We discuss our opinions on the Dungeon World game and the Scars adventure.
Discussion starts 13:26
Knights of the Night
KotN Actual Play Podcst - 146 Dungeon World - Wrapup Discussion
[Music] Hello, and welcome the Knights of the Night Actual Play Podcast. This dungeon world discussion is chaired by your GM town. And now, please enjoy episode 146, Donyo World Rapa. The discussion begins at 13 minutes, 26 seconds. We've gotten back to take care of it before we get on to our overview of dungeon world. First off, we had a iTunes review. This was from the KT-84, five stars under the title of awesome sauce. The Knights are awesome. I've only gotten through about half of the first story, but I'm hooked. The storyteller is great, the players are great, the editing is great, everything is great. I'm assuming you're saying shit luck. I believe so. Okay. Like it's better. Good, good story. The only complaint I have. I meant the editing. Yeah. You know, like our music can stop. It's so much stronger. The only complaint that I have is that I can't stop listening. Awesome job guys. Keep up the great work. Thank you very much. It was an iTunes review, so we don't know what to do. Oh, it's only on the first story. It was going to be in America, right? iTunes? Yeah, it has to be, right? Unless they tell me otherwise, and I haven't been looking in the other countries. So I was definitely from America. We certainly appreciate the feedback. Thanks. We had some feedback from the KOTN Podcast.com site. It was on episode 44 in which Rema said, "Thanks for playing my last bit of feedback. I wanted to provide you with a pronunciation guide of my name, the E." And say I said it wrong already. Rima is along E. It sounds like the E from the start of Eagle or Isola. It is along E. Rima. And she's on episode. What was she coming in? Repsor, what? I was. Here he is. I'm sorry. They were coming out of episode 144. I think that's what his feedback is. And I'm a male, not a female. Did we mispronounce the name? I was saying Rema, and it's Rima. I was going to actually make a joke. I was going to say Isola. I don't remember that. I was going to say Ego and Ezel, but no. Anyways, I figured you want to know. And yes, I do. If anybody can get me. We hate misguiding words and or names. First of all, I'm terrible at it. So any help you can give me. Much appreciated. You got it from me. So I have six weeks and I finally caught up and listened to all your podcasts. So after six weeks, man, that's dedication. 144 episodes in six weeks. Hopefully I can make it until the next episode without getting the shakes too bad. What an absolute blast it has been. And now that I've gotten caught up, I want to cast some votes for my favorite. Favorite shit luck character is Dr. Lucius. And here tonight. Dr. Luis Breicordam could have passed. I wanted to say Chu, but I really didn't get into his character until the second part of the story. My favorite delivery character, without a doubt, would be Alan. I'm still waiting for him to put everybody in their place. Everybody loves the wizard. My favorite chagrin character. Well, that's a toss-up. I really think that Chu is the winner here. But there are some really great moments for everybody. So it's really hard to choose, just one. I love those flashbacks. Now the more time passes, you guys did just a great job with those. It's players. I mean, the characterization and how we really fleshed out some of your characters within my thought really went better than expected. My favorite dungeon world character, Jared, The Mage. Put the paladin in a close second. Always the bridesmaid. I just... We like to eat. I just ran my first session of Dungeon World a few weeks ago and I think everybody had a blast. I can't wait to get back to it once my Hackmaster 5th edition game cools down. Did I hear that you're running Numenara next? I hope so. My copy, I brought through your Amazon link. Thank you. Yay! That was great, guys. Should be arriving any day. And it would be awesome to hear my favorite AP podcast introduced to game to me. Anyways, thanks for the great stories and all the laughs. And I'm almost tempted to try and remember my Facebook account so I can join in on some of the fan discussion. If only there was a Google group. Which there is, but it just gets... There's three. Yeah. No, I mean, there's an AKT on Google Group, but it's like I got before members and all I do is post stuff from. Yeah, there's no... There's not like discussion. Yeah, it might be worth actually getting the Facebook because there's pictures. There's maps. There's character bios. There's character sheets. There's, there's discussion. So as much as you may have a disdain for Facebook, which I can certainly wholly appreciate, I think it's worth the while to remember to dust off that password. But I also want to say that was really fun feedback. Someone who blew through 20+ episodes a week for six weeks and was able to give all that nice feedback. So, cool stuff. That's