FREEBOOTERS 2e PLAYTEST UPDATE

FREEBOOTERS 2e PLAYTEST UPDATE

FREEBOOTERS 2e PLAYTEST UPDATE

I’ve made some significant changes to the basic rules and playbooks. Note that if you’re using the previous version, those files are now in the “older versions” folder on Dropbox.

For most moves, on a 6-, you no longer mark general XP, you mark the ability used for that move instead. Each ability has a five-bubble counter, and when you fill it up, your ability score increases by 1. I like this (in theory and in our actual play around here) because it draws a direct relationship between failure and improvement. In addition, the ability score increase curve is built in because you’ll be getting fewer 6- results as your ability climbs.

General XP still exists, and is mostly gained from hitting your end-of-session triggers. XP leveling requirements have been dropped by 5 points across the board.

End-of-session class XP triggers have been reworded slightly to be a bit more flexible.

Level Up rewards are no longer every-other-level, since that has always bugged me. in this new version, each time you Level Up, your choices are:

– Mark 2 abilities of your choice

– Increase your maximum hit points by one roll of your hit die, +CON (minimum 1 hit point)

– Choose a new Advanced Move from your playbook

I feel like this creates more tough decision-making, but feel free to disagree and tell me why.

Class moves have been reworded in a few spots, but nothing major. The Magic-User’s spell power table has been rearranged because I’m still looking for the easiest-to-understand version that will fit in such a tight space. Better? Worse?

David Schirduan, apologies if these changes come too late for your game!

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/p88e7exekcb0qsa/AACDXT11NSfNsy_VtQS51xDca?dl=0

12 thoughts on “FREEBOOTERS 2e PLAYTEST UPDATE”

  4. The introduction of Bonds is also interesting. Two of my players missed Bonds from DW, but I’ve found that players often forget about them. Maybe the campfire thing will be a better way to handle it.

    Do players start with bonds? Or do they only come from making camp? Are bonds tied to XP at all?

  6. I would recommend against bonds = XP. The players already have a LOT of different goals to juggle during a session.

    Instead, I might try to work bonds into some of the other mechanics. Something like: “If you have a bond with someone you can spend luck to improve their roll”. I dunno, I’m spitballing.

    In my experience, most players kinda forget about bonds if they aren’t given a major benefit. Maybe bonds let you add +2 to help/hinder?

  9. Poor mages, they come up in play just with that “12” on the die… IMHO, if you don’t want an equal spread, you should have at least 1-4 for warriors, 5-7 for thieves, 8-10 for clerics, and 11-12 for mages.

  11. I agree with David Schirduan about Bonds for XP being a bad idea. Players already have 7 different goals (including the acquisition of wealth) along with the failure of certain Moves as vectors for gaining XP. Additionally, Bonds aren’t really suited for a game with high lethality. If FotF is an OSR game, then you should be wary of “feature creep” and strive to keep things simple, at least for the default. If you want to include Bonds, I suggest putting them in the advanced options booklet.

    The new approach to leveling is clearly broken at the moment. If someone decided to take HP every level then they could easily pass 50 Hit Points, and unlike D&D this game simply doesn’t scale up that way.

    Even if unreasonably high HP pools weren’t a concern, HP seems like too strong an option relative to most Advanced Moves (at least until you establish a comfy HP pool), and CERTAINLY compared to marking two abilities. 1/5th progress toward leveling two abilities up by 1, which probably doesn’t affect your modifiers anyway, is just worthless. When you consider that you’re trading in your Level Up for a benefit equivalent to the result of two failed rolls or two downtime weeks of training, at the expense of the other options (which can’t be gained in any other way), then it seems to me that no rational person would ever mark two abilities.

    The “mark abilities” option also seems like an example of discord in design. The other methods for improving ability scores say “use your abilities to improve them”, whereas the leveling option circumvents that. Reminds me of playing Fallout, picking locks and hacking computers in order to pump up my shooting skills.

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