Freelancers’ Roles
Work as a Team
Welcome back freelancers!
We touched on two of the roles that players will be taking on last week – the Cartographer and Scout, and we’re going to continue to show off the 5 remaining responsibilities today! Yay, responsibilities! Every player will receive at least one role at the beginning of each Freelancers quest, depending on the number of players.
First up is the Medic. Every successful adventuring party needs a medic to track their health. In Freelancers the Medic manages the wounds with a handy dandy tracker. Whenever a player would gain a wound, the medic takes a token off their track and covers one of that player’s hearts on their character sheet, or armor card. The hearts represent a player’s health (also called HP). If that player does not have any available hearts to cover, then the wound token is placed in the time bag, signifying that the party is wounded. When a wound token is drawn from the time bag, the negative effects listed on the back of the token affect all freelancers and that wound is discarded from the game.
Here's a hot tip: Players can heal wounds and stress off their character sheets by visiting campsites!
If the last wound token is ever taken off the Medic board, then the party is too wounded to proceed with their quest and the game is lost.
The Game Master role should go to the player with the fanciest smart device, because they will be controlling the Freelancers app. The Game Master will be tapping the map locations that the party visits, reading out consequences of player’s actions, and entering entry codes. The app is fully narrated by professional voice actors with perfectly designed music and sound to wholly immerse players into each quest.
The Game Master works closely with the Bookkeeper by managing the timer for the planning phase and entering the chosen entry numbers.
Bookkeepers have the pleasure of managing the beautifully illustrated location book! They will turn to the correct page when directed by the GM and read out the action choices available to players. But they will NOT tell players what effects the actions will have. Players should pay attention to the icons shown under each listed action, and listen to their gut. What would their character do when visiting a beanstalk village filled with harpies, or an subterranean town run by mushroomfolk?
The Influencer will call out turn order when the time is ready to place standees during the planning phase. Players will gain and lose influence throughout a quest whenever they do admirable or embarrassing things. Kinda like real life! Being on top of the influence track gives first choice during action selection, along with tie-breaking benefits, and the respect of your fellow party members. If a player would ever gain enough influence to pass the top of the influence track, then they may discard a nasty corruption token, if able.
Players have 45 seconds to place their character standees, in influence order, on an action. If they ever take longer than 45 seconds, then a chosen player, usually the one who caused the delay, will take a wound! Don’t worry though, the timer can be adjusted and 45 seconds is longer than you think.
After all players have placed their standees the action resolution phase begins. At this point the Bookkeeper will direct players what to do based on the actions they chose, whether it be gaining skills or corruption, or having an interesting encounter with a weird local. The bookkeeper will let the game master know when to push certain icons or numbers.
Some location book pages will have players taking on a major obstacle or enemies. And that is where the Lookout comes into play. They will use the dials on the Lookout Board to keep track of important numbers which can represent aspects such as enemy armor, enemy health or magical effects. The dials will be lowered and raised depending on the outcomes of certain encounters and skill checks. So the Lookout will need to be on the lookout during all players turns.
Come back next week as we show off how to gain skills and level up your character to become the best darn Freelancer you can be.
