Freebooters on the Frontier 2e Discussion

#483

Then we’ll have to agree to disagree. If the first adventure is the first in a longer series of adventures, I’d want to take that time to create the bonds. One and only one per character during chargen. More can be created in play (but I have found rarely are).

One of the benefits of creating bonds right at the beginning is it can signal to your players - especially ones that haven’t played a game like FotF or PbtA at all before - that they can declare something, AND IT’S TRUE in the fiction of the game. That is super powerful; and I think is what makes Bond creation at the beginning amazing.

Mechanically, Bonds aren’t all that critical (which is why I’d let them slide in a one shot); but what Bond creation says about the game at the start is really important.

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#484

Hey @jasonlutes, yesterday we had the issue of having to draw the HP for a follower. FotF 1E has the Perilous Wilds rules, which have a nice procedure for drawing follower stats, but 2E has nothing of the sort.

The booklets in 2E seem to suggest that the monster creation guide be used for all NPCs. It seems a bit weird, though, as there is no clear way of making choices on the “number appearing” column for a follower or even for a random NPC. Selecting 1 on the “number appearing” column seems to result in HP numbers that feel way too high for a follower or in general for a human character. In case the follower then becomes a PC, these HP would need to be re-rolled according to a class. It all feels wonky to me, or maybe I haven’t understood something.

What would be the suggested procedure? I feel that the 2E booklets don’t make it very clear.

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#485

Hey @buffalo, we used your sheets yesterday and they worked well. Thanks for the good work!

I noticed a typo; you spelled “Halfling” as “Halfing” in the data sheet. This causes some errors.

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#486

Hey @Froggy – It’s still in very rough draft form, but the current NPC generation procedure is outlined in the Settlements & Citizens book. There is no step for HP at present, though, so I just use the creature guidelines for a medium-sized group creature unless the NPC is a lone wolf type. So for example:

Halfling peasant (small, group, “civilized”): 3 x .75 = 2 HP.
Dwarf peasant (small, group, “tough”): 3 x 1 = 3 HP.
Human peasant (medium, group, “civilized”): 6 HP x.75 = 5 HP.
Human nomad (medium, group, “tough”): 6 HP x 1 = 6 HP.
Human ranger (medium, solitary, “warrior”): 8 HP x 1.5 = 12 HP.
Human bandit leader (medium, group, leader): 6 HP x 2 = 12 HP.

I’m using the group tag here when a given NPC spend most of their time in a community.

It’s been over a year since I made a pass at the NPC stuff, and what’s there has been placeholder, obviously not reconciled with the creature rules (or transitioning to full freebooter status, as you note). Right now I am finishing a draft of the region generation chapter, and then I will make a pass at the NPC rules with the goal of making everything mesh better.

Developing these rules has become a process of refining one area, seeing how it works in play, then reconciling it and making it consistent with other areas, which often means editing those areas as well. It’s not the most efficient approach, because I’m driven more by intuition and the way things feel in play, but I’ll get there eventually. Thanks for your patience!

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#487

This sounds quite reasonable. My suggestion would be to clarify in the game text how to apply the number appearing tags to human NPCs.

There’s no problem at all. We knew coming in that the game is in alpha, I’m glad to have you here clarifying stuff, and I hope this helps you figure out how you want the game to be.

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#488

Thanks for the heads up! Haven’t had any Halflings in my campaign yet, so didn’t find that error. I updated it on my “template.”

Have fun!

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#489

I more or less use the PW rules and it works well.

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#490

Played Leget Manor again today with my sons.

We spent a bunch of time going through the resources that the village provides and the boys decided what to take and what to leave behind. They emptied out the dung pushcart. I said it could carry 12 weight but cost the user 1/3 of whatever weight is in it. And that it has the tag bulky. Then we also went through “what is the point of having a shoulder bag” question. There’s no mechanical concept of “carrying points”; but we talked it through and I identified that the herbalist who is also carrying some rations and a jug of ale probably isn’t carrying all of that in their hands. I did say for their “tools of the trade” as well as other things that those things probably had some sort of sling or holster for carrying them hands free.

