Why Dungeon World is Shit

1. The abilities... what the fuck? You don't roll for them, you just assign
the exact same fucking numbers. No point buy that I can see. The
modifiers are also shit. It's trying to copy D&D when in fact there is no
reason to. There is no reason for abilities to range 3-18, when the modifiers
range -3 to +3. It's just trying to make itself look like AD&D. For that, fuck
it right off the bat. It's showing that it is 90% nostalgia-based, except there
are plenty of games that do AD&D nostalgia far better than it does.
2. Retarded core mechanic. Okay, we can all agree that margins of
success and failure are important. People have been doing it in D&D for
years ... assuming you had a good DM who actually read the Dungeon
Master's Guide and saw that advice, in just about every fucking edition.
That's fine. But every monster and creature has literally the same exact
Armor Class. Ranged, and melee. Ranged I could see (Savage Worlds does
it that way), but melee? Really? I can't be more skilled at parrying and
getting hit less often? Oh but that leads into the next shit bit.
3. "Moves." I put them in quotes because it makes them sound more like a
shitty wuxia karate movie; which is basically what Dungeon World is
trying to be. I can see quite clearly how this game came about: some guys
were playing D&D, and one guy decided to jump across a table trying to
get a bonus to hit some guy, or swing off a chandelier, or run up a dragon's
back to get impromptu flanking on it, or some other shit. Then he rolled a
nat20 (or just succeeded normally) and the DM let him do it, and he felt
bad-ass. Then he decided to make an entire game ALL ABOUT THAT.
4. "Moves" continued: Basically the entire thing is like D&D 4e, where
you just fucking "do" shit. "I USE THUNDERING STEP,
2W+STRENGTH DAMAGE PLUS 5 ONGOING, SAVE ENDS, PLUS I
SHIFT 4 SQUARES AT MAKE A SECONDARY ATTACK." Literally.
The fact that regular actions are considered "basic moves" (and marginal
missing just provokes a counterattack, which might be a cool mechanic for
something like charging) just *screams* D&D 4th. MUH POWAHS. But
even a powers system can be okay if you're trying to make a DOTA 2
RPG. Let's continue...
5. The fucking static target number.... how goddamn hard is it to basic
math? If you're a hipster trying out RPGs to be "ironic" for your fucking
blog, and can't even put the effort in, then fuck off! No one wants to make
tabletop games more inclusive except absolute losers who can't find
anyone to play with, and I'll gladly take them under my wing to spare them
the agony of playing with insincere assholes. I mean, come on. Parleying
with the fucking king has the same target number as "parleying" with a
commoner for bread? (Also why do they need a fucking special name for
every "basic move", for shits sake. It LITERALLY starts to be like a
computer game, limiting you on what "moves" you can do. "Discern
realities" instead of just fucking Perception, or study the area? Really? I'd
rather die before narrating my character as "I use discern realities on the
dead body" like a fucking idiot, instead of just "I look at the dead body, to
see if I can figure anything out." But it doesn't matter if this guy was killed
by a master sniper who left no trace, or a pissed off garbage man who left
his fucking ID card behind, because the Difficulty Class, or Target
Number, or whatever, is EXACTLY THE FUCKING SAME.
6. The sheer number of shitty basic moves. The whole "outstanding
Warrants" thing... well what if the characters are fucking privateers
sponsored by the local sheriff to kill shit? You can mention it in the GM
advice section, "Characters might get in trouble for fighting shit without
permission." But don't... just don't. Making a mechanic for
EVERYTHING... yeah, it could be cool. Carousing looks pretty
interesting. But it's NOT up to the fucking player whether or not they meet
a useful NPC. It's up to the GAME MASTER. That's the problem with
putting the Target Number in the PC's hands every time. Because when
they fail, they know you did it, and they start whining.
7. The classes. Holy shit I have not gotten 20 pages into this PDF yet, and
already I've all but had it. So not only are there racial restrictions (can only
play elven or human bard, nothing else can be a bard), but the bard

