I was thinking it would be a good idea if the quickstart rules were posted on the fancy new Freebooter’s Fate site. That way people could more easily demo the game and see if it’s something that grabs their interest.
Also – since the cards are required to play, and since you might not know that when you pick up a starter kit either:
a) Post a printable BW set of the basic fate cards (none of the extra symbols) and hit cards.
b) Give instructions on how to convert a standard deck of playing cards into cards you can use with the quickstart rules for the “basic” game. I.e. – take the 1-10s of a set of cards and divy them up into two decks with so many of this number of ones, twos, etc And then use King = head, Queen = legs, Ace = abdomen, joker = torso, jack = right arm. (For convenience’s sake lets just say the quickstart version of the game ignores the left arm).
I don’t think it would hurt the sale of the actual cards much, if at all. Since people would still want them because they are nice, and need them for event cards, and the fancier stuff on the fate cards. Plus it would let people try out quick proxy games and get a feel for if they like the system or not.
Just an idea I had. Digging the new site too!
Cheers
We put up the quickstart rules; you can download them at http://www.freebooters-fate.de//Downloads_en.html
I don’t think the printable card set is going to happen, however. They really are not that pricey (especially for you lot, given the way the Euro is going at the moment) and they give you a good idea of the kind of material you get with the game. It would be a bit like a D20 company publishing a pdf for self-assembly polyhedrons to go with their games. Don’t forget that you only need one set of cards per game, not per player.