Drunken Debauchery, Stealing from Conan

The Drinking Contest introduces gobs of opportunity to get smashing drunk, and a rules-y way to handle it. This expands further on the drinking contests, and the aftermath. It goes beyond the Carouse move, but can often accompany it. I introduce to you (this rule is meant to be used with Abstract Coins): 

Drunken Debauchery

When you spent a night on the town, and got too smashed to remember, roll 2d6+ the number of drinks you had (if this is unclear, add your Constitution score). This isn't really hit or miss, consult the following table:

2: Behold My Grace! You boasted of your adroitness! Roll 1d6: 1–2 = Balancing on a Ledge/Beam/Rope; 3 = Bull-Leaping; 4 = Dancing; 5 = Five-Finger Fillet; 6 = Juggling Random Items.
3: Behold My Might! You boasted of your strength! Roll 1d6: 1–2 = Arm Wrestling; 3–4= Wrestling Match; 5 = Keg Tossing; 6 = Lifting Heavy Objects.
4: Behold My Stamina! You boasted of your constitution! Roll 1d6: 1–3 = Drinking Contest; 4–5 = Eating Contest; 6 = Long Distance Running / Swimming Challenge.
5: Big Business! You invested another 1 point of Wealth in a merchant’s caravan / ship venture! GM secretly rolls 1d6: 1–2 = It’s a con; 3–4 = It’s legitimate, and in 2d6 months you’ll have doubled your investment (if you’re still alive and around!); 5–6 = It’s legitimate, but the caravan / ship didn’t survive.
6: Brotherly Love! You woke up next to one of the other players’ characters (referee determines randomly)!
7: Brrr . . . Chilly! Someone stole your coat / clothes while you were intoxicated!
8: Dangerous Liaison! You bedded the son / daughter / husband / wife / temple virgin of someone who can make your life in this area very difficult! Roll 1d6: 1 = Local Crime Lord; 2 = Local Militia Commander; 3 = Local Sorcerer; 4 = Local Temple Leader; 5–6 = Important Local Leader / Noble.
9: Drunken Brawl! You started a drunken brawl! You must spend Wealth on damages and fines to avoid incarceration, or flee and be declared outlaw. Roll Wealth. If you don’t have enough wealth to pay the fine and do not flee, you will be incarcerated and your belongings will be confiscated and sold.
10: Fire! You accidentally started a fire in the inn / den of ill repute you were carousing in! You must spend an additional 1d20 × 10 gold pieces on damages and fines to avoid incarceration, or flee and be declared outlaw! Roll Wealth as #9.
11: Gambling! You gambled away your money on a game Defy Danger with +WIS (at -1 if you took a Debility for the drinking contest) vs. Wealth dropping to 0. Unlike normal Defy Danger moves, on a 12+ with this one, you gain +1 to your wealth level (if possible). Roll 1d6: 1 = Dice Game; 2 = Card Game; 3 = Cock Fight; 4 = Dog Fight; 5 = Arm / Wrestling Match; 6 = Pit Fight.
12: Go Directly to Jail! You woke up in jail charged with a crime! Roll 1d6: 1–2 = Drunken Disorderly; 3 = Lewd Conduct; 4 = Vandalism; 5 = Theft; 6 = Murder. You decide if your character did it or not. An escape may be necessary . . .
13: Have at You! You incurred someone’s anger (or were angered yourself) and have agreed to a duel, physical or sorcerous!
14: How’d I Get Here? You woke up in a strange place with no idea how you’d got there! Roll 1d6: 1 = Aboard a ship (maybe heading out to sea!); 2 = In a tree or on a roof; 3 = In the back of a wagon (maybe travelling somewhere!); 4 = In the nearest stable / animal pen; 5 = In the nearest temple; 6 = In the sewer / gutter.
15: How Embarrassing! You made a complete idiot of yourself in public! Locals snigger behind your back and consider you a complete imbecile. Roll 1d6: 1 = You emptied your bladder . . . unexpectedly; 2 = You exposed yourself; 3 = You fell flat on your face unconscious while attempting to seem intimidating / skillful / powerful; 4–5 = You performed the worst drunken song and dance . . . ever; 6 = You soiled yourself.
16: I Hereby Swear! You made a foolish pledge, loudly and in public to do something hazardous. Roll 1d6: 1–2 = Clear Nearest Monster Den / Ruin; 3–4 = Bring Down Local Bandits / Thieves / Thugs; 5–6 = Steal Valuable From Important Local (roll as in Dangerous Liaison! to determine who).
17: Just Married! You woke up to find someone claiming to be your new wife / husband! Roll 1d6: 1–2 = Attractive; 3–4 = Average; 5 = Ugly; 6 = Pass the bucket! GM also secretly rolls 1d6: 1–3 = It’s a con attempt; 4–6 = It’s true.
18: Love Never Dies! You woke up next to a corpse! Roll 1d6: 1–2 = They died of natural causes; 3–4 = They died of drug / alcohol overdose; 5 = You think you accidentally killed them; 6 = You think you murdered them. GM also secretly rolls 1d6: 1–3 = It’s a setup; 4–6 = It’s true.
19: Mooooo! You woke up next to an animal! Roll 1d6: 1 = Chicken; 2 = Cow; 3 = Goat; 4 = Horse / Camel; 5 = Pig; 6 = Sheep.
20: My Land! You gambled / spent your money and acquired the deed to something! Roll 1d6: 1-2 = Disreputable Inn; 3 = Nearest Ruin; 4 = Plot of Wildland; 5–6 = Run-Down Farm; You are eligible for either Householder, Merchant, or Shopkeeper as appropriate once any GM imposed restrictions are met.
21: My Precious! When you were passed out or otherwise engaged, someone stole your single most valuable-looking item! Track ‘em down and make ‘em pay!
22: Ooh, Shiny! You spent your money on a truly gaudy but otherwise unremarkable item. Reduce Wealth by at least 1. Roll 1d6: 1 = Armour; 2 = Garment; 3–4 = Jewellery Piece; 5 = Shield; 6 = Weapon. GM determines the item.
23: Robbed! As 21, but 1 Wealth instead.
24: Tattoo! You spent your money on a fantastic tattoo! Say what, and  roll 1d6: 1–2 = It actually is awesome; 3–4 = It’s fairly good;5 = It has an obvious flaw; 6 = It has an embarrassing flaw.
25: Unexpected Companion! You woke up next to a member of your preferred gender. Determine attractiveness as Just Married! entry.
26: Yer Mother! You seriously insulted someone who can make your life in this area very difficult. Roll to determine who as in Dangerous Liaison! entry.
27: You’re so Generous! You donated your money to a worthy institution. Roll 1d6: 1–2 = Local Poor; 3–4 = Local Temple; 5–6 = Orphanage / Urchins.
28+: Madman! Roll twice and apply both results!

