The Question of Magic

From the very beginning of our Dungeon World 2 design process, Spencer and I knew that magic would be an important part of our design. After all, historically 2/3 of any Dungeons & Dragons’ Player's Handbook word count is dedicated to all matters magical, and many fantasy tabletop roleplaying games (TTRPGs) have followed suit.

Even though the original Dungeon World didn't go as far as those games, it did break the Powered by the Apocalypse (PbtA) mold by adding both Cleric and Wizard spells as an “extra” that only these Classes get (and The Bard in a limited way). 

As I mentioned back in the day, we thought this wasn't a good approach overall, as a) it made the Cleric and Wizard two much alike one another, b) it increased both of their relative complexity, and c) it provided them with extra abilities that made the rest of the Classes fictionally underpowered in comparison.

That's why we decided, from the very beginning (pre-Alpha, Nov-Dec 2024) that we wanted to try and simplify both Classes without losing their respective flavors and relative power. 

As anyone who's ever tried to explain D&D (aka Vancian) magic to a newcomer can attest, that game's magic system is an overly complicated mess with a steep learning curve, something that makes “casters" (aka magic-using Classes) a hard proposition for new players. We didn’t want that. We know that casters are well-beloved and that lots of new players wanna play them immediately.

So, yeah, we decided to simplify it. But how?

The Alpha Approach

During the three Alpha releases, our approach was similar: try to write specific magic-using Moves for each Class, and make them distinctive and flavorful enough. Feedback (and our own perceptions) is that we succeeded, to a lesser or greater extent, but this approach had a couple of problems.

First, the casting Moves were overly long, so they used up a lot of space on the character sheet (not a minor concern). Even with that length, however, they weren't distinctive enough, and we ended up repeating patterns and structures in spite of our best efforts.

Second, the design felt constrained and all over the place. When Paths came online during the Final Alpha, I felt that we needed to update the casting design to bring it up to par with this new archetype subsystem.

Finally, there was the question of familiarity (which we alluded to here). Anybody who's played any fantasy TTRPG—or any videogame, for that matter—knows what “casting a spell" means. Moreover, people don't usually ascribe the meaning to only “wizard” magic; they use it often to describe any type of consistent magic-usage in a fantasy game.

With all this in mind, we've now made magic a Core Move that anyone can use—if they have a Class, Path, or other source that lets them access it.

Cast a Spell

When you invoke magic you can use, say what you want to happen and roll+the corresponding Stat (see your Class or Paths) with a penalty equal to the spell’s ᴍᴀɢ (GM’s call). 🟎On a 10+, the spell is successfully cast. 🟎On a 7-9, it goes off but choose one:

• A unique option depending on the source of your magic (see your Class or Paths)
• The effort is tiresome; mark Conditions equal to the spell’s ᴍᴀɢ
• There’s a twist; the GM will add an “and” or “but” to its effect

🟎On a 6-, something goes terribly wrong; mark 1 XP and the GM makes a Move

As you can see, the Move is relatively simple and incredibly flexible. We want magic and non-magical abilities to be more or less balanced (fictionally speaking), so that's why we kept the concept of Magnitude (or ᴍᴀɢ), which we introduced during the Final Alpha (more on that below). 

Moreover, we were able to leave space for each casting Class or Path to offer a unique way of “paying” for spells on a 🟎7-9. This makes it so each casting Class or Path can feel distinctive in their approach to magic, while not being overburdened with paragraph upon paragraph of design. This makes it so we can focus on what makes each source of magic unique, instead of repeating more or less the same instructions multiple times.

Finally, this allows us to present magic in a way that’s always dramatic, doesn’t require significant extra buy-in from would-be caster players, and creates a familiar environment for players coming from games like D&D.

Magnitude (ᴍᴀɢ)

Magnitude (ᴍᴀɢ) represents the scale and power of a spell. The GM has the final say on a spell's ᴍᴀɢ, but these guidelines below should help: 

• ᴍᴀɢ 0 — Example effects include: shoot a magical dart (1d6 dmg); summon or charm an ordinary being; put someone to magical sleep; slow down a fall
• ᴍᴀɢ 1 — Example effects include: shoot an acid arrow (1d8 dmg); read someone’s thoughts; turn someone invisible until they trigger a Move; float up to a #near distance
• ᴍᴀɢ 2 — Example effects include: an explosive fireball (1d10 dmg); communicate with a ghost or spirit; fabricate a finished mundane item instantly from a pile of raw materials; turn yourself and your equipment into a cloud of smoke
• ᴍᴀɢ 3 — Example effects include: vomit a cloud of poison that damages anyone any time they breath the gas (1d12 dmg); create a door to another dimension; polymorph someone into another natural creature of their same size or smaller; lift a creature or object of up to 1,000 pounds and move it to a #near location and hold it in place
• ᴍᴀɢ 4 — Example effects include: utter a forbidden power word that kills anyone weaker than you or inflicts (1d8+1d6 dmg) if they’re stronger; summon or paralyze a monstrous creature; make a single wish (and you can’t wish for more wishes); teleport yourself and allies to any location on the same dimension

And that’s about it for magic in the Dungeon World 2 Beta (Quickstart Release)! We hope that you enjoy and playtest it HEAVILY, as your feedback will surely help us make the best version of DW2 possible.

In the next and final post in the lead up to the Beta’s release, I’ll talk about our new GM Moves (as I mentioned here) and our current approach to GM Tools in general.

Until then, happy gaming!