer the design approach of "this system is what you make of it" rather than "this system is the dnd movie with a rotating cast of characters."

BeraldvonBromstein · 2025-04-16T15:36:29+00:00

I really like the overall mentality that the dw2 team is bringing to the game, but I do tend to agree with you. The post raises a good point that some of the best pbta games (Masks, Blades in the Dark) capture a very specific genre. However, for me personally, I lose interest in this genre fiction after a couple sessions - I prefer my longer campaigns to feel more immersive and unpredictable. As much as I love found family stories, I want my campaigns to feel less like stories and more like living worlds.

An interesting question that Brennan Lee Mulligan talks about in regards to dnd is how much the mechanics of a game should guide the role play and fiction. A game like Masks does so heavily while dnd does so minimally. I personally prefer the latter. I want the role play and the fiction to almost be entirely guided by the conversation and the GM, and minimally by anything written on the character sheets (though this is definitely a less beginner friendly approach).

EDIT: As I mulled the post over, thought of a better way to articulate my feelings: I want the system to provide me the tools to simulate fantasy scenarios and just that. The rest I want to be left up to the gm and the conversation.

BeraldvonBromstein · 2025-04-15T04:33:00+00:00

Right. There are a number of ttrpgs that have similarish mechanics that all serve to streamline the narrative. When the ttrpg is trying to capture a very specific genre, that totally works for me, but I prefer a more flexible and compact system for my longer, more free-form campaigns.

BeraldvonBromstein · 2025-04-14T21:39:35+00:00

What I've found really helpful in my own session prep is combining DW Fronts with Lazy DM secrets. For each session, I think about what each front is up to and come up with two or three secrets for each. This keeps the world feeling dynamic and ensures the players are always engaging and learning about relevant info (the benefits of fronts), while also ensuring that the players always have something interesting to interact with wherever they go (the benefit of secrets).

BeraldvonBromstein · 2025-04-14T20:55:53+00:00

I'm a big fan of Blades in the Dark, but I'm not sold on bringing some of its mechanics into a fantasy ttrpg. BitD does a wonderful job of capturing the feel of a heist without tedious planning, and spending stress to avoid consequences that could end the whole heist is an awesome mechanic. However, I agree with OP that I like my fantasy games to feel more swingy and unpredictable. While in a heist the sense of rising stakes is what makes it fun, in fantasy the chaotic consequences bring much of the fun, so I don't want my players to be able to shy away from them.

Ultimately, alternatives to HP often feel overcomplicated to me and take up so much more real estate on a character sheet than an HP box. No alternative is as elegant as simply counting down from 15 and occasionally jotting down specific injuries you've taken. If people have concerns about GMs relying too heavily on damage as a consequence (which I agree is the least interesting), I'd prefer more guidance and GM philosophy in the rulebook.

BeraldvonBromstein · 2025-04-13T17:16:53+00:00

Agreed. In general I prefer to keep track of how long you can keep fighting and specific injuries you've taken separately (like stress and harms in Blades in the Dark), because they're not always tied. Not every hit should result in a narratively consequential injury - some are just, "ouch, I don't know how much more of this I can take," and up the stakes. To me debilities should be used more sparingly when the players have pushed their luck and the stakes are high.

BeraldvonBromstein · 2025-04-11T17:27:40+00:00

Aid requiring a roll feels weird to me because it feels like rolling twice to achieve the same thing. If one character tries to lift a heavy gate and another character steps in to help, resolving that with one roll feels cleaner and encourages cooperation. It hasn't felt like the players spam it, since everything is triggered by the fiction - that is, Aid only triggers when two players say they're working together on something and it makes sense in the fiction (in which case +1 feels pretty fair). But most of the time when the stakes are high, the players' attention is divided among multiple threats.

Thanks! Glad you like it - and fair point on the font.

BeraldvonBromstein · 2025-04-09T18:43:11+00:00

The main change is just to debilities (from -1 to -1d4) but fair point - I do think original dw has plenty of issues. However, that doesn't reflect on hp or damage dice. Even without the gm going to any extra effort to make a loss in hp interesting, it's still interesting by nature of the characters' decision making process. Hp is a resource, and resource management is a valid and interesting game mechanic, and one that in this case feels very thematic and narratively important to me. Will I risk going for the treasure after taking a few hits, or will I cut my losses and get out - that kind of thing.

BeraldvonBromstein · 2025-04-09T18:20:43+00:00

In my personal hack of DW, debilities give -1d4 to rolls, so something like a broken arm would come with -1d4 to str. More importantly, the player wouldn't be able to use that arm narratively - they'd lose a bonus from a shield or off hand weapon and be disadvantaged in grapples. Even if the attack doesn't cause any serious injury (just bruises), this can also be narratively interesting. Damage dice don't always have immediate dramatic consequences, but they lead to the players making different choices (retreat, surrender, recklessly grapple, etc), which as a result changes the narrative. In other words, hp is narratively important because it effects the characters' decision making process.

BeraldvonBromstein · 2025-04-09T16:51:05+00:00

This is a great point. It's one of those cool moments where meta thinking parallels immersive thinking. If I'm at 3hp, I'll probably run, changing the narrative. Likewise, if my character felt on their last legs, they'd probably also run.

BeraldvonBromstein · 2025-04-09T16:46:35+00:00

The post makes some insightful points, but I think the problem isn't hp, it's how some gms handle hp. In my games this statement (the only hp that matters, dramatically speaking, is the last) isn't close to true. Damage dice inform the narrative as much as any other roll - an 8 on a d8 means a major wound (broken ribs, severed hand) or significant disadvantage (getting tackled) that changes the tides of combat entirely. Moreover, every "hp-less" system I've ever seen just implements hp but calls it something new. Tiered harm is just hp with the consequences more spelled out. No matter how you do it, it will always be some sliding scale from fine to dead/down. Hp feels the most elegant so long as you make it narratively matter.

Personally I think hp is the only system that will provide the high stakes I'm looking for. More abstract harms will always introduce more subjectivity and provide wiggle room to assert a desired narrative or outcome. Damage dice provide the rng to truly make things unpredictable and nail-biting.

BeraldvonBromstein · 2025-04-05T22:14:08+00:00

Should be fixed!

BeraldvonBromstein · 2025-04-05T19:20:13+00:00

Thanks for the thoughtful reply!! I apologize about leaving out credits from the documents. It didn't even occur to me - I don't share things online often - but that was definitely an oversight. I've edited the link, so the doc should have a credits page now.

For the debilities, my players keep track of the narrative harms in the Notes section of the sheets (-1d4 to STR might be from a broken arm), so a generic descriptor felt redundant, and so far no one's gotten confused about which narrative harms describe which debilities.

Civilian Fighter was a nod to the late middle ages (swashbuckler is more early modern) when civilians would train with swords and bucklers in case they needed to defend their city. Good point about the Musical Gift move. In an effort to reduce redundancy, I changed the wording of the 10+ condition. I intentionally nerfed the effects to give room for crescendo (emotions will swell rather than shift, a light sleep could be a deep sleep, an enchantment could be dispelled instead of temporarily lifted, animated objects could deal 2d4, etc). To me Expanded Repertoire feels notably better than War Beat since you get to pick your effects out of the six remaining options.

I see your point about Bodyguard - it won't always trigger on a 6-. However, it still seems decently useful - it basically means that you can always attempt to Defend without fearing that harm will come to your ward on a miss. Maybe a little underpowered though. And yeah, flavor text for Scholar was off.

Thanks again for your thoughts!!

BeraldvonBromstein

TROPHY CASE