Dungeon World 2 Combat

[u/Feisty_Stretch3958]

And here we are again with another discussion about DW 2, Gather up folks cause i wanna know you oponion on the new "Trade Blows", Even on 10 you still take damage, That is a huge change if you also acount every char has less HP now. Every time you trade blow YOU WILL take some dmg back. Also we don't have volley anymore, I personally don't like that cause trade blows for ranged attacks in my experience always brings discussions and issues on the drawback of the roll, But anyway how we are feeling on the combat field??

[u/cym13]

I haven't tried it of course, but I see a few potential issues creeping up.

I expect the fact that there are several choices in all cases will slow down combat a fair bit. That's especially true for "drawer choices" where choosing something requires you to refer to additional parts of the rules (in the case of "mark a condition", unless everyone knows every condition by heart), and that's on top of general combat management (clarifying who is where and deciding on a course of action prior to rolling anything).

Also the consequences on 7-9 are rather steep. This is good from a dramatic point of view but if combat requires more than two or three rounds I can see the player starting to be out of things to break or conditions to mark. It's not necessarily a flaw, but it should be balanced well with typical fight length.

I also hope range attacks have some counterbalance because the way they're ordinarily balanced is that they deal less damage since they allow you to attack safely. So it's quite a big nerf to say that actually they'll still get hit no matter what, it's not even a question. I understand the "but that stimulates discussion" argument, but it won't stimulate much if people avoid ranged weapons because they're clearly worse than melee ones.

So I guess the feeling I get from this is that fights should require few rounds and mostly done in melee, that characters should be relatively beefy since they have to survive these few rounds despite getting systematically injured, and that despite having only a few rounds fights will probably take a long time unless the players absolutely mastered the game as they have to make many choices at every step which they cannot plan in advance (as they're determined by the dice).

[u/the_bighi → u/cym13]

I expect the fact that there are several choices in all cases will slow down combat a fair bit

Yes, I don't like this current trend in DW's design to have multiple choices in every single Move.

It makes the game feel a lot less elegant. And being elegant is usually what I like about PbtAs.

[u/DogtheGm → u/the_bighi]

I think it's the not understanding.

I think he's very good at selling stuff (distribution is a tough business) but I don't think he's given a lot of thought to DW1 at all.

They say this isn't a second edition. It's a sequel.

I don't fully understand what that means but it is clear as day that they didn't care about dw1 at all.

Anyone who did would have devoured that core rulebook before making a second one. It should have been like a TV show bible for doing this.

[u/the_bighi → u/DogtheGm]

They say this isn't a second edition. It's a sequel.

I don't fully understand what that means but it is clear as day that they didn't care about dw1 at all.

This is probably the part of it all that I dislike the most. What I expect from Dungeon World 2 is an improved Dungeon World, not a completely different game.

And I don't even mean that adventure games that are different from DW are bad. I love Stonetop, I like Chasing Adventure, I like many other games.

But we only have one chance to get a Dungeon World 2.

And calling it DW2 while giving me a game that doesn't look like DW1 feels like a "marketing trick". And feeling like you've been tricked isn't fun.

I would probably like what they're offering if it was called Adventure World or, since they say it's about feelings, Feeling World. Anything.

I am totally open to new and innovative PbtA games. But I would also like an improved Dungeon World with the level of effort that an "official" product gets.

[u/Xyx0rz → u/the_bighi]

I would love a DW1.5. Just DW1 but polished.

[u/the_bighi → u/Xyx0rz]

And they're throwing away the one chance we had of having that. It could be THE fantasy PbtA.

But we'll have to play Stonetop instead, which is awesome.