"Dungeon World" is a good transition from D&D to PBtA-based games
"Dungeon World" is a good transition from D&D to PBtA-based games
There's a thing about D&D - it's actually a wargame. Big share of its rules is tailored to tactical combat. "I go forward for 3 squares, use this ability, use that ability, end of turn" - that kind of stuff. You can play without it (system is a tool, yes) - but in that case you throw off half of the game rules, so what's the point? Anyway, there's nothing wrong with it and there're many people who seek for just that gameplay style.
D&D is the most famous game system due to enormous amount of money spent on it by publisher / copyright owner, and it lasted for decades. But TTRPG is much more that that.
There's TTRPG design framework, called "Powered by the Apocalypse", or PbtA, as the first game made with it was "Apocalypse World". Here's a short list of PbtA features and principles:
- it's narrative, which leads to making and telling interesting stories
- "Fiction first" principle - player don't use character abilities like pressing button in videogame, they describe what they want to do, and that description (possibly) triggers a move
- Moves system. Moves are NOT abilities. Their goal is to make emphasis on key game aspects. When you trigger a move - it matters!
- "Fail forward" principle. When player fails a roll - GM makes a move, and story takes a turn. Player gets XP for failing,
- "Play to find out" principle. GM doesn't know what will happen. Players make the story together.
Dungeon World is a PbtA game with strong D&D flavour. That means, it has kinda familiar character classes, races, and atmosphere - full of dungeons, taverns, orcs, goblins et cetera. But it plays vastly different. It's rules-light system, easy for new players, but somewhat demanding for the GMs skills.
As for me personally, I was using reddit for its DW sub mostly, but now it's still in blackout.
I've actually started playing DW recently with one of my d&d groups. They decided they wanted to switch it up a bit for our current campaign. There was some odd transition for a bit because previously we had exclusively used a battle map but I started doing DW as totm, but after the first couple of sessions they basically didn't even realize it anymore.
I’m still struggling to reach the level where I can consider myself a decent GM. My cognitive resources are limited and after splitting them between constant rebuilding behind-the-curtains threats and fronts, managing PC’s requests and generating good narrative - the latter part receives least attention. It leads to lack of narrative detail and, and PCs get rather poor foundation for making interesting choices and their narrative atop of it. Don’t get me wrong they are all happy and excited after session, that’s just me inherently know that I could do 10 times better. In theory)
I just played my first Dungeon World session (one shot) and it was easily my most memorable in years. The bonds system absolutely slaps, by the way. 100x more interesting than anything D&D has for character flavor.
It's interesting, as most players I know consider bonds mechanics as "least working" in DW. I prefer Homebrew World implementation, where people ask set of questions. For example, questions from "Fighter" playbook:
• Which of you have I sworn to protect?
• Which of you am I most worried about?
• Which of you has my back?
• Which of you has been flirting with me?So, fighter player asks them one by one, and any other player can answer "it's me" when he likes the question and want to establish that bond. Then they talk a little bit discussing details, and switch to next answer / next player.
I prefer to do one bond per character, maybe two if the party is very small. It's hard to keep track of four bonds per character and overwhelming. But any of them provides great role playing opportunities if you take the time to fill in the details.