Excellent session of Freebooters 2e using the new rules. It went extraordinarily well. I really like how the new travel moves work in play. We also started out the session by using the culture development rules to flesh out some world building and history. I hate to admit that we’re probably not going to use Scatter Them or Reaction Check; they just didn’t vibe with the players at my table, all of whom thought it would make more sense for the Judge to roll for that stuff because both moves feel like they “cross the line.” I swear I didn’t poison the well against those moves (since I’m on the record here as being skeptical); I didn’t share my opinion until they’d already given their feedback. But all around another great session of a great game.
Which GM play aids are those on the bottom right?
Gawd, I’m going to miss this group when G+ goes away.
I’d like to get a 3-4 session FF campaign from start to finish; I’m not sure any of my playgroups have the stamina for a Maezer-style 10+ level epic; but something more than just a con game of create characters, create world, play 2-3 encounters would be cool.
I’m seriously considering setting up a Discourse forum just for L&B. Or maybe for all things DW… Or perhaps a DW already exists?
Ah, after review, it appears Discourse requires you to already have a community (that’s willing to pay a bit of money); or to have resources already at hand. Sadly, that’s not me at this time…
Yochai Gal the booklet (closest to the bottom) is one I made of the basic moves; I also have one of the Judge moves and one that’s the marketplace. Beneath that is the GM Playbook, which I thought was in the syllabus but maybe not? I find it pretty handy for tracking monsters during combat if nothing else (the moves list is less helpful since we’re not playing stock DW, but that’s fine).
plus.google.com – Hey guys, I made three extra PDFs to elaborate on the core rules. Kind of lik…
Chris Shorb we’re on session 8! we’ve been playing every other week since mid-September, with a few missed weeks due to everybody being, y’know, adults with families and obligations and stuff. It really works great as an ongoing campaign. My party, despite their best intentions of only collecting enough silver to retire, have found themselves in the middle of a power struggle between an organized crime syndicate and a secret organization of thieves and spies. No clue how much of that they’re going to pursue, but none of it came from my prep and rather emerged in gameplay, so they can choose to involve themselves or not, and it’s all the same for me either way.
If you’d told me as I was first learning to GM D&D that I’d end up being a near-zero prep GM and actually excel at that more improvisational style I probably would have thought you were crazy, because I am a born over-prepper by nature. But I’ve found the games I love running the most are the ones that give me the tools to not have to prep much at all. Freebooters is great for this.
Sounds amazing. How much of the play was emergent? Ie, how much was generated by rolling dice, and how much did you provide?
Thanks for this, Jeb E. So the issue was people felt those moves were GM-facing? How would you distinguish them from, say, Set Out or Pass the Night? I see them all as sort of “what happens next?” prompts, since they don’t use ability modifiers, but can still be affected by burning luck.
Chris Shorb, Discourse is $100/month, right? Yeah, that is steep. If this enterprise were a bit more lucrative I could foot that bill. I am still looking for alternatives, but don’t have a lot of bandwidth for it right now.
Jason Lutes you could always jump on Burning Wheel (they put a DW forum there) or MeWe.
Or the DW Discord. Not at a computer rn, but maybe Yochai Gal has a link handy?
Chris Shorb
discord.me – Dungeon World – Discord Me
I’m interested by the cool-looking hex map. Did you use an online tool to generate/curate it or is it hand-made?
Robert Ahrens that looks like cecil howe Hex Kit.
Chris Shorb I thought I replied but G+ must have eaten it. I tend to be more on the side of “use the agenda/principles/GM moves to make shit up as we go” vs. rolling for things, but I enjoyed the guidance given by moves like Set Out and Pass the Night and let those lead to more or less random results (I would tweak some as necessary). That said all our worldbuilding has been very much driven by rolling on tables, with only slight tweaking here and there.
Jason Lutes exactly so. We didn’t talk specifically about the difference between those moves, but they definitely felt different in play. Set Out and Pass the Night feel more like they are based on player decisions/actions–the players actively trigger them, whereas Check Reaction and Scatter Them feel more passively triggered; Check Reaction is specifically triggered by the Judge introducing an NPC or group of NPCs, and Scatter Them feels very … mechanical, I guess? For lack of a better word. I think it’s less about them all being “what happens next?” moves and more that they aren’t actively triggered.
Robert Ahrens yup, Yochai Gal is right. It’s HexKit, which is amazing and lots of fun to play around with.
Re what’s next for this community, I’d probably check in on Discord but in general things like Discord and Slack that are more “chat rooms” that forums make me feel a little anxious trying to catch up; they feel too “fast” for me and I just don’t like the layouts. If that’s where we land I’d be fine with it, but I’d prefer it not be. Whatever tiny amount of say I might get lol.
Burning Wheel forums sound great; that reminds that I need to check out the DW stuff there. I know I feel most comfortable with the more traditional forum type setting. Or something that is exactly G+ but maybe tailored specifically to the communities that thrived here (and don’t see MeWe bc that place ain’t it).
Robert Ahrens worth the price of admission for sure
coneofnegativeenergy.com – CONE OF NEGATIVE ENERGY