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I'm working some more on the sha'ir class for Dungeon World tonight, and was hoping to post a revised move for Bind a Genie to Service. However, it's proving more complicated to figure out than I thought, and I realized I wasn't going to be able to have it ready before midnight. So I'm posting now, but I'll continue working on it for a while after and hopefully will still be ready with something before I go to bed.
My initial plan was to base it entirely off the Order Hirelings move, which itself is based on the Pack Alpha (that is, "order gang") move in standard Apocalypse World. However, there aren't yet fully detailed rules on hirelings, and initially I didn't really consider how the Pack Alpha move interacts with the rules for gangs. So the initial draft for Bind a Genie to Service involves making a roll when you bind a genie, representing the course of negotiations with the genie; the more successful the sha'ir is in negotiating, the better bargain he gets. Now, however, I'm thinking that the move needs to be more like a custom Pack Alpha move, with the genie treated more like a gang, which is to say more like gear. When you bind a genie into service, you will have one, no question, with particular advantages and disadvantages. But because it's a living being and not just inanimate equipment, you still have to order it to do things and it may refuse or misbehave even despite the contractual agreements.
So working out the details of the various genies' advantages and disadvantages, and how the contract agreements may affect those, is what has become tricky. I'm trying to fit together the spirit and characteristics of the original D&D Arabian Adventures concepts with the rules and methods of the Dungeon World system and its Apocalypse World source. It'll definitely work out, it's just that I haven't yet had the opportunity to play Apocalypse World itself, and the rules for gangs or hirelings haven't yet been implemented in Dungeon World, so I'm trying to figure it all out without any play experience. It makes for a good creative challenge.
At this point I'm feeling almost obliged to move forward with a full Arabian Adventures setting conversion for Dungeon World, just so that there's some hope that someone will use this material I've worked on. The sha'ir class isn't going to fit into my Cetak (Seattle) setting, and although I'd like to think I might get to run another Dungeon World game where it would fit in, I'd still want some other Arabian-style material. (And of course, I'd still need to find willing players.)
My initial plan was to base it entirely off the Order Hirelings move, which itself is based on the Pack Alpha (that is, "order gang") move in standard Apocalypse World. However, there aren't yet fully detailed rules on hirelings, and initially I didn't really consider how the Pack Alpha move interacts with the rules for gangs. So the initial draft for Bind a Genie to Service involves making a roll when you bind a genie, representing the course of negotiations with the genie; the more successful the sha'ir is in negotiating, the better bargain he gets. Now, however, I'm thinking that the move needs to be more like a custom Pack Alpha move, with the genie treated more like a gang, which is to say more like gear. When you bind a genie into service, you will have one, no question, with particular advantages and disadvantages. But because it's a living being and not just inanimate equipment, you still have to order it to do things and it may refuse or misbehave even despite the contractual agreements.
So working out the details of the various genies' advantages and disadvantages, and how the contract agreements may affect those, is what has become tricky. I'm trying to fit together the spirit and characteristics of the original D&D Arabian Adventures concepts with the rules and methods of the Dungeon World system and its Apocalypse World source. It'll definitely work out, it's just that I haven't yet had the opportunity to play Apocalypse World itself, and the rules for gangs or hirelings haven't yet been implemented in Dungeon World, so I'm trying to figure it all out without any play experience. It makes for a good creative challenge.
At this point I'm feeling almost obliged to move forward with a full Arabian Adventures setting conversion for Dungeon World, just so that there's some hope that someone will use this material I've worked on. The sha'ir class isn't going to fit into my Cetak (Seattle) setting, and although I'd like to think I might get to run another Dungeon World game where it would fit in, I'd still want some other Arabian-style material. (And of course, I'd still need to find willing players.)
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