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Just wanted to see if anyone here has tried Forbidden Lands here and what your thoughts were. I've mainly defaulted to RPGs I know to some degree for the past 15 years since I stopped going to Gencon and I figured that this recent completely unnecessary OGL drama is a good time to potentially spread my wings again. I was introduced to Forbidden Lands (FL) a while back but haven't actually played it. While I owned and enjoyed reading AD&D 2e books back in the day, I didn't like my experience in actually playing it for a few games so I've mainly been uninterested in the OSR scene that this series is supposed to be a part of. My big problem with old school systems was that they felt to slap dash bolted on and not cohesively designed from the ground up to do what they were doing (which frankly was the case back then). I'm guessing that isn't the case now and the "old school" part is mainly relating to the grittyness, tone, and feel (which I want) moreso than the mechanics (which I don't want)... or at least I hope.

With that frame in mind, is FL a possible good choice for me as a player/GM? What was your experience with it? Are OSR games typically old school mechanics in general or current day style mechanics with old school feel? If you haven't played FL, which OSR games have you played and which parts of them are "old school"? I downloaded the free quickstart version of the FL rules on drivethrurpg but I don't know how pruned down they are compared with the full release.

Thanks in advance.

I am running my 3rd Forbidden Lands campaign right now.

FBL runs on Free Leagues award winning year zero engine which has a bit of flexibility in it and depending on the tweaks for the specific game it can give you some really different experiences.

In Terms of OSR, you have it right that this is more about the feel than the mechanics. It has a lot of the hallmarks of a OSR (Hex Crawl, exploration being a big component, risk of death being real (a player death or 2 is kind of expected over the course of a campaign. I had a player get crushed to death in a bear hug by a monster called a grey bear in our first mock fight to learn the mechanics).

Resources are important. You need food and drink but they are tracked in a neat way that is more rules lite than micromanagement (You have a resource die for each thing. d6, d8, d10, d12. So, I could have a d8 of water. When I drink my daily ration of water I roll the d8. On a 1 or 2 it drops to a d6. A 1 or 2 on a d6 and I am out. Need to start foraging). This is how arrows, water, food, torches, and fuel (in the bitter reach) are tracked and I use it to track some spell components as well.

The world is neat with some good takes on a lot of classic fantasy stuff. Elves in particular are stand outs for me.



The GMG has some of the best random tables for generating content I have ever seen. Not 1 d100 table with 100 1 sentence things for me to expand on on my own. But a bunch of tables that feed into each other.

d6
1-2 village
2-3 castle
5-6 dungeon.

Village
d6 when was it settled
1-before the alder wars
2-during the alder wars
3-4 during zytera reigns
5- during the blood mist
6- after the blood mist

d6 how big is it
1-2 300-500 population
3-4 100-300 population
5-6 less than 100

Whos in charge
d66 roll multiple
bitter / council
friendly / elder
etc etc...

I generate 3 of each type of thing and keep them on note cards. When the players find a location I don't have prepped I just bust out a note card.


Besides the main box (which is a screaming deal - 50 bucks for 2 faux leather hard covers with ribbons, a map, sticker pack, and a a pamphlet from the kickstarter with monster and legend generators and a life path character creation) I highly recommend Ravens Purge. It's the campaign for the main area and greatly expands on major players and locations and the setting. You don't NEED it. You could just randomly generate everything and make up your own game. But it's one of the only pre-made campaigns I have ever wanted to run. All the Forbidden Lands ones are.


I can expand on all of this or whatever. Let me know what you want to know and I will tell you about it.

I do play with some house rules and I do have some resources I can share if you want them. Up to you.

 Lance845 wrote:

In Terms of OSR, you have it right that this is more about the feel than the mechanics. It has a lot of the hallmarks of a OSR (Hex Crawl, exploration being a big component, risk of death being real (a player death or 2 is kind of expected over the course of a campaign. I had a player get crushed to death in a bear hug by a monster called a grey bear in our first mock fight to learn the mechanics).

Thanks. I'm glad to hear that it's more the tone and feel than the actual mechanics. My gaming in the 90's was basically spent trying to find systems that cohesively worked together (or at least tried to from the ground up) rather than ones that were expanded upon willy nilly over the years and I was worried that OSR in general might emulate the latter as well.

Resources are important. You need food and drink but they are tracked in a neat way that is more rules lite than micromanagement (You have a resource die for each thing. d6, d8, d10, d12. So, I could have a d8 of water. When I drink my daily ration of water I roll the d8. On a 1 or 2 it drops to a d6. A 1 or 2 on a d6 and I am out. Need to start foraging). This is how arrows, water, food, torches, and fuel (in the bitter reach) are tracked and I use it to track some spell components as well.

I agree that it seems like a neat mechanic and it's one of the things that stood out for me watching the recap/review videos a few years ago. Should I assume the various hunting/foraging/crafting activities "recharge" the resource dice in some way like if you hunt particularly well one day then you actually gain food (assuming you cook it which I think is a distinction in this game too)?

The world is neat with some good takes on a lot of classic fantasy stuff. Elves in particular are stand outs for me.

The halfling and goblin connection really stood out for me as well. I had no interest in either until I read it and now I'd love to play a goblin.

Besides the main box (which is a screaming deal - 50 bucks for 2 faux leather hard covers with ribbons, a map, sticker pack, and a a pamphlet from the kickstarter with monster and legend generators and a life path character creation) I highly recommend Ravens Purge. It's the campaign for the main area and greatly expands on major players and locations and the setting. You don't NEED it. You could just randomly generate everything and make up your own game. But it's one of the only pre-made campaigns I have ever wanted to run. All the Forbidden Lands ones are.

In that case, I'll be watching some unboxings tonight on youtube. I had planned on watching some rules explanation/character creation videos while reading through it but your recommendation might bump an unboxing up to the top of the list.

I can expand on all of this or whatever. Let me know what you want to know and I will tell you about it.

I do play with some house rules and I do have some resources I can share if you want them. Up to you.

Do you recommend making the game a bit easier for a complete set of OSR noobs (GM and players)? Like for example dropping the resources running out to a d4 at least initially so a new GM doesn't TPK starve a party on their first adventure? Lol.