A Change in Bonds

In pbp, DW and other Apocalypse World Engine games tend to die with Bonds. So the idea I randomly had is to reconstruct how Bonds work.

Firstly, there's a bit of inconsistency with the DW Core rule:

Fill in the name of one of your companions in at least one

and Class Warfare, which specifies each Archetype as having a set number of bonds.

Personally I don't really like either rule--because I don't get the logic--and there's that problem about PbP games I mentioned. So I propose the following Caveat:

• Players get bonds equal to Level+CHA (minimum 1) which they can come up with in play. (this becomes part of the Level Up move)
• Other than your Level+CHA you have no restriction on how many bonds you can spend on one subject.
• Players are not initially restricted to bonds specified for their Playbook/Class Warfare build, so long as they write their own build in a way that fits the concept. OF course in order to preserve what I assume DW intended as balance, fitting the concept is subject to the group's collective opinion.
• Players may spend bonds on the world representing events that have happened in game. (that's right, I like the idea of players being more and more connected to the world in a statistical way.)
• If it exceeds +CHA or +1 per 100 coins spent, they can use it in relevant situations.

The reason for explicitly stating you can spend any number of bonds you want on the same subject is because I've never explicitly seen it stated (though rules implied) and I've never played in a group that used more than one bond on an individual. The last bullet point is for situations that come up a lot in my game where the players saved a town from a massive horde, and they get amnesty/favors returned/wenches.

