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Dungeon World
by Jason [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 03/01/2024 17:33:56

As others have said, more or less, this is the fantasy RPG I didn't know I was missing. I'm a fan of Powered by the Apocalypse games and this one is a great implementation of those concepts. I'm also a fan of organic world building, and Dungeon World includes the tools to support that. I've played a couple of sessions, only, so the full extent of the values of fronts and the other, similar tools has not been fully realized, but the structure makes the value of those tools clear to me. It's on my short list and I look forward to playing more.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
Dungeon World
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Iron Empires: Void
by Scott M. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 03/01/2023 08:13:33

You need to fix the quality of this PDF. All the art is blurred, I don't want to read it. The text is clear, the art is blurry.



Rating:
[1 of 5 Stars!]
Iron Empires: Void
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Torchbearer
by Jonathan A. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 06/02/2022 22:02:53

This game has some of the most baffling mechanics I've come across in tabletop. I played four sessions of Torchbearer with a group of TTRPG veterans, all of us looking for a gritty OSR game. Torchbearer has been the go-to name in old-school revival games, so we thought we'd give it a try.

There are some good ideas here: the "grind" mechanic keeps the game tense and keeps resource management at the forefront. The town mechanics seem deep and interesting as well, although they can sometimes stifle organic roleplay opportunities.

Beyond that, almost every aspect of this ruleset is over-complicated and full of contradictory approaches. Why are there two separate sets of experience points (Persona points and Fate points), that are earned separately and can be spent for mildly different effects? Why are there so many different types of PC abilities and traits (natures, wises, instincts)? Why are there exception to every rule? For example: every action in a dungeon costs grind time, every action except magic actions. And instinct actions.

I understand rewarding failed rolls with skill experience in order to encourage players to take risks. But this makes a LOT less sense in a system where every roll advances the grind clock, so your failed roll is always costing your whole party their grind resources, at least.

The fact that every "move" involves the whole party makes sense on paper, but immediately breaks down in play. There's no provisions for splitting the party, and doing so is mechanically punitive (each separate party's actions progresses the grind clock) and makes no narrative sense (why can't two separate groups act concurrently)?

All of these problems carry into the conflict resolution mechanic - my least favorite part of the whole design. Conflict scenes take multiple steps to initiate, and are full of arbitrary abstractions and limits. This alone makes it awkward to resolve quick conflicts - we found ourselves avoiding the conflict phase entirely when dealing with individual NPCs (instead we rolled them as skill checks to save time). Combat forces teams of more than 3 down to 3 combatants at a time (for no good reason) and abstracts the group's "hitpoints" into a shared pool. This is interesting, because characters are still knocked out of combat arbitrarily as these hitpoints are depleted.

Conflicts are forced down to 3 combatants at a time in service of the card-combat system - the player and the GM choose cards secretly and then reveal them simultaneously. This is a rock-paper-scissors mechanic that requires a matrix to determine the outcome, but that's not even the biggest issue. In every other RPG, combat actions are part DECISION (what your character chooses to do) and part RANDOMNESS (the roll of the dice). This system replaces the player's decision with a false choice - the card interactions are themselves ultimately random (rock-paper-scissors) and their outcomes require dice rolling - randomness on top of randomness. Another pet peeve of mine is the "conflict leader" - one player chooses the cards for the entire party, even while the consequences of those choices are visited upon their friend's characters.

Player flexibility and creativity can compensate for a lot of clumsy design in TTRPGs, but I'm truly surprised by the unanimous popularity of this system. My group has since switched to Forbidden Lands, a very elegant OSR game that much better accounts for the kinds of situations that emerge from roleplaying. Torchbearer feels like a boardgame without the board; narratively intuitive or satisfying actions will often be denied just because there are no provisions for them within the rules.



