Gone Adventurin'

Last night myself and three of my friends tried out Dungeon World. Normally Wednesday night is either Dresden Files (FATE) or Firefly (Cinematic Unisystem); on alternating weeks. This week our very,very busy DFRP GM wasn't available, he's all artsy and has a killer job, and our Firefly GM didn't have prep done, so a quick couple of texts and a late bus journey from work later we were sitting around my kitchen table looking at the character sheets, everyone deciding what they were going to play and me starting to take some notes of things people were saying, just idle chat; and draw the start of our simple map.

Three and half hours later and we were finishing up, what for me at least, has been one of the most satisfying high fantasy GM'ing experiences of my gaming life. The whole night was whirlwind of ideas coming from all corners, during character creation we established some fantastic stuff about the world, a list of some of these ideas is below:

• There is a kingdom ruled by the coastal city of Rivenhold
• Rivenhold has an army that employs assassins and spies in it's ranks
• Ironhill is a keep which provides protection to the village of Harren
• A river runs by both Harren and the town of Mayhill on the way to Rivenhold
• Mayhill has cornered the market on a root called Goldenroot, used in medicines and poisons alike
• Mayhill is situated on the edge of the marsh where this root grows in abundance
• There is a swarm of shark toothed, fungus infected, psychotic elves moving from the hills in the northeast to the southwest, following the river
• These elves eat anything living, humans, trees, roots, animals
• They sometimes drag prey away, to some unknown fate
• There is a Rite that can control the currents of the sea to some extent

These facts all came out of questions I asked the players, just their answers created all of these lovely details. This is the result of my friend's boundless creativity married with the Apocalypse Engine, which Dungeon World runs on. I've run both this and Apocalypse World and in both cases a vivid living world of moving ideals, people and environments just pops out, it's really very satisfying.

In our party we have Selena The Thief (possibly Catwoman inspired), Loughlan The Ranger and Aziz The Druid. They have already through play established some very cool facts about themselves and behaviours, Selena is adept at hit and run tactics, poison and fighting the enemy unseen; Loughlan is very protective of his do Thorn, he put himself in danger to save the dog rather than running, he's also something of a marksman with his bow and a little bit of a conman; Aziz is almost nature incarnate, he took the form of a Gorilla, an Albatross, a Turtle and a Milksnake, flitting from one form to the next as naturally as one breathes, he also has a deep hatred of the unnatural.

This all came so naturally, flowing from questions and moves, with mechanics rarely actually breaking the flow of play. Two of our group had already played Apocalypse World, so were pretty familiar, Aziz's player took to the game like a duck to water despite not having played the style before. I found that with no prep per se and little control over the direction of the game I was free to focus on the immediate and play to the themes presented naturally. In giving up control I got to enjoy it more.

What new myth will we create?