Freebooters on the Frontier 2e Discussion

#185

I’m not familar with Smell Gold or heritage moves. So far I only MCed DW the core game. Ok and I also had a bit of misunderstanding. You were talking about PCs not NPCs. But that’s not the point.

For the “power level” of moves that you point out I thought about it in terms of hardscrabble fantasy vs high fantasy, not about the difference between OSR and PbtA.
I think that what people really like in PbtAs isn’t about mechanical bits or resolution rolls, those are just the tools that Apocalypse World and other games that came before and after it introduced. PbtA to me is most of all about:

  1. clarity in the game’s goal (Objectives and Principles)
  2. the story-forward mechanisms, where 7-9 is just an application of this principle, not the only way of doing it

So from what I see there still is a big elephant in the room. How can you marry story-forward with OSR’s creative problem-solving since they are basically opposite things?

I have my humble proposal on this. It’s just an idea but Jason and all you guys let me know what you think: how about a codified Judge move like “Give them a problem to solve” or something similar to encapsulate the OSR principle into a task (or a thread knot)? This would be an explicit rule that force the Judge to declare to the players “this is something you will have to solve without moves”. Maybe to be applied to crucial puzzles in the fiction? I don’t know, where do you OSR buffs think that lie the most important applications of the principle? But I think it’s crucial to build this “thing” into something limited (ES a move), and not letting the approach colonize all the system. Otherwise the story-forward mechanisms already in place in the game would clash with it.

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#186

So I may have missed it in the rules somewhere, but when you roll 6- do you mark the the ability that you were rolling for, do you gain xp, or both? Or is XP earned only at the end of session and for stashing treasure?

#187

In Freebooters and the Funnel rules each move says explicitly what happens on a 6-. most of the time it’s marking an ability, sometimes it’s XP. Most XP is earned during the “end of session” moves (Wrap Up and Live to Tell the Tale, respectively).

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#188

Also by getting the treasures back home, if I’m not mistaken.

Edit: I have one question. When are the “one-roll x” tables supposed to come into play? At the Judge’s discretion?

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#189

@Echo, yes, of course! I forgot to mention that you get XP for stashing treasure as well.

The “One-Roll Discovery” tables are meant as examples of tables you can make yourself, tailored to the regions of your campaign, to save time at the table. For each entry I rolled a Discovery using the tables in the basic rules, then fleshed it out according to the context (woodland or wetland).

Through play in my home campaigns I have come to prefer using a set of smaller tables for each region, one each for Creatures, Discoveries, Obstacles, and Hazards. They’re easier to prep and cover all of the bases for the Set Out and Pass the Night moves. Here’s an example of what I’m talking about.

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#190

@il_fabbro, just to be clear, my goal with Freebooters is not to create an “OSR PbtA” game, per se – it’s obvious why people would think that, and I value a number of things commonly described as tentpoles of the OSR philosophy, but my intent all along has been to recapture and expand upon the specific feeling I experienced playing in 1977-1980, which emerged from the combination of the OD&D boxed set, Judges’ Guild products, and the collective imagination of my play group.

“Creative problem-solving” was part of that, for sure, but where the OSR puts a high value on “player competency,” Freebooters puts emphasis on “character competency” and roleplaying. The alignment/trait system rewards players for doing things in character even if it’s not the most sensible or efficient choice, which in my experience is highly entertaining.

That being said, I do like the idea of incorporating something like “Give them a problem to solve” into the Judge’s agenda! Thanks for the suggestion.

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When your GM values roleplay and cunnning over a resolution system
#191

Still plugging away at those tables/generators!

Here’s a half-finished dungeon I put together using the generator.

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#192

Actually I’m relieved that you can confirm that :_)

This is fantastic!

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#193

@jasonlutes thanks for your explanation. I’m excited for the kickstarter, to say the least :grin:

On further thought: How would you differentiate between a game that focuses on player skills vs character skill, designwise? I imagine it’s mainly with moves like “pick locks & disarm traps” that directly govern things that were formerly under the purview of “player skill”?
I’m navigating that OSR/Storygame space with my group at the moment (we are not using the Freebooters rules, but I really enjoy the content generation :wink:), so this really interests me.

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#194

I really don’t see the disparity between the two. That may be because I have very little history with rpgs or possibly because I just carry my own style into games whether it be “osr” or “storygame”. All moves are governed by fiction. So when someone says “I open the lock” I would just respond “the lock does not open”. Whereas if they expend a use of adventuring gear to produce a lock pick and describe themselves hunkering down with their ear to the door listening to the clicks, that could trigger the move. Thats why the marketplace lists things like tinderboxes and such. So that when a player says “I pull out a torch” you can ask how they light it. And then when they find that magic item that produces a small flame handy for lighting things, they will actually appreciate it! I don’t really think pbta is terribly different from any other rpg when it comes down to it. Its just a system that tends to be good at doing an end run on getting a particular “feel” in a game.