"moves" are retarded. The "Charming and Open" thing, where someone
basically HAS to answer truthfully, from a basic list of specific questions
like "whom do you serve" and "what do you most desire". So if you're
questioning some faggot you captured, all that shit where you have to
intimidate him or something, that's taken from the GM's control. The bard
doesn't even have to roll for that shit, he can just basically use Zone of
Truth at will. For no roll. Or cost. I could go through all the classes and
whine about each one, but this shit is gonna be long enough, so I won't.
Trust me, it doesn't get much better.
8. Bonds. People fucking FELLATE Dungeon World's "bonds". Except is
it really that creative? No. Again, no choices. It's a fucking fill-in-the-blank
that basically puts stuff out there about your character without you having
any choice. For example "This is not my first adventure with _______" ....
well, what if I've never fucking met any of them before? What if they
rescued me out of a Dungeon? Oh, and, I sang stories of some guy long
before I ever met them? The fuck? Are we starting as novice adventurers
here? This is a nice try to make people think out their characters'
relationship, but other games do it, too. And they do it better. If you want
to have a rule for something like this, fine, but don't make fucking
roleplaying decisions FOR my character before I've even finished making
him.
9. The naming of EVERYTHING. Your DM's "agenda" is just basic
fucking DM shit. You didn't need to give that a name. And the DM section
just pisses the fuck out of me. "Dungeon World adventures *never*
presume a player actions." heh..... Okay. It just limits them to about 5 - 6
basic skill check-thingies that limit their imagination. Which, ironically, is
the OPPOSITE of what Dungeon World tries to do. People complain about
games like D&D 3.5 and Palladium and GURPS for their massive skill
lists and how the DM tries to make everything a skill check and thus limits
players imagination. That's a fair point. But at least it doesn't make
everything you do a "move." What if I stand completely still, Dungeon
World, and try to use my fucking "discern realties" on a boring-ass pole?
Might be nothing there, but if I roll a fucking 10+, the GM is entitled to tell
me this boring-ass pole's secret history, or some shit. And if the GM
refuses the players whine and bitch and point to the dice "but I rolled the
number i need to succeed." In D&D the DM can say "well, you didn't quite
make the DC, sorry". Same in many other systems. Not Dungeon World.
Also, I note there's margins of success in the negative sense (you succeed,
but...) but no exceptional success. What if you get boxcars, or roll 12+ or
14+ total? Nothing *extra* special happens? For a game of heroic fantasy,
so far it's seeming pretty boring.
10. Moves move moves.... fucking hell I thought it would go away but I
keep having to come back to it, rereading this PDF for the first time in six
months (the first time I almost puked). "Never tell the players what move
you are making" "Dungeon Moves" .... just .... fucking .... give .... DM ....
advice. It's NOT that hard. Not everything has to be a goddamn
cockslurping move. What the fuck does that even mean? Just something
you're doing in the game? That's just something you're doing in the game!
It doesn't need a fucking name like it's a specialized thing. And to be
honest, I cannot see what it adds. I really cannot. What does the concept of
"moves" being tacked onto EVERYTHING, add to the game at all?
11. Fronts....another POINTLESS term. It does not need to be a term. It
adds nothing, and just makes me read further to see what the fuck they are
talking about. They are creating mechanics where none need to be there.
Actually, they AREN'T creating mechanics, they are creating extra names
for things where NONE ARE NEEDED.
12. Monster Tags. Okay, so this is where it devolves into true Kikestarter / hipster shit. Tags? Really? They showed in D&D Next, too,
apparently, for the monsters in there. SUBTYPES. THE "ORC" IN
"HUMANOID (ORC)" IS A SUBTYPE. NOT A FUCKING "TAG". GET
THE FUCK OFF TWITTER. I know accusing "hipster" is a meaningless
term now, but you know who I mean. Fucking Big Bang Theory twats, or
Chris Hardwick on that fucking Talking Dead show, the kind of prettyfaced faggot in a sweater constantly reading off inane tweets about whether

Rick will rape the Governor in the next episode. But the mechanics of
RPGs have been dumbed down brutally, because entitled people join them
and put ZERO effort into learning, so we have to sink to their level.
DUNGEON WORLD is the NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND of roleplaying
games. And it doesn't even do THAT well. It tries to be simple, while
introducing fucking terms for EVERYTHING that a regular RPG assumes
is common sense (and it is, by the way. you don't need to call the players'
enemies a "front" for fuck's sake).
13. Okay, so maybe I shit on the monster tags a bit TOO much. They are a
sort of nice idea... for flavor... and GM advice how to run it. Except there is
NOTHING ELSE TO THEM.
Now, before I go any farther, let me say; I am big fan of the one line of
stats that AD&D monsters had. Simple. Their HD, move, morale, #attacks,
#appearing, that sort of shit. Yet these monsters have like, an attack, and
some HP, and some armor. That's it. The special abilities are not a problem,
but there's no rules for how to handle them. It's all up to the GM fiat.
Which why Dungeon World is fucking BACKWARDS. It makes rules
where NONE are needed, for stuff like GM advice and basic actions, yet
leaves the rest of the combat up to the DM to the point where it's almost
freeform RP.
If there's ANYWHERE you need SOMEWHAT detailed rules, it's combat,
where the characters' fate is decided in 90% of RPG campaigns. And I'm
sure not saying that complex rules for every little thing is good. Not at all.
But absolutely NO detail on how fast a winged creature can move, relative
to others, or anything... this is literally an RPG for retards. Not children,
children are intelligent. At age 13 was when my friends would DM
complex D&D campaigns for us. Why? Because they GENUINELY cared
about the fucking game, and wanted to play it. It was cool. They put
EFFORT into learning the rules. And they weren't even that damned hard
to learn! But Dungeon World is for bringing people into the mix. Which is
fine, to start them on something rules light, but Dungeon World teaches
MULTIPLE shitty habits:

There is a wargame I play with very complex rules. Some (many) would
say overcomplex. But what makes it truly fun, in the end, is when
something cool happens. A commander rides his burning tank into a
building and collapses it on an enemy squad, killing them. Then he
someone survives, and kills the rest in hand to hand combat. HIGHLY
UNLIKELY in real life. Or in a roleplaying game, if he wasn't "heroic".
But in Dungeon World, you can just DO that, because there are no rules.
It's just, try to do something, and if you get 10 or higher, you did it.
Cool.
I'm not insulting rules-lite games AT ALL. Let me make that clear. Games
like FATE and RISUS, while not really to my liking, are quite good to get
people into the hobby -- or just as a one-shot type thing, or for "deepimmersion storytelling" role playing.
Dungeon World stands in the middle; too much complexity to be trulyrules-lite, but not enough actual rules to be a real game. And it's not even
complexity, it's just stupidity. It's tacking names and specialized terms to
already-estabilished RPG tropes in an effort to be a specshul snowflake,
when it soooo isn't. Sorry, Dungeon World. You are merely a testament to
what a gyp Kikestarter is, and an insult to AD&D and all other editions that
came after it. Wizards should sue you for using its stats. It really should.
As a last note, I do find it FASCINATING that they released
SUPPLEMENTS for this. As though their fantastic idea deserved new
classes with retarded-ass powers. Just make up your own! Isn't that the
point of rules-lite, so you can homebrew easily? Nope, it's so you can
spend more money on classes that you probably could have made better
yourself. Essentially a tax on stupidity, which I fully support, but please
don't push it into my face as if it has any real quality to speak of, or offer.

To sum up the shittiest parts (a TL:DR if you will):

1.

1. Everything in an RPG is a "move". Don't think outside the box, don't

explore organically, just roll your fucking "discern realities" every 5 feet to
find traps and shit.
2. You know what's going to happen. If you roll a 10, you succeed. if the
DM says you don't succeed, he's wrong, cause "it says so in the rules." A
10 on ANYTHING succeeds. The only way to change that is for the GM to
give a shitload of penalties whenever something difficult happens.
3. Awesome things constantly happen (then become the norm after 2-3
sessions). No, they don't. A lot of times you will just fight shit, and it will
die. if you try to do something creative, more power to you, and a good
DM will give you a bonus to hit as a reward if you pull it off. But it's not
easy. It's not easy to fucking bullrush a dragon, or some shit. But in
Dungeon World, if you try that, and roll a 10, GUESS WHAT? YOU DID
IT! HOORAY! NICE JOB DOING SOMETHING EPIC IN A GAME
WITH ZERO RIGOR! Because when cool things happen constantly,
they become less and less memorable as the bar is raised for what
constitutes cool. Thus, rather than being an RPG with 1-2 memorable
things a session, Dungeon World quickly escalates into a wu-xia mush that
smells of a bad karate movie.
Because that's a lot of the fun of other RPG systems. They try to be
"realistic". They AREN'T, it's an illusion, and an effective one, but people
will shit on it with "wew it's a wurld of dwagons and gobbins, why argue
over wealism??"
Except the basics of versimilitude spit on that. Just because dragons exist,
and characters are heroic fantasy, doesn't mean the world needs to be
unbelievable. Like in D&D if someone 20th level falls 300 feet and survive
the huge damage because he has enough hit points. How does it logically
follow that just because there are elves and dragons in this world, he
should survive that fall?

2.
3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

Static target number means it's as easily to shoot a mosquito as it is to

shoot an elephant. Or as easy to land a blow on a master swordsman
as it is to land a blow on a commoner. This tiny amount of complexity
is apparently too much for the brain-damaged people who play the
game.
Abilities ripped off of D&D, with unnecessary modifier system (save
for the dry leveling system). Obviously attempting to cash in on
AD&D nostalgia without doing the requisite homework.
Bonds forces you to have known the characters before, and to be the
butt of jokes from one of them. Uncreative roleplaying mechanics
shoved in there for people to ooh and ahh over, when they are just
badly-done formalizations of suggestions from games for years.
Lack of Choice: The game seems to like making a lot of choices for
you. Like whether you can be an dwarven bard (you can't). Or what
you can do. If it's not a basic move, Dungeon World suggests you
make it into one. Instead of, you know, improvising.
No Substance: Like D&D 4e, you get to pick an ability from a list,
and THAT'S one of your abilities. There's basically nothing else to
character customization, other than filling the blanks on bonds with
the other PCs, and deciding how to order your 16, 15, 14, etc.. array
with some modicum of creativity. But you can't anyway, cause you
need to put your best stat for your class. You can't even roll for your
stats, according to this game (say it with me: everyone is equal) which
was the entire point of the 3-18 ability scores in the first place (and
the modifiers system, though that came later).
Monster Tags: In addition to living in the niche of shitty game that
can't decide if it wants to be rules-lite or rules-heavy, Dungeon World
shows that the niche it's really gunning for is twitter, by giving
monsters tags. At least be honest, and put a hash-tag there,
Dungeon World.
Conclusion: The saddest part is, not simply that Dungeon World
exists, but that that it is foisting new players on a community that
simply doesn't need them, and training them to be bad RPG players
right from the get-go; entitled, not respecting of GM fiat, and thinking
they can do whatever the hell they want and succeed... as long as they
roll a 10 or higher.