a lot of material to get through. That's a lot of us. Yeah. It's got a twist to each other. We don't even like ourselves that much. And speaking of Facebook, I posted last Friday just before I headed out the door. Time to play new manera because we're starting that up. Yes. And Ari mentioned, "So Scott, taking the GM seat or someone else for a change?" Which I was like, "For a change? What the hell? I just ran down in the world, Ari." Right. And he was like, "Oh, no, no, no. I meant if me and one of the other guys are going to step up and GM for a moment." Maybe someday. That's too much work. It is. You know, a new manera, not so much. It doesn't seem like it. I mean, I just got it down some notes and then just made, you kind of make shit up as you go because you don't know where the fuck you guys are going to do what you're going to do. You're doing something. I have to, new manera, I have to GM more like time than I've ever GM before, like time. And so this adventure definitely will be like that. Mr. Merc Tiao so much. Weird shit. That I've read a bit about it and I'm not much impressed with the variety of classes. But I hope you guys will have done something as original as the food paladin or the balls bard. The balls bard, balls bard. Well, you mentioned the balls. You said you were going to sing a bardie, a bardie. I can't talk. Baudie bard song about it. Yes, that was you that made that up not for that. That's Theron. Or Theron, sorry. I had a discussion with Theron too and I explained that when I first read the book, I thought the same thing. You've only got three classes. That's not really the way it breaks down when you get into focus. Those are almost like races. Yeah, they're the second half of the class. There's a lot more classes. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised at what you guys come up with as characters for this new manera story. Richard Watts said huge and money-cooked fam looking forward to it. And Ari said, oh I have to check out what you're talking about because apparently he hasn't really heard of new manera in the beginning. So this is an actual story book written on new manera. There's fiction books. They haven't. No, it's out. I have it. Okay. Sure. It was part of what I can. Yeah, sure. But it was part of the Kickstarter. It actually pretty much- I wouldn't mind reading a brief story about the world setting. Yeah, the setting more for the setting background because that's what I struggle with the most is GM is trying to find my footing. Bora's pretty easy. Mystery's pretty easy. Fantasy's pretty easy. But one billion years in the future making technology fantasy. Speaking of Google Plus, there is a new manera community. And I was talking to people on there saying, you know, we have Joe who creates our music and he wanted to know what kind of music he should create for new manera. And I tried to describe it to him and I'm like, fuck, I don't know. It's science fiction fantasy. So I asked out there and everybody's throwing out ideas on music. Right. So anyone who has any suggestions throw it out? Yeah, absolutely. Or on Facebook. Maybe I'll throw up a link there as well. Yeah, I think the fans would enjoy that a little bit too. On Facebook, Ari also sent me a comment and he said overall comment on the dungeon world session. Is it only my ears or did the game involve all the players more evenly than the world of darkness and Dresden? Somehow it seems to me all throughout the play that everyone was involved with everything and all the time committing and suggesting all around. Or could this be a result of the system? I had the opposite impression. I thought there wasn't enough time, facetime for everybody. See, I thought you over blew that. In my own mind, I thought you that was way overblown that you kept saying, "I don't think you can say it over blue. That just sounds wrong." I think that everyone got a lot of facetime because they're with world of darkness and with Dresden, there's a strong storyline there. And certain stories are going to focus on other characters more so than some others. And this was just a one shot. Well, it's all play and everyone kind of had an equal participation. I can see what I was saying, but that was just me, but I see what I already said. There were some scenes or some battles that featured one person or another, a little bit more than the other, but I think even now. And I think because the battles were so short, there were so many scenes that everyone got to talk during a night. There was very few nights where someone sat there. Maybe a pace was quicker. Yeah, where someone just sat there for three hours and did nothing. That's not fun when you do that. Right. In any game. Right. And speaking of mispronouncing names, I'm going to now mispronounce our newest listener's name. All right, newest listener. D-I-O-P. Yeah. D-OP. Drop it. D-OP. No, I think it's just- No, I think it's just- Actually, I think Mike's right. I think the D is actually a J. Okay, so