Saturday, September 26, 2020

Take Watch is a bad move and you're a bad person if you like it

"Did you hear that? It sounds like... click bait!"

Strong personal opinion: Take Watch is a bad move. You don't need it. Dungeon World doesn't need it. I'd even go so far as to say that it is antithetical to the rest of the game.    

Just to be clear, I'm talking about the bog-standard version in the original Dungeon World text. This one:

When you’re on watch and something approaches the camp roll+Wis. * On a 10+ you’re able to wake the camp and prepare a response, the camp takes +1 forward. * On a 7–9 you react just a moment too late; the camp is awake but hasn’t had time to prepare. You have weapons and armor but little else. * On a miss whatever lurks outside the campfire’s light has the drop on you.

It breaks the usual flow of the game. It doesn't add much of anything to the fiction, and what it does add presumes more than it should about how any given PC will react in every situation. (A full explanation, and what to do instead, after the break.)