Hi, there, I’m a new community member coming in from the KS. I’ve a query about the Freebooters on the Frontier playtest. Are you running the game with the Dungeon World norm of 2-5 players, or something closer to the old-school norm of 6-8? Is the dominant distinction that makes the game more “old-school” and deadly the lower starting HP pool?
Hi, there, I’m a new community member coming in from the KS.
Hi, there, I’m a new community member coming in from the KS.
Hi Brion — I’ve been running it with 4-6. I’ve run it with 7 and that seems to push the limits of Dungeon World in terms of giving people enough spotlight time.
For me the “old school” feeling comes from the emphasis on survival (due to low HP), treasure-hunting over character-driven drama, and XP for things other than straight up monster killing. No matter how many monsters you kill in a given session, for instance, you’ll just get 1 XP if you “overcome a notable monster or enemy,” +1 XP if you’re a Fighter and “defeated a worthy foe.”
So that puts the emphasis on grabbing the loot and getting back alive. Which was a big part of my personal D&D experience in the late 70s.
Thanks for your response, Jason. I’ll have to take a closer look at XP in DW and FotF to see that distinction.
I’m really loving what you’ve provided. I’ve been struggling for the last few months, buying a lot of OSR material searching for something that’s ‘missing’ in my gaming experience, but I haven’t found it (thus the excessive consumption). Something about the marriage of a plethora of randomized tables and an old-school feel with the DW engine (which feels very intuitive to my playstyle) is very exciting.
It has me reading DW more deeply and eagerly anticipating the polished versions of your own material. Thank you for bringing some order to my internal chaos. 🙂