A Whole Damn Army: Taxation and Upkeep

So I saw the following in Dungeon World

A hovel

20 coins

A cottage

500 coins

A house

2,500 coins

A mansion

50,000 coins

A keep

75,000 coins

A castle

250,000 coins

A grand castle

1,000,000 coins

A month’s upkeep

1% of the cost

Given how much I've written about A Whole Damn Army there's probably enough there to make some assumptions about what kind of fees are charged by legitimate road authorities, and The King's Tax Collectors. A good baseline is that the highest ranking feudal figure in the settlement's home determines the monthly tax based on a value roughly twice the amount of a month's upkeep (so a city supporting "A Grand Castle" has up to 20,000 coins in its coffers.) 

Resources

This article suggests that a "An orc warchief’s tribute” is reasonably 1 point of Resources." and that each extra point of resources is an order of magnitude (roughly a factor of 10). That means the Grand Castle settlement is worth ~3 Resource, the Keep or Castle settlements are worth 2, and the Mansion at 1000 coins is worth 1 Resource.

Taxation and Population

If we assume the majority of a population lives in cottages, and half of the upkeep is taxation, that amounts to a tax of 3 coins per person.  This means "A Grand Castle" needs a supporting population around 7,000 (6,666 to be more specific), a Castle needs around 900 (call it a thousand), a Keep needs 250, and a mansion 200. So...

A Village is less than 200 people

A Town could reasonably be 200-500

A Keep is probably 500-1000

A City is 1-10,000, with the largest medieval city ever being no more than a million or so (It would take less than 50,000 to make "A dragon's mound of coins")

Backstab: What I don't like about it and how I "fixed" it.

Let me just say it's not a bad move, but it has a few problems that don't really jive well with my idea of the fiction, and how I think thieves should work. Here's the default rule:

When you attack a surprised or defenseless enemy with a melee weapon, you can choose to deal your damage or roll+DEX. *On a 10+ choose two. *On a 7–9 choose one.

• You don’t get into melee with them
• You deal your damage+1d6 
• You create an advantage, +1 forward to you or an ally acting on it
• Reduce their armor by 1 until they repair it 
• Use a bit of gear for another effect that fits within the fiction

What got me even thinking about it in the first place is a player asked me [sic] "would that provide any bonus? sneaking around attacking a creature from its opposite flank? or would it be just the same as running up and punching it in its smug face?" Initially, I couldn't really answer the question, or at least didn't answer it correctly.

I said no, DW doesn't do that per se, your situational bonuses are in moves. But then I read closer "you create an advantage, +1 forward (etc)." Alright, that's all well and good, but they rightly pointed out "surprised and defenseless". So it dawned on me that the onus is upon me to determine every time whether a foe is surprised and/or defenseless, and I thought the way to do that was Defy Danger. I didn't like that.

Next there was "you can choose to deal your damage or roll +Dex", then choose 1-2 options, one of which is damage with a bonus, and a couple others have nothing to do with hitting anyone. So I  removed the redundant option, and wrote the following "replacement" move for use in my games:

Skullduggery

When you engage in tricky underhanded tactics, roll+Something*. *On a 10+ choose 3 different options. *On a 7-9 choose 2.

• You don’t get into melee with them
• You deal your damage+1d6
• You create an advantage, +1 forward to you or an ally acting on it
• Reduce their armor by 1 until they repair it(edited)

*Depends on how you describe the tactics.

It removes the need for me as a GM to define if the opponent is surprised (that can be an assumption behind "tricky underhanded tactics", but it doesn't have to be) and make the player roll Defy Danger. It doesn't force the player to strike immediately, and allows them to represent flanking or planning as appropriate with +1 forward. And finally, I prefer "choose 3/choose 2" over "choose 2/choose 1"

Is it broken? Probably, but I thought Backstab was broken in the other way (in being too narrowly defined).

A Matter of Honor or Blood

This G+ post asked how the community would handle duels not intended to go to the death (For those you should just go with Hack and Slash). It would be easy to just have the player roll hack and slash, and call it good, and that move even states that it is for attacking a prepared enemy.

But what if you're not trying to kill them? I present to you the following:

The Duel

When you cross swords for honor, roll +STR or +DEX. *On a 10+, hold 3, on 7-9 hold 2 and the enemy gains a touch on you. You may spend hold on the following:

• Draw a small amount of blood, dealing 1 point of damage (2 hold).
• Avoid the enemy's strikes (1 hold)
• Touch the opponent without drawing blood (sometimes duels are to a certain number of touches, rather than blood)

*On a 6-, choose one of the following: 

• You took the enemy's normal damage roll, and lost the duel.
• You dealt your normal damage roll, and offend some witness for not showing restraint.

