IC: [FU] Into the Darkness...

System: Freeform Universal Classic, with flavor from Notequest and/or Heroquest
Tone: Old School Dungeon Crawl
Post Frequency: 4 days/week
Setting: Homebrew. We're going to play to find out!
Scope: 4 PC Limited Series, possibly with an option to extend and expand.

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All comers are welcome.

I'm an old hand who's been out of the game a while. This will serve as my re-entry into play-by-post and game mastering.

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Finn's Crossing -- a small but prosperous agricultural town located several days north of the tri-city delta. Prosperous, that is, until the river dried up, and with it most of the trade and traffic that used to flow through. The crops have begun to whither, and while caravans still occasionally travel by land the community won't have much to trade without a crop surplus.

Certain folk have turned to adventuring for treasure in the hopes of avoiding the looming spectre of abject poverty. If that's you, come on over and join the party.

Whet your knife, check your rations, and keep your torches dry. You're about to explore the twisty passages under the Earth, where the sun don't shine. Seems there's a fabled treasure to be had down there, and it isn't going to come marching up into the light of day to be found.

Hello, Im New To Ttrpg Scene,i hear Freeform Universal Classic is Great To New Players, May I Being Invited For this game?

Absolutely. I don't have all the forums up yet though so bear with me if there's something missing and feel free to speak up if you do find yourself needing something that isn't there yet.

Got Your Invite! :)

I've read but never played FU -- cool to see it on offer here. I'm interested but pretty full-up on games and under water at work at the moment. If you're still looking for folks next week, I might put my hand higher in the air...

Hi, I'm really interested. I'm familiar with FU, though I've only read it and haven't played it. But I have a few questions before I apply to join.

- You mentioned dungeon crawls. Do you have anything specific in mind? I mean, when you say dungeon crawl, are you referring to OSR principles (which I’m not sure fit perfectly with FU, but we can try and see how it goes) or dungeon crawling in a more general sense?
- What kind of atmosphere can we expect? Stuff like Flaming Princess (I don’t know if you’re familiar with it—emotional horror and body horror). I’ll say right now that in that case I’d be less enthusiastic but still interested. Or a more classic D&D-style fantasy approach?
- What kind of GMing can I expect?
- A few words about me. I’m an old player who’s passionate about games like Fate, Apocalypse World, and various other indie games, but I also like the OSR genre, especially when the mechanics aren’t too complicated.

I love questions! Thanks for asking.
I think I can answer these two together. I am not familiar with flaming princesses but we're not focused on eldritch horror. I wouldn't rule it out completely (who KNOWS what's down there, after all) but I'm aiming for something closer to old-school D&D than Call of Cthulu.

When I say dungeon crawl, I'm invoking the OSR atmosphere; the feeling that there is something at the end of the hallway, just beyond your torchlight. Could be a trap, could be a treasure, could be a particularly clever monster waiting to bite off whatever you reach in with.

The setting is low magic fantasy. If you ever played the boardgame HeroQuest, that's a lot like what I'm envisioning, except in story form. Mechanically, it won't play out exactly like OSR because the rolls are player-facing and based on a "beat the odds" mentality.

For example, if you want to find out if your character can pick the lock on a chest, you declare your action and intent: "I try to pick the lock." and then roll one or more d6s to "beat the odds". If the result is even, you get a 'yes'. If it's odd, you get a 'no'. You'll roll with advantage or disadvantage depending on skills, gear, and details in the narrative. The Narrator (that's me) will then lay out what happens: maybe you find a fabled artifact, maybe the lock jams and you hear a squad of goblins rushing to investigate the noise you made.
Since we're playing "to find out what happens", you can expect me to be rooting for the PCs rather than trying to overwhelm them. You can expect a collaborative conversation where the players and narrator work together to build a story about the PCs and the town they came from. Maybe even the world at large.

You can expect fair adjudication of the rules, the dice, and the context of the fiction. Just because I'm rooting for you doesn't mean I won't challenge you. Nothing in the game will instantly kill your character, but if the party doesn't manage its resources there may be some OSR style lethality happening. In particular, make sure you've always got a light source; it gets lethal in the dark.

You can expect clear communication coming from a veteran GM and storyteller. I love using my imagination to build worlds and then finding out what happens when the characters involved start scheming and planning and pursuing their goals. But this isn't just about what I envision; I'd like my players to express the things they want to see and build the world with me. There's a bit of this baked into character creation, actually.
Excellent. I got my start in the old 'Red Box' basic D&D rulebook. Like you, I am fascinated by a lot of the NSR streamlining. I've been getting away from the games that require an entire library to be played well. I want something fast that gives us a framework and then gets out of the way so we can play, which is why I'm trying out FU.

Full disclosure: this will be my first time running a Freeform Universal game, so there may be a few hiccups as we clarify some rules and expectations. I've already set up a few bespoke threads in the forum to communicate those clarifications and the players can always ask for more details (which will also likely wind up in those threads for future reference). This will keep things consistent as we build it all out.

