As with most new rpg systems in the Kickstarter Age there was a lot of hype about Forbidden Lands around its launch but seems to have gone pretty quiet since.

I noticed it is available on Bundle of Holding so have picked up the pdf's and am impressed with the depth of the setting and the 'dark' non heroic style, but wonder how the heavy emphasis on hexcrawl survival works in practice.

Anyone been using this regularly pre Covid?  How is it to play?

The only real problem I have with this setting than counting how fast you travel through hexes - it's basically very smoll.

Quote from: Wicked Woodpecker of West on January 25, 2021, 07:06:03 AM
The only real problem I have with this setting than counting how fast you travel through hexes - it's basically very smoll.

Do you mean that the system does not generate enough encounters as PCs move from hex to hex so the game passes too quickly or that the scale/distances are wrong and PCs move too fast in the wilderness?

I mean that the world is bit small. I'm not saying travel is unrealistic per se, just that overall area is not that big considering given numbers of hexes party can traverse daily

I have a copy of Forbidden Lands but have yet to play it. Based on this thread, I think I'm going to adjust map scale so that players can only travel a hex a day.

My thinking is that it's all dense wilderness without established roads and characters need to spend time exploring a hex before moving on. If you are in the wilderness and are 3-4 miles from a town it's possible that you wouldn't even know it's there. If we are talking about a monster lair or a castle you could be a lot closer and still miss the thing.

Basically, since the setting is all about exploration there's no point in sprinting though it.

Quote from: finarvyn on January 26, 2021, 08:52:31 AM
I have a copy of Forbidden Lands but have yet to play it. Based on this thread, I think I'm going to adjust map scale so that players can only travel a hex a day.

My thinking is that it's all dense wilderness without established roads and characters need to spend time exploring a hex before moving on. If you are in the wilderness and are 3-4 miles from a town it's possible that you wouldn't even know it's there. If we are talking about a monster lair or a castle you could be a lot closer and still miss the thing.

Basically, since the setting is all about exploration there's no point in sprinting though it.

The game already covers this.  Each day is broken down into 4 quarters.  You are given a number of things you can do each quarter.  Some of the things can be combined, others can't.

If you HIKE through and area you can't EXPLORE it.  How far you get in a HIKE depends on if it's open terrain or difficult terrain (2/quarter in open, 1/quarter in difficult).  You can only HIKE twice a day before having to make endurance rolls.  If you are hiking through an area that's all you are doing, moving deliberately to cover distance.

If you choose to EXPLORE a hex all other options are off the table until the exploration is done.  This could take only a single quarter or can take days or weeks depending on what you found.

What is the system like? I know it is d6 diepool with 6's being a success -how does it really work in play?

How does combat work?

Character advancement?

How long of a campaign can the game run? it looks very 'contained'.

Can it be easily hacked for other fantasy gaming?

I thought it was pretty stupid. Magic requires willpower to cast, but you get willpower by pushing rolls. So your powerful sorcerer is probably spending some days trying to climb trees to build up enough willpower to cast cool spells.

Aside from that fundamental breakdown, the books are wordy with lots of implied setting, and it spends the first bit talking about how they will talk about the rules.

It's not garbage, but I don't see how it earned Game of Year by anyone's reckoning.

Quote from: Rhedyn on January 26, 2021, 01:01:32 PM
I thought it was pretty stupid. Magic requires willpower to cast, but you get willpower by pushing rolls. So your powerful sorcerer is probably spending some days trying to climb trees to build up enough willpower to cast cool spells.

Surely that would be a GM failing not a problem with the rules.  It is made clear that characters are not supposed to "Push" purely to gain Willpower.  It needs to be something unusual or possibly critical but NEVER a mundane task.
Is the Wizard (possibly injured?) forced to climb the tree to escape an attacking wild bear or is he just climbing to get a view across the river?
I would say that in the first case pushing the dice roll would be totally appropriate, but in the second not.

I think this mechanism is one of the most attractivet things about FL, player characters are absolutely not heroes and what they can do is very, very limited. I get the impression that the entire game is going to play out like early D&D with no-one allowed to progress above 2nd level.

What Robh said. Pushing only occurs in critical situations, and under the risk of harm or exhaustion of one's atributes. So it's never banal.

My understanding is that Fria Ligan does "Neo-oldschool" games, mixing old and new design sensibilities together, and Forbidden Lands is no different. I love this "fusion" myself, but I understand it can displease some grognards.

