How exactly do you apply the Stargrave locked loot to Frostgrave? What about telekinesis? I really need to buy a copy of Stargrave it seems.
I'd just treat treasure counters as SG physical loot, with the usual TN14 Will roll to unlock and Thieves and Treasure hunters getting the +6 bonus for carrying picks and knowing how to use them. Probably wouldn't allow wizards and apprentices to carry picks themselves (no training, right?) but they've often got pretty good Will scores anyway.
Going by how Data Jump works in SG, I wouldn't allow Telekinesis to move treasure until it's been unlocked. You could experiment with doing it otherwise, but at some point you'd need to unlock the token to get the contents off the table.
Mrs. GG likes the blip mechanic she heard about from Stargrave but I am unsure how to apply it to Frosgrave.
The Ping rules in SG are pretty much scenario-defined, but I don't see why they couldn't be adapted to FG. You'd need to decide how to build the "Ping Results Table" for a given game, and how actual Ping tokens get placed on the table.
The chart in Q37 is all bugs of various types, 15% of the time with two of them, 10% with three, so any given Ping is likely to be more dangerous than a single roll on the random encounter table - but you also have a 25% chance of the token being a "dummy" and no creature appearing at all. To translate to FG in similar terms - well, you could just use bugs as-is, but you could also build a custom chart with whatever you think are appropriately sneaky monsters, preferably with some kind of unified theme. Maybe spectral undead types, or bandits, or small but dangerous vermin? You'd want at least three types with one being rarer and more dangerous than the others to emulate the SG chart, but maybe just varying the numbers more would do instead. It's a lot like the way Blips work in Space Hulk, if that isn't Greek to you.
The Q37 scenarios either gives each player a small number of blips to deploy at the start of the game, or has one appear at the end of each turn, or both IIRC. For FG you could do the same, or have them show up instead of a random encounter roll 50% of the time when you open a treasure, or some combination. The more you use the more pressure they'll put on the players, so use more for co-op games or very simple terrain layouts, less if there are already a lot of potential hazards and difficult terrain to deal with or you just want to concentrate on killing each other instead of the NPCs. You're already using the GA rules for random critters, and that's pretty close to how Pings arrive - at least 6" away from any crew and out of LoS, or anywhere on a table edge. They get revealed if any crew ever ends its activation in LoS or vice-versa, but they can walk across fields of view while staying concealed. The AI mechanics don't actually let that happen very often IME, but maybe that'll be different in FG.
Probably something I'm overlooking that would complicate things, but on the surface it seems like a simple port as long you can both/all decide on when to use Pings, how many to use, and what to stick on the chart for when they get revealed.
Have to say from the Q37 games I've played Pings don't feel hugely impactful compared to the Unwanted Attention pirates or random critter chart, but maybe that's just been my experience. Haven't rolled a 20 yet and had 3 Warrior Bugs pop up in melee with my captain, but I'm sure it'll happen eventually.
25 August 2025, 03:59:35 PM
