John, you as Judge should not have to worry about creating opportunities for alignment to come into play – if the players want the XP, they should be looking for, creating, and acting on those opportunities. I suppose to some degree this probably comes down to the style of individual players. As I write up the Judge’s principles, I’ve been thinking about including some “player principles” as well, in the interest of encouraging proactive and participatory play.
Freebooters on the Frontier 2e Discussion
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I really like the idea of player principles. I first saw them—along with “agenda”, “when in doubt”, “triggering moves”, and “hold and spend”—in Homebrew World’s Player’s Guide, included with every playbook. Player facing materials generally tend to be a mix of flavor and mechanics, but rarely do they touch on the bigger picture conceptual stuff in a tidy way. I think Jeremy’s Player’s Guide is a great addition to the playbooks.
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Yeah, my players are very aware that it is their XP on the line. They are advancing at a pretty good pace already, so I think it’s less of an issue for them. They always get Trait XP, which I think is more their focus.
My favorite moments as Judge in the campaign so far (they are hitting 3rd level right now and have made two (mostly) successful expeditions into the wilds) have been when they come up with crazy, creative solutions to problems.
In the first dungeon, they had encountered a pit trap, then found the control panel for it, so they reset the trap. They encountered some flaming animated suits of armor, and half the party lured them over the pit while the other half ran to the controls and opened it, dropping the flaming armor into the pit.
While traveling they ran across the tracks of a herd of musk oxen, and decided to try and use the merman’s pet cow (don’t ask) Lilith to lure one of the Musk Oxen away from the heard and capture it for use as a beast of burden. One roll of 2 later, and they were scattered across the snowy landscape, fleeing the stampeding herd.
In the last dungeon, they encountered a cursed trap door that turned them either partially or completely into seals as they went through. Going back through the trap the other way turned them back into their normal selves, but this was complicated by the monsters they had fled on the other side of the trap. Watching their attempts to run around the dungeon (as seals) and go back and forth through the seal transformation trap was very entertaining.
They’ve done some creative problem solving while on the trail as well, dealing with a blizzard, a cracked runner on their sledge, a hireling that they pushed too far who stole some supplies and fled, run-ins with snow spirits, etc.
During down time in town this week, the Narwhal-man cleric of the god of Lust used his cut of the treasure to buy a hovel, set up a long term contract with a sex worker, and establish a mini-“temple”.
It’s becoming something of a theme of the campaign for them to use the dead bodies of fallen hirelings and/or PCs (we’ve had two PC deaths so far, both characters of the same player…) as distractions for creature encounters.
The wide open, sandbox nature of a Freebooters campaign leads to so many great scenes and moments, that I know we wouldn’t have in a more structured, plot driven game.
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Since we’re on The Gauntlet forum I guess everybody knows this podcast on Player’s Principles and Agenda. But I’ll post for those who don’t!
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Hey everyone! Here’s the recap of the first session of the month-long FotF 2E campaign I’m running at Pandemonium. Five players joined the table, and we were scheduled for four hours. None of them had played the game before, but a few mentioned that they had played Blades in the Dark.
We didn’t do a rules opener, just opened the game with the presentation of “here you be in the frontier lands…” as I presented a map that was prepared in advance. A few places were marked, but it was mostly blank. The region on the map is known to locals as the Saltlands, named this way because the sea to the north and the earth below are very saline in mineral composition. The climate is frigid, but it’s hard for ice and snow to consistently form on the terrain because the soil is so saline, so it ends up being wet and miserable most of the time. The only “known” settlement in the region is the small shipping town Fritenbil, the site of the freebooters’ arrival from the southern highway. I rolled neutral for the settlement, and features include “defensible” and “idiosyncratic clothing/local craft”—from that I determined that even the inns and taverns in Fritenbil are built on tall solid stone supports, and that the locals adorn wide-brim hats and shoulder pads with the large fuzzy feathers of giant sea birds found farther north along the coastline.
The players rolled their characters pretty much from the get-go after determining any content we’d like X’ed or kept off-screen (using “Lines & Veils” by Ron Edwards). They rolled dwarf cleric, human thief, halfling thief, halfling fighter, and human magic-user (the mage visibly loved the spell-generator, and used the wizard’s name from the second generated spell as his own). We then jumped into some discussion as far as how the heritages are organized and presented in this world. A highlight of that was that, in our world, elves, and much unlike the Tolkien archetype of ‘6’5” skinny, white blonde model’, are almost insect-like in appearance, shorter than humans on average, with large, beady eyes and localized flora along their bodies.