Rating:
[1 of 5 Stars!]
Torchbearer
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Dungeon World
by David A. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 08/30/2020 07:08:22

Dungeon World is a great RPG. I highly recommend it. This book, however, is a little hard to read and get the feel for the system so one point off for that.

It's imperative that you download the free FAQ with this book and read it. It is required reading.

I found the information for the DM to be lacking in this book but there is an excellent book called the Prepless GM that fills in that niche. I highly recommend you get it with this. It's like the missing DM guide for Dungeon World.



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
Dungeon World
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Dungeon World
by Jephrey S. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 07/30/2020 09:35:15

This is simply awesome to introduce new players to TTRPG's. Very well done, flows well and is reasonably well balanced. I had to tweak the monsters a bit but that was simple. I do use some house rules not because they were needed but because it is how I like to play so that is no reflection on the game. Very well done game that I think is stronger for its simplicity instead of weaker.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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Dungeon World
by Richard H. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 07/26/2020 18:51:48

This game has been a source of many very entertaining campaigns. The rules-light story forward system allows for a fast paced game where it's truly friends writing story together, not flipping through pages and trying to find the right rule for every situation. I'm not at all surprised how much other material has been inspired by this system (I understand it's not the true original).

The balance of difficult complete success against partial or complete failure makes for story that isn't an easy walk through (although it can get there a bit at higher levels). The idea of success coming at a cost makes sense for story telling.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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Dungeon World
by William B. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 07/15/2020 00:58:40

There were some great ideas in this, and I enjoyed the read. In the end though it just didn't tick off enough of the boxes to become my new "go to" system. It's been a while since I read this, but some things I really didn't care for were it's elegant systems. I understand how most of them are supposed to work, and appreciate the effort at streamlining fantasy gaming, I just didn't care for these particular systems.

SWADE eventually won, and I will be running it for a long time.



Rating:
[3 of 5 Stars!]
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Dungeon World
by Christopher S. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 03/13/2020 14:36:56

Ok, so I haven't actually played this yet. But I've been reading through the book and trying to understand it. I am new to table top RPG's but I'm super, super keen to play. I just need to find some friends willing to play.

Any way, having looked at D&D I thought: "ugh, too confusing." Then I came across DW and I knew this would be the one for me.

I love that it's the fiction that drives the game, you don't take turns in battles, you take turns telling the story. And the biggest thing is that You play to find out what happens. You're not trying to drive a pre-written narrative.

I can't wait to play this and see what happens!

I also love the way it's written, there is so much in there that spikes your imagination. You'll be coming up with your own ideas as you read it.

The artwork is cool too, it speaks of advetnure, fun and fancy rather than hardcore and serious. Kinda like Terry Pratchett!



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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Iron Empires: Void
by Łukasz B. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 09/07/2019 07:24:52

Interesting story from the Iron Empires

But the quality of the comic is very low. The file has only 8 MB. Thats for 112 pages!



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
Iron Empires: Void
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Dungeon World
by Michael W. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 07/02/2019 14:46:13

Dungeon World is far from perfect but I could not rate it less than 5 stars simply because few books have ever had a more profound impact on my time as an RPG player and GM. As written, Dungeon World has a lot of quirks and oddities - some moves certainly feel better than others - but it heavily succeeds in what it sets out to do and that's to make a narrative forward game aimed at heroic fantasty stories. I would definitely recommend grabbing Perilous Wilds, which I think does a good job improving on some base rules and classes, and allows for really freeform storytelling. Abstracting things like journies and travel can feel weird, but it can actually lead to more organic and better told stories, as you have freedom to tailor it to the narrative needs and beats that you are in.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
Dungeon World
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Dungeon World
by Kaladorn O. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 03/14/2019 03:30:17

Dungeon World represents a very different approach to FRPing than most of the traditional FRPs (Runequest, Thieves World, D&D, BRP, and the list goes on). It differs in that it operates somewhat like a chain story or improvisational theater; You are encouraged to find out things about the world and the characters in play rather than fleshing out a setting ahead of time, the characters seem to have the initiative and a good chunk of the agency in terms of what an adventure will look like and how it will unfold, and the GM is primarily executing the role of the improv partner - when presented with a piece of information, it isn't denied but instead one asks 'and then' or 'yes but' or 'and because of that'.... you work with what the players give you.