Just looking through the rules, I don't have a solid first impression of the casters as they seem very limited (on purpose likely given the gritty, low-ish fantasy setting?).

 warboss wrote:

I agree that it seems like a neat mechanic and it's one of the things that stood out for me watching the recap/review videos a few years ago. Should I assume the various hunting/foraging/crafting activities "recharge" the resource dice in some way like if you hunt particularly well one day then you actually gain food (assuming you cook it which I think is a distinction in this game too)?

Kind of. When you forage/hunt you gain successes number of units of vegetables/meat/whatever. With water, it's not just finding water, it's finding DRINKABLE water. When you cook you can turn a number of units of meat/vegetables into a number if increments of Food. Food is the dice. So if you cooked 4 meat/vegetables combined you could raise a d6 to a d10 (2 increments), a d8 to a d10 (1 increment), and a d10 to a d12 (1 increment).

The halfling and goblin connection really stood out for me as well. I had no interest in either until I read it and now I'd love to play a goblin.

Yeah they are cool. The latest campaign (Blood March. Kickstarter should be off to the printers soon) touches on some history of that. It's really cool stuff. I wouldn't let any player know anything about the nature of their relationship unless they decide to play a goblin/halfling and then I would only tell them on the side away from other players. I like to keep some of the secrets/mystery going.

Do you recommend making the game a bit easier for a complete set of OSR noobs (GM and players)? Like for example dropping the resources running out to a d4 at least initially so a new GM doesn't TPK starve a party on their first adventure? Lol.

No. To address this I have my own way that I start the campaign that gives them a little buffer to understand what they are getting into.

So, I start all my campaigns with a cold open at this point (regardless of game). No awkward meeting in an inn. We open and the party is already mid mission.

For Forbidden Lands I start them about 3-5 Hexes away from my intended first adventure site (a town). If you are going by the books, a good starting place is The Hollows. But, there has been a 3rd party adventure released on DTTRPG that is called The Shadow Over Long Harbor ( https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/387176/The-Shadows-over-Long-Harbour--Four-adventure-sites-for-Forbidden-Lands ) a simplified version of which was released as part of an ambassadors pack for people to run games in conventions and such. If you decide to get Shadow over Long Harbor (and I do recommend it) I can go over how to pair it down to be a great first adventure for the players.

I tell the players they purchased a map from a farmer in a village. Their ancestor was a bandit and the map leads to their hide out pre the blood mist (which has existed for about 300 years and just lifted about 5 years ago allowing travel again). The Farmer doesn't want anything to do with their blood money and isn't sure anything would still be there to begin with.

When the game opens the players are arriving at X marks the spot. A crumbled ruin of what was once a tower on a hill in the woods. The roots of the tree hide an entrance into the cellar which was used as the bandits hide out. Now occupied by a Grey Bear or a Troll or 2 depending on the number of players etc... This gives new players a chance to learn some skill checks while the look for the entrance, encounter a monster and learn combat, and then grab some loot (a few simple finds in the lair). I also have a store room where I let the players pick any 1 item that isn't rare and I roll it's durability to see if it is in need of repair. (bonus little perk and maybe something to spend their new money on to get it up to snuff).

They then need to learn the travel rules heading to the closest town where they can learn the RP and setting and get into an adventure proper.

This gives players a primer of the mechanics in a logical order before letting them loose and a bit of extra money in their pockets right out the gate to stock up on their supplies in this very close proximity town.

Just looking through the rules, I don't have a solid first impression of the casters as they seem very limited (on purpose likely given the gritty, low-ish fantasy setting?).

Alright... magic.

The first thing to note is that there isn't a magical solution to every problem like there is in DnD. Magic isn't your get out of jail free card. It's good. It can do a lot. But it doesn't pick every lock, make friends with every enemy, and feed and shelter everyone forever.

Second, a lot of people seem to have a hang up on getting over the idea of DnD wizard and sorcerers and gak. This aint that. And it's not because the world is low magic. It's because it's classic magic. This is Thulsa Doom from Conan. A man with a giant 2 handed sword going toe to toe with Conan while turning things into snakes. Funnily enough it's also Gandalf. A man with a long sword who barely casts spells at all and definitely doesn't cast lightning bolts and fire balls.

There is no such thing as a character that can get by only casting magic. The resources don't exist for it and it's very dangerous to boot. Magic isn't something to be trifled with willy nilly. There is more than one story out there of a character doing some magic they shouldn't have right out the gate thinking they were going to be cool and getting their character killed before the end of the first session.


That being said, more than one person has been hung up on the mechanics of magic so let me explain it in a simple enough way.

-So first you have your Talent Rank (TR). 1 through 3.

-Your TR allows you to cast any spell of the same rank (Spell Rank - SR) within your talent also called a magic discipline + all the spells from the General Magic discipline = to your highest TR (Generic Magic is stuff everyone knows). So TR 2 Healing Discipline. You can cast all SR 1 and 2 Healing spells and all SR 1 and 2 General spells. Easy enough.

-To cast a spell you spend at least 1 Will Power (WP). The amount of WP you spend is the Base Power Level (BPL). Important thing to note here. The spell succeeds. There is no roll to see if you cast successfully. The spell WILL fire off. The only questions are how powerful and if it backfires.

-You roll a number of d6 equal to the BPL. If any of them come up 6s the spell is Over Charged. Each 6 increases the spells Power Level (PL) by 1. What exactly this does depends on the spell. The easiest example is damage. Generally a damaging spell deals PL damage. BUT if any of the dice roll a 1 (and it doesn't matter how many. You only need 1), the spell Mishaps. You will roll on the Magical Mishaps table to find out what happens.

-Magical Mishaps are a range of things. On the low end... your reputation increases by 1. Relatively harmless. On the other end, you tear open a portal to hell. Your character is sucked in. Make a new character. If they show up again later they are an NPC and have... changed. In the middle sits temporary madness (paranoia, megalomania), magical diseases, and other stuff.

-If you use a spells ingredient in the casting (Not needed to cast, it's optional) you increase the PL (NOT BPL! important because it won't increase risk of mishaps) by 1.

