Second Look—Dungeon World

I’ve taken a look at a few RPGs for Purple Pawn. Some descent ones. Some pretty bad ones. So far I haven’t really read any great ones.

Along comes Dungeon World, and RPG I first saw at PAX East. A smaller book clustered in with a lot of other smaller RPGs. It looked pretty interesting, but I didn’t give it much extra thought. As I was going through my post-con follow ups I shot the designers and email asking if they’d like a review done. They happily provided digital copies of the book, including a Kindle version. Wow. That’s pretty cool. The file was formatted professionally, and it made reading an electronic version of the book so much easier than having to do it on my laptop, phone or tablet screen.

It only took a few pages for me to get hooked, the only thing stopping me from blasting through the whole book at once was time.

The system seemed simple. The book laid out and presented in such a way that the information was easy to understand and read through without problem. Dungeon World was actually enjoyable to read!

The system is made up of moves, both for the GM and the player. Character creation is minimal, and die rolls are done on 2d6 with the exception of damage. Dungeon World as a whole is a toolkit for telling an excellent fiction without too much getting in the way, but just enough to keep the players interested with their actions and die rolls. The GM also relies heavily on the players for world building. The goal is to be able to sit down and play without too much prep getting in the way and spoiling the fun.

There’s plenty more detail I could go into, but really you should just snag the game for yourself. It’s worth a read, and most certainly worth a play. I’m already getting a campaign ready for my kids to play. It’s that easy. You can snag the digital copy for $10, or a print copy for $25.

A review copy of Dungeon World was provided free for review by Sage Kobold Productions.

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