Expanding on Dwarven Stuff

There are a few things in DW that are already dwarven and have specific effects. First, let's talk about Dwarven Hard Tack

Dwarven Hard Tack

Requires Dwarf, Dwarves say it tastes like home. Everyone else says it tastes like home, if home is a hog farm, and on fire.

That one is mostly fluff, but the fact that it requires dwarf (racial trait) and is tagged as a ration suggests that it's a ration for dwarves, and trash for people who aren't (unless they have a move that lets them eat anything). Either that or they're unfamiliar with bacon.

Jokes aside though, there is something to be desired. I give you the dwarven tag:

Armor

Armor made to fit dwarves (i.e. has the dwarven tag) removes the Clumsy tag for dwarves, and adds -1 ongoing to Defy Danger with +DEX for anyone else. Price is increased by 50% for dwarven armor if you're outside dwarven settlements.

Weapons

Shorter than 6 feet, these weapons lose their reach tag. They are often very bulky though, replacing it with the Forceful tag. For weapons that don't have the Reach tag, they still gain the Forceful tag. Price is increased by 50% for dwarven weapons if you're outside dwarven settlements.

Next, let's talk about Stout

Dwarven Stout
When you open a keg of dwarven stout and let everyone drink freely, take +1 to your Carouse roll. If you drink a whole keg yourself, you are very, very drunk.

Nothing wrong with this tag, or with the notion that dwarves are the poster children for alcohol consumption in fantasy RP. But this is something that can stand to be expanded upon, and I will do so here.

The Drinking Contest

 So what does getting very drunk entail? Depends on the fiction. Just kidding, the reason you are here is because for you. there is no current fictional status quo. Here is mine: Whenever you engage in a contest of intestinal fortitude against alcohol, roll +CON

• On a 10+, you survive the round no problems, and an NPC drops out. (if you want, you can use the Whole Damn Army rules and do 1 point of "damage" against the Tavern equivalent to a "green platoon", or 8 HP.)
• On a 7-9, take a debility (other than Scarred since alcohol on its own is not disfiguring)
• On a 6- take 2 debilities, and 1d6 damage

When you become Sick (when you gain the Sick Debility) you drop out of the round. The winner is the last person remaining. If a PC and an NPC are tied, the PC wins. If two PCs are tied, whoever has the better Con score wins. Alcohol based debilities go away at a rate of 1/hour.

All About Mooks

This post builds on a previous post I made about hordes and mass combat here: https://steelsmiter.blogspot.com/2016/08/on-subject-of-hordes-and-mass-combat-in.html it's inspired by the fact that in the Diablo series, there were creatures or fixtures that just generated and unloaded large numbers of low HP opponents. As mentioned in the link, I prefer to think a horde has one stat block, featuring one HP score for the entire horde, and that defeating this HP score doesn't necessarily annihilate the horde, but sends individual members scattering. That's sort of applicable in the Diablo series I guess, but I think it would be more appropriate to handle Diablo hordes entirely differently. Two moves are relevant to GMs of diablo based games:

Generate Encounter

When the party enters an undiscovered area, the GM rolls +nothing. *On a 10+, hold 3, *On a 7-9 hold 1. At any time in this area, you may spend 1 hold on the following:

• +1d6 mooks in a horde per player
• 1 normal monster
• A hidden room or event (roll again)

*on a 6-, The party gains 1 treasure roll without any particular risk.

Fight Mooks

A slang term for the hordes of standard-issue, disposable bad guys whom The Hero mows down with impunity. Also called "baddies", "goons," "scrubs," "drones," "small fry," "flunkies," "pawns," "toadies," "grunts," "minions," "lackeys," "underlings," "henchpersons," and "cannon fodder". When you fight mooks, roll +STR. On a 10+ choose 2, and on a 7-9 choose 1:

• you roll your damage normally, and take out that many mooks.
• you suffer no injury or condition.
• you are not slowed down, inconvenienced, or distracted from an objective on the other side of them.

Tavern Moves in Dungeon World

Someone suggested that NPCs don't make moves in the comments of my Tavern Characters Post but p. 18 doesn't corroborate this

The GM’s monsters, NPCs, and other assorted beasties also have moves, but they work differently.