Quote from: robh on January 26, 2021, 01:33:31 PM

Quote from: Rhedyn on January 26, 2021, 01:01:32 PM
I thought it was pretty stupid. Magic requires willpower to cast, but you get willpower by pushing rolls. So your powerful sorcerer is probably spending some days trying to climb trees to build up enough willpower to cast cool spells.

Surely that would be a GM failing not a problem with the rules.  It is made clear that characters are not supposed to "Push" purely to gain Willpower.  It needs to be something unusual or possibly critical but NEVER a mundane task.
Is the Wizard (possibly injured?) forced to climb the tree to escape an attacking wild bear or is he just climbing to get a view across the river?
I would say that in the first case pushing the dice roll would be totally appropriate, but in the second not.

I think this mechanism is one of the most attractivet things about FL, player characters are absolutely not heroes and what they can do is very, very limited. I get the impression that the entire game is going to play out like early D&D with no-one allowed to progress above 2nd level.

Still dumb. There is no other way to cast magic than to have willpower and you only get it from pushing rolls.

Escaping a bear is just as stupid of a reason you can cast fireball as climbing a tree.

Stupid is in the eye of the beholder. FL willpower system is no more arbitrary than waking up in the morning and only being able to cast x number of spells per day.

Something interesting it promotes is forcing players to take risks and not just rely on special abilities from their comfort zones. It also emulates mages in some books where spells and such are only busted out when really needed, and mages aren't complete invalids when not casting magic.

Also, I've seen groups creating house rules to limit PCs hoarding Willpower pts so it's not that difficult to gain. Remember it stays with you between sessions, just like mutant pts in Mutant Year Zero.

Last but not least, if I remember right a Stronghold grants 1 willpower pt per session, so it's wise for the group to prioritize looking for one as game starts.

Quote from: Jaeger on January 26, 2021, 12:28:26 PM
What is the system like? I know it is d6 diepool with 6's being a success -how does it really work in play?

How does combat work?
Character advancement?
How long of a campaign can the game run? it looks very 'contained'.
Can it be easily hacked for other fantasy gaming?

I have only had the rules since Christmas and run through a few turns solo to learn the mechanics so hopefully someone with more experience of running games can speak up. But from my viewpoint:

What you can do in a combat round is determined by "slow" or "fast" actions. Making an attack is a slow action, drawing a weapon from scabbard or parrying with a shield is a fast action. You get 1 slow + 1 fast or 2 fast actions per round. You can "hold" the Parry fast action until your opponents turn.
Combat is by opposed die rolls. Each combatant builds a pool of dice based on base stats plus any gear and talents. Degrees of success matter and combat is very dangerous, I imagine that PC deaths will be a common occurrence.
For 1 on 1 combats there is also an optional highly detailed move/counter move card based system.

Character Advancement is by gaining and spending "Experience". There are set criteria than need to be achieved in a game period to qualify as experience. Players then use the experience  when they practice or study a talent before rolling to see if they increase the ability level. You do not "level up", you target your stat improvements/new spells/new weapon options to specific talents.

Campaign length is flexible. In theory a character riding a horse (3 hex per day) can go from one side of the campaign world to the other in 24 days if they do not encounter anything. But if you assume every hex has one or more potential adventure sites in it to be discovered there are potentially many hundreds of places to set games.

As for hacking, I don't know yet. The Monster bestiary is fairly limited and recognisable from OSR games so it should be easy to port suitable adventures over from other systems. Encounters/Adventures in FL seem more oriented to NPC party interactions (bandits, cultists or other parties of thieves/adventurers like yourselves rather than straight up monster hunts.

Quote from: Rhedyn on January 26, 2021, 01:01:32 PM
I thought it was pretty stupid. Magic requires willpower to cast, but you get willpower by pushing rolls. So your powerful sorcerer is probably spending some days trying to climb trees to build up enough willpower to cast cool spells.

Aside from that fundamental breakdown, the books are wordy with lots of implied setting, and it spends the first bit talking about how they will talk about the rules.

It's not garbage, but I don't see how it earned Game of Year by anyone's reckoning.

I really liked the game world and for the most part the game rules.
However I immediately did not like the you get willpower by failing tasks.
I just couldn't get past this after a couple of sessions and have since stopped running it.
It's just a stupid idea and doesn't work well.

It's a shame, the boxed set is beautiful.

I've just got my hands on the boxed set and the books are beautiful. Its been a pleasure to read compared to some game books I've bought recently that have been a slog to get through.

From the read through I have some of the concerns that others have mentioned. Specifically the issue of Willpower and the Map Scale/travel times. I don't think its a deal breaker, just sits a bit uncomfortably on reading but might work out ok in actual play. Its also something that can be tinkered with.