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#195

@Echo, I think that differentiation would come down to the specific palette of moves (player- and Judge-facing), with some clear GM advice about how to navigate the gray areas. The game plays best when there’s room for interpretation in the space between the mechanics, so that each table will develop their own way of doing things. One Judge might run the game sticking to classic OSR principles, while another might run it “story-forward.”

While I appreciate the school of thought that says a game should be strict and sharp in its evocation of genre, I want to keep things a bit fuzzy in Freebooters. I love that OD&D had hundreds of different interpretations in the pre-Internet era, and want to keep some of that feeling. But by design! Not through obscure/unclear rules.

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#196

Stonetop looks Great! Perilous Wilds is often cited as the #1 accessory for Dungeon World. As for Freebooters I have read a few good reviews but don’t know much about it. I will be interested to see what is said here.

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#197

I see where you come from Devin, I really do. I can just compare my way of doing and seeing things. I’m not trying to convince you or saying this is bettere ok?

If you say “the lock does not open” you’re taking an arbitrary decision and you’re going against if you do it, you do it; to do it, you have to do it. You’re also padding the game out, because moves should snowball not linger until the player find a way to trigger them. My reply to “I open the lock” would be “Cool, how you’re going to do that?”.

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#198

That is a much better response, yes. It still needs a satisfactory answer to trigger the move. “I open the lock”… “How do you do that” … “I stare at it and think happy thoughts”… “Nothing happens” :smile:
Anyways, it may just be my own opinion but i think freebooters offers opportunities for both player and character skill. You can 10 foot pole and dungeoncrawl your way through each problem allowing the judge to just say you “do it” or use your character’s strength or dexterity etc to solve the problem but potentially opening yourself to consequences on a bad roll.

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#199

@Devin_Pike, it’s not just you! That’s how it goes at my table.

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#200

@jexjthomas and anyone else who might be interested: I have taken another (fifth!) stab at booty generation and updated Beasts & Booty to reflect this attempt. Note that determining a creature’s booty die will eventually be folded into the creature generation section.

Feedback welcome!

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#201

Jason, this looks fantastic! Much cleaner and more useful at a glance; generating booty feels far less like a puzzle to be put together or a math equation. This seems like, if needed, it can actually be used in the moment at the table if necessary, which I never felt about the old version.

I’ll hopefully get a chance to try it out sometime this week. I have a lot of prep to finish up as my Freebooters get ready to enter the capital city (moving distinctly away from the Perilous Wilds but what can you do…)

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#202

First game in 2 months, and it went really well. Lots of action. Realized I need to work on combat to make it more interesting than the players just rolling Fight over and over again. For some reason I have no problem doing this well in Monster of the Week, but I guess I have a hard time shaking my D&D background when playing a game that’s more D&D-esque. It was also a little different because the party was split so I was having players run three of the followers who were with one of the PCs planning a siege on a temple that had been taken over, so they didn’t have the normal stats and were rolling +Nothing for most stuff, or with advantage if it was something that was covered by the follower’s moves. It wasn’t perfect, but it worked out pretty well. One of the followers died a heroic death, and it ended up being a really big, cool moment.

A couple sessions ago we started doing Stars and Wishes after Wrap Up, and twice now I’ve gotten the feedback of them wanting more class opportunities, which I’ve been working really hard to fit in, but it turns out what the issue was more was our two thieves feeling that they were doing cool thief shit but still not hitting their xp trigger, so we ended up re-wording it just slightly to Acquire or achieve something by stealth or trickery. It feels more like a bandaid but I think broadens it enough that when they use stealth or trickery to accomplish a task that isn’t stealing booty, they’ll still hit their goal. (My reading of the original trigger was always broader than theirs, apparently, but didn’t realize it until now.)

On another note, I got to use the new booty generation system and I like it so, so much better. It was easy to use, and made prep go quicker because there was less stuff to have to figure out. I think just having a little more guidance there made a world of difference. And as much as I liked the idea of drop tables, I like this method better than that.

Anyway, that’s it really! The party hasn’t quite made it into the big city yet, and I’m excited and nervous for when they do. I want to design parts of the city as dungeons, basically, but mostly leave it open and build out some fun encounter tables and see where things go. We’ll be playing again in two weeks. There’s still some miles of wilderness between them and the capital, but they’re on their way.

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#203

OH! One other thing! (Sorry.)

I’ve been using chronica.ventures to manage my campaign and it’s kinda perfect for my needs. But the reason I’m letting y’all know is because I’m building out a template for Freebooters 2E that has all the stats and moves built in.

Here are some examples of what it looks like for a PC, an NPC Follower, and a Monster. You can’t see everything but hopefully you get the idea.

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If anyone else uses chronica and wants to copy over this template, send me a message and we can make it happen.

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#204

Thanks for the feedback and chronica tips, @jexjthomas.

Re: followers, so they had Quality +0? And I take it rolling with advantage is a house rule? Under what conditions do you choose to apply advantage?

The most recent XP trigger for the Thief is “Solve a problem using stealth or trickery,” perhaps that would resolve the issue?

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