So a post on Reddit got me thinking about how games can die in PbP for various reasons, and I thought the hot-potato style of combat I've only ever seen was just about perfect for it...

... except DW and other Apocalypse World Engine games tend to die with Bonds. So the idea I randomly had is to reconstruct how Bonds work.

Firstly, there's a bit of inconsistency with

and Class Warfare, which specifies each Archetype as having a set number of bonds.

Personally I don't really like either rule, because I don't get the logic, and there's that problem about PbP games I mentioned. So I propose the following:

• Players get bonds equal to Level+CHA (this becomes part of the Level Up move) which they can come up with in play.
• Players are not initially restricted to bonds specified for their Playbook/Class Warfare build, so long as they write their own build in a way that fits the concept. OF course in order to preserve what I assume DW intended as balance, fitting the concept is subject to the group's collective opinion.
• Players may spend bonds on the world representing events that have happened in game. (that's right, I like the idea of players being more and more connected to the world in a statistical way.)
• If it exceeds +CHA or +1 per 100 coins spent, they can use it in relevant situations.

Mainly that last one is for situations that come up a lot in my game where the players saved a town from a massive horde, and they get amnesty/favors returned/wenches.
This message was last edited by a moderator, as it was the wrong forum, at 23:06, Fri 05 Jan 2018.

Sorry, forgot to specify "which they can come up with in play." the initial post has been edited to reflect that.

This message was deleted by the user at 23:59, Fri 05 Jan 2018.

Are you seeking advice on PbtA games in general or just Dungeon World?

If it's just Dungeon World, I recommend punting bonds all together.  They're a great idea that I don't think works well in execution with Dungeon World.  For the assist/hinder move, just use the assisting/hindering PC's most relevant attribute bonus as the modifier rather than bonds.

I'm not sure what you mean by this. I have never liked how bonds are described or work, but I've never seen them seriously impact a game of Dungeon World and I rarely see them used as anything as a temporary storage place for experience points.

My first *World experience was Apocalypse World and while most about that game disturbed me greatly, I though the Hx concept was brilliant. If I ever run a game of Dungeon World, I plan to use that instead:

<http://ramblingsofjacobanddelos.com/2015/02/13/apocalypse-world-hx-dungeon-world/>