-If you cast a spell with a SR lower than your TR you can do whats called safe casting. Basically you can subtract dice from your roll equal to the difference. So TR 3 casting SR 1 you can spend 3 WP for a BPL of 3, but safe cast and only roll 1 die (TR 3 - SR 1 = 2) (BPL 3 - 2 Safe Casting = 1).

-If you cast from a grimoire (a book or scroll with the spell transcribed in it) you treat the spells SR as 1 lower. This helps with safe casting. That previous example would roll no dice. It takes a fast action to ready the grimoire when you do this.

-I kind of lied before about what spells you can cast. You can actually cast the spells with 1 SR HIGHER than your TR too. But this is called Chance Casting. You still roll the dice to see if you overcharge. But it doesn't matter if you roll 1s or not. You WILL Mishap. It is happening automatically. This is most often what gets players killed in session 1. Greedy little bitches overstepping their actual talent and risking it all to Immolate somebody (I am looking at you Blood Magic Sorcerer Wolfkin).



Now, I will say that I have my own house ruled system for magic that we can get into if you want. I don't like how swingy the magical mishaps table is and created something that was closer to a slippery slope power corrupts kind of thing. It's less brutal up front but will kill or drive a character insane by the end anyway. Magic is still dangerous. It's just not explosively so. More of a fall to the dark side kind of thing. There are other alternative or expanded magical mishaps tables floating around as well.

 Lance845 wrote:

Yeah they are cool. The latest campaign (Blood March. Kickstarter should be off to the printers soon) touches on some history of that. It's really cool stuff. I wouldn't let any player know anything about the nature of their relationship unless they decide to play a goblin/halfling and then I would only tell them on the side away from other players. I like to keep some of the secrets/mystery going.

I agree that they should separate player and character knowledge if they find out on their own and I certainly wouldn't feed them the info either. Any new professions or kin in Bloodmarch? I don't know if you are or anyone else reading this is a backer but it looks like the beta pdf came out for it on the kickstarter in a backer only post.

Alright... magic.

The first thing to note is that there isn't a magical solution to every problem like there is in DnD. Magic isn't your get out of jail free card. It's good. It can do a lot. But it doesn't pick every lock, make friends with every enemy, and feed and shelter everyone forever.

Second, a lot of people seem to have a hang up on getting over the idea of DnD wizard and sorcerers and gak. This aint that. And it's not because the world is low magic. It's because it's classic magic. This is Thulsa Doom from Conan. A man with a giant 2 handed sword going toe to toe with Conan while turning things into snakes. Funnily enough it's also Gandalf. A man with a long sword who barely casts spells at all and definitely doesn't cast lightning bolts and fire balls.

There is no such thing as a character that can get by only casting magic. The resources don't exist for it and it's very dangerous to boot. Magic isn't something to be trifled with willy nilly. There is more than one story out there of a character doing some magic they shouldn't have right out the gate thinking they were going to be cool and getting their character killed before the end of the first session.

It seems like an interesting take and consistent with the gritty theme they're going for. I just don't how limiting it is in practice as spells are fueled (like many other things) by WP which is a limited resource. I don't have the knowledge base to know how often you should expect to "recharge" it via push to have a gauge on that.

 warboss wrote:
Any new professions or kin in Bloodmarch? I don't know if you are or anyone else reading this is a backer but it looks like the beta pdf came out for it on the kickstarter in a backer only post.

I am a backer. There is no new profession.... so far... in Blood March. But The Book of Beasts beta PDF had a reference to a Blood March profession (not named. It was a highlight generic text. Like... [insert profession here]) so we don't know if that new profession will manifest in the final product or not. It does have several new Magic Discipline talents though. And, feth the Bood March is cool. It's so damn cool. It's the most excited I have ever been for a campaign. The content of the story is so fething cool.

The Bitter Reach has a new profession. The Champion. Kind of like their paladin but it's not holy or divine in any way (importantly there is no "divine" magic in Forbidden Lands. The gods are like real world gods. No actual signs of their true existence. Just rumors and myth and faith.) The Champion could be the Champion of the Raven. Or Champion of the Hollows. Or Champion of a bandit group. It just means you are dedicated to someone or something and that dedication drives your actions. It also includes 2 new magic disciplines (1 druid 1 sorcerer) and some new talents and equipment dealing with life in the eternal winter that is the bitter reach. This campaign is also good like Ravens Purge.

It seems like an interesting take and consistent with the gritty theme they're going for. I just don't how limiting it is in practice as spells are fueled (like many other things) by WP which is a limited resource. I don't have the knowledge base to know how often you should expect to "recharge" it via push to have a gauge on that.

WP fuels all the abilities. It will cycle up and down. Players will settle into it pretty quick. I ordered some colored chits (little clear acrylic disks) I use for WP so my players can grab some and toss it back in a little bowl as they use it.

The verbage in the book confused me on that part so thanks for the explanation as it helps. Isn't it always to a players benefit to spend the time (assuming you have the stronghold, food, safety, etc) to write your grimoire with spells so help cast things more safely at a higher power level?

Recording things in a grimoire is a straight up advantage. No reason not to do it. In order to record it you need to have successfully cast it first (So there is that) and eating up one of your actions in the turn to use the grimoire may make the grimoire unfeasible sometimes. Consider that there is no ranged heal spell. You need to physically touch the person you are healing. So if that means you need to move and cast to get them healthy... well... then you don't have a fast action to ready the grimoire do you? Also it was amended/clarified in later printings of the main book that you cannot record spells with a SR higher than your TR. That doesn't mean you could not find or steal someone elses grimoire though...

I also saw you can bind spell magic into permanent magic items for 5 WP that then let you cast it once a day; is the main benefit that you don't have to worry about mishaps? Or is it that it can be triggered by anyone and not just the caster?

There is really cool gak you can do with this especially if you get a sorcerer and druid working together. I sat down to work shop a "healing potion". The druid can get a clay pot (clay being the ingredient for Healing Hands) and bind Healing Hands with the trigger condition of drinking water from the jug. This works, but the user needs to spend their own will power to activate it. So a sorcerer can use bind magic and a power rune to give the jug a supply of WP. But that WP can run out. So you would need to use Transfer to siphon WP from other sources into the Power Rune on occasion or there is a Death Magic spell that allows you to ritually suck the life force out of ambient plants and insects and gak in your area into WP to recharge the jug.