we're gonna say- We had a basketball player named Jacques, but it was spelled D-I-O-P for the Cavaliers. So, Alfa, if it's pronounced correctly there, it's these guys who did it because I would have pronounced it otherwise. And he says, I gotta say, I do miss the world of darkness actual play. Those are awesome, especially the story. What would be- Also, the first opening soundtrack was God-like. So, I got into a lengthy discussion with him and he said, "Oh, no, no, no, no, you misunderstand me." I loved all the stuff. Right. He just specifically loved the world of darkness more. Right. And it's coming up. Yeah, we'll be back to it. It's a little way, so- I said, you got a seven-part arc and we've been through two, so there's plenty more to come. Yeah, there's plenty more to come. And Dumenair is gonna be pretty much a one-shot, just like Dungeon World was, at least to start. Right, and we'll return love of it. Then we'll return to our Dresden roots, and that is right back to World of Darkness, as long as nothing changes. On episode one, we'll be doing the whole episode, the whole campaign from My Gritty, because they were bleeding out last time. That was horrible. No, if the sister has more time, she can heal you. Not in battle, it's too quick. On episode 143, Luke Green posted and said, "I was listening to this while driving to and from work this morning. I live in Fukushima, and my school is about 40 minutes away." Oh yeah, nice to teach you. Where the- Is this Fukushima or the reactor? Yeah, Japan. Yeah. Anyways, some general feedback. I still remember the fighter talking about embracing his spirit, and that reminds me of an anime where they were demon stars that were essentially the souls of living people reshaped into magical weapons, meant to kill supernatural entities. They could all take human form, and most of them were rather likable girls that had no memory of ever being human. So I had this image of this spirit turning into a girl suddenly and embracing him. Is it that special of a spear, Mike, that- First of all, I wouldn't choose a phallic weapon and have a turn to all of them. Maybe it would, but maybe it would, it would. Anyways, excellent plan for dealing with the red cloaks and the Inquisitor. I can't wait to see how the ritual goes, which you should have heard by now. Also, I wondered if the elves were lying about the nature of the scars. Which, yeah, we're not going to find out in the- The elves are lying about the elves lying about everything. Richard Watts said, "Wait and move the game along." I laughed out loud when Mike said this. Great session. When did you remember why he said that? Yeah, I went back and- It was a debate, debate, debate. Well, we were talking about something, and then all of a sudden three red cloaks walked in. I said something, and just as I say it, three red cloaks walked into the bar, and I'm like, "Oh, okay, well, we're going to go to the story lounge." Yeah, but three red cloaks walked into the bar. Yeah. And last bit of feedback is from Anthony Urchmer, who said, "Oh, holy crap. I had forgotten how much I missed the feedback part of the show. I've been enjoying this dungeon world adventure very much, and I was very excited to find out you were going to play Newmanera next. I started listening to you guys to learn how to play Dresden Finals, and stayed for World of Darkness, and learned how to run World of Darkness better. And now you can help me understand Newmanera better. Can't wait to hear more. Also, on a last note, I'm in the same boat with Ari, and I listen to you all on my hours of commute back and forth from work and school. Keep up the great work. Thanks Anthony. We appreciate the feedback and- Thank you Richard and Luke. We actually- You're excited about Newmanera? We played our first session tonight, so um- You thought it worked pretty well. There's only a couple of weeks away- We're finally- You're- You're going to release Newmanera stuff soon actually. The Newmanera will be released the week after this. Right? With that guys, we're going to wrap this up. We're going to go into how we felt the system won and everything. Again, kotnpodcast.com, visit the Amazon link. It doesn't cost you any extra money, and it gives us a little bit of support for the podcast. So please enjoy. What we're going to do is we're going to have a short little discussion about what we felt about the dungeon world. I'm Tom, your GM, and with me tonight, starting on my right is- Jim, who was playing Jared? Mike, who was playing Simon. Michael, who was playing Zeb. Thomas, who was playing Drummond. John, who was playing Dunwood. And Scott is here, but he's not available right now. He might jump in at the end to give his quick impression of dungeon world. So let's start with the basic one. What do you guys think of dungeon world? It was definitely fun and easier than like D&D. It was different, but there's some good things, some bad things about it. I enjoyed it. I liked how only the players