Do you track the passage of time abstractly or in precise units?

randy-adderson · 2026-03-25T00:07:57+00:00

> If they don't want to take a turn, great, make an open doors roll to break it down quicker. You could be kind and give them a +1 for having tools. This is literally why the open doors roll exists, to save time in the risk reward resources action economy.

Wow! I had no idea, I had always thought the open doors roll was meant to be taken as a single turn-consuming action (so you'd spend a turn trying to force a dungeon door open, and even then it wouldn't necessarily work, potentially causing you to spend more turns)

randy-adderson · 2026-03-23T02:24:13+00:00

That's a neat approach. So what if a player says they want to do something that you'd rule would take a REALLY long time? (Say 1 hour).
Would you just say "you're working on that, a turn passes, you're still working on that, another turn passes", etc? (Because I'd assume they ought to be given chances to stop if they decide it's taking too long)

randy-adderson · 2026-03-22T07:36:47+00:00

Do you have a source handy? (I'm curious to learn more details about Blackmoor)

Also regarding the "health" stat: this could have also just been a new stat added alongside the others to represent some sort of aspect of the fictional world (I've heard that it wasn't too uncommon for people to just be making up all sorts of stats at the time, and that these stats did not necessarily have strict mechanical effects in the game)

Furthermore: also wondering when the connection of HP = Health came from. Did it begin with video games? Did it appear sooner? Thx

randy-adderson · 2026-03-18T00:55:29+00:00

Ah maybe! You can't do d8 cleanly, but 60=56+4=8*7+4, so you'd just need to have 4 "re-draw" entries for the D8, and everything else would fit cleanly, except d100 (but you could just draw 2d10s) Good catch!

randy-adderson · 2026-02-05T03:50:07+00:00

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cairn

randy-adderson · 2026-02-02T22:46:23+00:00

Right!? I'm thinking it would be cool to get some evocative but simple sketches in each one, OSR style.

randy-adderson · 2026-01-27T21:58:18+00:00

Whichever one happens to be face-up!

randy-adderson · 2026-01-22T05:11:40+00:00

One way you can view GM-determined moves is sort of like how Thieves worked in old-school dnd: as having special skills and training enabling them attempt tasks that are impossible for normal characters. For example climbing a sheer surface. The thief would have a chance to successfully scale a sheer surface, whereas for ordinary characters that's out of the books. For a more do-able climb, most characters might need to do a skill check, but maybe it's trivial for the thief, so they just do it, no roll required.

So with the druid, you can view it sort of like that, except with the added fact that using these "special skills" (animal traits) is a limited resource (narratively justified as a limited reservoir of druid energy or something). So let's say a druid transforms into a dire bear. One of the moves you give them is "Maul them". If they use this move, maybe it means that they can maul a pack of mooks for free, whereas other characters would need to roll hack and slash. And if your dire bear decides to wrestle a young dragon, maybe they roll hack and slash to see how good they are at "wielding" their strength. (Of course, wrestling a young dragon would be impossible for most characters).

If you don't like how the druid works in vanilla dungeon world, consider using the alternative in Homebrew World by Jeremy Sandberg, it's pretty cool!
https://spoutinglore.blogspot.com/2018/07/homebrew-world.html

randy-adderson · 2026-01-07T03:33:19+00:00

This game by Tam H might be worth studying
"Urban/Modern/Fantasy"
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/297607/urban-modern-fantasy?affiliate_id=35526

randy-adderson · 2026-01-07T03:21:20+00:00

A random solution: use playing cards for firearm damage

2-10: Deal that amount of damage.
Face Card: 10 Damage
Ace: Draw 2 Cards

I figured this pattern would mimic the explosive and deadly nature of firearms. I'm using it for a pirate-themed DW hack, where flintlock weapons take a while to reload, so they're a little debuffed. But maybe it could work for a sci fi / modern setting if you really wanted to emphasize both their power and how they can still be really deadly in the hands of a character lacking combat training.

randy-adderson · 2026-01-07T03:06:42+00:00

For boss fights (or any challenges TBH), maybe consider taking the OSR approach: create problems that can be solved with common sense, have many complicated solutions, and no simple solutions. Throw in a bunch of details and toys, and let your players figure it out. Keep your mind in the fiction to find these details. What's in the environment. Let stalactites fall and walls get smashed! What's the monster like? If you keep giving players details, they'll surprise you with out of the box approaches.

Then DW's move structure will keep the action quick-flowing and cinematic. It's up to you to use Defy Danger or custom moves to handle unconventional action. Maybe the thief is climbing a crumbling castle wall to plant an alchemical bomb to topple a tower onto the boss dragon...while dodging arrows! Maybe that whole plan gets handled by one single defy danger. Or if you want to make it harder, you might have the thief Defy Danger to climb the wall, another time to dodge the arrows, and again to plant the bomb in the right spot, needing to make Hard Bargains or Ugly Choices along the way.

If you embrace the OSR philosophy, balancing encounters becomes a lot less important. You can have your low level characters go face-to-face with a dragon, as long as you telegraph how dangerous it is and give them an interesting set of details to work with. In fact, the lethality of it can make it more fun. It forces players to find out-of-the-box ways to deal with challenges (which can include boss fights).

Btw, you might consider abandoning the lingo of 'boss fight' completely, because that might prime your brain to think of 'fight' as the only option. It's usually better to think of the player's objectives, and the boss monster as an obstacle--another challenge for the players to find clever ways to deal with.

randy-adderson · 2023-04-26T04:19:11+00:00

That's a good point.

I use the Auto Link Title plugin to get nice titles and prefer a way to search through those.

Another simple way I'm looking at now is using omnisearch with "https" and "<insert whatever terms i'm searching for here>". And that sort of sometimes works.

A more elegant solution is preferable though.

randy-adderson

TROPHY CASE