It was really fun to see the players buy into the “this place is miserable” trope depicted through the NPCs. Speaking of NPCs, here are some highlights (generated through the “Settlements & Citizens” supplement): Bimbo Fidlestics, the neutral human merchant motivated by luck who trades in unusual wares and is regarded as a drunkard and provocateur; Tulic Corelli, the evil halfling baker motivated by greed who has oily hair, wears flashy clothing and is allergic to bees (and who also vaguely resembles The Penguin); Firian Leit, the evil human actor who is competitive and challenging but also sensitive and empathetic, so a real piece of work that one.
From there it was all improv, with my notes informing me of where the full cast of NPCs might hang out at any given time in this sad, cold town. Our first scene saw the players crowded in the town square (where the marketplace is set up). From there they watched the evil actor Firian perform a monologue for the townspeople (who don’t really like him), and the thieves took advantage of the spectacle to do some purloin. They were almost caught, too. 
The players split up after that, which was fun! We jumped from scene to scene exploring the town, as the players interacted with NPCs and took notes of rumors and superstitions. The human thief in our party had the vice “prejudiced”, and that came up when she verbally harassed an elf at a tavern bar. It was dramatic, as everyone at the table audibly “Oooooo’d” (the thief sure as heck got their trait XP during wrap up).
In our last hour the players formed one group after being contracted by a halfling in the guildhall to find the deed to the abandoned keep southeast of Fritenbil. We used a custom move for traveling that asks for a Scout, Navigator, and Rear-guard, and the player at the rear noticed that the party was being followed by a band of armed halflings. We ended the session on that encounter.
Gotta say it again, this game is a blast 
We had a lot of laughs with the character building, and the interactions with the NPCs were very engaging and seemed to generate all the plot lines we could ever need.
Looking forward to future updates (and please let me know if you have any tips on keeping these recaps more concise).
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Thank for this, @duffina! I don’t think your account needs to be any more concise, but maybe that’s just me.
Love the insectoid elves.
I’m curious about your prep for this session. Am I understanding correctly that your basic prep was to generate the settlement and three NPCs? Did you choose to set the first scene in the crowded marketplace in part because you saw an opportunity to integrate the NPC actor, or did the PCs choose to start there? Did they encounter the merchant and/or baker, or were those folks just waiting in the wings for the right opportunity? How did you come up with other NPCs that made an appearance? Pure improv, or was there any on-the-fly rolling involved? Did you prep the mission from the guildhall, or come up with that on the spot?
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My overall prep included the settlement and its districts, and keying NPCs to districts based on their professions. So the baker was sort of keyed to the eastern district where some of the wealthier denizens live and also to southern warehouse district in the evening as a sort of a ringleader and player in the underbellies of the shipping industry. The actor was keyed to taverns throughout town and to the marketplace/town square in the afternoons when it’d be busy.
The first scene came about naturally. The players dived into the marketplace in the Basic Rules as soon as they were done generating characters. Since they were buying things, I made the move to visualize the process and situate them in the marketplace proper, and just as the actor began his performance. This also gave me the opportunity to introduce a few standouts among the crowd (3 of my other NPCs who are keyed to frequent town square).
The baker was indeed encountered later in the evening as one of the players branched off from the rest of the group. The player passed an alleyway where the baker and his posse could be seen roughing up a dwarven worker, and chose to ignore it. The baker responded with a villainous laugh and an audible “ain’t nobody in this town to save you now” (introducing one of the town’s problems, namely that it’s unruly and lawless).
All in all I prepared 20 NPCs, but it honestly only took me an hour and a half because of how streamlined the process is in your supplement. I just didn’t need to write descriptions or script anything beyond giving them tags/color and keying them to parts of town. It’s also for this reason that I didn’t need to roll them up on the spot.