rolled. So if a monster attacked, it was your job to dodge. It wasn't a GM's job to attack, and your role to defend versus that. It was an interesting system, and I thought it was a good movement forward. There's no hiding roles in the world, you own damage. So overall though, Mike, good bad. I liked it. I was burned out on horror, and I was happy to have that change. I think it was light. It was fast. I think there were some concepts of the shared storytelling that I didn't quite respond to, because I wasn't thinking in terms of how I was going to defend something instead of just describing my action. We'll get back to that too, because that's a tough guy. I want to be a little more carefully. What did you think? There was definitely a learning curve there for the players to get involved in the storytelling. I loved every bit of it. I loved how fast it was. I liked it. It was just fun to be back. Well, that was another thing. It's your first time back in many, many, many years. Yeah, but I remember the different systems we played, and I think this has got it all over them. It's good for a short campaign, I think. It's good for going fast, and I like how it gave you choices for your character development. That gave you options, but didn't bog down in details, and gear, and stuff like that. John, what did you think? It was really geared towards Dungeons, Dungeon World, good figure. But all the moves had more about what you would do when it's done, and you'd check this. But overall, did you like it? Did you enjoy it? Was it? I was bummed out every time I tried to do something that wasn't covered. Yeah, I mean, like, parlay with somebody. That kind of leads into the second question, which was... It kind of leads into a second question, what was the flaws? And I think you're saying the social system was like... Right, there seemed to me to be holes in it. Like, you want to do something, and there just simply wasn't to move to cover it, and what do you do? It would just be nice if your character could do a certain thing. Well, 80, 90 percent of the time, instead of it, it's a flip of a coin, whether or not you're going to succeed, not succeed. You know, it's like I should be able to walk up this guy and kill him, but I'm having a bad night, and I can't even hit him, you know, once at all. And then you're like, I'm excited when you get hit, where you should be able to at least do some things. Well, like, I can't, you know, there should be, sometimes there's nights, and it's just us too. But sometimes there's just nights when, you know, we don't go on for it. More than nights, like, this is like the third session, and I can't get nothing done with this character. I just can't, he's supposed to be good at something, and he seems like he's good at nothing. There's no fun to play a character that's good at nothing. It was very streaky, and we went through periods where we couldn't, as a group, couldn't hit anything, couldn't make a role. It made for interesting game play, but it was, at the same time, you know, it got frustrating. I don't know how much that had to do with the system, you know, missing roles. Sometimes we could only come up with one solution. Like, I had to do magic at one point, and I failed. And I failed, so what are we going to do now? We had to come up with a long, convoluted plan to make it easier for me to do that magic, or something else. Well, there's a... I think we'd come up with a flunk and come up with a plan. For nearly anything. For everything, but... We've got to open this door. Get me a squirrel, a rope, and a crow bomb. The last episode, which, you know, the one prior to this, was half of the episode was a discussion of what the fuck to do with mind erasing these guys. Because we sent out about half of the night talking about that. And it was like, all right, we got it. This is it. Yeah, but what about this? Oh, fuck. Okay, so... So I did miss anything of what I'd be in there. Well, I didn't, you know, in a way, I think that it indicates... They got it done, but... I don't know if that's the nature of how we are. That's how we are. Or how we have spent, in some cases, decades screwing each other over. So it's like you're like, we're being lawyers. We're trying to close all the loopholes that walk by the air. It's tight. Right. So we don't get bitten in the ass later. Well, there were some pretty big fucking loopholes. As with things that there's so much... Horses were killed. You remember the part where Ryan was caught trying to steal the horses? The village isn't going to believe that. Oh, shit, yeah. All right. So... How about this? So there were some big hosts. But the flaws in the game, the ones about me the most, I think, was when you guys wanted to do something and there simply wasn't a role for me. I mean, there was no social... And which is one thing that we, as a group, enjoy, there's no social roles at all. Well, maybe it's implied in the name of the game, "Dodgerworld" that it's a hack and slash. You