FreeMarket

WindUpBird

First, I'm giving massive propers to Matt for putting this in the Thing of the Day thread.

Anyway, Luke Crane just opened beta on his newest RPG, FreeMarket, and it looks friggin' incredible. I've skimmed the rulebook, and from what I can tell, it's essentially some of Crane's more refined "storytelling" mechanics applied to a posthuman setting based really heavily on some of that setting's better SciFi. Like in Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom (by Cory Doctorow), the economy is reputation-based and the game takes place in a posthuman utopia. Bodies can be regrown, anything you want can be 3D printed, murder is legal (but will earn you frownie emotes), and all sorts of traits and body mods can be applied to your character to, say, allow him or her to climb walls or be able to trace people by scent. Conflicts revolve around all sorts of abstract social interaction, from meme bombs to competing clade interests.

Everyone here should register and download the sourcebook PDFs here.

Koholint

I read about the first 49 pages of the book, and I have to say I really want to play this game. Now to figure out which of my friends would be willing...

Sail

Yeah, I read some of it and it looks really good. I want to play very badly.

thaneofcawdor

I made a character called Captain FreeMarket, who belongs to The Running Man MRCZ. Murder sports in deep space? Oh yeah.

WindUpBird

I'm rolling (I guess that's the proper term...) tomorrow. Probably for a wetworker, but I don't know yet.

Churba

I'm skimming the Books right now. Looks good so far.

ElJoe0

Have the thousand downloads finished yet, I will link my copy if any of you want it.

WindUpBird

I spent all my time around campus today thinking about tech and scenarios for FreeMarket. One of the coolest Tech ideas I had (which would probably have to be tier VI to be anywhere near balanced) would be gyrojet shells with a Key-interface managed through the gun, with NEMS for aerodynamic maneuvering of the shell to a Key-designated target. The shell would have a picoscale computer for thrust and navigation calculations and managing connections with the user's Key. Basically, a fire-and-forget bullet that follows a target you designate just by maintaining visual contact.

Oh man. I cannot wait to play this.

Apreche

I actually have a copy of the game now. I played it once many months ago, and had some fun. Now that I'm actually reading and grokking the rules, this might become the RPG I always want to play instead of anything else. I'll say more after I read all the rules and maybe play it again. Hopefully I can play this weekend maybe.

Cremlian

I actually have a copy of the game now. I played it once many months ago, and had some fun. Now that I'm actually reading and grokking the rules, this might become the RPG I always want to play instead of anything else. I'll say more after I read all the rules and maybe play it again. Hopefully I can play this weekend maybe.

I doubt we will be playing it this weekend it will be beach and boards overload with no time to rest ^_^ (if you wanted board games and RPG's you should have went to the week of awesome ;-p)

Apreche

I doubt we will be playing it this weekend it will be beach and boards overload with no time to rest ^_^ (if you wanted board games and RPG's you should have went to the week of awesome ;-p)

Aha, but Freemarket is extremely quick, for an RPG. You will be surprised.

Shaun

FreeMarket is awesome. I've successfully run it at cons twice, and for my home group multiple times. Ironically, the people who have the most problems with it are people who have played RPG's for a looong time. Newbs get it right away. Same thing happens with Burning Wheel & Burning Empires, in my experience.

Anyway, I'm waiting impatiently for my copy to arrive. Hopefully it'll be here next week.

Apreche

Ironically, the people who have the most problems with it are people who have played RPG's for a looong time. Newbs get it right away. Same thing happens with Burning Wheel & Burning Empires, in my experience.

The only time I played it was with Jared at that Recess. I have lots of RPG experience, but I did just fine. I think the other people at the table also at RPG experience, but they were excellent as well.

What I like about the game is that there's really only one mechanic, the challenge. The entire game is just challenges. The challenges are a little funky, but once you learn it you're all set. Just keep rocking that deck of cards over and over.

How did you run it if you are waiting for your copy to arrive? Did you make cards?

Shaun

Yeah, I got the beta copy, had the cards printed out on cardstock, then put them in sleeves for some extra rigidity. It's not optimal, but it's certainly playable. At first, I just bought cheap decks of playing cards and wrote the card types on in Sharpie, but that lost too much flavor.

