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Post by ericfromnj on Mar 4, 2013 21:31:33 GMT -8
OK, so say you have a scenario that you want them to explore a castle.
You get a castle plan and go to it. However, you don't fill the whole thing out, so if they decide "I am looking for the torture chamber" and roll well, you can write in torture chamber. If they roll bad, you can write in "Lounge for off duty but still armed guards instead."
Do I have the right idea here?
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HyveMynd
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Post by HyveMynd on Mar 4, 2013 21:54:34 GMT -8
Sure. You don't even really need to roll for the characters to find the torture chamber though.
I mean you can do that, if you want to. You could make yourself a random table and roll on it every time they go through a new door. You could have a flat 10% chance (10 on a d10, say) for them to find the torture chamber every time the open a new door. Or you could note a room on you map as being the torture chamber, and they get there when they go through the correct door.
Or, you could just have the characters find the torture chamber when it's an awesome time for them to do so. Like if they're fighting some big bad guy who escapes and runs through a door the characters haven't explored yet. The PCs are going to follow, so you have think of what's in the room. How awesome would it be to make that room the torture chamber, and the bad guy is trying to grab a prisoner to use as a hostage? That's pretty cool.
Or let your players decide. Just don't tell them you're doing that. Like when you're describing some other castle room, and offhandedly mention a grate in the center of the floor. One of your players says "Ooh I'll bet that grate leads somewhere nasty. Like the torture chamber." Then fuck it. It does now, because that's awesome. It doesn't have to lead directly there, mind you. Put a room or two between the PCs and their destination, but whenever the players say something that you think is more awesome than whatever it was you had planned, then use it.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Mar 5, 2013 4:52:11 GMT -8
Pick up "Vornheim: The Complete City Kit" it's a book with all sorts of hacks and shortcuts for the low prep GM. Half of the book is system agnostic the other half is d20, but unless you want to run a game in Vornheim you won't need any of the d20 stuff.
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Post by malifer on Mar 5, 2013 5:42:40 GMT -8
Pick up "Vornheim: The Complete City Kit" it's a book with all sorts of hacks and shortcuts for the low prep GM. Half of the book is system agnostic the other half is d20, but unless you want to run a game in Vornheim you won't need any of the d20 stuff. I wouldn't say it is half d20, I think there is less than that wouldn't be useful maybe some monster stats. I was thinking of using Vornheim for Dungeon World. It has some specific setting stuff for the city, but has a bunch of tables if I were to get stuck for an idea. - Aristocrats (the various nobles within the city)
- Books (contents of found books and their value)
- City NPC’s (people to bump into on the streets)
- NPC Connections (a novel way to establish a relationship between up to 4 NPC’s)
- I Search The Body (things you find on a looted body)
- Magic Effects
- Legal Situations
- Encounters
- Fortunes (as in the vague future telling kind)
It's fairly cheap my flgs had it for $14. The Pdf is currently $6.75 on drivethrurpg.
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Post by shadrack on Mar 5, 2013 7:19:20 GMT -8
Vornheim is sweet. The aesthetic may not be everyone's cup of tea, but I like it.
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Post by CreativeCowboy on Mar 5, 2013 7:54:38 GMT -8
Another vote for Vornheim!
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HyveMynd
Supporter
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Currently Running: The Sprawl
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Post by HyveMynd on Mar 5, 2013 21:24:31 GMT -8
I'll have to check out Vornheim, especially since so many people have spoken highly of it in the posts above. Those tables sound like fantastic inspiration for designing some "City Moves" or for when the GM needs an answer to a Spout Lore or Discern Realities move and is drawing a blank.
Setting stuff (whether system agnostic or not) is always great for sparking ideas. Part of the magic of Dungeon World (at least for me) is watching the setting take shape around the players as they toss out ideas and the GM builds on them. After running the three games with the HJ's forumites, I probably have enough player generated fluff to write a substantial "setting book". And all of that happened during play. So while you can mine setting ideas from anywhere, I would say don't decide too much by yourself as GM before actually playing. One of the Dungeon World principles is "Draw maps, leave blanks." which is really good advice. Come up with a skeleton, just enough of a framework for the players to hang something on, and then get them to fil in the blanks. Or fill in blanks yourself during "down time" after the players have given you some awesome ideas.
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