As I put the final touches on Fort Caspar—the first of three zines describing the Fort in the Hinterlands setting—I am turning my eyes to the second in the series: The Hinterlands. Something is coming into focus here—a sort of game within a game. I have previously mentioned my desire to give game masters more ways to play with FitH, and this is a continuation of that theme (the first instance being the Skirmish Combat subsystem).
Introducing The Frontier Game: a structured layer of play that allows game masters (and eventually players) to operate the Hinterlands as a living frontier. The game consists of two distinct subsystems: The Frontier Cycle and the Regional Action System.
The Frontier Cycle
The situation in the Hinterlands is in constant flux, and every day there is a 1-in-2 chance that one or more events will occur.
When it rains, it pours.
When an event occurs, roll 1d10 to determine how many.
| Roll | Number of Events |
|---|---|
| 1 | 4 |
| 2-5 | 3 |
| 6-9 | 2 |
| 10 | 1 |
Then, roll 1d10 to determine where it occurs.
| Roll | Affected Region |
|---|---|
| 1-2 | The River Settlements |
| 3-4 | The Pine Expanse |
| 5-6 | The Bastion at Stonefall |
| 7-8 | The Melttlands |
| 9-10 | The White March |
And finally, roll 1d10 to determine what actually happens.
| Roll | Event Type | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Raid | Faction attacks settlement, claim, or caravan |
| 2 | Monster Surge | Increased encounters in region (+1 intensity) |
| 3 | Resource Strike | New resource discovered OR depleted |
| 4 | Supply Disruption | Trade routes fail; costs +20% |
| 5 | Reinforcement | Faction gains strength (+1 FT equivalent) |
| 6 | Internal Conflict | Faction infighting weakens them (-1 to Action Rolls) |
| 7 | Environmental Hazard | Blizzard, collapse, wildfire, etc. |
| 8 | Opportunity | Valuable discovery (map, ruin, lead) |
| 9 | Expansion | Faction claims new territory |
| 10 | Escalation | Roll twice and combine |
Note: Location and event type should be determined separately for each event.
The Frontier Cycle undergirds the Hinterlands as a “plane” on which three types of activity occur: Conventional campaign-style play, frontier-level events, and regional actions.
The Regional Action System
Regions are alive, from weather and climate to flora, fauna, and settlements—with each full of enterprising men and women, controlled and defended by factions, and constantly under threat from the wilderlands and their inhabitants—and only strategic and decisive action can buy them another day.
Actions
Each region possesses the power to act and react to changing conditions, and once per day can take 2 of 5 available actions.
Note: Events occur before Actions.
Discover
Discovery allows the region to search for new opportunities and can be used to replace or renew depleted resources, reveal hidden sites, gain strategic advantages, and more.
Expand
Expansion allows the region to claim or secure additional territory and can be used to add control to a hex, establish a new outpost or presence, contest enemy territory, and more.
Exploit
Exploitation allows the region to extract resources from a controlled territory and can be used to generate resource output (iron, coal, timber, food, etc.).
Recover
Recovering allows the region to repair damage or restore capacity and can be used to rebuild destroyed sites, restore impaired output, resolve regional penalties, and more.
Secure
Securing allows the region enables to defend and stabilize of controlled territory and can be used to reduce encounter intensity, fortify settlements, and protect claims, all of which either cancel or mitigate hostile events.
Action Rolls
Regional action are susceptible to failure, and so action rolls are required to determine outcomes. Roll 1d10 and apply modifiers:
| Roll | Outcome |
|---|---|
| 1-2 | Failure |
| 3-4 | Complication |
| 5-7 | Partial Success |
| 8-9 | Success |
| 10 | Strong Success |
Regional Modifiers
Regions are described by two primary traits: Attributes and Resources.
Attributes
Regional attributes correspond directly to the five actions. Each region has three attributes: two positive and one negative. For example:
The Pine Expanse
| Action | Modifier |
|---|---|
| Exploit | +1 |
| Discover | +1 |
| Secure | -1 |
| Expand | 0 |
| Recover | 0 |
These modifiers are applied to relevant action rolls, and reflect actions that a given region is especially good or particularly poor at due to geographic features, resource availability, and more.
Resources
Each region generates certain resources (e.g. iron, coal, timber, food, etc.) which makes up their daily output. Resources are not amassed, and so it is not required that game masters keep the books for an ever-growing reserve—instead, they are assumed to be allocated entirely to sustaining the region, including maintenance, trade, and defense on a daily basis.
Life on the frontier is lived one day at a time, and building reserves here just exposes you to attack.
Instead, resource output translates directly to Resource Dice. Each region has an output level based on the number of operational assets, and gains a certain number of Resource Dice as a result.
| Operational Assets | State | Dice |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | Broken | 0 |
| 1-2 | Strained | 1 |
| 3-4 | Functional | 2 |
| 5 | Strong | 3 |
Resource Dice
Resource Dice can be used by regions to thwart negative events and increase the likelihood of positive outcomes. Additionally, players can use Resource Dice when in the region and allied with it, or advancing its goals.
| Roll | Outcome | Player Effect | Region Effect |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1–3 | No Effect | No benefit | No change |
| 4–6 | Edge | +1 to roll / reduce penalty | +1 to next action |
| 7–9 | Advantage | Avoid harm / improve outcome | Cancel or reduce event impact |
| 10 | Breakthrough | Automatic success / negate failure | Auto-success or major shift |
Resource Dice cannot be stacked; any Resource Dice not rolled on the day they are produced are lost.
Playing the Frontier Game
A refined and extensively tested version of these mechanics will be included as an appendix in The Hinterlands, with all information necessary to for this style of play embedded discreetly in each section dedicated to the various regions of the frontier—meaning this style of play is entirely optional, and indeed even completely transparent to the reader without this appendix.
It will nevertheless be strongly recommend, and the next update to this subgame will put this part of the game directly into players’ hands by giving them rules for staking claims and building their own regions!
Note: The Frontier Game is as yet incomplete, but there exists enough here to play out the concept. Elements will be adjusted, tuned, and updated prior to the release of the zine.