One question @jasonlutes we had was what happens when you get to 0 in an ability score? I said you would then trigger the “Shuffle Off” move; but wasn’t sure.

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#491

@chrisshorb, I think you just play it out fictionally, depending on the ability score. Most folks will want to abandon their characters at a certain point, but you never know…

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#492

We had the same problem in our last session: a character got to 0 Dexterity. The rules don’t specify what happens, so I ruled him paralyzed. I think this should be better specified: if it’s meant to trigger Bites the Dust, the move should say so explicitly.

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#493

Cool, thanks for that table. Is it in the Funnel rules? Or the main rules?

Here’s further thoughts on our session yesterday. BTW, SPOILERS for Leget Manor below, so proceed with that in mind.

After session 0 last time, and 45 minutes this time doling out the various items the village has provided to the PCs. The characters finally start off. They immediately head towards the “back door” to the manor via the Mire. Along the way, they encounter a swarm of Bloodbirds (a cross between a mosquito and a hummingbird). And because they are 0 level, they start dropping like flies (the PCs). They are smart, some of the still standing ones light some torches and use those to fend off the nasties. But a lot of Constitution burning was done; and curling into fetal positions…

They then enter a cave that has slime and a profusion of crawling insects… They come to finally to the underground catacombs beneath the manor. There’s a T-intersection. To the left gives many of them an uneasy feeling, the right leads to a giant beetle nest. So they go right. Because my sons have mostly played D&D recently (they played in my DW campaign 3-4 years ago), they charge in ready for a fight. And very quickly their front 2 characters drop to 0 HP. Again, with smart torch usage and some dragging of bodies, they are able to get their comrades free.

I decided to not have the beetles give chase. And we ended session there.

As always, with PbtA, the moves snowballed. However, I pulled back there at the end and decided to just let the guys get out of the beetle room even though I could have used a GM move and split the party or used up some resources (ok, they had to use up a torch, so that’s something). But I’m wondering - maybe I should have continued to lean into the snowball?

One thing I’m realizing, as this is a funnel, and they PCs get XP when they witness the death of one of their party; maybe I need to lean in more and start killing off PCs. My sons are already pretty attached to a couple of their characters.

Which leads my second observation - maybe I should have not spent so much time getting everything set up - because the PCs will die… Or maybe that’s part of the play experience of a funnel - you are invested in the PC and when they die, you get that little soupcon of “ugh”.

Maybe I should have just provided the players pre-gen characters so they had almost NO investment in the PCs. Part of the Funnel experience that I’ve found fun is how your character’s die. It’s less fun if I’m invested in them… I may have hopes for one or the other to live; but I haven’t spent any time to create them.

So some thoughts for @jasonlutes

  1. I wonder if perhaps it can be more strongly noted in The Funnel that a very common option for a funnel is for the Judge to create the characters in advance for the players.
  2. Leget Manor is a big adventure (60+ encounters). It’s going to take them probably 5+ sessions to solve this thing if they are going to “clear it”. That’s probably going to get them to around 15-20xp each. I’m trying to think through exactly how to handle leveling and the “Live to Tell the Tale” move. Most likely, I’m going to let them level as far as their XP will take them whenever they get back to town the first time.
  3. I probably should have followed the advice in the adventure for a “1 session” adventure and just moved the PCs to the courtyard and encounter 1 of the Manor. Instead, once they finished doling out the village resources, I said “What do you do?” It was wide open, so they had a bunch of choices (one of my players said - “we head out of town with all this sweet booty they just gave us” :smiley:) They felt like the poisoned water was the key element that needed addressing; so they went to the Mire to investigate. I let them very quickly find the cave “Exit to the Mire” - especially as it afforded them some “safety” from the Bloodbirds. Also it got them into the Manor and the meat of the adventure.

