Regarding drains. 1d3 STR is absolutely enough – adding the only other combat/attack value (DEX) to the attack seems really punitive since I the PCs need a lawful cleric or the holy water to fight them. Or, if you want it to hurt more, I would suggest CON or CHA.
Freebooters on the Frontier 2e Discussion
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Over the past few days I read the play-test-documents then read all 521 posts in this thread and watched all 19 Parts of your (@jasonlutes) “From Funnel to Freebooters” campaign. I just had to tell you that u are creating an awesome TTRPG-System, I am probably going to GM a few sessions of it in the future. Or at least I will use the genius dice-tables for my GM’ing. And of course I will let you know if I find anything that might be an improvement, but I have got to say, from what I have read so far, its looking pretty complete by now.
I especially love the Magic/Cleric-System and the Class-Resources.
Thank you for your work.
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Thanks, @Medugenus, I appreciate you taking the time to post. I’m happy that you are finding the system to your liking and yes, please let me know if you have any feedback.
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@jasonlutes Starting my second night running Leget manor tonight. Thought I would let you know my “plan” in case you’d like to comment, or just learn of our approach. The PC wiped most of the northern wing in their first foray, but 2 of the 3 got drained badly by Shadows. So, at the end of last game, they beat feet back to the village to heal up.
While they are in town, I plan to have them see how the disease has advanced with new baroness – giving them more of a time imperative for tonight’s game. Probably will have the baroness’ servant implore them to destroy the curse, etc.
Since the PCs took time to try reconsecrate the chapel, and were very methodical about clearing rooms I think Sciedevang the Lich would figure they may have more motives than just loot. My plan to have the lich lure them into the tower and see if he can manipulate the PCs into destroying the idol, thereby freeing him from the manor.
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Thanks for sharing the state of your game, I love reading this kind of thing.
I think placing Lintrude in dire peril is a good way to go. The Black Fever is a useful dramatic prod. And yes, if she’s in a bad way having Argile implore the PCs make sense. I don’t know if you’re doing this as a standalone or planning to extend into a campaign, but if it’s the latter, a valid option would also be for them to abandon the village and head off into the wider world.
The most entertaining part of running the Manor in my home games has always been a confrontation with Sciedevang that involves a parlay of some kind. I like to play him as bored and bemused, relaxed but super-touchy and casually murderous when it comes to certain subjects. Having him try to convince them to do his dirty work is a great idea, and he has a number of options, from reverse psychology (“Whatever you do, don’t you dare set foot in the dungeon!”) to open bargaining (“Here’s the deal: you destroy the idol and free me, and I’ll take my necromantic pursuits elsewhere”). Perhaps he could get some leverage by having his ghouls take a PC or two hostage?
In my game, the cleric decided that the Triune of Law’s worship has fallen by the wayside in the frontier over the past decades. She is dedicated to reinstating their worship in the area. So finding the texts and old chapel was HUGE to her. No chance they are abandoning Leget Manor!
I much prefer the parley too. Makes his inevitable betrayal™ sooo much more fun!
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@jasonlutes I have more suggestions re: the map of the manor. First, I really do like it overall!
Stairs – so I am not understanding or there is a problem with the stairs in the tower. I assume that a “→” notes that the stairs are rising in the same direction of the arrow, in this case from left (bottom ) to right (top)?!? So, look at room #1 in the Tower and room #6 in the Dungeon level. Is northern staircase is the SAME staircase? If so the arrows are wrong, or I am just not getting it.
I’m not claiming to be the brightest bulb, but maybe a key is necessary or the arrows need to be fixed, or both…
A minor note - on the Ground level of the manor, room 20 - how about some faint dotted lines to give some hint that that there is an overlook from room 14. I would also like some hash marks in room 14 to remind the gm that it is overlooking 20, below. Could not catch that from the text and had to re-read to figure out what was going on.
HEY, you updated the files, a lot! (Sorry to narc on you.) I noticed that chapters 00, 01 and 02 have new dates. Anything in particular we should be looking for, feedback-wise?
And, thanks!
You’re right abut the stairs issue – I got confused! Will fix that. And good idea about those map adjustments, thanks for suggesting them.
Nothing major mechanics-wise has been updated. I added in the Judge’s agenda and principles and tweaked the wording on a few moves. The biggest change is to the follower moves – now they’re “Ally Moves” since they can be triggered by any allied NPCs, not just hirelings. And I removed Loyalty as a concept since I’ve been nailing down NPC generation and play procedures (not uploaded yet) and don’t think Loyalty is necessary, which led to cutting the Pay Up and Say Goodbye moves.
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Thanks for the updates. So I’m playing that the northern stairs are “down,” from east to west. I will just have to tell the players that the staircase on tower level 3 is on the wrong side of the room.
This is in reference to our exchange on April 22. I may have a solution.
