Splitting my day between Stonetop revisions and tinkering on Freebooters 2e, I came up with this draft playbook design for Freebooters. Feedback appreciated.
Copping some design elements and font from Maezar’s character sheets, which are really great. I hope that’s okay, Maezar!
Still a little torn between this more pulpy display font and something rougher.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/xztjrykb9geus5v/FotF2e_playbook_magic-user_test.pdf?dl=0
Like it a lot! My main suggestion would be to tweak the name scroll, just because the line width on the illustration is a lot thinner than the pouch/chest next to it, so it looks a little weird.
The only issue with something rougher / more visually exciting is the compromises with also having to fit ALL OF THAT TEXT on the sheet, which seems super useful.
I like it. The font looks much more readable and it looks more polished
looks good.
PLUS PPLUS PLUSSSS
Holy! Spells are friggin’ dangerous as hell now.
Love how streamlined Cast a Spell is.
This looks really good. Is there a way to merge your silver stashed and the XP tracker? (Is XP for all silver, not just stashed silver?)
Ramanan S stashed silver is tracked separately from the xp it generates because the “win condition” for Freebooters is to stash 10,000 silver. And xp is only awarded for silver when it is stashed, which removes it from circulation.
Cast a Spell is very clever!
Jason Lutes So don’t those two charts overlap? If I have stashed 15 circles of silver I have reached level 2, etc.
Ramanan S, you get xp from things other than silver. You get 1 xp whenever you roll a 6 or less on a move, and more xp at the end of each session:
WRAP UP
When you reach the end of a session, do the following:
1) Mark XP if you fulfilled your alignment goal at least once.
2) Mark XP if you fulfilled at least 1 trait in a memorable way.
3) If you’re a Fighter, mark XP if you defeated a worthy foe.
4) If you’re a Thief, mark XP if you evaded detection or stole from anyone.
5) If you’re a Cleric, mark XP if you fulfilled your tenet at least once.
6) If you’re a Magic-User, mark XP if you discovered something magical.
Then answer the following questions as a group. For each “yes” answer, everyone marks XP.
1) Did we discover a new site of interest in the wilderness?
2) Did we overcome a notable enemy?
3) Did we lay our hands on some memorable booty?
Does that clear things up? Stashing 10,000 silver becomes a separate concern from tracking xp, because you can get xp from things other than stashing silver.
Oh yeah! I see thanks. Yes that makes total sense. I forgot it wasn’t just XP for gold.
Totally OK Jason Lutes And please let me know how I can help with your project in any way… proofing, layout, playtesting, and $$$ when the time is right.
Design tweak: place Silver/Stash to the left of Gear, and Encumbrance to the left of Weight Carried, so Gear weights add up in a column to the total below.
One more thing. In my experience, “7 = Permanent” is too low in a game based on 2d6. We had to switch to “11 = Permanent”
+Maezar, I can see how 7 might be too low for a permanent effect, but how does 2d6 come into play re: spell power? I feel like I’m missing something.
I.e. PbtA. In using these games for “campaign” style play, one moves VERY quickly into scenarios where failed rolls becomes almost impossible. For the same reason one should never see a “+1 Sword” in Dungeon World, a permanent spell granting +1 (or greater) is quite the effect.
Here’s the graph from a post I made on this subject. Remember that in Freebooters, the average character will begin the game with one score of 15, which could presumable be an 18 by level 6…
dropbox.com – 2d6 Graphs.pdf
Another idea might be that the spellcaster must permanently burn one point of intelligence to make a spell permanent.
Thank you for this breakdown!
I’m actually planning to publish an article called, “There’s No Such Thing as a +1 Sword”