HOWEVER the concern I could see is they could very quickly then solve the Idol of the Frog God room; and fundamentally end part of the adventure (Lintrude’s illness, villager’s dying crops). What I’m going to do then in this case is have Scievedevang start to raid the town; and the PCs are required to head back to the Manor (maybe as 1st level adventurers) and either make a deal with Scievedevang (which will be hard if Grenwar-Nee isn’t around anymore) or kill him somehow. Even though in the book it says Scievedevang will want to travel the earth and do bad things, it does say he’ll start with the village. So I think it’s within what Jason wrote to have him stay around for a bit. I’ll also probably add some new undead - but this time they are people the characters recognize…

I guess another approach would be to move the Frog God Idol somewhere else. But I think I’ll try to play the adventure as written so far. And we’ll see how it all works out.

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#494

This is part of my advocacy to remove non-random aspects from character creation. Not only does it allow everyone to get to the meat of the adventure, but it allows the player to more quickly roll up a new character if necessary. You end up discovering and developing your characters, and their relationships, through play.

#495

Yes, definitely coming around to that way of thinking.

#496

I haven’t actually had the chance to run Freebooters yet, but my experience running DCC RPG funnels is extensive. Since all the rolling was random for 0-level characters (aside from name and alignment), I just printed off a stack of pre-made characters using a simple character generator. If someone needed another one, they just pull from the stack at random. If someone wants to roll their own, however, it doesn’t take too long and they’ll be back in the game in no time.

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#497

Basic Rules book, near the end.

I think that’s a table-by-table call, and certainly in your first run through of the system with your boys I think making more soft moves than hard ones is the safe way to keep people engaged. The main thing I strive for is to make sure the players are aware of the stakes at any given time, so the hard moves feel fair. “If you go any further into these twisty tunnels, I just want to make it clear there’s a real risk you might get lost.” That kind of thing.

The people I play with on a regular basis take particular pleasure in getting attached to their villagers; losing one is a poignant but enjoyable part of the game for them. I appreciate that our play culture may be an outlier, though, and could see paring down the villagers creation process more as @jasonabdin suggests.

I put a high value on people rolling up their own characters, because even if it’s 90% random, it still feels like “yours.” This is a pretty big part of the Freebooters “ethos” (for lack of a better word), but I can certainly add in a suggestion along those lines.

Yeah, it ended up being pretty big, and very much not a traditional funnel in that sense. I think returning to town for supplies, replacement villagers, and to level up is a great idea and one I should incorporate into the text.

I love that they took the back door approach, and if they succeed in destroying the idol, that’s great, because then they’ve freed the lich and will have to deal with him. I will rewrite the description of Sciedevang’s plans, because in my head the village was the first order of business for him.

Thanks for the report, @chrisshorb!

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#498

@SamR and anyone else who might be interested, I just uploaded a new version of Overland & Underworld with a first draft of the region generation procedure. There are still some kinks to be worked out, but it’s functional.

Feedback appreciated!

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#499

I’m not sure if this has been noted yet abt Leget Manor — Some of the cardinal directions in the room descriptions are off. Rooms 2&3 don’t seem correct. I would do a “find” and check them all.

I thought you may just be able to turn the compass Rose, but that does not work. They all need to be checked.

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#500

Based on the village map, I think the compass rose is correct. But sometimes the descriptions are off by either 90 or 180 degrees in relation to the rose.

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#501

Yeah, I changed the orientation at a certain point and neglected to update the references. Thanks for the reminder!

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#502

The Overland & Underworld content looks good. I like the inclusion of the section on Freeform vs. Hex Map; especially, since my campaign kind of fell in to a hex map by virtue of my tinkering with Hex Kit to create a map for the region we created at the beginning. I kind of modified it to be 1 leg of travel to move through a hex and adding additional legs for factors like terrain and weather to avoid getting in to the more precise miles counting.

I’m going to dig in to creating an almanac for the region they’ve been exploring when I get a chance because when I saw the update, I realized it was what I have sorely needed as a tool for organizing my region.

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