What system would you use for a West Marches campaign in 2020?

#1

I say 2020 both because there’s been a lot of new additions to the OSR and OSR-adjacent space in the past couple of years and also because I want to assume we’ll be playing online.

I’m personally interested in something in the D&D-adjacent realm (ie, should be compelling to new players who want to “play D&D”) but feel free to discuss good options other genres too!

If you’re trying to help me find my ideal answer, I’d also love a game that has extremely simple character creation but also enough variation that all the lvl 1 PCs don’t look more-or-less identical.

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#2

I mean, here on the Gauntlet, a lot of people will suggest Trophy Gold. And rightly so! It’s got extremely quick character creation that generates varied and wild PCs. Take it for a whirl here.

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#3

Ooh, interesting! I hadn’t considered Trophy Gold. I wonder if anyone has used it for a West Marches style game yet.

#4

Trophy Gold is a really great suggestion.

Freebooters on the Frontier would also work excellently.

I’ll also suggest Quest (and they’re publishing a “campaign” that is essentially West Marches)!

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#5

Thanks for the nod, @darren!

@SamR, the 2nd edition of Freebooters is in open playtesting, and you can find the current rules and playbooks here. My three biggest influences in making this game were my experience playing OD&D using Judges Guild material back in the late 70s, the DCC RPG, and Ben Robbins’ blogposts about his West Marches campaign.

Also, @chrisshorb recently had some ideas about how to adapt the collaborative worldbuilding aspect of Freebooters to a WM-style game, in case you choose to go that route.

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#6

Freebooters on the Frontier is definitely at the top of my list right now. I’ve been itching to play it since 1e and have never had the opportunity!

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#7

Yes I talked about a small problem with West Marches and Freebooters that one might want to address.

If/when I start my WM FotF campaign, I’ll definitely report back on progress to the Freebooters thread.

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#8

That’s really helpful, @chrisshorb!

@jasonlutes do you think the game would work okay without the shared worldbuilding at the beginning? If it instead adopted a more trad approach to worldbuilding, with the GM bringing the opening scenario and world to the table?

#9

Oh, absolutely. Nothing in the game is particularly dependent on the collaborative worldbuilding. You can just have folks roll up their characters and skip that part. There is a move called “Establish” that gives players some agency in adding details to the world, but if you prefer your word as GM to be final on setting details, you can just ignore that move.

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#10

I know Steven Lumpkin (@SilentOsiris) is working on a Forged in the Dark West Marches game, he has some stuff posted on his twitter. It’s a work in progress so I don’t know when it will be playable, but I quite liked some of the ideas in it.

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#11

I wrote up some thoughts on using Trophy Gold’s Hunt roll as travel rules on my blog.

Might be helpful if you wanted to use TG for a West Marches style game.

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#12

Are you looking for a modern era OSR game? Or just one that is available to the modern gamer?

Anyway, my answers would be related. There’s this light weight fantasy RPG called Knave, just six pages long, but the characters do feel very different from eachother. And it follows the central tropes of OSR rules, so it is easy to bring in modules, monsters and stuff from other games.

I used it to build Kuf, my horror RPG about modern day people who get involved with, well, Narniaesque scenarios and ritual magic.

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#13

I’ve been thinking about this since March, and I’m going to try Ironsworn. It will be 5~7 so it’s not grand scale but players can play by their own, or together, and sometimes someone in a different part of the continent can jump in as GM. That player driven exploration is what appeals to me about West Marches, and the rules book is free! so players can take it on their own.

I tweaked my Ironlands already and some of my regular players have shown interest, if we do it I’ll let you know how went.

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#14

I’d also love a game that has extremely simple character creation but also enough variation that all the lvl 1 PCs don’t look more-or-less identical

That sounds like the GLOG to me. Have a look at Skerples’ version: https://coinsandscrolls.blogspot.com/2019/10/osr-glog-based-homebrew-v2-many-rats-on.html

I play The Black Hack 2e myself, and can recommend it for ease of use and accessibility. It only has the four traditional classes out of the box but the background system actually allows for quite a bit of flexibility in “reskinning” them.

If I wasn’t playing TBH2e I’d either be doing White Box: Fantastic Medieval Adventure Game for something equally simple but closer to the OD&D source material, or indeed, the GLOG for something more flexible.

I final recommendation is to have a look at @Dylan_R’s home-brew system, which he posted here: Why do you use the OSR system you use?

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#15

I’ve never played Ironsworn but it strikes me as a strange fit — which mostly just means I’m intrigued! Please share how it goes!

#16

Workin’ on setting this up for myself right now actually! Have the discord set up and the starting few hexes made, just waiting to feel certain of the path then send out my message to all my potential players.

I’m torn between doing 5e D&D (system I’m more familiar with, and what some folks just want to play) or Black Hack 2e for simplicity. Hadn’t even considered Quest for it but might have to take it off the shelf and see how it’d work!

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