My other prep was to include specific buildings in town (inns and taverns, a few shops, the guildhall, etc.). All the inns/taverns were made using the random generators on donjon, which I’ve found work excellently with this game. I mean, within 5 minutes I had the locations of the inns/taverns (near the market district, etc.), menu items, rumors, and all the tavern-goers (even more NPCs!). The other buildings were keyed to districts and tasks; I knew beforehand that the contractors in the guildhall were looking to acquire the deed to an abandoned keep, and that they’d be desperate enough to hire a bunch of wierdo freebooters to do it for them.
EDIT: I have no idea what’s in this keep and will do some Paint the Scene with players next session, specifically to determine who or what currently inhabits it…
So far the only on the fly rolls I made were to determine pickpocket loot and stolen goods (using the village items chart in your Funnel supplement, rerolling when necessary).
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Thanks for the rundown. I’m always interested in how people go about developing settlements in their games. 20 NPCs! Wow.
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I am so inspired by this description of your prep. It sounds so fun!
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First Freebooters game in years yesterday, and it was great! Four players rolled up characters, one of each class, by sheer luck, and quickly became enamored with the results of the random tables. The chaotic witch of a halfling magic-user (given her crooked teeth, mismatched eyes, and raspy voice) proved particularly entertaining. It took a bit over an hour to fully finish char-gen, shopping, and the overview of the game; I thought that was pretty good considering some players were new to PbtA.
These adventurers had come to The Rainforest of the Forgotten on a recently discovered island, lured by reports of an ancient ruined city deep in the jungle. Before they set out from Yellowsands Keep, they utterly failed to recruit a skilled guide to teach them about the local wildlife and terrain, losing time as a consequence. The failure compounded when they set off in the afternoon, choosing the more dangerous but reliable route straight into the forest instead of circumnavigating along the coast. They became lost and ran out of light as a thunderstorm began, then rolled a 3rd consecutive 6 as the cleric and thief Kept Company in the tent they had the foresight to bring.
Their first bit of luck came in the form of a 9 on their Pass the Night roll. The fighter played a cheery tune on his ocarina and the night passed peacefully if noisily, given the thunder, rain, frogs, and insects. In the morning the cleric and thief were able to reconcile their squabbles from the previous day, and work together to successfully navigate to the Ruins of Thracia, where they promptly fell off of the crumbling foundations of a building and into a murky pond. What followed was a messy fight with two lizardmen; highlights include the fighter jumping into the water to trigger No Guts, No Glory and bashing a reptile off of the thief that it was attempting to drown. We saw our first spell in the form of Canvalva’s Hammer of Fire, which rolled a 6 on its minor effect at reach to smash and scorch the scalp of one of the reptilians.
Some scouting followed, during which we established the names of the two books the magic-user had brought, and Checked the Reaction of a stegosaurus that wandered by. The party discovered a secret entrance to the caverns below, but it was guarded by some crazed tribesmen. The team did well to hold formation, particularly the cleric who Inspired everyone (I let everyone start with one Advanced Move), and got a 10+ on Check Morale after braining the 3rd warrior. That’s about where we wrapped up, and that cleric almost hit 2nd level!
Feedback
The character generation process/layout worked very smoothly. I hardly had to guide the players at all, though they are all pretty experienced in the hobby. As I said before, they were generally positive if not excited about the RNG involved, and quickly started extrapolating to flesh out the adventurers. The one tough/lengthy part was trying to decide what to buy/carry with their limited resources, but those choices were fun and significant. I think they only ended up with 1 Load unaccounted for in the whole party!
There is something weird in the Marketplace though. The “ammunition” tag seems superfluous considering there’s already a “3 ammo” tag and an “Ammunition” section of the market. All three ammo types have “for sling” in their notes too.
The Travel & Exploration moves all worked wonderfully. I hadn’t fully fleshed out the various regions of the island yet, but I can see how Set Out would work well with the Regions. I threw Keep Company to my most talkative player, and he knocked it out of the park (even though it failed). I can definitely see that Move being a favorite, particularly with how bonds work; we did a lot of Helping.
Fighting was fun and dynamic, but we were left scratching our heads on a few points:
The thief was armed only with a dagger, and so she frequently used Fight with +DEX. But when she failed she was presented with a choice between Strength or Constitution for marking. Felt odd.
Speaking of the dagger, the lizardmen had 2 armor, so when a 1 was rolled for the dagger’s damage I said it had no effect. But one of my players who has never played Dungeon World insisted that it should deal the 1 damage. Upon closer inspection of the “pierce” rule, it does seem to work differently than in DW. Is this an intentional change? We were thinking we probably prefer it this “new” way.
