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Dungeon World -An All-Inclusive RPG That Develops Through Play

Published Fri, 21 Mar 2014 22:30:10 -0500

By Christopher Helton

Some people may think that I am writing this review from a weird place. I will start off by saying that Dungeon World is really not a game for me, but despite that I can appreciate what it would do for people who are the intended audience and I can say that there are things about this game that I think are very well done. I am weird as a reviewer because I don't think that you have to like something in order to think that it is well done.

Really, I would rather find a different word to use besides like because I think that it assumes a value judgment that probably shouldn't be in a review in the first places.

Dungeon World is a tabletop roleplaying game that allows 3-5 players, one of whom will be the game master (GM). It is a fantasy game that allows for play in a variety of sub-genres, from traditional Tolkien-style high fantasy to weird fantasy to grittier swords and sorcery. Everything that you need to play is in this book. No additional supplements or books are needed to play. For me this is a strong point for any game. Too many games require, or strongly suggest, that you need to keep purchasing supplements for extra bits and pieces of the world or character options. Dungeon World does none of that.

All of the familiar character types are available to players: fighters, wizards, clerics, thieves, as well as others like the paladin and the druid. You pick a class, pick from among the starting options, pick the stats and you have a character. It is actually a bit more detailed than that, but it is still a pretty simple process. One thing that might be a sticking point is that, by the rules, you can only have one of each character type in a group. This means one fighter, one wizard, and etc. This is an approach that may bother some, but does enforce niche protection among the characters. It is also easy enough to do away with a house rule, if you so desire.

One thing that has rankled some critics of the game is that each character type and race has a list of names that you can choose from for your character. Having had players who could take months to figure out what the name of their character could be, I have no problem with this. Every little bit of help that you can give players, particularly if they are new to roleplaying is helpful. And, again, like with the bit about only one of each character type, you can easily ignore the lists and name your character whatever it is that you want.

One of the core elements of Dungeon World are what are called moves. There are basic, advanced and special character-based moves. Moves are like special cases of the rules, or zooming in with a microscope on a special case situation. They tell you exactly what can happen in a certain situation, or when a character attempts to do something. If there is a flaw to them, it is that the whys of moves aren't better explained in the rules. As I have never played Apocalypse World, the game from which Dungeon World derived its rules, I don't know if this is better explained in that game and was just missed here because the designers had so effectively internalized the rules. However, despite this the game's designers did an excellent job of explaining each move and giving an example of how they work.

Considering that the rules of Dungeon World revolve around this concept, it is good that they spend so much time explaining each move and how they work within the game.

Resolution in the game is simple, using a roll of two six-sided dice. Moves and modifiers can modify this roll, depending on the situation. Each move will also tell you what the results of the dice roll can mean within the game. That can mean keeping a number of special cases in mind as play goes on. For someone like myself, who had memory difficulties even when young, this can mean extra work that you may not want to do. Page flipping through the book can solve that, but it can also slow down play.

As a matter of taste, I am not a fan of games that require a lot of special cases to their rules. Admitedly, Dungeon World does try to work around this by putting all of the character specific rules onto the character sheet. That can help immensely during play. In fact, the book suggests printing copies of all of the moves to have at the table. While that means less flipping through the book, it does still mean having to look things up as you go.

Another core part of Dungeon World is bonds. This is, basically, a method for tying the pasts of the characters in the group together in order to explain why they are together now. Inspired by fantasy "teams" like Fritz Lieber's Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, the idea behind bonds is that the characters are friends and know each other, rather than being loners. Bonds do help circumvent some of the clichés of gaming characters, plus they can be altered as play goes. Issues between characters can be resolved through play.

The art in Dungeon World is phenomenal. It is one of the high points of the book for me. It sets the tone of the game, from the party of adventurers on the cover to the sample character pictures in the rules, and helps to breathe life into the worlds that you are going to create during play. This is important because, much like an old school RPG (like the early editions of D&D), Dungeon World does not actually come with a world. There are hints and shadows of the possibilities of a setting that come up through the rules but there is no dungeon world in Dungeon World. The idea of the game, set explicitly in the rules, is that the world is supposed to develop through play. Saying this is nice because a number of games have done this, yet few of them are explicit about saying that this is the approach that you should take in the game.

Overall, Dungeon World is a game that succeeds in its goals and creates a play experience that is exactly what it says on the tin. Just like with any game, it is a matter of knowing your personal tastes and preferences, as well as that of your group, and knowing how to pick a game that can maximize your gaming fun. Dungeon World may very well be that game for you. I recommend picking it up, regardless, because there are some bits and pieces to the game that can expand your play, even if you don't use the game itself as a whole. You can buy Dungeon World in a print and PDF bundle from the Indie Press Revolution website or you can get it in PDF from the DriveThruRPG site.

Christopher Helton is a blogger, podcaster and tabletop RPG publisher who talks about games and other forms of geekery at the long-running Dorkland! blog. He is also the co-publisher at the ENnie Award winning Battlefield Press, Inc. You can find him on Twitter at @dorkland and on G+ at https://plus.google.com/+ChristopherHelton/ where he will talk your ear off about gaming and comics.

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