For a self refilling magic weapon that smites.
Druid Binds Bears Claw into a weapon. Trigger condition making physical contact and a trigger word or intent or some such. Then a Sorcerer Binds both a power rune to fuel it and Transfer with a trigger condition of bear claw going off. So long as the power rune has enough power to fuel both the transfer and bear claw and the target has enough WP to refill it it's a self refilling smiting weapon. Again, requires a LOT of WP and time and prep for a once a day boost in damage but it's still pretty cool.

Very important. Nothing is free in forbidden lands. Everything has some kind of cost. You will never get a magic sword thats just a magic sword. You will always pay a price for having it/swinging it around.

The 5 WP you spend on Bind Magic is in addition to the WP you spend to fuel the base spell you are binding. That means if you want that Healing potion to recover 4 Strength/agility you need 9 WP. It's possible to spend awhile building up a supply of power runes to fuel a big magic item creation ritual. The power Runes/Spell isn't bound to the 10 WP limit. You could make some massive Nuke stick that takes out any one thing. But good luck recharging it.

Anyone can activate a magic item if they know how and have the WP to do it. Casters can use the general Magic spell Sense Magic to investigate the nature of the magic in the item and try to figure out the trigger condition. Others would have to be told or see it in action.

I was looking at the symbolism spells and I think none of them work on monsters, lol. I'm not sure what they're supposed to do in that case other than maybe thrown stones!

Thanks in advance for the added info.

"Monsters' is a very specific classification of things. There are people... the majority of NPCs. And then there are Monsters. Monsters have different rules for how they behave in combat and are generally unaffected by things like poisons and these types of spells because it would break the game or because they don't have the attributes they are effecting. A amorphous slime mold has no empathy or wits to effect. A Death Knight does not feel fear.
A dragon with 30 strength cannot be poisoned.

Where as all regular NPC people fight by the exact same rules as players, Monsters have a d6 attack table and you roll each turn to see what they do. Those attacks tell you how many dice to roll for the attack. Mostly because a 30 Strength slash from a dragon would be instant death for every character who would need to try to defend against a 30 dice roll. So instead it's a 10d6 attack on the table and it's Strength is just an HP bar.

 Lance845 wrote:

The Bitter Reach has a new profession. The Champion. Kind of like their paladin but it's not holy or divine in any way (importantly there is no "divine" magic in Forbidden Lands. The gods are like real world gods. No actual signs of their true existence. Just rumors and myth and faith.) The Champion could be the Champion of the Raven. Or Champion of the Hollows. Or Champion of a bandit group. It just means you are dedicated to someone or something and that dedication drives your actions. It also includes 2 new magic disciplines (1 druid 1 sorcerer) and some new talents and equipment dealing with life in the eternal winter that is the bitter reach. This campaign is also good like Ravens Purge.

I wonder how much crossover that has with the fighter. There isn't much wiggle room between classes when it comes to gear/skills unless that is the unmounted profession that gets melee and ranged combat from the getgo or limited access to spells (like only one talent).

Recording things in a grimoire is a straight up advantage. No reason not to do it. In order to record it you need to have successfully cast it first (So there is that) and eating up one of your actions in the turn to use the grimoire may make the grimoire unfeasible sometimes. Consider that there is no ranged heal spell. You need to physically touch the person you are healing. So if that means you need to move and cast to get them healthy... well... then you don't have a fast action to ready the grimoire do you? Also it was amended/clarified in later printings of the main book that you cannot record spells with a SR higher than your TR. That doesn't mean you could not find or steal someone elses grimoire though...

Very true. I was just thinking about it from the utility perspective. Does the requirement of casting the spell mean "ever" or "immediately before writing in your grimoire"? Just to make sure you're not writing down level 3 spells for your starting character, I could see the former being the case too.

There is really cool gak you can do with this especially if you get a sorcerer and druid working together. I sat down to work shop a "healing potion". The druid can get a clay pot (clay being the ingredient for Healing Hands) and bind Healing Hands with the trigger condition of drinking water from the jug. This works, but the user needs to spend their own will power to activate it. So a sorcerer can use bind magic and a power rune to give the jug a supply of WP. But that WP can run out. So you would need to use Transfer to siphon WP from other sources into the Power Rune on occasion or there is a Death Magic spell that allows you to ritually suck the life force out of ambient plants and insects and gak in your area into WP to recharge the jug.

That is cool! I hadn't considered both spellcasters working together for an item. I suppose you can just use that for out of combat healing where whoever is drinking from the cup powers their own healing in situations where you can't rest for a quarter day.

"Monsters' is a very specific classification of things. There are people... the majority of NPCs. And then there are Monsters. Monsters have different rules for how they behave in combat and are generally unaffected by things like poisons and these types of spells because it would break the game or because they don't have the attributes they are effecting. A amorphous slime mold has no empathy or wits to effect. A Death Knight does not feel fear.
A dragon with 30 strength cannot be poisoned.

Where as all regular NPC people fight by the exact same rules as players, Monsters have a d6 attack table and you roll each turn to see what they do. Those attacks tell you how many dice to roll for the attack. Mostly because a 30 Strength slash from a dragon would be instant death for every character who would need to try to defend against a 30 dice roll. So instead it's a 10d6 attack on the table and it's Strength is just an HP bar.

I just figured I'd low key clarify it as I was specifically looking at that type of wizard. I suppose that's no different than someone who doesn't invest in any social skills being unable to help much in a social situation; you need to have something to fall back on beyond just your primary role. From what I'm reading online, there is a latter supplement elementalist type that might be more of a traditional blaster wizard as well.

I have to say I was surprised that you can't spend XP to improve attributes rather only skills and talents. That makes the initial choice of age a bit more important seeing as how you're trading a permanent thing for something you can develop later. Is there any form of level gating/balancing in the game? Do you keep track of your total XP as a gauge of party power for purposes of balancing encounters or is that idea just not central to the sandbox feel this game strives for?

 warboss wrote:

I wonder how much crossover that has with the fighter. There isn't much wiggle room between classes when it comes to gear/skills unless that is the unmounted profession that gets melee and ranged combat from the getgo or limited access to spells (like only one talent).

