Nice! I was confused by a level 1 dwarf having a riding horse until I realized it must have been rolled up on the Random Item table.
Freebooters on the Frontier 2e Discussion
I would say they were a lucky Dwarf, but that is clearly not the case. Probably murdered someone for it.
2 Likes
Couple more questions heading into game #2 this weekend.
First I am trying to understand Followers. The “Recruit” move seems straightforward enough, to identify the type of person and their availability. When looking for the cost (which seems a departure from the motivational-based costs found in DW and PW), the Marketplace does provide guidance. However, what is the difference between a Hireling and then if they hired skilled labor, or a porter, or an armed escort? How do you pick between the cost per week folks and the cut-of-the-booty folks?
Second, also with Followers. In the NPC Follower chart, it has options to give them Tags. Are you all just using the PW tags or am I missing something?
Thirdly, on the Thief playbook it says on their “Pick Locks & Disarm Traps” move requires proper tools. lock picks are in the tool section of the Marketplace, but what tools do you all use to disarm traps? Is it situational and they have to say in the fiction what they use? Or do you house rule in a “toolkit” of some sort? Or maybe use crafting tools with a specialty in traps?
Finally, speaking of crafting, the way the move is designed, an item is going to cost twice it’s value to make over just buying it (excluding rolling 10+). Is this high cost intentional? or do you find in practice that players usually roll 10+, having the end result be cheaper than buying it?
Thanks! And hopefully you don’t mind the question dump!
Question dump is welcome!
@Haaldaar, the follower stuff has not yet been cleaned up, for which I apologize. People do a fair amount of winging it and filling in the blanks with some parts of these rules.
The marketplace prices are examples., but the distinction between the cut-of-the-booty folks and the paid-by-the-week folks is in what they’re being asked to do. If they’re being asked to accompany some crazy adventurers on a dangerous treasure-hunting expedition, they might want to be treated like any other party member, and ask for an equal share. If the PCs need a few porters to carry gear to establish a base camp at the edge of dangerous territory, maybe the porters will ask the going rate; if the porters are being asked to venture into that territory, they might ask for some kind of hazard pay bonus.
Rolling alignment and traits for them can help figure out a given hireling’s asking price. Let’s say the PCs go to Recruit a skilled burglar and it turns out she’s [rolls dice] evil, mad, arrogant, and an addict. Yikes, the life of a burglar is not pretty. Because she’s arrogant, she’ll likely ask for a lot – looking at the marketplace I see a “specialist” can earn 18 silver/week, so I decide she’ll demand, I dunno, 25 per week. The PCs can try to Negotiate with her, but she is mad, so good luck.
The short answer is, think of the follower as any NPC, an individual with their own wants and needs. Some will ask for market rate, some will want a piece of the action, some might ask for favors. Maybe our burglar will do it for free if the PCs can hook her up with whatever substance she’s addicted to.
If the traits don’t point in any particular direction, you can start with the market rate, then Check Reaction and wing it from there.
You’re not missing anything on the tags. I haven’t put together the Freebooters tag list yet. You can use the PW tags list, but I will likely do away with the mechanical aspects of those. Quality and Loyalty are the important mechanical bits.
Proper tools for a trap will depend on the trap. That’s up to a conversation between Judge and player. using the crafting tools from the marketplace as a ballpark is a great idea, but maybe the player wants to negotiate a lower price and has some good rationale for doing so.
Re: Crafting, if an item costs 20sp retail, each use of supplies will cost 4sp and it will take 2 progress to finish the item. So on average, it’ll cost 8sp to make that item. I could probably rewrite that to be more clear.
3 Likes
@jasonlutes I’m not seeing anything about the WT value of carrying coins; am I missing that? There’s the coin pouch in Random Items that holds 3d6 coins for 0 wt. But I’m not seeing how carrying hundreds of coins of looted treasure would affect Capacity.
Also, will you be providing notes for carry capacity or other distinctions between Containers in the Marketplace section?
Cheers!
1 Like
Thank you @jasonlutes. To follow up on crafting, I guess I was looking at more expensive items. So, using the current formula, anything up to 50sp will be a discount (although progressively less). Then above that, you start paying more.
For example, if someone wanted to craft plate armor (200sp value) they will have supplies at 40sp and then 20 process. So that would be 800sp, ignoring any 10+ bonuses.
Might want to think about a flat supplies cost (cost /2 or /3) instead of having them multiple by the increasing progress needed.
2 Likes
@Atlictoatl, weight capacity for containers were intentionally left out because it’s more about volume – the expectation is that PCs will explain how they’re carrying stuff given the containers they have, and negotiate edge cases with the Judge. I included capacity for horses and vehicles since they are “weight-bearing agents” like the PCs.
I’m still considering the coin weight question. Something in the 250-500sp = 1wt range would feel about right, but my current working number is 100sp = 1wt for simplicity’s sake.
2 Likes
@jasonlutes happy to help. Also might want to consider adding either a requirement or bonus for using the crafting tools. Since, there are actually crafting tools in the game, might as well tie them in.
1 Like
@Haaldaar, that’s left up in the air purposefully. There’s a “zone of obscurity” in the rules that I want to leave up to the players and Judge in each playgroup to sort out on their own. One of the functions of the Know Something move is to allow PCs to propose what they might know about a given thing (say, crafting beer), subject to Judge approval. The final rules will cover this more explicitly.
1 Like
Hello all. My 2nd session went MUCH better than the first (though the first was ok too). Thanks for all the help from my last post about adjusting my mind-set.
Had a question crop up from my Magic User, now that he hit level two. He is eying the enchanter move next level and wants to start making permanent enchantments. However, looking at the Cast a Spell Move, it says
“When you successfully cast a spell of duration greater than your INT, you suffer -1 ongoing to all rolls until you choose to end the spell, are forced to do so, or its duration runs out.”
Does this mean you are at a permanent disability if you make a permanent enchantment? Else you end the permanent spells effect?
Thanks!
2 Likes
@Haaldaar, nope, that’s an error. Thank you for bringing it to my attention! The Enchanter should not suffer any such penalty after enchanting an item (permanently or not), and I’ll change the wording of that move to reflect that. I may add some other restriction, but for now let’s just leave it at that. I would love to hear how enchantment goes if your player gets that far.
1 Like
Had a player roll snake eyes on the spell Expanding Cube! It started expanding alright! Now there’s a cube shaped crater a half mile wide.
4 Likes
Ha! Nice. Any casualties?
1 Like
No casualties, just substantial sanity loss and alerted the Council of Magerly Containment. The Wizard will be getting a stern talking to.
3 Likes
I loved the first edition, and I am excited to use what is available for 2e for my upcoming campaign start in a few weeks.
4 Likes
Happy to hear it! I will try to get out the next little update before then.
2 Likes
Another great session! Our heroes raised up a vessel crashed on the shore and with the help of an undead crew got it sea worthy again to reach their next source of booty.
There’s still one mechanic that I keep rubbing against like some burr in my boot, and that’s the Incident table.Particularly when I roll a mishap in the night, I just have a hard time being inspired by the table. How much table time should these Mishaps take? How do you make the Obstacles mesh with your current environment?
I having a hard time quantifying where exactly I’m tripping up with this table in particular, anybody else having problems with coming up with good incidents? Is it flowing well at your tables when they come up?
3 Likes
Any chance we can get a hint of what kinds of changes we’ll be seeing? 