Finally, our magic-user was curious about whether there was a limit on how many spell components could be used at once, especially given that they have 0 WT and cost just 2 silver. It seemed reasonable to us that just one could be used when casting, but that isn’t clear in the text. What’s the intent?
In the second fight, I hacked the Check Morale move a bit. The tribesmen are worshippers of the goddess of undeath, but being basic mooks I didn’t figure they were quite “fearless” enough to be immune. I had the player roll at -1; is there precedent for situational modifiers like this in the rules? (not that there should be)
Some other thoughts from reading the booklets:
Moves that involve burning an ability indicate that you roll after burning. IMO, that doesn’t feel good; it makes me less inclined to use them.
In Beasts & Booty (oh yeah, we all loved rolling for booty!), the damage of medium throng creatures seems to fall outside of the pattern; it’s 1d6, the same as medium group creatures.
Fighter’s Veteran Move seems pretty pitiful to me. Even if you take it as early as possible (3rd level) it’s just a bump from 4 to 5 mettle. Considering the name “veteran”, I think it would be cool if it increased mettle by your CON or WIS, representing the military experience of your body or mind.
Thief’s Evade Move doesn’t acknowledge Fight 7-9 consequences that are not damage. Personally, I’ll often forgo dealing damage to inflict a condition or put players in a jam.
On Tricks of the Trade, how do you imagine the Treasure expertise being used in play? I also feel like Locks and Traps could be folded into something like “Mechanisms”, but perhaps I’m not using enough locks and traps!
On Menace to Society, why can’t Neutral or Good thieves pick up magic? A simple name change to something like “Arcane Meddler” could accommodate that. The Move does seem consistent with the Magic-User alignment chart though, and with the Swords & Sorcery stereotypes of magic; perhaps that’s what you’re shooting for?
What’s up with all the “+WIS or +CHA” stuff in Cleric? I think it makes sense for Disciple, kinda choosing whether you are the sagely, prayer focused type or the preacher/evangelist type of cleric. But IMO Pray should just be WIS, Lay On Hands just CHA, and Avatar just WIS (makes a good counterpart to Inspire). Thief is clearly motivated to get both INT and DEX. Fighter has a good spread of Moves for every ability. Having both WIS and CHA Moves for Cleric wouldn’t be inconsistent design.
7-9 on Pray seems pretty rough. 1 Favor is alright at 1st or 2nd level, but becomes basically insignificant before long. Considering Cleric is the only one that has to roll to regain their resource, it seems like a 7-9 should still be pretty good.
On Avatar, the initial text doesn’t mention a “spirit”, but all of the options do. Seemed weird.
At 1 damage per Favor, Smite sucks. Mettle gets the Fighter 1-3 damage per point, is a baseline Move, and is more easily regained than Favor. I look at Smite and think, “No thanks. I’ll hold on to my Favor for Lay On Hands, or just Invoke to buff my weapon.” Personally, I’d make Smite 2 damage per Favor, up to 10 damage max.
Cleric also seems like it could use more Advanced Move options. How about this one…
Divine Protection: When a nearby ally Makes a Saving Throw, you may spend favor before they roll the dice to increase the result by +1 for each point of favor spent.
Alright I think that’s enough typing for now! Sorry for the wall of text. Excited to play again next week, and I think I’ll see if I can record it (we play in Roll20/Discord, so that should be easy).
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Great feedback @Spyger, thank you!
I’ll amend Fight to allow for marking Strength, Constitution, or Dexterity. Regarding the pierce rule, hmm, yeah, I think that should be reworded to read “amount of armor ignored by damage roll.” Otherwise piercing damage always gets through! I can’t believe that hasn’t come up before. Keep your house rule if you like it, though!
There’s no set rule about spell components, it should just be whatever makes sense to you and your group. I would ask the magic-user to describe how they use multiple components, and if their explanation sounds good, run with it.
I try to limit modifiers to ability mods and certain bonuses in order to keep things relatively clean, so no, there’s no precedent for the classic situational mod. What changes from situation to situation is what’s at stake, and what mixed success or failure would look like. But! I’m not going to argue against it if it works for you.
Great suggestion on the Veteran move, I’ll look at changing that.
