Freebooters on the Frontier 2e Discussion

#181

That’s a very interesting question.

I don’t tend to see dwarves, elves or hobbits/halflings as biological species within the same “tree” as humans. Like, I don’t know homo Sapiens, Erectus and Neanderthal. To me dwarves or orks are creatures of the myth much like in Tolkien’s vision so, I’m not bothered too much about it as a moral question. The D&D subculture and consequentially all gdr culture has gone far from Tolkien’s vision. Or is it? I don’t know maybe the farther it has is the half-dwarf from Dark Sun which… I can’t even look at :_)

So for a game where players can define the distinctive traits of their own mythological lineage (a term that I prefer to use) , I guess it would be much better to have rules to define their custom bonuses or traits instead of fixed stuff ala D&D.

ES I always wanted to make peculiar dwarf people looking back at real world dwarf myths and let dwarves walk and live inside rocks. I could probably do that anyway in DW or Freebooters with custom moves. But if we can go that far, we should also rethink basic PC creation stats bonuses according to that. Meaning that “dwarf” could rapresent something very different from the Tolkien archetype. Another example, if someone have read Bruno Chevalier’s La Légende des Contrées Oubliées fantasy comics, he portraited a very different kind of elves there, which always intrigued me.

Ultimately let’s face it, that is what Tolkien himself did about elves and dwarves. He “branded” them into his own mithology with some pretty peculiar traits that weren’t fixed at all in real world myths.

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#182

That would be the classic pbta philosophy yes. However, and this is just my reading, but freebooters is a marriage of OSR philosophy to pbta mechanics. So when I say a simple move I mean a move that on its own doesnt DO something. In dungeon world, being an elf druid means that in addition to any other domain of nature you can transform into creatures of the forest. That is huge! It means that someone who would normally ne good at turning into whales, sharks, seabirds and such, now has access to land predators! Compare that to the freebooters move of being able to smell gold. This is a move that a.) Doesn’t help you find the most common currency in the game (silver) or gems, paintings, jade statues etc. And b.) Simply confirms something you would have expected to find in the dungeon anyways. It is a tool that requires clever usage to have any utility rather than a prompt that shapes the way you play your character. Another example would be the outlander heritage of the barbarian in dw. They have the ability to paint huge swaths of fiction (creating new lands, peoples, monsters and places) with their racial move and be awarded xp for it as well. Compare that to the freebooters human. You earn an xp by giving in to one of those vices you rolled during character creation. Essentially you are rewarded for playing the character you were given. Anyways, that is what I meant by “simple” move.

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#183

I’ve uploaded a draft of the new Funnel rules, which are compatible with Freebooters 2e, for anyone who’s interested. This is the bare bones of what will be “Volume Zero” of the booklets, and also likely the first stretch goal.

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#184

Love it! I am thinking of retroactively doing a funnel for our campaign! Also, I think the ratcatcher should get a ferret… or a terrier. Just because I love the backgrounds that come with animals!

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#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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