When I ran it for people who played RPGs a lot, they tended to focus too much on the statistics of the cards. The Superuser will always come out ahead if everybody always engages in group challenges, and it started to get the grognards frustrated. Newbs just played the game for what it was and had a great time. My best con player was a 14 year old girl who was there for a Catan tournament. She took to it like a fish to water.

Apreche

The Superuser will always come out ahead if everybody always engages in group challenges

That's intentional because group challenges are the only way to get the profitable flow rebate. Also, even if the superuser is coming out ahead, you better get some bugs and some tech to turn the tide until you reshuffle.

As long as nobody counts cards...

Shaun

Yeah, I tried explaining that to them, but the complainers were very much into risk mitigation. Jared and Luke tend to not design games that let you get ahead without significant risk.

Apreche

Yeah, I tried explaining that to them, but the complainers were very much into risk mitigation. Jared and Luke tend to not design games that let you get ahead without significant risk.

I think the thing is that flow is supposed to be a big motivator. Non-gamers will easily be motivated to get more because they think "oh, it's like getting more money" but gamers are less likely to be motivated by it because "oh, it's not money." I think the best way to get people to go for the flow is to make them want to go for the MRCZ challenge. Tantalize them by reading the resources that a high level MRCZ gets, and they'll risk on the group challenges.

balderdash

So tell me a bit about some of your plots, y'all. The game seems to free-form in principle but so restricted in setting that I feel like I'm having a hard time coming up with sufficiently narratively compelling ideas to hook my players without stealing wholesale from cyberpunk novels that I think they've all read already.

Apreche

So tell me a bit about some of your plots, y'all. The game seems to free-form in principle but so restricted in setting that I feel like I'm having a hard time coming up with sufficiently narratively compelling ideas to hook my players without stealing wholesale from cyberpunk novels that I think they've all read already.

The one game I played was totally ad-hoc. Me and three people I didn't even know came up with characters. I was a cyber-athlete of a sport I made up on the spot named Schnozzball. The MRCZ we formed ended up being about promoting teeth and dentistry. After we finished making characters and our MRCZ Jared wrote some notes on paper for about 10-15 minutes. Then he just asked us "what are you guys doing today?" We started by printing something, and we went to town. Every step of the way, he threw some trouble in our way.

All he really did on his notes was to combine the aspects from our memories and such in interesting ways. For example, in one of my memories I named a rival schnozzball player. In another memory I named a girl in my fan club. He decided the girl was my rival's daughter. A major part of the game was that I made a contract with a sporting goods printer to make teeth-related chotchkes for our MRCZ. In return, I had to get that girl to be a fan of her dad instead of me by getting one of the other players to flood/bleed her. Then after I totally knocked her dad's teeth out in the arena, she frownied me because we succeeded!

That was just part of one session.

Shaun

I had one group that decided to be an advertising MRCZ. Before I even had a chance to hit them with stuff from their long-term memories, they jumped on the idea of printing rocket-skate wheels that projected an ad in a holographic rooster-tail and gifting them to a roller derby MRCZ. They managed to just barely win a group Printing challenge to produce them, and I wound up giving them one of the tags for the Tech they just created, so I made the wheels oval-shaped, and then they spent the rest of the session in challenges trying to convince the roller derby MRCZ to take the misshapen wheels, all the while avoiding one of the players' sister, who was really intent on deathing them.

Gundampilotspaz

Rules Questions: Do points in experiences do anything other than give you the ability to burn them? Can you burn an experience if you only have one point in it?

Apreche

Do points in experiences do anything other than give you the ability to burn them?

Yes. If you begin a challenge by activating an experience, you can only go for it a number of times equal to the number of points you have in that experience. For example, I enter a printing challenge, and my printing is two. I activate printing at the start, that means I can use the "go for it" action up to two times in this challenge.

Can you burn an experience if you only have one point in it?

Yes, you can burn anything down to zero, but not below zero. Of course, there are always consequences for this.

Gundampilotspaz

Do points in experiences do anything other than give you the ability to burn them?

Yes. If you begin a challenge by activating an experience, you can only go for it a number of times equal to the number of points you have in that experience. For example, I enter a printing challenge, and my printing is two. I activate printing at the start, that means I can use the "go for it" action up to two times in this challenge.

Can you burn an experience if you only have one point in it?

Yes, you can burn anything down to zero, but not below zero. Of course, there are always consequences for this.

Thanks, I just had an overwhelming urge to add that number.