Have to get some sleep right now, but I’ll respond to your other comments later. Thanks for posting.
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You mean those Advanced Moves that call for it, right? I’ll reexamine those.
I like this idea! Will incorporate.
Noted, will address.
“Treasure” is intended to be applied to things like assessing the value of an object (gem, jewelry, etc.), deducing what a magic item might do, or simply laying hands on lucre. I could have gone with “Evaluation,” but I thought it was too specific. I like the idea of someone spending cunning to, say, Make a Saving Throw to acquire some treasure, or do anything else while they have some treasure in hand.
Yeah, you’ve identified the intent. You can certainly bend those rules if it works for your campaign.
The Cleric was originally just WIS based, but I changed it after listening to a number of arguments for the CHA option. I think it’s important to keep both WIS and CHA for Pray, because it’s a core move, and I’m not sure why CHA would help someone Lay on Hands – good bedside manner? I may alter Avatar as you suggest, that makes sense.
Fair point, I will look at this.
Thanks, will rewrite.
Will reexamine this one. Maybe add some options, like “ignore armor” or the like.
I like this suggestion, thanks! If any more occur to you, let me know. I really appreciate you taking the time to evaluate the moves for each of the classes.
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You mean those Advanced Moves that call for [ability burn], right?
Actually, I was looking at Lead the Retreat in particular. Bend Bars, Lift Gates, and No Guts, No Glory are ambiguous because they don’t say “burn then roll” like Lead the Retreat does.
I think it’s important to keep both WIS and CHA for Pray, because it’s a core move
Not sure I understand your reasoning. Thief’s core resource move is governed by INT even though the rest of their moves are DEX based. A Fighter who wants to be good at all their core moves needs both STR and WIS at a minimum.
If you stick with the WIS or CHA option, perhaps there’s a more elegant way to write it, like one blurb in Disciple where you pick which stat represents your Faith. Then the moves can all say roll+FAI.
I’m not sure why CHA would help someone Lay on Hands - good bedside manner?
Charming nurses make better healers than gruff ones! Haha. Nah, because it’s a Paladin move, and paladins are associated with Charisma. Charismatic people project their energy to affect/motivate others, and that’s what Lay on Hands is: a pat on the shoulder from a strong figure that says “keep going, you can do this!”
Will reexamine [Smite]. Maybe add some options, like “ignore armor” or the like.
Maybe include something about having extra effect on undead/demons, or whatever your deity regards as “unholy”?
Cool explanation on the Treasure expertise. I could totally see myself choosing that now.
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I love seeing these kinds of deep dive analyses of moves. Reminds me of the old G+ days!
As to my own game, we had one of our players miss this week’s session due to illness which was a bummer, but a.) we used it as an opportunity to do the second “flashback” one shot, this time using @Jeremy_Strandberg’s fantastic Homebrew World, and b.) it gives me more time to finish prepping the city. Deciding to write up encounter tables for each of ten districts felt like a good idea but became a bit gruelling in practice. Coming up with good Obstacles and particularly Hazards is tough, especially without it feeling too same-y. It’s less of a concern for overland travel, I think, but if I’m using a modified Set Out for city travel, I think I need to build out what kinds of obstacles and hazards are possible.
But yeah, more prep time is good.
I am a little disappointed that I didn’t get to introduce this yet, though …
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Hey, you can always try to crowd-source filling up those tables here on the Gauntlet!
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Yesterday I posted a brief update on Lampblack & Brimstone affairs. Of potential interest to folks here is the Funnel-to-Freebooters campaign I just started recording.
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I just found this game and I gotta say, I love the monster generation! Here’s the first one I made going off of the dice rolls.
Magnetous (neutral, huge, solitary, amorphous): a cottage-sized blob of magnetic metal created from an enchanter misreading the stars. HP 32; Armor 2; Damage Pull iron out of blood 1d12+1 (near, messy), Metallic spike 1d12 (near, 2 pierce); Booty Ichor clings easily to metal and can be used to decorate metallic furniture (2d10 x 2 sp); Wants to eat metal and grow; Moves ►Pull untethered metal onto its skin► Completely consume a large piece of metal ► Prepare an ambush by enclosing the walls of a room.
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I love that move. The whole thing is great and flavorful. But the create an ambush by hollowing out and covering the walls of a room is evocative.
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