My first game of Dungeon World: A Play Report
So a couple of weeks ago I played my first game of Dungeon World…
While I own the book, I never really got into it because at the time I was looking for an RPG that would allow me to run a game set in my fantasy world of Naimleth and Dungeon World didn’t allow me to do that, so I moved on.
Well, perhaps it DID, but making a ton of new classes for the setting seems like an awful lot of work.
In any case, I never really gave Dungeon World, or anything Powered by the Apocalypse, a fair chance.
When I ran City of Mist for my group, there was an unanimous agreement that no-one liked the system and that they never wanted to play it again.
But perhaps I was partly to blame for that, since the system never really clicked with me and I was mainly running that City of Mist game because I loved the look and style of the game so much.
Visit Dungeon World Island! Fun for the whole family!
In any case, getting back to Dungeon World…A couple of weeks ago our usual game of Masters of Umdaar fell through because several people weren’t able to make it and it was just Douwe, Dries and me.
Douwe had been looking for a new fantasy game that wasn’t D&D, to run for his live group, and had set his sights on Dungeon World, using Dries and me, as his test audience.
He decided to run Indigo Galleon by John Aegard, a free introductory adventure, for us.
The way he presented the scenario for us it seemed like a pretty typical fantasy adventure.
There was an island with a human community on it and it recently had been attacked by a dragon. The dragon decided to make the island its new home and now everyone was very worried.
So yeah…obviously we were going to fight a dragon, right?
Then came the time for us to make some characters.
Abs? Check! Kilt? Check! Shovel? Check! Check!
I decided to dust off an old character of mine named Diastraver, or Di for short. He was an NPC from an old solo campaign that Dries and I used to play for quite some time back when our old live group bailed on us and it was just us two. In the original story he was a kind of annoying street rat called Fago who had the amazing luck of having found a magic necklace that essentially made it impossible for him to die by violent means.
For a time he was Dries’ character’s only friend and together they went on crazy adventurers.
But through a series of events he suffered a lot of setbacks and humiliation (partly at the hands of Dries’ character) and one day he just got fed up and vanished.
When he eventually returned he was a completely different person. He now called himself Diastraver, had apparently started working out big time, and was now super assured of himself…Oh and he had somehow also become quite the ladies man, much to the surprise and shock of Dries’ character.
Anyway, I had a lot of fun playing this NPC. I just love it when weak and unimpressive underdog characters go through this sudden change and turn themselves into badasses through hard work and perseverance.
So I was like: Hey! Let’s play Di again!
Unfortunately the previously mentioned game was powered by Mutants & Masterminds and I was worried that it would be difficult for me to translate him to this new system. After all, he was basically a monk with some rogue-ish aspects who also knew a bit of magic.
Luckily Dungeon World had me covered. I eventually settled for the barbarian class since this allowed me to play an unarmoured character. An important part of Di’s character is that he HAS to go around with a naked upper body. How else is going to show off his six pack?
And since Di had always been a short fellow in the original game I decided to make him a halfling.
Sure, I had to drop the spellcasting thing, but that wasn’t too big of a loss.
Everything else just immediately clicked. With the barbarian class he was really tough, did a lot of damage and with the starting move called Herculean Appetites he was able to roll a d6 + d8, instead of 2d6, whenever one of his appetites were involved (I of course gave him fame & glory and mortal pleasures as his appetites), though doing so came at a risk.
The list of available weapons didn’t look very interesting to me, but luckily Douwe allowed me to have a warshovel with the stats of a sword. (There’s a story behind why he fights with a shovel, but that’s one for another time)
This all just seemed right for me. I never expected that someone who originally was a M&M character would translate so well to Dungeon World.
The Super Hafling Bros. Super Show
As for Dries, he decided to also go with the halfling theme and went for the druid, since he likes shapeshifters. Going over the homelands list for the druid (which decides what animals he can initially turn into) he decided on a swamp, since that would allow him to turn into dangerous reptiles like crocodiles, snapping turtles and snakes.
I thought the idea of a rough and tough halfling tribe living in a swamp sounded awesome and decided to join in.
So we ended up playing two buff, manly swamp halfling blood brothers who didn’t take shit from no-one.
The story quickly took a turn towards swords & sorcery mainly because our halflings would solve most problems with violence, though Dries’ character, who he named Raker, clearly had a lot more common sense than Di.
As I hinted at before, the story sounded pretty cliché to me at first, but some unexpected twists were quickly introduced.
Our halflings had come to the island seeking fame and glory by dealing with the dragon.