know, I'm going to talk with my sword, you know. All the powers, I don't remember negotiation, or charming. Well, I'll leave the pellet and have some kind of charmer. Then you pay that pellet ahead and no charm whatsoever. Okay. Love the charm, baby. He was beard. Love the charm. Okay. You can't help but compare it to D&D and I'll tell you one thing. I'd rather do a combat in "Dodgerworld" that'll take you at 15 minutes, half an hour, then do a D&D combat that'll take you at two or three sessions. Can we just say something because D&D is really primarily a combat system. Well, four years down. Yeah. I was speaking of four years. Okay. I mean, but... Hey, is there a fight right now? It's called, so I've heard it's radically different. They're calling it next, so that when they release the one after that, everyone will be really confused. It's so... Oh, wait for next point five. Ah, that joke is so far ahead of its time. People are going to come back several years later and go, "Holy shit, I might have called it." That'll be next point next. The strengths of "Dodgerworld" was, I think, what we were saying, "Oh, I'm quickness." Yeah. Things done quick. I also liked the failing forward aspect of it. You know, you succeeded. Right. No, you failed. You succeeded in the complication. That's the reason failing didn't bother me so much because it was also important that you failed sometimes. Well, for experience. Yeah. I would say it like this. I think it's great for an adventure. I don't think it'd be good for a campaign. I don't think it's... I think it's broad, but a little shallow, in the sense that, you know, your characters are a little bit kind of pre-set. We move forward. It's good for a lot of stuff. Like it's in the speed. We moved along, but I don't see how we could play that over the length of a campaign, and certainly not for months at a time. You couldn't see playing the campaign we were playing more. It was still some honors often. Yeah, I could. I think the social aspects of the clearing, and I don't have a lot of personal experience with that, but I've been listening a lot, and I can see where that is a bit... Yeah. When I was said, it's got it all over the other, I meant that I would... Comment. Yeah. But I don't know that I see a whole lot of problem taking it into a campaign, other than the clearing lack of social. When we started up World Creation, the fact that the players have a lot of input into what... And it's funny, but... The only person who hasn't been playing a lot recently seemed to be the only one that was starting to get it at the very end. We were going into town and checking out the tavern where the horses were being kept, and Michael simply stated without asking, while the tavern owner also runs the barn, and he's in there, so he won't be over here and started making declarations and creating the universe on the fly, which is what you're supposed to do in Dungeon World. The GM is supposed to ask you, "I don't know, what is this tavern like?" And you're supposed to just supply it, which we started at the beginning. You guys did a lot towards creating, but we didn't carry as much into the game as we really should have. I didn't even know what I was supposed to be doing that too much. I mentioned it a few times, but you missed a few, so I'm not sure if it was happened to be when those occurred. This is kind of a weak answer. I'm on the fence with that, because there are times where, you know, you want to contribute, and come up with something, but then it also feels like that's a good way to derail, or take advantage, or be a fighter. Well, I think you almost end up derailing the momentum of what we're doing, because you're coming up with stuff that maybe somebody else is not buying into or are willing to roll with. I think it's kind of key. It's kind of neat to be able to, you're going into a world and you're trying to figure out what these scars are, what makes them tick, what's the whole real deal about them, but at the same time you're coming up with the answer yourself, so you're not, there's no sense of discovery, because you're the one coming up with the answer to the thing you're looking for. I got to disagree with you. Everybody else has a sense of discovery. Yeah, when you come up with the answer, everyone else is on. Yeah, and the GM's always there to whatever you call, say, "No." There was a couple times- That's the way it is. There was a few times in the adventure where, you know, you're in the tavern and you're saying, "Now, you know, now they show up." And I'm like, "No, no, they don't show up now, that's not what's happening." And the GM still has control over that, and they still have what they had planned to happen. I think it took a lighter tone. I think we're kind of having some fun with it. Yeah, and because we were doing as a one-shotter, let's try it out, that I wasn't taking the whole world city creation too seriously, because it's hardly one to get involved in depth in what you're