In any case, I mentioned that I would write a new post on Tavern Moves. Partly to alleviate their concerns, but also partly because I've been thinking about other expectations players tend to have about tavern interactions. The two biggest expectations of taverns in fantasy settings are wenches and brawls. They will be addressed in that order.

Wenching

The aforementioned commenter suggested also that players do stuff that triggers moves. I gave the Wench a move called Sexual Healin', which allows the wench to treat patrons as if they had either taken Make Camp or Recover without actually resting long enough to do either. In that playbook, it was written as a Wench Move. Here it will be presented as a special move framed as if the PC is not the wench.

Special moves are moves that come up less often or in more specific situations. They’re still the basis of what characters do in Dungeon World—particularly what they do between dungeon crawls and high-flying adventures.

When you pay for a night’s “companionship”, roll +CON. *On a 10+, you heal as if you took a Recover action without the required amount of rest. *On a 7-9, you heal as if you chose to Make Camp instead. *On a miss,gain a Debility of the GM's choice

Brawling

One of the mainstays of a tavern brawl is the use of fists to deal nonlethal damage to your opponent(s). This often happens because you missed (6-) on Carouse or Parley. Pulling out a real weapon is a major faux pas in a brawl. 

Whenever you tear it up in a tavern, roll +STR. *On a 10+ you deal your normal damage as Stun Damage. If you have moves relating to dirty fighting, tavern settings, or unarmed combat that modify damage numbers they apply to your dealt stun damage. *On 7-9 you deal your damage as stun damage, and choose one of the following:

• When the brawl is over, you are hit up for tavern repairs worth 2d6-CHA coins.
• When the brawl is over, you must roll for Outstanding Warrants.
• Someone cut you with a bottle, or real weapon. take 1d6 damage

On a miss you choose two, and don't deal damage. The brawl is over when the party outnumbers their opponents, or when all the party members have either been knocked unconscious or suffer the stunned debility as outlined below.

Stun Damage

Stun damage is non-lethal damage. A PC who takes stun damage is defying danger to do anything at all, the danger being “you’re stunned.” 

Dungeon World isn't particularly clear on this, but digging up debilities I find:

Stunned (INT): That last knock to the head shook something loose. Brain not work so good.

Stun Damage also states:

This lasts as long as makes sense in the fiction—you’re stunned until you can get a chance to clear your head or fix whatever stunned you.

It is weird to me that there are two different rules for the same thing. I prefer the debility rules:

Debilities are harder to heal than HP. Some high level magic can do it, sure, but your best bet is getting somewhere safe and spending a few days in a soft, warm bed (with recover, it's 3, or 2 with a healer BUT you can go Wenching to reduce the time using these rules). Of course, debilities are both descriptive and prescriptive: if something happens that would remove a debility, that debility is gone.

If a character manages to not become stunned, or take a debility they will be knocked unconscious when their HP would be driven to 0 by stun damage. This applies to GM characters too, because the default ruling doesn't make sense.

On the subject of Hordes and Mass Combat in Dungeon World

I want to be clear to note what I'm about to say may be in direct violation of the canonical rules established in DW for hordes:

I don't really consider Horde HP to be the HP of one monster, I consider it to be the HP of the whole horde, and evaluate HP bonuses based on how much space the members would take up as a rank and file unit (although they are often not organized that way).Considering that an apocalypse dragon has less than 30 HP; I don't have any problem with assuming a pile of small monsters that takes up as much space as a cart would have 7 HP or more than a house full of them would have 11 HP collectively. I also think battles could be fairly resolved in this way with a little tweaking.

• Armies are always huge. They have a minimum of 11 HP.
• Most of the time, even though the entirety of an army may not have armor the bulk of it usually has leather (with a few chains and plates here and there) so they always have +1 or more Armor.
• Though individual soldiers aren't always in the fight, they often cycle who is on the front lines.This qualifies them for Uncanny Endurace (Giving them +4 HP bringing minimum HP to 15)
• Its armaments are vicious and obvious (wicked looking pikes, swords, etc probably qualify. Hell, torches and pitchforks probably qualify): +2 damage (or you could probably upgrade damage to a d8)
• It organizes into larger groups that it can call on for support: organized, write a move about calling on others for help.
• It’s as smart as a human or thereabouts: intelligent
• It actively defends itself with a shield or similar: cautious, +1 armor
• It collects trinkets that humans would consider valuable (gold, gems, secrets): hoarder

Dealing 15 damage to a huge army doesn't mean that all members are killed, it means that it no longer forms a cohesive group. Individual members might run away, defect, be impartial merchants, and so on. Civilians might not abhor damage but nonetheless, non-professional soldiers roll damage twice and take the worst result.

