Thursday, June 20, 2019

Alignment Moves

I've been running a (sporadic) campaign of Dungeon World for almost a couple of years now. I love a lot of aspects of DW but run it in a way that I'm sure would aggravate "true fans", I don't use Fronts and Portents for a start. A lot of the time I let people use Moves more like skill rolls. I certainly don't make players choose their character's name from a list, but does anyone really do that?

One of my other heresies was allowing characters of any race to choose any class. I get that the playbooks' limitations are meant as a nod to the original D&D rules but... I've always found that limitation to be a bit boring and arbitrary.

As a result I needed to create new racial moves for each character class, to go along with the preexisting ones for those classes that did allow elves, dwarves etc. While I was at it I decided to also add the option for players to pick an alignment-related move.

Alignment feels a little tacked-on in DW to me (arguably less tacked-on that it feels in D&D 5e, to be fair). So I thought I'd just have that option there so that alignment could potentially have a further impact on character creation.

Chaotic characters
DOUBLE DOWN    Once per session you may choose to reroll any one roll, but at -1.

Evil characters
OUT OF SPITE    When you Hinder someone that you have a Bond with, they get a -3 penalty instead of -2.

Good characters
I'LL BE THERE FOR YOU    When you Aid someone that you have a Bond with, they get a bonus of +2 instead of +1.

Lawful characters
SAYER OF THE LAW    When you Spout Lore about the traditions and laws of your race or homeland, double your INT bonus to the roll.

Neutral characters
FINDING BALANCE    When you spend a day in contemplation, gain 1 preparation if you take action the next day.