Characters:

Rory Watchtower -- The Fighter, Human, Neutral, Claymore

Shiva -- The Wizard, Elf, Neutral

Serrah -- The Ranger, Human, Chaotic

Gunther -- The Burly Bear, Serrah's Animal Companion

  After character creation and a basic rules explanation, we start play by asking a few questions from the Dungeon Starter sheet that the players had chosen. The players got to figure out just why they were locked up in a dungeon. Luckily, Serrah was there to help them escape. "The hardest part was sneaking a bear into the Duke's keep, of course." It turns out, according to the group, that they also need to rescue the duchess’ nephew from his cell as well.

  Questions answered, I asked the players to finish their characters by writing Bonds. Bonds give characters a bonus when they help each other, but moreover, they provide XP for resolving them, giving players an impetus to roleplay the ties that bind the characters to one another.

  After describing the basic surroundings of the dungeon, the adventurer’s were spurred to action.. Above, echoing down the tunnels leading to their dungeon, the adventurers hear a shouting and clamour. “What do you do?” I ask. Rory rushes to the open gaol door and listens, preparing himself for a troop of guards. The others follow suit, but it seems something else must be happening above, for the shouts of alarm soon turn to screams and gurgles of the dying. Somehow, the Dead have gotten in.

  Leaping out into the upward sloping, winding tunnel, the group notes that the space is dimly lit by a candle at the far end. However, in the spirit of leaving blanks on the map, a GM Principle, there are two doors in the side of the tunnel. Of course, they decided to investigate. No sweat; glancing at the Impressions section of the Dungeon Starter again, I liked the sound of a well with a rope leading down into darkness. And so the room is a storage cellar with a well dug within. Not feeling like climbing down a well, they checked out the other door, leading to a passage much like the one they were about to climb, but dropping slowly into darkness instead. Our ‘heroes’ placed the reluctant Douglas as a lookout and go to investigate the tunnel, looking for a back way out.

  The Ranger informs me that he’s looking for tracks, listening carefully, and otherwise trying to find signs of what might be ahead. It sounds a lot like Discern Realities. He rolls a full hit, and asks his questions three: One of Serrah’s questions is “What here is not as it seems?” I’m a little stumped at this, to be honest, so I ask the players. Rory’s player suggests that its odd that there’s no guards down on this level at all, even before the clamor started. Shiva suggests that maybe this means the Dead getting in was no accident. So be it! He also learns that this passage is used to carry sarcophagi down to their final resting place in the catacombs below. Treasure! They’re all for it.

  There’s got to be treasure in one of the sarcophagi down here, and as luck would have it, this is a chance for The Fighter to show his value. He uses his prodigious strength to remove the heavy, heavy lid. Now he has a choice of options, and he decides he shoves off the lid without taking very long. One of the other choices was that nothing important would be damaged. Now Dungeon World is about choices, and the consequences thereof, so I thought it only fair that something important be damaged. As the lid scrapes against the sides of the coffin, something falls and breaks within, releasing some sort of gas.

  Our brave Rory throws himself backwards and manages not to inhale the stuff, but he didn’t do quite so well as to not still be in a spot. The gas is expanding to fill the room, and the group beats a hasty retreat back to the tunnel so they can breath more easily. Douglas is quite relieved to see them again, especially since, from the doorway he’s watching out of, a pale white arm grasps his shoulder and tries to haul him out of sight.

  Luckily for him, Serrah is an expert shot and, with a Called Shot, forces the thing to let go with an arrow through its forearm. Rory is not to be outdone, and rushes in to cut the thing to pieces with his mighty claymore. Hmm. The dice here indicate that his attack connects as expected, but that he is subject to attack as well. I’ll pause here to explain.

  Dungeon World doesn’t go in for making players sit idly by while the monsters take their ‘turn’. Instead, everything the GM does is in response to a choice, or lack of choice, made by the players. An orc lunges at a character with his scimitar flashing, and we ask the character, “What do you do?” Its the character’s decision that points to what move we should roll, and the results of that roll that determines what happens. In the case of an all-out attack, Hack n’ Slash, the character may inflict harm, be subject to attack, or both!

  An attack doesn’t always mean HP damage, and Rory’s damage roll certainly indicates the zombie is in pieces, so I’ll get creative, which is far more fun to do anyway! The tunnel is narrow, and Rory has to swing underhanded to bring his huge blade to bear. The steel on the stone passage sends sparks flying and suddenly the gas that was creeping up the passage is ignited! It burns out quickly, but it doesn’t just threaten our Fighter, but the others down the passage, deeper in expanding gas. This isn’t indicated by the results of any moves, but it certainly makes sense in the fiction, and in Dungeon World, fiction always wins.

  However, I should give the characters a chance to respond before the threat takes full effect. Shive thinks fast, and, glancing at her list of prepared spells, decides to cast prestidigitation. “It says here I can cool something at a touch. Can’t I touch the gas and cool it into a liquid?” That sounds really clever to me, and clever, fun play ought to be rewarded. “Sure, go ahead and roll Cast A Spell.” The roll indicates that she does so successfully, but that she has to make a choice. She decides to forget the spell, so no more prestidigitation until there’s a moment of downtime.

