Dragon World Hack v0.2

I’ve posted about it a good amount already, but Dragon World is my 90s comedy fantasy anime hack for Apocalypse World, a very silly fantasy game. Dragon Half and Slayers are major inspirations, but just about every fantasy anime I’ve ever seen figures into it a bit, along with Discworld and the sillier parts of every D&D campaign I’ve ever been in.

This is the “Hack” version of the game, so to play you’ll need to have a copy of Apocalypse World, or at least a good knowledge of how AW works.

Here are the major changes I’ve made from the previous version:

Leveling Up: I replaced marking experience with leveling up, which characters can simply do once per session between scenes.
Guts Points: PCs now have Guts points that they can spend to avoid Falling Down (or to affect die rolls), but every time they do they have to make a roll to avoid having a Stress Explosion.
Wealth: The group shares a special Wealth stat that can fluctuate up or down, and which they get to roll on when they buy stuff.
Story Threads: Instead of connections/History, PCs now have Story Threads, which encompass other PCs as well as other story elements. These don’t have mechanical significance, but they do create relationships and story hooks.
Setting Ideas: I filled out my initial section of NPC and setting ideas.

Dragon World Hack 0.2 PDF
Dragon World Reference & Class Sheets PDF

3 thoughts on “Dragon World Hack v0.2”

So I ran this tonight, excellent fun was had by the Explosive Mage, Nutjob Cleric, Thief and Shaman. They started on the run from the mob/city guard after their last misadventure, escaped (thru fast-talk and fire) went on a quest for the Ultimate Spell of Magister Vilma Destruction, the Last Seed of the Great Oak-en, the Holy Golden Pizza Slice, and stealing said holy item.
In the course of reckless disregard for the safety of themselves and others, and a partially successful selling out of the party, they found themselves as sacrificial toppings on the Great Pizza Stone of the heretic sect of food cultists (toppings first, then cheese!)

Things I found tricky, other can coming up with streams of nonsense…
– spouting lore, who says what the lore they are spouting about is? I had the players narrate things, then adjudicated based on the roll. This may or have been correct?
– felt I had to rush in a move to get a clue and just up and told them what the macguffin was (cause the great pizza maker to lose faith). I was running in a just over 2 hour slot and wanted to finish up with a win. Or at least a powered up Big Bang that blew everything up.
– I was also trying to fit in as many hearts desires in as possible, which may have been a bit much for a oneshot.
– the list of moves are very different from other AW derivatives, much less, well, hard. I did make people Fall Down where appropriate. I need to think about them more.

But, everyone said it was a lot of fun, we laughed a lot, so I’d like to say thanks for putting this together. A success!