Di wanted to bed the dragon, to add it to his list of exploits (dragons can shapeshift, right?), while Raker wanted to study the dragon up close so he could learn how to shapeshift into one (dragons are reptiles, right?).
But then the story introduced an unexpected twist: Suddenly the Empire showed up.
They were looking to capture a certain pirate captain and forcefully enlisted the help of the local populace to do it for them.
But when no volunteers stepped forward they magically changed the village priestess, who Di had set his sights on, into a chicken.
Hearing that the Imperials would change more people into chickens if the pirate captain was not apprehended, the two halflings stepped forward reluctantly.
After having been provided with some vague mission details by the Imperial commander, the blood brothers were off to adventure.
On their way to the shore, looking for a boat to “borrow”, they encountered the warship the Imperials had used to get to the island.
The halflings then attempted to convince the crew of the ship to allow them onboard and to take them to the last known destination of the pirates.
Unfortunately, the Imperial Navy proved to be very uncooperative and even Di trying to seduce one of the sailors got them nowhere.
But when during his smooth talking the barbarian mentioned that the sailor needed some relaxation, the boy instead just responded he didn’t need any because he was undead.
This took me a bit by surprise.
I was expecting the Empire to basically be this expansionist, British Empire expy, but nope! They’re undead!
After discovering that the crew were all undead, the two brothers took one look at each other and without saying anything they both came to an agreement that they all had to die.
But seeing as they were outnumbered and they weren’t idiots, clearly a frontal assault wasn’t going to cut it.
They needed to get a bit creative.
So the halflings concocted a distraction: Raker changed into a big crocodile, while Di pretended to be its victim.
Then, a bit later, the undead sailors saw a huge, bloodthirsty crocodile, dragging a screaming halfling across the beach.
Feeling a bit peckish, the undead saw the beefy barbarian halfling as an easy meal and decided to investigate.
But when they moved in close the two halflings suddenly dropped their ruse and attacked.
Their plan worked perfectly, the undead sailors were completely taken by surprise and the brothers wiped the floor with them.
When the halflings went in to inspect the ship, they were expecting to find more undead lurking there, but instead they found an inordinate amount of gold which was completely unguarded…and a lone kobold prisoner.
The kobold claimed he was also looking for the pirate captain and he could help them find him.
Being strangers to the island, the halflings thought it would be handy to have a local guide who knew the surroundings well.
Although they both didn’t trust the strange reptile man, Di handed him a dagger so that he could make himself useful in a fight. Though while handing it to him, Di warned him that if he’d ever betray them, he’d kill the kobold personally.
After claiming some supplies, and naturally all of the gold, the halflings set the foul undead ship on fire and peddled off in one of the smaller lifeboats.
Following the kobold’s directions the blood brothers ventured towards a nearby island where they made camp for the night.
Unfortunately, as per tradition, something attacked them in the dead of night, although the attack came from the least expected source.
Raker was the first one to wake up as he heard some strange noises. As he went to inspect the boat, expecting that the kobold was trying to steal some of the gold, he was shocked to see that the gold had come to life!
Hidden between the bars of gold, were tiny, golden golems, or GOLDlems, that were loudly proclaiming that they were property of the Emperor and that the halflings were criminals that needed to be brought to justice.
Eventually Di was also woken up by the ruckus and was very confused to see that his brother was fighting the treasure they had found the other day.
Still half asleep, the halfling barbarian scurried to his feet and rushed towards Raker to investigate.
What followed was a very silly fight against the goldlems, who were accusing the halflings of stealing the entire contents of the boat, including the boat itself, the whole time, while clobbering them with their tiny, yet very painful, golden fists.
After they had beaten up their animated treasure, the brothers went back to sleep, but mere hours later they were again roused by another strange event.
On a nearby isle, a large group of octopuses had come out of the water and were traveling into a cave.
Moving in closer to investigate, the halflings learned that these aquatic animals seemed to be intelligent and were all moving as if driven by a singular purpose.
Greeting them at the cave entrance was a naked halfling, who desperately seemed to want to join the octopuses inside, yet couldn’t for some reason.
After the eight legged critters had all walked into the cave, the two brothers moved in closer, but were stopped by the other halfling.
Upon noticing that the halfling was completely naked and far from unattractive, Di looked at his brother and basically said something along the lines of: “How do you expect me NOT to hit on that?”
The nude halfling first tried to dissuade them of going into the cave, but when Di turned on the old charms, the halfling suddenly decided that Di’s abs were way more interesting than whatever was inside of the cave.
Not wanting to waste any further time, Raker went into the cave along with the kobold, while Di stayed behind to “distract” the guard.
