If you don’t know the key differences between “Freebooters on the Frontier” and orthodox Dungeon World, I imagine you’ll have a harder time accepting my conclusion that this idea is a good one… Check out this amazing DW hack by Jason Lutes at Lampblack & Brimstome. Fans of old school gaming really enjoy it.
Originally shared by Maezar
Feel free to throw dice at me, but with our games being very campaign-oriented (vs. one-shot/short multi-shot), we’ve started playing Freebooters with 2d12 instead of 2d6!
The finer granularity leaves more “headroom” for Freebooters’ inevitable stacking of ability score bonuses, move effects, class bonuses, spell effects, magic items, and other boons (and banes) without the game becoming unplayable due to characters never failing at their “main thing” (or ANYTHING as players learn to game the system.)
Some aspects of the base AW engine (such as “6– / 7–9 / 10+”) needed to be re-scaled, but leaving class abilities and move effects as written for 2d6 makes a long-term game more fun and challenging. The scale for ability score modifiers took some time to tune; it is NOT a doubling (not even close). And in fact, we ultimately settled on a core mechanic that looks right but is in fact more “cruel” (mathematically speaking): 12– / 13–19 / 20+. This results in a feel that’s more OSR-like, with some cool side effects too, such as a more even progression of character level across repeated sessions.
You may have seen my recent 2d6 AW math charts. Here is one showing how things work with 2d12, plus a set of pie charts to help you immediately visualize the feel. Remember, we’re getting a lot of play from the spaces between the plusses and minuses!
I’m hoping to publish my “d12 World” conversion kit this summer.