making if you're only going to try it once and never play it again. Yeah, well, there's that. I don't know. Yeah, going through the act of playing, you might as well invest, at least, song buy-in into it. I mean, song, but not like, we're really going to thoroughly flesh this whole out, make a map and- No, no, I'm not saying you want to take two notes, like Dresden. Not like Dresden. Yeah. As long as it's lighter and you can have some input and making it interesting, I don't see what- They're going to push the comments. We saw that a lot of people recognize the lighter tone and- Oh yeah. And they enjoyed it, despite looking forward to whatever they were looking forward to. Character creation. You and the past Mike have mentioned that you sometimes find that a little daunting if there's too many options. This was definitely much- It's not that it does. Yeah, check boxes. Yeah, it's nothing. Name, yep, this one. It's not like New Menera. Right. Yeah, I don't find- It's not that I find character- Wow. That's very interesting, daunting. I just don't like- Bloat for no other reason than to sell content. No, I think I was referring more to when we spoke about Dresden. And you were saying- Creating an aspect was too wide open for you. There was- There wasn't even a lot of examples. You have to make it, and it's important part of your character. But there's no guidelines here. Where a dungeon world is almost exactly the opposite. You've got to check boxes. These are like- Yeah. And it's a quick thing. I could see that this game would work good in conventions. Yes. Where you've got half an hour going to make our characters the right goal. I also like where you're almost- I can act or give in the scene. Here's your character. You can still bring what you want to the character. But here are some bullet points that help you anchor whatever it is. Go. It's also, I think, a really easy game to get. If you wanted to start a group with a bunch of people that weren't really on the fence, I don't know if I really want to try role-playing. It's not really complicated and hard. It'd be easy just to fire that up and go and not be too daunting or something to help you. On the other hand, do I need to get that much participation out of the players? Yeah. They, you know, I think it would help a lot if they were experienced or at least- Yeah. Of a certain bent to say- Not hesitating to chip in and build the world. Yeah. It's easy in some ways for newcomers. Like character generation and just playing the game is pretty simple. But yeah, like Michael said, there's bits that are actually really demanding of the players. Like you need to create the entire world as you go. And that's your job. And you need to roll all the dice. The game doesn't touch a single one. Could it be harder because we're so accustomed to not doing that? Yeah, I don't know that it's a burning person. I don't know. I don't know if that's the case, Thomas, because I think if you give them a list, these are why you're not supposed to give a list either, because you're supposed to run it as fiction. And then you choose what move it applies to. It's a gym, but- It's like seven move. Good luck. Yeah, and there's that problem. And Scott has joined us by the way. So why don't we hear his voice? I guess the last is, in general, Scars, was it a good eventual, bad eventual, could have been better? I don't know that we're ever going to return to Dungeon World. The reviews are mixed from the players as far as how much we liked it. Everybody liked how fast it was, but not other aspects of it. No social comment, for instance. Was it good enough time? I mean, fun was had. I think Michael said he really enjoyed it. Yeah, I didn't leave the table thinking I wasted a night, just because I don't want to come back to it maybe and play it as long as options. A full time, right? Doesn't mean I didn't enjoy it for what it was, which was a fun little adventure, you know? I mean, it really, I thought the story was pretty fun. I think that for a one shot, to get everyone to kind of get out of the darkness of Dresden and the world of darkness, play a little bit of a lighter story and have a little bit more fun at the table. It's that comes through probably in the recordings as well, or one's kind of making jokes and being jovial. I think some of the fans did comment on that, so. I got one last question. Do you guys think that we did Dungeon World Justice? It is a radically different game, and we in some senses tried to force it into our style of play, and maybe we didn't give it a true chance to be what it's supposed to be. And we almost forced it into our style of play, which is why it became an issue that there's no social combat. Well, maybe there wasn't supposed to be, it was, as mentioned, Dungeon World. Why are we having social combat? So perhaps we were playing it, quote unquote, wrong. But there are different games out there, lots of different games, and they all have different role systems that are