  Unfortunately, her spells are needed again soon, as the Dead are filling the passageway upwards. A battle ensues, with Rory chopping down corpses two and three at a time with great swings, Serrah and Gunther mauling many as well. Shiva scouts ahead by casting Invisibility, and reports back that there are too many.

  Now that the catacomb entrance is cleared of gas (its just a burning puddle on the floor) everyone flees into the catacombs. At the bottom, they find the water source that feeds the well above: an underground stream running across the passage. Its barred on either side, likely to prevent prisoners like themselves from escaping this way. That’s no problem for The Fighter, who’s already once proven his ability to Bend Bars & Lift Gates. But which way to go, upstream or down? It might help if someone knew what lay in either direction.

  Luckily Serrah decides he’s probably studied the layout of the keep and surroundings before making his way in to find his friends, so he can Spout Lore about it. Sure enough, his roll indicates he knows something useful. Despite realizing that heading upstream will take them right out to the stream in the courtyard of the keep above, they decide unexplored caverns sound more fun. This time, though, the Fighter’s roll indicates a failure

  Now, even failure need not be absolute. Once again, I consult the list of GM moves suggested to me. These moves are all designed to push the adventure forward and make things interesting, rather than bogging everything down in indecision and plodding mundanity. Though I don’t say the name of my move, I think now would be a good time to “Tell them the consequences and ask.” The bars here are sturdy. Rory’s pretty sure he could get them to move, but he’d probably pull something in the process. I’ve decided that they can get through, but not without taking the “Weak” debility. Without telling the other characters about his predicament, Rory decides to try the other route instead.

  He has more luck here, and after sloshing upwards through the shallow stream for a while, they emerge into the dusk light in the castle courtyard. The outer walls have been breached and the Dead are swarming in, but the city walls are still manned, and after a parting Volley from Serrah at a particularly ugly, and closing Dead man, the party rushes Douglas up to a sortie gate that’s crowded with other castle servants trying to get through. The guards on the other side make it clear, though, that their orders are not to let anyone who might be infected through.

  Shiva insists that Douglas is an important personage and should be let through anyhow. It’s true enough, enough to call for The Wizard to try the Parley move with the guards. The roll indicates that they need some concrete assurance, so they’ll let poor Douglas through, but the rest will have to wait long enough to prove that they’re not turning into one of those.. things! That’s not good enough for the adventurer’s stuck on the same side of the wall as the relentless Dead, and Shiva comes up with another little trick. She insists she’s got a note from the Duke himself countermanding the guard’s standing orders. When the guard reaches through the bars to take it, she touches his hand, casting Charm Person. Now, of course, the guard is obliged to let them in. “Clear the rest of these rabble out so we can open the doors for you, quickly!” the guard calls.

  Luckily Serrah has just the trick to do so: a burly bear. There’s no particular move for herding townspeople, but we decide that Serrah is definitely in danger of enraging the mob by calling a bear into their midst. His roll on Defy Danger, a great catchall move, indicates that the GM may offer him a hard bargain for success. Sure, his bear can herd the crowd down and away from the gate, but it won’t be able to get back up and through fast enough to make it itself. Here’s where several of our Bonds started to show their worth.

  Serrah’s bond, “Gunther is a friend of nature, so I will be his friend as well” (I let them write bonds with the bear since there were only two other options) led him to refuse to leave the bear behind. Rory insisted that it would be fine and they could recover it later, confirming Serrah’s bond with him, “Rory has no respect for nature, so I have no respect for him.” Rory, seeing their opportunity slip away, also has the bond, “I have sworn to protect Shiva”, and carries it out by shoving her through the doorway and ducking through himself. Serrah refuses to leave his companion, and as we end the session, is locked back in with the Dead mounting and Gunther at his side.

  To cleanup, Serrah was rewarded with an XP for resolving his bond with Gunther. He replaced it with a new bond with Rory, “Rory abandoned me to the Dead; he cannot be trusted.” He also marked XP for carrying out his alignment: Chaotic, which provides XP for “freeing someone from their bonds, literal or figurative.” Also, per the End of Session move, everyone gained XP for “learning something new and important about the world,” namely, that it is overrun by the Dead.

  All in all, this session lasted only two hours. The players agreed that the game flowed very smoothly and kept a pace that kept the energy high and the game exciting. There was no boredom waiting for your ‘turn’ or moves that felt as though they were a waste of time, as even negative outcomes were a direct result of players making choices. Each expressed that they were amazed at how much happened in those two hours, thinking that in other games, the combats with the Dead alone would have taken that much time.

  Our group was excited to play again, and made sure to ask where they could find the rulebook. I’d remind the reader that this game was run with absolutely no preparation on my part other than looking over a one-sheet (front and back) Dungeon Starter while the players made their characters, which took about half an hour including explanations. I would highly recommend Dungeon World to any players looking for a game that puts the narrative first, and focuses on an exciting story in which the characters’ choices are meaningful and drive the action.