On the subject of damage, DW says:

If multiple creatures attack at once roll the highest damage among them and add +1 damage for each monster beyond the first.

This is impractical for armies sized in the thousands. Or more accurately, it is practical for armies numbering in the thousands against just the PCs but probably not against roughly equal armies where one of them happens to also contain the PCs. When two armies are going at each other and the party is involved with one army, the damage of the opposing army is modified by adding the numerical ratio of one to the other as a whole number (2 to 1, 3 to 1, 4 to 1, etc). If players are not in an army, and yet face a Horde, its size ratio is also subtracted from their damage. Thus if an opposing army has a 4 to 1 ratio, the army gets +4 damage every hit, and the players get -4 damage every hit. Larger armies add this to their dice roll and smaller ones subtract it. This represents the fact that the overabundance of targets is sufficient that the individual players draw far less individual attention. 

Player Damage

It's obviously true that an army doesn't literally have 15 HP, and a player doesn't literally take out an entire army in one attack, but it's fair to assume that each exchange represents several minutes, and that the players actions on a microcosmic scale have tactical effects that amount to dealing damage. In other words, if you deal 12 points to a 15 point army, you didn't kill thousands of men on your own, you made them retreat from a key point, or something of that nature.

PVP in DW?!

At first I thought "Rocks Fall, Everyone Dies" or something similar, because on the one hand, no one likes having their campaign spoiled by petty squabbles. I find that PVP often has a one sided instigation. That being said I can see merit in rewarding the level headed player. Instead of outright banning PVP, I offer the following:

• If one player rolls Hack and Slash, getting a 7-9, and the other player chooses not to act on the opening granted, the passive player marks XP.
• If a player chooses not to retaliate when another player's Volley puts them in danger, the passive player marks XP
• If one player chooses to roll +Bond they mark XP.
• If both players choose to Roll +Bond at any point, the fight is over, their bonds are resolved if the actual RP permits it, and they get to make new ones, and mark XP.
• Players may only ever mark XP from one PVP. If they engage in another, with any player, they can't mark XP. 

It's up to the GM whether future PVPs require the instigator to sacrifice the character or not, or whether they'd use this rule in the first place, but I wrote it, so it should be taken as a given that I would.

On the Subject of Herculean Appetites

a discussion came up on the DW Tavern G+ community, and I posed a kneejerk response to it. I don't like Herculean Appetites as written:

"Others may content themselves with just a taste of wine, or dominion over a servant or two, but you want more. Choose two appetites. While pursuing one of your appetites, if you would roll for a move, instead of rolling 2d6 you roll 1d6+1d8. If the d6 is the higher die of the pair, the GM will also introduce a complication or danger that comes about due to your heedless pursuits."

My knee-jerk was to add in a second +Wis roll, but as mentioned in the thread, it (rightly) feels like punishment. Not that I don't think it shouldn't feel like punishment, I just think there's a different way to go about it that maybe feels less like punishment.

I have since sparked on a different idea. I would change the text I italicized in the quote to "when a chance to indulge your appetites presents itself , if you would roll for a move, take -Worst Mental Attribute." If you fail, the GM will introduce a complication or danger, etc, in addition to whatever complications normally arise from failure.

That is, if you are being tempted, your mind is in some way negatively influenced by the temptation. Why the worst? because some players may want to try to game the system and not get penalized for their inconvenient appetites. Physical players are most likely going to try to choose their top 3 attributes in STR, DEX, or CON, but if they try to swap one out for a mental attribute, the fact that at least one of the others will be negative, will provide a penalty. The underlying assumption is that the distraction either makes you forget things, or not pay attention, or become crabby.

As with the original, the penalty only presents itself in a fairly narrow circumstance, so I don't really think it's unreasonable.