kind of supposed to be played in a certain way. I think Burning Wheel is a good example, because it's almost confrontational. The GM is supposed to vigorously go after the players, and we tend to play games the way we like to play them. I mean, why shouldn't we? That's where we get the enjoyment from. But did we give Dungeon World a fair shake by trying to make it do something it wasn't supposed to? I think we gave it a fair shake. I think it was we played, we tried to follow the rules and follow what was happening, and we had fun. We're at the edges of it sometimes looking out, saying, oh, I wish we had a little more definition here. I wish it was social combat or something. That's not to say we can't expand it, but then like you said, now we're making it what we want and not what it is. So... That's what giving up fair shake is, is we had fun with it and we saw that parts we liked and parts we didn't like, but overall had a good time with it, and did what I think the game was made to do. I think there's a big learning curve getting back to that again, and at the end of it, you're better at it than when you started, for you want to be, and I think you saw that when you did your initial canned adventure of... You're always trying to do it. Right. I mean, it was a little rough. And I think getting back to the social combat with the... Cracked check. Cracked check. Dunwick. It was kind of fun working and getting that done, even though there wasn't a social aspect to it. I didn't find a way to do it. Yeah, I didn't know what to get it done. That part of it, like, clacked check from talking, and making an ally out of what we thought was going to be. More, I think I approached the wrong mindset when we were talking about the red cloaks. I was like, "Oh God, they're so scary." And I'm supposed to be a competent guy who can handle this shit, and not really approach something that way. So I guess I had the wrong mindset for my character in that. Probably wouldn't be like that, because that's not what this game's about. That was so fun. A lot of arguments. Well, maybe that's part of the problem with the world building, where you're trying to build the macro part of it. And everyone... The Empire meant something different to everyone. I'm sure it needs something far different to me than what it meant to you. And then when you're trying to role-play those different things, when we do encounter them, it's... Some of the reactions are like, "Okay, if these are supposed to be the authority in the badasses, and should we be truthful? Should we run? Should we attack them?" Yeah, I had a slight problem with that, is once Thomas was making stuff up about demons, and getting laughed at as if he didn't know... Well, and it's supposed to be a world in which you're allowed to do that. Right. If he states something, it is. It's like improv. There is no no that didn't happen. It's yes, but, or yes, and. And then John was the same way. As he's saying, these guys are all badasses, and the Paladin is saying, "No, what are you doing? They're not that bad. Why are we running?" And it's kind of tough, because would the Paladin be a dick like that, and be contrary? Yeah, quite possibly. And that's not breaking the rules of the game, but it is possibly also breaking the rules of the game. You know, it depends on how you look at it. That's why I found confusing about the way we were playing it, is it seems that we were world-building as we were playing along, and changing things as we were going along. Which was my point. A scar is this. And then, no, a scar is that, and then the Empire is this way, and they're doing this, and I always had an idea of what the Empire is like. I think everybody had an idea of what the Empire was like. It may have changed, because of how I pushed it, but it was always the same in my mind. I don't think we were supposed to think of it the same way, to be honest. I choose reality. I came from a city-state that actively stun their nose at the Empire. So when he's going off about red cloaks, Michael, we'll just kill him. You know, I mean, what's the big deal? We're an independent city-state there in our territory. You know? Or this is No Man's Land. Whatever the case might be. So I think actually John and I having a difference of opinion there as our characters, not so much as players, was actually probably, as Michael just said, pretty appropriate. Right. He came from Empire and fled that. Yeah, he fled the Empire, and trying to escape, or is it my fault of my character creation, though that I made a character who's weak and afraid of them? Well, no. I mean, but for a one shot, you played your character the way you wanted to play him, which was that he feared them. And I played the character the way I wanted, which was fuck him. You know? We got a job to do here. So I think that everything you do with the system at all. I don't think John created something, or that we created something as a group, and then I came along and broke it. I