There isn't any. They have a thing where they can intercept an attack by trading places with an ally and taking the blow for them. Another called Path of the Vow lets them add a D8/10/12 to a roll that relates to their vow. So if a Champion of the Raven is like... "I will protect the Raven Sisters and their interests". They could spend a WP to add a artifact die to any roll that is in pursuit of that.

Very true. I was just thinking about it from the utility perspective. Does the requirement of casting the spell mean "ever" or "immediately before writing in your grimoire"? Just to make sure you're not writing down level 3 spells for your starting character, I could see the former being the case too.

Ever. As long as they have successfully cast the spell at least once at some point they are good to go recording it in a grimoire when they have time.

That is cool! I hadn't considered both spellcasters working together for an item. I suppose you can just use that for out of combat healing where whoever is drinking from the cup powers their own healing in situations where you can't rest for a quarter day.

Yeah. Or bind additional effects into it. There is a spell that can heal critical injuries for example. The jug won't recover strength but could heal a punctured lung. Or stockpile more power runes and do both.

I just figured I'd low key clarify it as I was specifically looking at that type of wizard. I suppose that's no different than someone who doesn't invest in any social skills being unable to help much in a social situation; you need to have something to fall back on beyond just your primary role. From what I'm reading online, there is a latter supplement elementalist type that might be more of a traditional blaster wizard as well.

Bitter Reach. It's the Sorcerer Elemental Discipline. Unique in that unlike the other disciplines it REQUIRES the ingredient. So yeah, there is a fire ball. But it doesn't MAKE fire. It just projects it. You need to have a source of fire on hand in order to use it.

I have to say I was surprised that you can't spend XP to improve attributes rather only skills and talents. That makes the initial choice of age a bit more important seeing as how you're trading a permanent thing for something you can develop later.

Yup. I am a big fan. Character creation is full of a lot of hard choices.

Is there any form of level gating/balancing in the game?

No. And no adventure gives you a recommended power scale. This is an OSR thematic thing. A dragon is a dragon. You are a person. This was never a fair fight. There are some monster I flat out don't know how the players can win without some serious prep work. The Hydra comes to mind. fething thing is crazy. Running is always an option.

Do you keep track of your total XP as a gauge of party power for purposes of balancing encounters or is that idea just not central to the sandbox feel this game strives for?

The idea is not built into the systems. DnD is about balancing encounters so players will win. Maybe with resource depletion but losing is not really the option of any encounter. Not this. The players absolutely can lose. And losing can mean death with just one bad critical injury roll. Players should charge into every fight. They should fight smarter, or not fight at all. You can't walk into the evil empire trying to be big damn heroes and not get hunted down and killed or enslaved.

In fact, you should encourage your players to not think of themselves as heroes. That isn't to say they need to be bad people, but there is no alignment or morality mechanic and the front of the box tells you what this is. "Rogues and Raiders in a cursed world."

 Lance845 wrote:
Ever. As long as they have successfully cast the spell at least once at some point they are good to go recording it in a grimoire when they have time.

Yeah, that definitely sounds useful! Obviously with the WP still acting as a defacto spell slot but at least it's a passive boost to the spell that doesn't increase mishap rates.

Bitter Reach. It's the Sorcerer Elemental Discipline. Unique in that unlike the other disciplines it REQUIRES the ingredient. So yeah, there is a fire ball. But it doesn't MAKE fire. It just projects it. You need to have a source of fire on hand in order to use it.

That does sound like an interesting twist ala avatar especially given that torches and water are consumables. I'd assume that earth and air are a bit easier to come by though, lol.

I have to say I was surprised that you can't spend XP to improve attributes rather only skills and talents. That makes the initial choice of age a bit more important seeing as how you're trading a permanent thing for something you can develop later.

Yup. I am a big fan. Character creation is full of a lot of hard choices.

It certainly is. I had two character concepts going and one was an old wizard type so it seemed like the age choice there was a win-win scenario but I had assumed I might be able to later increase a potential dump stat (frail old man archetype) with some adventuring but not the case! Were attributes locked in old school D&D as well? I mostly onboarded in 3e with only a few 2e games myself.

Is there any form of level gating/balancing in the game?

No. And no adventure gives you a recommended power scale. This is an OSR thematic thing. A dragon is a dragon. You are a person. This was never a fair fight. There are some monster I flat out don't know how the players can win without some serious prep work. The Hydra comes to mind. fething thing is crazy. Running is always an option.

Do you keep track of your total XP as a gauge of party power for purposes of balancing encounters or is that idea just not central to the sandbox feel this game strives for?

The idea is not built into the systems. DnD is about balancing encounters so players will win. Maybe with resource depletion but losing is not really the option of any encounter. Not this. The players absolutely can lose. And losing can mean death with just one bad critical injury roll. Players should charge into every fight. They should fight smarter, or not fight at all. You can't walk into the evil empire trying to be big damn heroes and not get hunted down and killed or enslaved.

That'll take some getting used to. Do you use random tables to generate encounters or tailor them ahead of time for the party to avoid situations like that? Or are they experienced enough (pun intended) with the system to know that running is sometimes the best option? My only recent experience with something like that was the poorly balanced (at least for the first third) Rime of the Frostmaiden adventure for 5e D&D where you could be (and we were twice thanks to random table rolls) ambushed as a low level party (2nd level in our case) by an ancient dragon. We knew we had to run but the question was more IF we could do so successfully; some of us couldn't.

In fact, you should encourage your players to not think of themselves as heroes. That isn't to say they need to be bad people, but there is no alignment or morality mechanic and the front of the box tells you what this is. "Rogues and Raiders in a cursed world."

That's ok. My other character concept was a scumbag goblin hunter so that works for me! As stupid as it sounds, I start with a mini that I think looks cool and work backwards from there for the character concept.


