Category Archives: Dungeon World

On the Dungeon World+ Discord, Gojson asked how he could roll up a DW character, rather than just allocating the preset stats. I suggested he do it old school, rolling 3d6 down the line for each attribute. That may work for you as well, and—if you’re playing a hack that drops ability scores (3-18), as most DW hacks do—then just use the modifiers: 3d6 Modifier 3 -3 4-5 -2 6-8 -1 9-12 0 13-15 +1 16-17 +2 18 +3 The table I listed is from Dungeon World, but you could […]

The Battle of Five Armies. The Battle of the Hornburg (Helm’s Deep). The Battle of Pelennor Fields (the Raising of the Siege of Minas Tirith). These were epic, even before they were ever animated or filmed. Such battles bring a new element of drama to a fantasy PbtA campaign, but the challenge is how to handle them cinematically and at a high level, without getting bogged down in mechanics. You’re not going to manage every individual soldier as you might in a wargame. Here are three frameworks for accomplishing this: […]

When preparing to run a PbtA (Powered by the Apocalypse) TTRPG, keep in mind how experience is gained. Many PbtA games have an End of Session move that awards experience points. Make sure you’re giving players chances during the session that align with this move! Here is the End of Session move in Dungeon World: When you reach the end of a session, choose one of your bonds that you feel is resolved (completely explored, no longer relevant, or otherwise). Ask the player of the character you have the bond […]

In Dungeon World and many other PbtA games, “When a player describes their character doing something that triggers a move, that move happens and its rules apply.” That sounds simple enough. Except that the triggerspace (all the actions that trigger moves) changes over time and play— Since the inventory of available moves is variable and changes over time, Dungeon World in particular encourages everyone to look for moves: “Everyone at the table should listen for when moves apply. If it’s ever unclear if a move has been triggered, everyone should work together to clarify […]

I’ve recently been reading Norse-inspired Powered by the Apocalypse role-playing games: Sagas of the Icelanders, Bodil’s Gap, and The Wyrd of Stromgard. As background, I even read Neil Gaiman’s Norse Mythology, which I adored; it was like a Bulfinch’s Mythology of the Norse cosmos. I played a “traditional” one-shot (two sessions!) of Bodil’s Gap a few years ago. I’d read the first 60 pages of the PDF but wanted to own the book. It’s chonky! (The worst part about DriveThru is that their business model doesn’t support printing any books […]

Uncommon World is my crowdsourced update to the core moves of Dungeon World, based on a survey of over 250 players, choosing between moves from seven fantasy PbtA games. Originally released in October, 2021, I’ve updated the Uncommon World PDF: Here is the full change log. And if this system is new to you, here’s the overview.

I went back through the Dungeon World subreddit posts to come up with the top 10 things that people should know when making the switch from D&D 5e— And you may find these other discussions from Reddit helpful: Finally, here’s my own story of why I switched from 5e to Dungeon World and a supplement I made for incorporating 5e skills. Photo by Carlos Cram on Unsplash.

Suddenly an Ogre is a short gamebook using the Dungeon World system. Most choices that you make correspond to Basic Moves of the game. This gives you an opportunity to experience a bit of gameplay without a GM. The title is an homage to the essay “Suddenly Ogres: What to do on Spout Lore and Discern Realities misses” by Vasiliy Shapovalov. Published using the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. You are encouraged to adapt this for your game system of choice. Comments and suggestions welcome, directly […]

Five years ago, Yochai Gal compiled the first version of the Dungeon World Syllabus as a tool for new DW GMs. Alex Leone has since taken over as editor, keeping nearly 180 links current. While I had read many of these articles over the years, I decided to systematically read every single link, to improve my own GMing. I then began to compile those that were licensed under the Creative Commons into a single, easy-to-read volume, as a supplement for others to use. While most PbtA games have small fan […]

Some of the most common questions over on the Dungeon World Reddit are how to choose between the different hacks. To better answer that question, with help from the Dungeon World+ Discord, I’ve developed this side-by-side comparison. (All errors and wrong opinions my own!) Dungeon World Chasing Adventure Freebooters on the Frontier Homebrew World Uncommon World Unlimited Dungeons Pitch PbtA + D&D DW – D&D PbtA + OD&D Stonetop – Stonetop DW 1.5 +3rd-party playbooks &c. DW 2.0 Requires DW – No No No No Yes # stats 6 5 (removes […]

Dungeon World helped popularize Powered by the Apocalypse games by capitalizing on players’ familiarity with Dungeons & Dragons. Enough so that it is sometimes used as a reference point by gamers who ask, “Can you recommend a game like Dungeon World but…?” Here are some common answers. Next-Generation Fantasy PbtA OSR For a comparison of the more popular systems, see Table Comparing Dungeon World to 5 Hacks. Other Styles of Play Other Settings Other PbtA Games Thanks to the Dungeon World Discord community for the many suggestions over the years. […]

In trying to research improvements to Dungeon World’s Volley move, I came across a 2014 post from Rob Donoghue, one of the inventors of Fate and a co-founder of Evil Hat. This led me into his blog posts of his initial plays of Dungeon World. Here’s the first two: I really like his take on a new Discern Realities move: One idea I’d been toying with was to give each class an extra question on the Discern Reality move (so the fighters could ask “Who’s the biggest threat?”, thieves could […]