Saturday, March 13, 2021

"I order him to hand over control of his cult" -- A brief session AAR/recap: Dark Sun-inspired World of Dungeon + AW utter shenanigans

I just ran a really enjoyable session tonight of what was, basically, World of Dungeons (a Dungeon World-light) beefed up with some really evocative playbook moves plundered from various Apocalypse World hacks to add some gritty S&S color (there are existing hack options for this, but none hit exactly the note I wanted). I should do/maybe will do a proper session recap, but the note below (which I posted to the World of Dungeons sub-Discord forum) kind of sums up the main highlights, at least for now.

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I ended up using the old Dark Sun setting as a very loose inspiration point and we did a lot of setting construction through Q&A right at the start. System was basically World of Dungeons with some special ability choices replaced by really evocative playbook moves from across the AW-DW sphere. You know it's going to be a wild ride when one of the earliest things that happens in play in a session is that one character uses psychic manipulation to make a murderous cult leader hand over control of his cult ["the Order of the Emerald Mother"]...to the PC. They agreed to meet at the cult sanctuary in the cliffside tombs that evening to present the 'good news' to the cult. Unfortunately for the players, however, a string of cascading rolls led to a dramatic close-of-session as two characters were hauled away by the city guard for questioning (a PC breaking up an abduction ended up getting fingered for the crime himself!). And the city government is known to be under the control of the cruel order of assassins that the players are probably up against in the campaign front. Will the PCs be 'disappeared' by the town guard, or will they gain their freedom, successfully take over that cult (!??!), and complete their mission to prevent the resurrection of an evil sorcerer-king? I don't know...we'll have to keep playing to find out.

Oh, and one player character is a half-troll Brute who can shapeshift into a pterodactyl. Because reasons.

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I may recap the session in more detail in coming days. Very fun times had tonight -- rumbling with a cult, psychic powers, a 'friendly' bout with an old troll rival in the Caravaneers' Arena for Rhetoric and Stick-Fighting, and an attemped rescue of an old ally (who was being carried off in a carpet) - that went terribly wrong...

4 comments:

  1. This sounds like pure awesome. Dark sun is still one of my favorite places to come back to for inspiration too.

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  2. Please explain how you inserted AW's moves, I'm very curious about that! Thank you!!!

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    1. Hi! Sorry for the slow response. I've now got a new blog post that addresses your questions about my World of Dungeons + AW sword and sorcery hack. Cheers!
      https://gundobadgames.blogspot.com/2021/04/a-light-pbta-s-hack-playbooks.html

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