FRI 01 Dungeon World (The Pit Of The Red Mummy)

[Ben Wray]

So there I was, in the pickup doughnut, totally prepared to facilitate a game of Apocalypse World, or maybe a couple of other things, and then I casually mentioned Dungeon World, which a surprising number of people expressed a surprising interest in. "Sure!" I thought to myself. "I'm plenty familiar with Apocalypse World, and I was in a few games of Apocalypse Dungeon last year, and I've skimmed the Dungeon World pdf. And I know they had some spare booklets for Dungeon World over in the big room, and I've got one of these excellent Tony Downler Microdungeon handouts, so it shouldn't be that hard!"

And it actually did work out! There were a few bumps when I felt not having a proper rules document for the DM handy, but nothing that I couldn't improvise or extrapolate from the PC sheets and the basic moves, and the system managed to sing like usual, with both successes and failures keeping the action moving and the bonds making an excellent framework of PC interactions. And Tony Dowler's microdungeon delivered as they always do: a few brief words like "hideous" or "orb" being enough to inspire great ideas. Here were some of my highlights:

* The cleric's repeated inability to roll well when trying to heal the fighter, whom bonds had indicated earlier snubbed Helferth, the god of what lies underneath, until we decided that said god just <i>really didn't like</i> the fighter.
* The party's endless dancing around synonyms so they didn't risk doom by saying the Red Mummy's name out loud, and stubborn refusal to use the same synonym twice: "The Wine Wight" was my favorite, as well as moments like "Scarlet! I forgot we could use scarlet! Oh man!"
* The party's debate about what to with the Orb, which ended up being a magical artifact of great destructive capabilities that could go off with the slightest bump or jostle.
* The Red Mummy awakens! Quickly, escape the dungeon with the Holocaust Heart! Ending a session with a dramatic flight from peril is always a high note with me, I'll admit.

I fully encourage the other players (sorry, I'm bad with remembering names) to chime in with their favorite moments of the game, as well as anything they felt could have used improvement!