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How many games have you played btw? Do you worry that the game will become a bit repetitive for players given the smaller amount of choices they can make over the course of the campaign? I'm genuinely asking as I don't have long term experience with systems like this.

 warboss wrote:


It certainly is. I had two character concepts going and one was an old wizard type so it seemed like the age choice there was a win-win scenario but I had assumed I might be able to later increase a potential dump stat (frail old man archetype) with some adventuring but not the case! Were attributes locked in old school D&D as well? I mostly onboarded in 3e with only a few 2e games myself.

Unsure. But it's not like DnD has stats that grow and change all that much either. You get 5 points over 20 levels and they only cause a mechanical difference every 2 points.

I do want to emphasize something here though, there are no dump stats in FBL. Each attribute is itself a health bar. If you leave 1 of them at 2 you leave yourself exceptionally vulnerable to breaking via that attribute.

Str is damaged by physical harm
Agility exhaustion
Wits horror
Empathy trauma.

If an opponent is broken but not dead and you want to coup de grace them you need to roll empathy, fail, spend a WP and suffer damage to your empathy. Those penalties can be reduced and/or eliminated with Cold Blooded talent but it emphasizes the point. Your empathy can be hurt. And it is itself an HP bar. If someone starts negotiating or manipulating you they hurt your empathy and when you break you either fly into a rage or become compliant. Almost all monsters have fear attacks that damage wits.

Weather, travel mishaps, and pushing yourself with things like a forced march can hurt your agility. When that happens the group needs to either stay in the hex they are in with you or leave you behind. What happens when you piss off the Aslene and they have riders chasing you with your 2 agility?

Again, there are no dump stats.

That'll take some getting used to. Do you use random tables to generate encounters or tailor them ahead of time for the party to avoid situations like that?

I am mostly running the adventures as given and will randomize some stuff when there is nothing there. Like, my players wanted to explore a cave I didn't have anything assigned to on my map. So I thought a Drakewyrm would be fun and created a little situation on the fly. It wasn't a question of could the players kill it. It was... hmm... I bet it would be fun to see what the players do when they run into one of these for the first time.

Or are they experienced enough (pun intended) with the system to know that running is sometimes the best option?

The first mock battle in session zero to teach them the ropes kind of helped with this. No story, just, here is a cave. Thats a Grey Bear. When one of the characters died in that fight it got them all to pay attention right away.

My only recent experience with something like that was the poorly balanced (at least for the first third) Rime of the Frostmaiden adventure for 5e D&D where you could be (and we were twice thanks to random table rolls) ambushed as a low level party (2nd level in our case) by an ancient dragon. We knew we had to run but the question was more IF we could do so successfully; some of us couldn't.

The GMG for Forbidden Lands has some sage advice right at the beginning about running the game. And one of those bits is that death is a part of the story. It's not about getting upset or being unfair. Sometimes bad thing happen. Bad things happening creates tension and drives things forward.

Part of that advice is also to keep players hungry. You will notice when looking at adventures just how little money and treasure the adventures give players. Happy content players don't go exploring and take risks. Hungry players do. Lives are on the line looking for that fresh water and that matters. You are worried about a dragon in RotFM? Look at Bitter Reach, understand how Cold works, and then look at a group of players just trying to get from point a to point b on the ice shelf without someone freezing to death. If the players get a stronghold and start getting rich, it's time for the neighboring orcs to start demanding a tax and all the conflicts that may entail. It's time for the enemies they made along the way to start figuring out that they have a base of operations where they can be easily found.

How many games have you played btw? Do you worry that the game will become a bit repetitive for players given the smaller amount of choices they can make over the course of the campaign? I'm genuinely asking as I don't have long term experience with systems like this.

So I started Ravens Purge twice (maybe 3 times....?) with groups that fell through for various normal RPG group failing reasons. My most recent group has been going for.... I want to say 6 or 7 months now? Near weekly games (last month we only played once).

Combats are short and brutal. Which means every action REALLY counts. And that keeps those parts exciting. Outside of that it isn't about character builds and options as much as it is narrative. This game is significantly more narrative focused. As a GM your role is more about keeping track of the consequences of the players actions then it is about lining up the next disconnected whatever.

Ravens Purge as a campaign is about a set of important historical artifacts that several group want as they resurface. The players can make allies and enemies of any of those groups. They might be on a mission that involves slaying a giant. So they detour to find a giant slaying sword they heard about. They kill the giant and bring back its head and gain renown. Well that sword is wanted by other people. And now the story of their exploits are getting out there. Now some of these groups are looking for the players. Nothing comes for free in forbidden lands. It all has a price.

Thats what keeps people invested. The players actions drive the story and the consequences of those actions build friends and enemies with narrative weight.

Just as an example. A Hammer called Scarnes Bane was discovered by the players in front of a NPC dwarf named Ariva of the Crombe clan. Ariva is claimed to be a kind of dwarven jesus. Concieved by her mother with their god Huge and Scarnes Bane is a historical artifact of the Crombe. She herself is kind of a fanatic and a blunt, this is how it will be, kind of person. Ariva demanded the hammer. It's hers by right. Rather than make an enemy the players thought they would make an ally and gave her the hammer which earned them the Crombes favor.

Well... now like 10 sessions later they are finding out that the rumors of Ariva's claiming of Scarnes Bane is kind of kicking off a dwarven civil cold war. Her and the more religious amongst them are looking to dispose the Dwarven Memorian ruler and place Ariva in charge, cold fanatical bitch that she is. Actions have consequences.

 Lance845 wrote:
I do want to emphasize something here though, there are no dump stats in FBL. Each attribute is itself a health bar. If you leave 1 of them at 2 you leave yourself exceptionally vulnerable to breaking via that attribute.

Yeah, I did see that. I was thinking about putting 2 in strength for the frail old wizard to fit the theme but it seems like an instant death sentence. I might still keep the 2 on empathy for the scumbag goblin hunter as I do like the idea of him sperging out like a chronic twitter (ab)user anytime someone makes him do something in social situations.

The first mock battle in session zero to teach them the ropes kind of helped with this. No story, just, here is a cave. Thats a Grey Bear. When one of the characters died in that fight it got them all to pay attention right away.

