Stonetop Kickstarter: March 1st, 2021

We're finally doing it:

click me for the prelaunch page

Here's the teaser text:

The Stone has always been here, in the center of the village. It’s larger than life, older than anything, etched with runes. When storms roll up from the south, as they often do, the Stone pulls lightning from the sky and the village shakes with thunder. Visitors cower. The locals? They barely even notice.

You are one such local, someone who calls Stonetop home. You’re one of a handful of notables—admired, or respected, or maybe even reviled. When there’s trouble, people look to you for the solution. Or as the cause. Or both.

And right now, as the first wildflowers appear beyond the Old Wall? Trouble is brewing. The world itself is darkening, like the sky before a summer storm. Folks can feel it. They’re afraid.

These are good people, here, in Stonetop. Your kith and kin.

If you don’t step up to protect them, who will?

I've been working on Stonetop since, criminy, 2013? It started as a "playset" for Dungeon World with beefed up rules for managing the steading's prosperity. Then it became a whole slew of custom classes with a unique structure, and a bunch of creepy artifacts. And then I started tweaking basic moves, and eventually acknowledged that this was going to be a standalone game.

I've run over 75 sessions with 5 different groups. I've played in over 30 sessions myself. We've had something like 60 different playtest groups. 

And now, finally, the end is in sight. We'll be launching the Kickstarter on March 1, 2021, closing on March 31. Target fulfillment is October 2021.  

Jason Lutes of Lampblack & Brimstone will be running the Kickstarter and publishing the game. You might know Jason/L&B from The Perilous Wilds, which is where we first collaborated. Jason is also doing layout, editing, and art direction.

Illustrations will be done by Lucie Arnoux, a UK-based artist whose work includes reportage, children's books, set design, and comics. That's her work up above. Here's some more:

(details, including a sample chapter and a more art, after the break)

Преодолеть опасность: Defying Danger, the RPG... in Russian!

Defying Danger the RPG now has the dubious distinction of having been translated more times than I've actually played it!

Alexey Dikevich recently translated the game into Russian. I don't speak Russian or read Cyrillic, so can't speak to the quality of the translation, but the layout seems solid and he's even included an translated example of play (taken from the comments on the original Defying Danger blog post). 

Check it out here:

Click to download the PDF

If you have comments on the translation, or want to send him your thanks, you can reach Alexey at "adikevich" at Gmail.  

You can find the previous translations for Defying Danger here:

• Portuguese
• Italian

If you're interested in doing your own translation, and want the original .PPTX files to work from (yes, yes, I made this in frickin' PowerPoint, don't judge), then let me know in the comments or by emailing me at "jack" underscore "blackfoot" at Yahoo. 

Likewise, if you make your own translation and want me to post it here, let me know!  

Major Arcana: The Nhing Codex

Over on the Dungeon World Discord, Razorkiss asked this interesting question:

Imagine you're trying to model scary Mythos tomes in DungeonWorld. Y'know, we're talking about The Necronomicon here. You want to create a custom move that represents the dangers of reading it, the dangers of gaining knowledge at the expense of sanity. I feel like the first instinct would be that this is a +WIS move, because, y'know, the Will save and all of its attendant baggage. But... is that the way you'd really want to go? It's basically saying, "Y'know, Wizard, you'd think you'd be the person who would be all over this custom move, but it turns out your buddies the Ranger, Druid, and Cleric are better-suited for this job..."

When you read the obviously evil book, roll +???

Queue discussion about whether it'd be an INT roll or CHA roll or whatever.

And my first instinct was to treat it the way I treat major arcana in Stonetop. 

(discussion after the break)

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.)

My recipe for starting adventures

I've got a little process that I use whenever I start a game of Dungeon World or Homebrew World. It's similar to the first session procedure that's described in the book, but different in some key ways. I've found that this approach reliably kicks off a new game quickly and with a lot of energy, in a way that makes it pretty darn easy to run and improvise.  

Here's the recipe:

1. Establish the adventure's premise with the group
     > Premise = a fantastic location + a grabby activity
     > Do this before anyone picks playbooks or makes characters
   
   
2. Players create characters, GM writes/updates hook questions, which should establish:
     > Motive: why are they here, doing this?
     > Stakes: what's on the line, why is this important?
     > Urgency: why shouldn't they dawdle?
     > Dangers: what do they expect to face? what do they know about them?
     > Detail: what specifically are they hunting/seeking/fleeing/fighting/etc.?
     > Complications: what's getting in the way? making it harder? constraining them?
   
   
3. Do introductions (by name, pronouns, class, and look).
     > Do not do bonds (or in Homebrew World, background questions) just yet. 
     > You're just establishing who the characters are.
     > Yes, you can ask questions, but keep it light for now.
   
   
4. Ask a few of your hook questions
     > Usually 1-3
     > Pick questions that elaborate on or clarify the premise
     > Address specific PCs, not the group at large
     > Ask follow-up questions; encourage the players to do so, too!
   
   
5. Do bonds (or in Homebrew World, background questions)
     > Ask follow-up questions; encourage the players to do so, too!
     > Use this to establish how they know each other, why they're working together
   
   
6. Finish asking your hook questions
     > Doing bonds/background questions often rolls naturally into this
     > Ask follow-up questions; encourage the players to do so, too!
     > Ask additional questions as they occur to you
   
   
7. Frame the initial scene, tightly
     > Start in media res or at least right on the verge of action
     > Who, where, when, doing what?
     > Give up to 3 strong impressions, ideally from different senses
     > Make a soft GM move
     > "What do you do?"

That's the recipe!  More about the background, details, and suggested prep after the jump break.

I keep hearing good things about Delicious in Dungeon,
but haven't read it; just seemed appropriate, y'know? Cuz recipes.

Desafiando o Perigo

The coolness continues!

Frederico Fiori (a.k.a. /u/pidin on Reddit) translated Defying Danger into Brazilian Portuguese. As I speak no Portuguese, I can hardly comment on the quality of the translation, but the layout is slick!

I'm rather shocked that both this translation and Francesco's Italian one managed to make everything fit in basically the same space. I tend to fill my projects' layout to bursting, with lots of thought given to cutting words and making each line "fit." That's hard enough to do in English (o scavenger of words! o lexicographic bone-picker!), which often has a dozen ways to phrase any thought, many punchy and short. The romance languages always struck me as having longer, more flowing words and phrasing, so it impresses me to see translations of this game squeezed into the limited space.

Anyhow, here's the goods:

click for PDF

Frederico actually sent me this almost a month ago, so I feel bad for just now posting it. I'd like to blame the pandemic, but, really, I'm just sometimes a bit of flake.

Anyhow, I'm sure Frederico would love to hear about it if you use his translation. You can contact him on Reddit or via email at "hayako" at protonmail dot com.

Sfidando il Pericolo

Well this is all sorts of cool.

I got an email out of the blue from Francesco "Checco" Catenacci, who stumbled on my game Defying Danger and translated it into Italian.

Click to see it!

Francesco also pointed out a few typos and whatnot in my original draft, prompting me to update it. Nothing major, but the current version is now just a little better. Grazie Francesco!

If you use Francesco's work, I'm sure he'd love to hear about it. You can contact him at checco at tutanota dot com.

Divertitevi!