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Dungeon World Preview: The New Character Sheets
One of the cool things about making the entire design process of Dungeon World public is that I can throw out new ideas and throw out a new release of the rules whenever it fits. If you check out the last few changes on the Trac site (or check out this preview PDF) you’ll see that the Cleric sheet now features a new layout which will become common to all the character sheets over the coming… weeks? Yeah, weeks sounds about right. Maybe months.
Anyway, the new layout is all about making the character sheets two sided. Moves (starting and for advances) stretch across both sides. The Bond space on the front is now for tracking current bond numbers, the starting bond statements have moved to the back along with names and some blank space for notes and custom moves.
Realistically, for DW to support the number of levels/range of play we’d like it to, we needed more moves. This new layout allows for enough moves to level each class from 1-10.
It also gives enough space for a new type of move, inspired by AW classes like the Hardholder, Hocus, and Chopper. Vincent had some interesting posts on the AW forums about how the classes compare to each other, how some are more mechanically effective and some are more fictionally effective (to paraphrase horribly). Things like the Hardholder’s hardhold are a big part of that, where they have the ability to broadly effect the fiction, even if they aren’t as brutal as the Gunlugger.
There were no moves like that in DW by design. Adam and I want the start of the game to feel more like low-level adventurers, competent but still in a world much bigger than they are. Having thought about it and discussed it some more, that fictional effectiveness is a great element of AW, and one we don’t want to leave behind.
So the new Cleric is a start in that direction, to see how it turns out. The new Cleric gets to define the religion they’re a part of, much like a Chopper defines their gang of a Hardholder defines their hardhold. The difference is, when the Cleric wants something from their religion, they’re not commanding obedience, they’re asking. The Cleric gets a move that on a hit grants them some of the surplus of the local followers of their religion, but on a soft hit may require them to fulfill some duties of their religion.
The entire thing is still a little new and sketchy, but it adds back in some of that cool fictional effectiveness that makes a lot of the AW classes fun. We’ll see how it works in play.
That Cleric sheet makes me want to play. I think mapping the Cleric to the more fictionally resonant AW classes is a smart move.
Wow, thanks Jason. Adam and I have some more ideas to bring in a few more of those strong fictional ties for other classes as well, I think it does a lot to turn DW into a full-fledged game, not just a quick dungeon crawler.
Aw, no more Bard?
I admit, I wasn’t super excited about playing one, but why’d he get the ax?
Hey Zac, I’m not sure where you got the idea the Bard is leaving, he’s definitely still around! This post just previewed the Cleric, since he’s furthest along with the new sheets. We’re stil trying to figure out what the Bard will look like, if he’ll get ties to a Bardic College or just more expanded inspiration and performance moves, but he’s definitely not gone.
Oh! I see what you mean, the Bard somehow didn’t make it into the new xml-synced layout. Fixed, the Bard is here to stay.
Hi Sage,
I like my hardholdings in AW, and I like my clerics in DW. I’m not sure I like my hardholdings in DW.
What if religions, forts, gangs, guilds and all that jazz were pulled out of the character sheets and put in a Worldbuilding chapter of DW? Players that want to create a religion for one reason or another can then do so; so can DMs.
This would allow players of paladins – for example – to create religions as readily as players of clerics.
You could still give clerics special ways of USING religions through moves. (Not necessarily their own; I’m thinking of a set of crusade and conversion moves).
I think the issue with decoupling the classes and strong fictional stuff is that many players won’t want to take up world building. By requiring some statements about the world during character creation, there’s some automatic buy-in.
Also, if we do things right, it won’t feel like a hardhold. It will feel more like choosing a deity in standard D&D, just without the list of deities already there.
Thanks for the feedback. This is obviously a big change, it’s good to hear what people think of it.
I definitely like what you’re doing here, although I’m a little sad to see the information grow beyond the bounds of what a single page can effectively show. I like the idea of tying bards to Bardic Colleges—one of those tidbits from AD&D that I don’t recall ever being developed—and along those lines, thieves could get tied to Thieves’ Guilds. This also makes me realize something I need to do with a class I’ve been working on in secret, and hope to have a presentable draft of soon.
Seeing the classes grow beyond one page is definitely sad, but not unexpected, given our goals. Pretty much all the starting information is still on one side of the sheet, and we may also look at designing alternate versions for larger paper sizes, which would help the problem a little.
Having just looked at the AW playbooks again last weekend, I’m kind of amazed we don’t actually use more space, given the number and type of powers we give each class.
Can’t wait to see what you’ve been working on. Don’t set the bar too high for ‘presentable,’ that way lies madness.