The GMG for Forbidden Lands has some sage advice right at the beginning about running the game. And one of those bits is that death is a part of the story. It's not about getting upset or being unfair. Sometimes bad thing happen. Bad things happening creates tension and drives things forward.

The session zero initial fight sounds like good advice. It's difficult for me to gauge given my lack of experience with the subgenre similar to my lack of experience with narrative games a few years ago. I'll have to see if it's truly for me.

Part of that advice is also to keep players hungry. You will notice when looking at adventures just how little money and treasure the adventures give players. Happy content players don't go exploring and take risks. Hungry players do. Lives are on the line looking for that fresh water and that matters. You are worried about a dragon in RotFM? Look at Bitter Reach, understand how Cold works, and then look at a group of players just trying to get from point a to point b on the ice shelf without someone freezing to death. If the players get a stronghold and start getting rich, it's time for the neighboring orcs to start demanding a tax and all the conflicts that may entail. It's time for the enemies they made along the way to start figuring out that they have a base of operations where they can be easily found.

The lower level of loot and the environmental effects are honestly a big part of what I'm looking forward to. It doesn't "feel" right to add them to a gonzo high fantasy game like D&D to me as the expectations are different (and so obviously is the intent of the rules) but I'm hoping I'll enjoy it potentially with this.

Combats are short and brutal. Which means every action REALLY counts. And that keeps those parts exciting. Outside of that it isn't about character builds and options as much as it is narrative. This game is significantly more narrative focused. As a GM your role is more about keeping track of the consequences of the players actions then it is about lining up the next disconnected whatever.

*snip*

Thats what keeps people invested. The players actions drive the story and the consequences of those actions build friends and enemies with narrative weight.

And I hope if I end up trying it then I live up to that both as a potential player or GM. Admittedly that could easily apply to any rpg campaign using any setting and any ruleset though. It sounds very interesting as you described it and I can't say I've played in any campaigns with that kind of political tension to be honest.

Man that isn't even something scripted in the campaign. It's just a thing that happening in mine. They happened to be a position where they got the hammer and Ariva was there. That was just me going. Okay... What Would Ariva Do? A Dwarven civil war is just the consequences of my players actions and has nothing to do with Ravens Purge itself lol.

Sounds like it worked out! I have a possibly stupid question... what clothing do you start out with and is it counted against your encumberance? I'm curious as it says you just describe your appearance/clothes but then the clothing section has specific rules and bonuses (and obviously costs) for different clothing items. I kind of expected simple clothes to be listed in the starting equipment for all along with a knapsack and waterskin but I figured I'd ask in case I missed something. I could easily see in this type of game having "rags" being the starting clothing unless you pay to upgrade, lol.

 warboss wrote:
Sounds like it worked out! I have a possibly stupid question... what clothing do you start out with and is it counted against your encumberance? I'm curious as it says you just describe your appearance/clothes but then the clothing section has specific rules and bonuses (and obviously costs) for different clothing items. I kind of expected simple clothes to be listed in the starting equipment for all along with a knapsack and waterskin but I figured I'd ask in case I missed something. I could easily see in this type of game having "rags" being the starting clothing unless you pay to upgrade, lol.

So this is a common hand wave kind of thing or is addressed in a rule that just isn't placed in a great spot.

You get all the carrying equipment when you get the thing it carries. So pretty much every profession starts with water and food. That means every profession starts with a water skin and a sack. Some professions start with arrows. That means they start with a quiver too. You don't need to pay for these things at character creation. But it might get destroyed or stolen, and then you would.

Clothes: People just assume statless clothing to start. If you want clothes with any kind of a benefit you need to pay for them. Let the players describe it however they want. Doesn't hurt.

Thanks. I was about to edit the post to add another question but saw you already responded. How is commanding a tame animal to attack typically handled? I saw that some animal specific classes/talents have special WP spends for attacking but I didn't see an option for the average character with a tamed animal (like a guard dog) to attack. I'd assume it's a slow action with animal handling to order it to attack but figured I'd check again just in case.

 warboss wrote:
Thanks. I was about to edit the post to add another question but saw you already responded. How is commanding a tame animal to attack typically handled? I saw that some animal specific classes/talents have special WP spends for attacking but I didn't see an option for the average character with a tamed animal (like a guard dog) to attack. I'd assume it's a slow action with animal handling to order it to attack but figured I'd check again just in case.

The professions that let you do it with a talent (Hunter and Rider I think) do it as a bonus action with the talent. If you didn't have the talent it would eat up one of your actions to do it.

I saw an update on KS that the final PDF versions of the two most recently crowdfunded books came out. Any thoughts on them assuming you've had a chance to check them out? After a weekend of comparing Dragonbane and FL, I think I prefer the mechanics of FL at least in theory (since I've not tried out either). The simplicity of just (mainly) rolling stat plus skill plus bonus in d6 combined with the lethality is more to my style than the advantage/disadvantage of Dragonbane.

The book of beasts is kind of a monster manual. I am probably in the minority on this because I have a particular stick up my butt about monster manuals, but I think the monsters themselves are really hit or miss.

My issue with MMs in general is that they stop giving you interesting things and start giving you variations I could have come up with on my own.

A bear, but fire! A dragon, but Ice! A troll, but different slightly!

I want new monsters. Forbidden Lands isn't uniquely different in this, it's just disappointing that they fell into the same rut as everyone else.

That being said some of the monsters in there are great and they expand on some stuff like giving all kinds of little adventure seeds for them and extra stuff. I already used one from the BoB (A Vampyre) with my players and they loved it.

The book also includes a bunch of side rule stuff. Tomes and books players can find. A artifact generator. Alchemy rules (which were REAL bad in the first version but got much better now). And solo play rules which I will never use but hey they are there for others.



Blood March on the other hand is amazing. Best campaign they put out so far. The lore in this thing blew my damn mind. I am most excited to run Blood March at some point out of all the campaigns.

I looked at Dragon Bane when they did their kickstarter but did not buy in. I can only fit so many similar games on my shelf I already don't get to play.

Glad to hear that Blood March is good though obviously I'm about as far away from adventuring there myself.