think it was just that our characters had different opinions of it, is how I took it in-game. But I, again, could be wrong, because before it goes in. I remember, then we start discussing, like, should we really be that afraid of them? What can they really do? Where can they really go? Well, I don't know. And then you don't want to, like, take a side and discuss for half an hour. Okay, let's re-decide again what the Empire is, and how far the reach is, and what their people do, and how powerful they are, and what kind of trouble can we really get into for this? And I guess to take away, you know, let's just go back on and start playing. That's an example of what I mean by, we're trying to close loopholes so we don't screw ourselves in the long distance if we play again. We're worried about a very high-level, broad issue, as the Empire versus, we're in the middle of a village that's burning. So we're worried about the state that doesn't even have power where we were, and trying to make sure that, okay, we're trying to either morally justify or avoid retribution from a vast, powerful empire, but really, we were here to, again, you don't see the force for the trees. Not at you, but the same way. What happens if we can't help it, you sort of look at the bigger things, and then you forget, or you're ignoring what you're there for, which is the immediate thing of, we got to either fix the scar, there's an ice giant coming at me. Again, I think you have to expect some of that when you're changing the dynamic of the game, so much that everybody's contributing now. But maybe if we get past that first, you can say it's a one-shot. I think the most building is going to happen then. Of course, you're going to get into different things, but maybe you get better at it. I think you're right, Michael. The most building on a macro sense is going to happen in that first one-shot. And then as you kept on playing it, we would have fine-tuned the more micro elements of the world we want on. But I don't think that problem or this issue is unique to Dungeon World. I think that's a common thing that happens to this group, whatever campaign we are in. Especially if it's a world building, make up your own world campaign and not everyone. I mean, it happens in Dresden, it happens in World of Darkness, it happens in Dungeon World. It'll happen in Newman era. Yeah, but there are some games that allow that and inspect it, so it's likely to happen more often. It's not really something in World of Darkness. I mean, there are no things for declaring this is the way things are. There are in Dresden, you've got a fake point. I say this exists, therefore it does, but much less in World of Darkness. You can try to make the world, but the gym is going to slap you with a reality and a heartbeat. Right. There was one case I think where... Yeah, I mean, like, spent like a willpower point and there was a cane sword or a baseball bat, or spun that behind the door. Well, it was clubbed. Yeah, and that first... We never released that. That never released. Right. Definitely to hold it for... Yeah, not anything world-building-wise, like Dresden or Dungeon World. So we're going to wrap up really quick. In general, it sounds like everybody kind of liked it. They enjoyed it for the distraction it was. Not something we'd like to go on a long-term campaign with. We may return to it for the... Are you going to do the Solid B? Any other or less comments? No, I'd tell you again, if we wanted to get a break from being too serious and wanted to do something a little bit on the lighter side. Yeah, I'd play it again too. I mean, it was my favorite system of all time, but it certainly wasn't so bad that I thought we can't come back to it. Right. Like I said, I definitely... If I went to a convention... Yeah. And there was all these options ahead. I could see it being one of the ones I would more likely choose. Because it seems to be quicker to get up on its feet and running. Where Dresden and World of Darkness seem to work better. The more you invest over the long haul, the better the game seems to get. Yeah. All right. And with that, we'll wrap up our dungeon world. Thanks for listening to The Lights of the Night at Actual Play Podcast. Visit kotnpodcast.com for more information on this and other adventures. Where you will find character stats, photos, storytelling props, and even a form for comments and suggestions. Where you could email us directly at feedback at kotnpodcast.com or contact us via Twitter or leave a message on Facebook. All music for this podcast was created and performed by Zen Audio Smith. If you'd like custom professional music created for your podcast or business, please visit Zen Audio Smith.com and please join us next episode for more mystery and adventure. [Music] And now that I've gotten caught up, I want to make some notes. I want to cast some votes for my favorite. Man, this ain't even fucking close. [Laughter] I want to get some sleep so I can read correctly.