If you're okay with that and you like what's cooking here, I'll look forward to seeing your application.

Hi! I think I'm interested as well. Never played FU before, but I'll try anything once. Also, I am kind of in the mood for some gritty low fantasy stuff anyways.
Would you mind elaborating on the setting just a tad more? I am not familiar with HeroQuest at all, so that does not narrow it down much for me. The box art gives me some Conan vibes though and I'd be fine with that.
Will we have magically inclined PCs? How common is magic really? As in, how likely is an average guy to ever encounter an actual magic user? Are there/how common are fantasy races?

As for me I am also strongly OSR/NRS inclined. Lots of Knave and Black Sword Hack. And Fabula Ultima (The FU in the thread title attracted me to the game XD) for some reason, even though it is very far removed from any of those.

I'm onboard!

Hello, and welcome to the party! :)
Conan is a good frame of reference. Pulp swords-and-sorcery matches the vibe pretty well. The scope is more local than epic, at least for this series. We can always expand later if we need a bigger campaign.

Finn's Crossing is a small farming settlement that relies on trade with the larger cities. We WERE an important part of their food economy but that seems like it's about to change.

We're playing a custom setting with a largely pre-medieval society and an iron-age technology level. The local currency is the copper coin. Merchants may have some silver; anyone with more than a gold coin or two is definitely not from around here.

We haven't established the social structure of society-at-large, but we're generally looking at towns and city-states, with some areas possibly being claimed by a local lord. Finn's Crossing considers itself largely autonomous in that regard, but this can change. We're still doing some world building.

The basic idea is that the PCs (player characters) are being sent on a quest by the town leadership in the hopes of finding something to keep the town's economy alive. They're delving a local crypt seeking a valuable artifact to bring back.
Yes! If you want one, you can definitely play that. The classic SRD doesn't define classes or a magic system; it lets you have whatever character you can imagine, but I'm currently hammering out some details to facilitate play as a caster or cleric if you'd like to explore that. I was actually just sitting down to write some of that when I saw your post!
Aside from magic-using PCs, you can expect to encounter the occasional shaman type who can summon or sling spells, or a boss with a few special effects such as poison or regeneration. Most of the monsters won't have magic. You may occasionally encounter some fantastic creature or other who does but they're the exception rather than the rule.

You might be able to find magical treasure in the form of wands or scrolls, but your average guy doesn't generally see too many of these. Then again, your average guy doesn't go exploring monster-infested crypts and caverns for treasure, either.

Should you choose to harness them, you can expect the Winds of Magic to be fickle, but rewarding. You'll have 'will points' that you can use to ensure you're rolling with advantage. I'd suggest using them judiciously.

I'm still working out the spell list but you can expect the usual basic fantasy staples to be in there, and you can of course request others if you have something specific in mind during character generation (session 0).
Finn's Crossing is largely human-centric as it stands now, but being situated next to a river means that all sorts of folk eventually come through. They've seen catkin, elves, dwarves, gnomes, and other sorts stop by following the river route north or south. They expect to trade news from abroad for local stories, ale, camaraderie, and sometimes even coin.

Cities in this world generally could be largely Human, Dwarf, Elf, Orc, Giant, Goblin, even Gnome. Others are possible; that's one of the things we're playing to find out as we build the setting! We're probably not going to get much done poking around in the more chaotic cities that are considered enemies to the more 'civilized' races though.

If you need a more specific frame of reference I'll be posting a list of races and classes that could be found in the world. I just haven't written it up yet.
Yeah, I should probably find a way to disambiguate. I've never played Fabula Ultima so I sometimes forget it exists. 😅
I'll take it! Invite inbound.
I didn't mean to skip over you, sorry about that. Life happens, and that is totally understandable if you don't have the time right now. I appreciate the interest regardless!

I'm hoping to be flexible enough to handle most schedules. If you think you can manage at least four posts a week, feel free to give it a try. There's also a roleplaying thread for handling in-town exchanges without the pressure. You could dip your toe in there and try the heavier stuff later.

I'll send the invite in case you decide you've got time for it.

Appreciate the invite, but I think I need to pass. Good luck with the game!

What's in the darkness beyond your torchlight? We have a slot left if anyone else is up for an old school dungeon crawl in a rules-lite frame.

I'm interested in joining if you'll have me :)

Good timing! Invite sent. We've got room for one more besides if anyone else wants to jump in and play to find out!

Sorry, i Windraw from this game, PbP is to much for me.

We've still got two slots open so there's room for someone who fancies a rules light dungeon crawl. It's easy: state your intent, roll a d6 or three, and play to find out what happens!

We'll be kicking off our crawl soon; there's still room if anyone wants to join. We can rough in a character concept and fill in details as we go, or I can fill out a sheet for you based on what you feel like playing.

Come join us! It'll be fun :)