I see what you mean about space on the character sheets. Do you have room to spare in the basic rules to include a “GMing the classes” section? This could be a 1/2 page for each class. In the section about Clerics, you could include how to interpret Hubris, and put whatever your final version of the table I suggested will be. Just an idea. I could easily see some advice for the other three classes, esp. adjudicating wizard spells…
Sorry if I have overloaded you today. Prepping for the game tonight. I hope some of this helps. I must say, I think this game has become my go-to version of DW.
Not overloaded at all! I really appreciate you taking the time to offer feedback and I’m happy that you are enjoying the system.
Thanks for the suggestion about including advice about how to handle class-specific issues, it’s one I’ve been thinking about. The different class currencies definitely need more explanation than what’s in the playbooks, so I’ll definitely include guidelines for how to handle them in play.
Hey @jasonlutes I am in the process of prepping a game for my group. Since a few Players of my group are not that fluent in English I am translating the Moves and the Playbooks to German at the moment. I was wondering if you could upload a blank and/or editable version of your Playbooks. Otherwise I will just use Photoshop. But it would of course be much easier to just change the text. Also that would make it Possible to invent new Playbooks although I am firmly in the camp: “4 is the exact correct amount”
Since you can make almost every character concept with those 4 and some custom moves.
Medugenus, will InDesign files work for you?
EDIT: I uploaded the InDesign files to the Playbooks folder in case they will be useful.
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I don’t have Adobe inDesign. Is there a Way to export them as some Filetype that is more Universal? Otherwise I might be able to use the trial period to do it once. Then Export the German version before Trial ends.
Unfortunately I don’t see any way to export into a more universal, editable filetype. I anyone knows a way to do so, let me know!
It’s ok I got it. But man German is a very precise Language with lots of long words. It’s really hard to make the text fit. Just finished the Cleric and I had to drop so much beautiful fluffy Language to make it fit. It’s a shame. Apreciate your Work.
Also what is “to tithe” as in “destroy or tithe something”
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“To tithe” is to give as an offering or tax to the church. I might change that wording though, since tithe usually means a certain percentage.
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Found some things while translating. In the Necromancy move of the Magic-User it still says “Perceive” instead of “Find Answers” also i did a quick check and found that in the Basic Rules under Heritage Moves the dwarf still gets +1 to “Perceive” while underground.
And thanks for the clarification. Maybe just “donation” or “offering”
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As far as I know, you can save any document in InDesign as a layered PDF.
Hope this helps.
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Ran my playtest of Leget again. This was their second trip to the manor, having gone to the village to recover from the shadow attacks. They ventured into the manor and they of course went the opposite way that they told me they were going and stumbled upon the librarian. One of the players was a bit off and almost killed the old man for no damn reason, but was restrained by the the others. I had a bit of a struggle roleplaying the librarian until I leaned on the crazy and added a bit – hinting that Sciedevang kept him around just to taunt and torture him. That worked. They kinda weren’t buying why he was still in the manor after so long. Anyway, they left and headed back to the main level and ventured into the wing – I also changed a bit of the background here. I changed it so that Scidevang had complete, supernatural, control of the skeletons (vs ghouls), but not over the other “undead.” I saw the shadows, ghosts and ghouls as being part of Grenwe-Nar’s power, whereas Sciedevang could create skeletons using his spell. Also, you hint that the ghouls are not dead in one description, so again, it just did not follow that he could do more than intimidate and order them about. YMMV, I just thought you might enjoy hearing my nerd-rationalizations.
Anyhoo, they got to the front door to the tower and found a skeleton stading there with a shield and no weapon. Instead it held a string that led through the bolted doors. A note pinned to the shield read “I wish to parley. Pull string if you agree. -S.” They thought that was funny and cool and pulled the string that led to a bell, of course." Scidevang had his skeletons open the door and he greeted them, seated on the “gilded” throne. I may have been the five skeletons + the lich, or the way I role-played him, but a straight-up fight went right out the window with the party. They DID think of the villagers and wrote a cool agreement. The priestess of Donnavieve Invoked her god (successfully) to have her “witness” the pact – rolled a 12! The lich (HATED) that.
I played the lich up to hilt. He looked like a bag of bones with about 5 times too much leathery skin. He drank from a goblet filled with crawling insects – many of which just crawled out little holes in his skin and roamed around his body. They were disgusted.
I also found another issue with the cleric sheet and Invoke. It mentions “durations,” but there is no mention of what that means. And you may think this is too much, but I do allow the priestess to add WIS to Invoke. I played it the other way for weeks, and the player eventually reasoned that there was no reason to use the power as it always led to failure – like out of 6-8 uses, she only rolled 1-2 complicated successes. No hits. Since we made the change, she has succeeded twice, failed once and got a complicated success.
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