Summary of Changes

Alignments are replaced by Drives

Players should be allowed to explore the motivations of their characters without the traditional moral codes of Good and Evil.

Races are replaced by Backgrounds

This change puts more focus on the character’s backstory. This assumes a default human race for all characters. The Heritage mechanic accomodates the differences between characters based on their cultural and/or racial backgrounds.

Coins are replaced by Value Tags

While D&D has traditionally been a game of coin counting and ten-foot poles, Dungeon World favors a more abstract and tag-based approach towards wealth and equipment. The following rules present a new take on the economy of Dungeon World.

Many Basic Moves Have Been Revised

The above changes necessitate minor revisions to several of the basic moves, which are listed below. We have also used this opportunity to adjust some of the triggers of the basic moves to make them easier to use in play.

The move that has undergone the most significant changes is Undertake a Perilous Journey, which has been rewritten to offer more player choice and authorship, and now only requires one roll, no more jobs.

Please note that several moves refer to “On a hit” as a potential result, this means any result of 7 or higher. Such moves also include “On a 10+” where there is an extra benefit for a full success, or “On a 7-9” where there is a complication for a partial success. Regardless, any roll of 7+ is considered a “hit”.

Advantage/Disadvantage

Anything that would give a bonus to a roll gives advantage, and anything that would penalise a roll gives disadvantage.

  • When you roll with advantage, roll an extra die and discard the lowest die.
  • When you roll with disadvantage, roll an extra die and discard the highest die.

If you have both advantage and disadvantage; they cancel each other out; just roll normally.

Damage rolls can also have advantage or disadvantage. In this case, roll two dice instead of one and keep the higher or lower of the two, respectively. This changes the “take what you can get” option of Volley to rolling with disadvantage. Any monster damage dice listed as “best” or “worst” are not affected by this change (see Dungeon World, page 25).

This change also affects the bonuses and penalties to rolls found in the Discern Realities and Encumbrance moves. Acting on questions answered by Discern Realities gives advantage instead of +1. However, it does not affect the bonus granted by spending Preparation from Bolster; Preparation still only gives +1 when spent, but Preparation may be spent after rolling.

Mental Debilities are Renamed

  • Intelligence: Muddled instead of stunned.
  • Wisdom: Tired instead of confused.
  • Charisma: Stressed instead of scarred.

This better represents different types of injuries or stressors acquired from the harsh life of adventuring.

Mechanically, all debilities now give disadvantage to any roll made with the debilitated stat.

Bonds are Split into Bonds and Flags

Flags replace Dungeon World’s use of resolving bonds as a method of earning XP through roleplay, inverting their pattern. Instead of bonds connecting your character to other characters, your flags define behaviours that other players enable.

Bonds now only define how connected any two characters are for the purposes of the Aid/Interfere move.

A character may have up to 4+CHA bonds and 4+CHA flags.