Mechanically, they call the actions players take as 'Moves' and the GM responds to moves to add drama, ratchet up the excitement, and to create new things for the players have to handle with their next Move, which again triggers a GM response.

I've not actually played it, because my group can often need prodded to action and a game that requires for them to take narrative control at times and to lead the story is just not something that I feel would succeed. So, a caveat then to my recommendation of this interesting game product: If you have a party that naturally would lean into the role of story drivers, then you have the right group for Dungeon World. If you have a quiet and generally-only-reactive group of players, then perhaps Dungeon World is not for you.

The other caveat I would say is that you do need to have a discussion with your players so that they understand they have a responsibility to make the story interesting but also one not to wreck the story by narrating things that conflict dramatically with previously established campaign facts or setting (too greatly anyway) and they should add interesting things but be aware of the possibility of creating something incoherent if everyone is adding wild, different things that don't work together. It might be better to focus on one character's backstory or his motivations and goals in a scene or adventure more than just everyone throwing in stuff like mad. That would maintain a coherence to narrative that may be more satisfying.

I'd recommend owning this game even if only to see a very different way to run an FRPG session. It's not like any other FRPG I've seen and I suspect it would take some getting used to, especially for experienced DMs and players of other gaming systems that are more 'GM presents the setting and key events, players react'.



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
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Burning Wheel Gold: Hub and Spokes
by Dillard R. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 11/15/2018 13:52:15

I want a pdf version of the book. This is a great intro, but the hard copy isn't the easiest thing to navigate. There is a good index but a pdf would certainly make using the book easier. I have a physical copy and it is beautiful. I just don't feel like getting a degree in Burning Wheel just to find obscure references. Please consider making a pdf version available.

For just an intro and the fact that this is free I'd give it 5 stars. However, there is so much missing it really leaves you in the dark about the really great system that Burning Wheel presents.



Rating:
[3 of 5 Stars!]
Burning Wheel Gold: Hub and Spokes
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Dungeon World
by Jonathan S. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 11/09/2018 06:17:13

Literally changed the way I approach Role-Playing Games. While this game may not be for everyone, I would insist that everyone wishing to improve at playing or running RPGs at least read it, as there's surely something to learn. Can't recommend this enough.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
Dungeon World
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Christopher Moeller's Iron Empires [BUNDLE]
by A customer [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 10/30/2018 17:46:18

A good bundle to get if you are interested in the Iron Empires setting. I truly liked the first and second comics and the third, if nothing else, adds another piece to the mosaic of the Iron Empires.



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
Christopher Moeller's Iron Empires [BUNDLE]
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Iron Empires: Void
by A customer [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 10/30/2018 17:44:33

The review is more about the story than the edition itself because my copy from DrivethroughRPG was of bad quality and the images were not entirely sharp.

In general, I love how each volume of Iron Empires shows a different perspective on the world. Yes, we move in all three cases in the higher echelons of the society. However, Void brings into the image the Hammer and its space battles. While the previous two volumes spoke about the war on foot, the faith, the Worm, Void introduces space battles on the verge of the organized empires, it shows again the interesting baroque aristocracy and its spartan war machines and it also shows exactly how the Worm threat is viewed by worlds that are not directly affected by it - basically not at all, which makes it even more threatening.

I felt the pace of the book and the lots of internal monologues a little too slowing down. However, it is still a great addition to the puzzle of the Iron Empires world and if you liked the previous two or like the setting, it is certainly worth reading.

(My Goodreads review)



Rating:
[3 of 5 Stars!]
Iron Empires: Void
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