I saw that they introduced another pair of magical discipline talent trees in this to go along with the previous pair in another book. Is there a reason why they're exclusively expanding only the magic professions with options and not ever any of the others? I understand that general talents exist and there is a decent amount of variety to start with just in the core books but I'm curious as to why they seemingly only want to expand one type of profession. And, yes, I also acknowledge the irony of whining about fairness in an OSR style game.

They actually added 4 new disciplines that can be taken by sorcerer or druid. But 2 of them are pretty closely guarded secrets of particular organizations.

One of my house rules is that anyone can buy into other profession talents for increased costs. Basically following the rules for magic. You need a teacher and time or the cost goes way up. For other profession magic the cost goes up with a teacher and goes up again without one.

No idea why its been all magic so far. It has been suggested and the devs have acknowledged, a want for a player options book as the next bonus book.

Each kickstarter so far has really been about 2 books. Main box + spire of quetzel (ravens purge was always coming after). Bitter reach + crypt of the mellified mage. Blood march + book of beasts.

People are asking for rank 4-5 talents and expanded talent trees for the other professions. Hopefully that comes with the Alderland expansion which is currently being written.

 Lance845 wrote:

One of my house rules is that anyone can buy into other profession talents for increased costs. Basically following the rules for magic. You need a teacher and time or the cost goes way up. For other profession magic the cost goes up with a teacher and goes up again without one.

That sounds perfectly reasonable. So 9x for learning magic talents without a teacher for other professions?

No idea why its been all magic so far. It has been suggested and the devs have acknowledged, a want for a player options book as the next bonus book.

Each kickstarter so far has really been about 2 books. Main box + spire of quetzel (ravens purge was always coming after). Bitter reach + crypt of the mellified mage. Blood march + book of beasts.

People are asking for rank 4-5 talents and expanded talent trees for the other professions. Hopefully that comes with the Alderland expansion which is currently being written.

I'm glad to hear that they're at least considering it. I was mainly just talking about opening up a single talent tree of a player's choice (as long as it thematically matches somewhat with the original profession per GM's determination). Something like adding the hunter's archery talent tree to the fighter or the hunter's animal companion to the druid. I like your idea of requiring a teacher additionally though to do it at the normal cost. There seems to be some mild discontent with Free Leagues in that they might be spread a bit too thin with their constant RPG kickstarter churn in various comment sections with the delays specifically with Forbidden Lands as opposed to licensed products that funded later but came out quicker (like Blade Runner).

 warboss wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:

One of my house rules is that anyone can buy into other profession talents for increased costs. Basically following the rules for magic. You need a teacher and time or the cost goes way up. For other profession magic the cost goes up with a teacher and goes up again without one.

That sounds perfectly reasonable. So 9x for learning magic talents without a teacher for other professions?

Yeah. But like... the team can act as teacher to each other. But trying to find teachers for new things becomes a bigger problem.

No idea why its been all magic so far. It has been suggested and the devs have acknowledged, a want for a player options book as the next bonus book.

Each kickstarter so far has really been about 2 books. Main box + spire of quetzel (ravens purge was always coming after). Bitter reach + crypt of the mellified mage. Blood march + book of beasts.

People are asking for rank 4-5 talents and expanded talent trees for the other professions. Hopefully that comes with the Alderland expansion which is currently being written.

I'm glad to hear that they're at least considering it. I was mainly just talking about opening up a single talent tree of a player's choice (as long as it thematically matches somewhat with the original profession per GM's determination). Something like adding the hunter's archery talent tree to the fighter or the hunter's animal companion to the druid. I like your idea of requiring a teacher additionally though to do it at the normal cost. There seems to be some mild discontent with Free Leagues in that they might be spread a bit too thin with their constant RPG kickstarter churn in various comment sections with the delays specifically with Forbidden Lands as opposed to licensed products that funded later but came out quicker (like Blade Runner).

The delays are from some other things. There was a bunch of the printer delays over the last few years of course, but also they lost a developer soon after the release of blood march. Amicable parting from what anyone can tell, but the guy took a new gig. The loss of the developer meant other people had to pick up extra duties to fill in while a replacement was found and bought up to speed. Meanwhile the people picking up that slack had to learn all about the projects he was on so that THEY were up to speed. Kind of a domino effect of slow downs.

My understanding is they have stabilized in the last month or so. But multiple projects were impacted.

Thanks for the info. Is there a section in one of the books that handles selling items or is it just GM fiat mixed with common sense? I found a blurb about which items/services are available in certain towns based on rarity but not the other way around. I'm fully capable of winging it on my own obviously but I want to make sure I'm not missing a section somewhere that officially covers it.

Nope. Not that i have seen. Generally speaking i do items at full durability will sell for 100% value to somone looking for it (the pcs are the merchants in this case - selling weapons to a militia), 1/2 price to merchants who think they can sell it (lanturns and crap to most merchants), and 1/4 price to merchants who don't want it (armor with rust brother insignias are more trouble then they are worth. Probably only worth 1/4 value and only to a smith who would just melt it down for raw materials).

Seems reasonable and I may borrow it (assuming the best with a potential future campaign). I saw a mention today of some talents in the book of beasts that I wasn't aware of. Are they monster/beast related talents or more nonspecific ones? On a peripherally related note, I converted my second mini for use with FL last night (an elven druid). Obviously she can pull double duty in any fantasy rpg but the inspiration for the conversion/repaint from an old prepaint was FL specifically. The first one was a goblin hunter.

I wonder if they're eventually going to come out with a three book set with their players handbook, gamemaster guide, and book of beasts.

The new BoB talent I believe is alchemist.

Involves creating a number of conconctions by harvesting herbs and mixing them with extracts from monsters (dragons blood, gryphon feather, that kind of thing).

It sounds like a good addition. I will admit that I was thinking/hoping that it was some sort of a beast rider/tamer talent given the book's content.

Naw, no such luck. The world of forbidden lands is about gak eating you, not being your friend

Let's hope that won't be the case tomorrow. If things go as planned, I should be introducing some younger family members to their first tabletop roleplaying experience in a short convention style game. Wish me luck!

Woo! Good luck. To them.