Unfortunately splitting up the party is never a good idea in these types of games and even less so if the party only consists of two people.
So while Di was literally screwing around, Raker found himself in the middle of a ceremony of octopus cultists.
The octopuses were apparently preparing some great “ascension” and were planning on sacrificing a certain kobold, who happened to be both the pirate captain and the person their new kobold friend was looking for, by drowning him to death.
Seeing his leader, the kobold immediately rushed in, alerting the octopuses to their presence.
The Hated Underwater Level
Things quickly got ugly from thereon out as Raker was swarmed by enemies and the kobold proved to be useless in a fight.
By the time Di got his kilt back on and had caught up with the rest, Raker was already half dead and the kobold was doing his best to pull his chained up captain out of a pool that was slowly filling up with water.
Having just arrived, Di had no idea what was really going on, but he saw his blood brother was in trouble so he immediately rushed in.
Unfortunately, while he initially wanted to help out Raker, he saw that their target, the kobold captain, was soon going to drown, possibly dooming the lovely priestess to remain a chicken for evermore.
Also, being a true barbarian, he of course greatly disapproved of any dark sorcerous rites.
Not wasting any time Di got to work on destroying the chains holding down the pirate captain.
But unfortunately I rolled rather poorly and I was forced to make a difficult choice. Seeing as the kobold was soon going to drown and the octopus cultists were going to accomplish their goals, I decided to disarm Di of his beloved shovel weapon.
Using all of his considerable strength, Di brought the shovel’s head down on the chains, instantly shattering them, but also embedding the shovel head deep in the rocky surface.
While at the same time, though fighting savagely in his crocodile form, Raker was slowly being strangled and drowned by a small army of octopuses.
Having bought the kobold captain some time Di quickly turned around to aid his brother in arms.
Getting out a bow he had taken from the Imperial ship, the halfling barbarian fired off a volley of arrows at the octopuses swarming Raker.
Brothers Betrayed! Part one!
Though he desperately wanted to rush in to help his beloved brother, Di noticed that the leading octopus priest had commanded his minions to drag down the kobold captain into the watery deep to speed up their ritual.
Reluctantly he launched himself into the water.
Forcing his way through the unending seeming swarm of eight legged cultists, Di swam to the bottom of the pool to where the chains were holding down the pirate captain’s legs and proceeded to shatter them with his bare hands.
This moment especially left an impact on me…How many games allow a “puny” halfling to pull of a considerable feat of strength like that?
I felt like I was playing a pint-sized Conan or something!
With his last remaining strength, as Di himself was also getting dragged down by the octopuses, the halfling barbarian threw the kobold out of the water and to relative safety.
The enraged priest commanded his minions to retrieve their sacrifice and to kill the intruders, at which point Raker was overwhelmed by his assailants and lost consciousness.
Immediately the priest went on an evil monologue about how the octopuses were unstoppable and how they were going to ascend and become gods.
At which point the enraged barbarian just yelled at the cult leader to shut up as he prepared to fire an arrow at him.
Drawing back the bow string with all of his might, making the string snap in two and come coiling into his face, Di let fly a well aimed arrow, which buried itself deeply in the priest’s skull.
Of course, as per tradition, something cataclysmic began to happen as soon as the boss kicked the bucket and the entire cave rushed full of water.
Grabbing the unconscious body of his brother, who at that very moment was making a deal with Death, Di rushed out of the cave, while a tidal wave was hot on his tail.
The halflings got out in the nick of time, only to witness the two kobolds they had saved rowing off in their boat and with all of the gold.
Betrayal! Part 2: Revenge of the Gold
Di screamed bloody murder and futilely threw an arrow at the treacherous kobolds as they made their escape.
Then Raker opened his eyes again and told his blood brother of how he made a deal with Death and he had to go claim a certain item on a nearby island if he didn’t want Death to return to claim his soul.
It seemed like the two swamp halflings weren’t out of the water yet and yet more adventure awaited on the horizon…
The end??? You got to be kidding me!
Later I found out that this simply had been a one shot and that Douwe wasn’t planning on continuing it.
Seriously? Leaving us on sequel bait and then never giving us a pay off?
But I guess that’s what you get for having done exactly the same thing in the past…
In any case, this was my first real introduction to Dungeon World and I never expected to enjoy it so much.
I might even run a DW game myself in the future, especially since I’ve always wanted to try my hand at running The Perilous Wilds!
But even if Douwe never wants to continue this game, one thing is certain…The two manly halfling blood brothers WILL make their return!
In hindsight I should have recorded this game, would have made for a good episode of Radio Multiverse After Dark…
