Dungeon World: The Shunned Isle

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Christopher B

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Dungeon World: The Shunned Isle

In this week's Dungeon World, we go seafaring to the nastiest island you'll hopefully never visit.

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Calatar

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Huh, I've never seen this column before. It's a rules-independent setting apparently?

Well, I like the idea of an island with specific area partitions, which trigger new encounters as character move around, as well as the random-encounter table. Every hex you move into prompts an encounter though? That seems excessive, unless the hexes are made much bigger. The PCs would never be able to explore the whole island if they had to fight monsters every few feet. Maybe they're not supposed to, but I'd personally get tired of monsters if I had to explore an island made up of hundreds of hexes full of monsters.
1/4 movement speed penalty means the player gets 75% of their speed or 25% of their speed?

And what about encounters not being level-appropriate? I am a confused newbie to this article, perhaps somebody could explain. Are they just general guidelines to something a DM could steal use for his own campaign?
 

Archon

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Calatar said:
Huh, I've never seen this column before. It's a rules-independent setting apparently?
Yes, it's a rules-independent setting, which we publish once per month. YOu can find all the others under our High Adventure series. It's designed for use with any classic fantasy RPG. I personally use them with red box D&D.

Well, I like the idea of an island with specific area partitions, which trigger new encounters as character move around, as well as the random-encounter table. Every hex you move into prompts an encounter though? That seems excessive, unless the hexes are made much bigger. The PCs would never be able to explore the whole island if they had to fight monsters every few feet. Maybe they're not supposed to, but I'd personally get tired of monsters if I had to explore an island made up of hundreds of hexes full of monsters.
1/4 movement speed penalty means the player gets 75% of their speed or 25% of their speed?
I'll leave it to the designer to address these issues.

And what about encounters not being level-appropriate? I am a confused newbie to this article, perhaps somebody could explain. Are they just general guidelines to something a DM could steal use for his own campaign?
The encounters are not level appropriate per se, as the setting is more old school or sandbox based, and it's common/accepted in such settings that encounters can be outside of the character's power level. If you decide to use the modules in your own campaign for something like 3.5, you could re-tool to make it level appropriate, of course.
 

Calatar

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Archon said:
Yes, it's a rules-independent setting, which we publish once per month. YOu can find all the others under our High Adventure series. It's designed for use with any classic fantasy RPG. I personally use them with red box D&D.

The encounters are not level appropriate per se, as the setting is more old school or sandbox based, and it's common/accepted in such settings that encounters can be outside of the character's power level. If you decide to use the modules in your own campaign for something like 3.5, you could re-tool to make it level appropriate, of course.
Ah, old school. I've never played anything apart from 3.5 and 4th (unless Baldur's Gate counts). Thanks for the reply. It would seem my 3.5 DM also doesn't believe in level-appropriateness, as I encountered at 3rd level with a Stone Giant (ie 1-hit kill).

Well, these adventures would probably require some rejiggering to be set up for later editions, but they'll at least be useful inspiration ideas. They're all very interesting set ups.
 

Christopher B

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Thanks for the feedback, Calatar. Since Archon did so well answering your other questions, I'll field these:

Calatar said:
Every hex you move into prompts an encounter though? That seems excessive, unless the hexes are made much bigger. The PCs would never be able to explore the whole island if they had to fight monsters every few feet. Maybe they're not supposed to, but I'd personally get tired of monsters if I had to explore an island made up of hundreds of hexes full of monsters.
I could see this becoming an issue, especially if you look at every encounter as a combat exercise. I tend to look at encounters as possible parlay situations, sightings, etc. The frequency of encounters is intended to allow for more interaction with the adventure (even if that interaction's just evading a potential threat).

If you choose, feel free to change it up a bit. We're talking "old school" gaming here - these are guidelines, not rules, so feel free to change the adventure to suit your tastes. :D I'd recommend at least a 50% chance per hex of having an encounter, though - otherwise the adventure's in danger of becoming little more than a sight-seeing trip.

You could also make some of the encounters "interesting" by twisting them in different ways. For instance, what if those randomly encountered ants are guarding an anthill? What's down there? Look at encounters as chances to improvise and embellish, not necessarily fights waiting to happen. It's a sandbox - feel free to play in it. :D

Calatar said:
1/4 movement speed penalty means the player gets 75% of their speed or 25% of their speed?
A character's movement rate should be reduced by 25% of the character's movement score. (Example: a character that normally moves at 60' per turn moves 45' per turn.)
 

Lucifron

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The map looks like Australia + New Zealand. Queue Michael Atkinson telling us that gamers hate Oceania!