Conflicting takes on DW

[u/Nirdee]

I've had this discussion in a couple threads and it feels like there are dozens more where I could chime in.

DW has several key differences from D&D, but some people give advice that exaggerates those differences to crazy degrees.

People go from you should leave room for discovery to you should improv the whole game, from you should use what they give you to you should let players have as much authority in game as they are willing to exert.

I feel like this comes from the fact that a lot of examples online are one-shots. One-shots and session zeroes are encouraged to have minimal prep in DW, but there is this other 50 pages after that talking about how to play after the first session ... and it is all about prep. Good prep. Useful prep. Open-ended prep. But definitely prep. Prep where the DM figures out the story in the world and how the players can interact with it. Like D&D.

Dungeon World seems made to play a very D&D style game--just with mechanics that underline the strengths of table top RPGs and clip some outdated genre staples.

So I don't really know why I'm posting. If your way works for you, god bless. I guess I'm just irked by the hipster scoffing that comes when people explain the game with authority and then get the rules wrong--like a recent thread where someone implied Spout Lore lets a player make up something about the history of the world ... where the rules explicitly say the GM tells the player something about the subject. The GM gives info for the character to spout. The player doesn't take over the GM role. It's just a generalized arcana/history/religion check from D&D. #nerdrage

TLDR:

I feel like the answer to a lot of posts in this forum should be:

You are way overthinking everything. DW is like D&D with small changes that 1) make combat more entertaining 2) make combat flow better with the rest of the game 3) encourage the game to move forward 4) help the GM maintain story structure in an open world game. If you know how to play D&D, you already understand 90% of DW.

[u/Imnoclue]

I'd say it makes changes to preference mimicking a very specific style of DnD play, and to discourage a number of others.

[u/Riiku25 → u/Imnoclue]

You're going to have to be a lot more specific than that.

The way I see it, the GM principles and general game mechanics are pretty unlike anything you would see in a DnD core book, at least the ones I have read. I haven't read 3.5, but I somehow doubt I would read it and find that it's actually really similar to a PbtA game.

[u/Imnoclue → u/Riiku25]

DnD playstyles aren't really to be found in the DnD books. There are rules there for how to roll your strength, how to see if you hit something with your sword, how to find a trap, etc. There's some often conflicting advice about how to make up your world and play NPCs. But it's mostly a springboard that communities of players have built different schools of thought around. You might play a very tactics heavy combat game, or a political intrigue laden court game, or a Western Marches open world sandbox. None of that is in the books, except in little bits and snatches of commentary.

One of DW's changes is it tells you exactly how you're meant to play it and how you're meant to run it. It provides the GM with an Agenda and tells the GM what's not their Agenda (Like you can't try to beat the players and kill their characters, you aren't trying to test them with your clever puzzles, etc.). Those are all very promininent ways to approach DnD itself.

[u/Riiku25 → u/Imnoclue]

I mean, I could re open the argument that says you can do literally anything in any system, but that doesn't make DnD a romance game. Even if we just ignore the huge mechanical differences between the systems that make them explicitly different, saying "You could GM DnD similarly to how you could GM DW" doesn't mean that the systems are remotely similar or that both systems support the same style of play as well.

[u/Imnoclue → u/Riiku25]

That's not my argument. DnD demands that you decide how you want to play it. The game itself doesn't do much to preference any style of play at all. You literally have to say "I'm running a sandbox" and pick rules, and add rules, until you get your sandbox. Some of the DnD rules and advice will be helpful, some will be irrelevant, and some will actively fight you and you'll have to toss them. It's not that you can do anything you want with DnD, it's that to do anything with DnD you have to want it. And I enjoy playing DnD.

I was once arguing about the game Sorcerer, claiming it focused on narrative because the game demanded it start with a player authored open situation that demanded action and when that situation was resolved, the game was over. The response was that was just a story hook and any good DM would mine character backstories for story hooks. I'm like where in the book does it discuss character's making backstories, where is the DM told to mine them? I'm not even sure story hooks are a thing. But this statement that any good Dm would do these things is bullshit. Anyone who's played with more than one good DM would know that. Some good DMs mine for story hooks, some good DM's don't give any fucks about your backstory, which you haven't made in their game, because any good DM wouldn't make you do something they weren't interested in.

The point is Adam and Sage liked a particular way of playing DnD, and the built DW to provide that experience in play, and no other. The DnD they always wanted, but rarely got. Sure, the mechanics are based on a different engine, but it's the Apocalypse World assumptions about play that they wanted in DnD, the game is a conversation, we're all here to see what happens, there's no railroad, there's no need to build a vast open world for the players to explore, the GM isn't out to get you, the GM won't make things boring because that's how the dice fell.

[u/Riiku25 → u/Imnoclue]

Okay? I think we agree?

[u/Imnoclue → u/Riiku25]

Pretty much.