''Freedom Fighters'' is a near-future

role-playing game A role-playing game (sometimes spelled roleplaying game, or abbreviated as RPG) is a game in which players assume the roles of player character, characters in a fictional Setting (narrative), setting. Players take responsibility for acting out ...

published by

Fantasy Games Unlimited Fantasy Games Unlimited (FGU) is a publishing house for tabletop and role-playing games. The company has no in-house design teams and relies on submitted material from outside talent. History Founded in the summer of 1975 in Jericho, New York b ...

FGU in 1986 in which American guerrillas form a resistance against invaders.

Description

''Freedom Fighters'' posits that someone such as the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

or an alien force has successfully invaded the United States. The players control characters who are guerrilla fighters. The game comes as a

boxed set A boxed set or (its US name) box set is a set of items (for example, a compilation of books, musical recordings, films or television programs) traditionally packaged in a box, hence 'boxed', and offered for sale as a single unit. Music Artists ...

that contains "The Character", an 80-page book that explains character generation and the game rules for characters; "The Resistance", a 96-page book with rules for combat; a 32-page book containing character generation tables and character sheets; "The Errant Knight", an 8-page sample scenario; a

gamemaster's screen A gamemaster's screen, also called a GM's screen, is a gaming accessory, usually made out of either cardboard or card stock, used by a gamemaster to hide all the relevant data related to a tabletop role-playing game session from the players. It al ...

, and dice.

Publication history

''Freedom Fighters'' was designed by J. Andrew Keith, with art by

William H. Keith Jr. William H. Keith (born August 8, 1950) is an American author mainly contributing to military science fiction and military fiction and related game design, who writes also under several pen names, such as Ian Douglas, Robert Cain and H. Jay R ...

, and was published in 1986 by FGU. However, FGU was in financial trouble by this time, and ''Freedom Fighters'' would be its second-last publication.

Reception

In his 1990 book ''

The Complete Guide to Role-Playing Games ''The Complete Guide to Role-Playing Games'' is a book written by Rick Swan and published by St. Martin's Press in 1990 that explains role-playing games and provides reviews of those that were on the market at the time. Contents ''The Complete G ...

'', game critic

Rick Swan Rick Swan is a game designer and author who worked for TSR. His work for TSR, mostly for ''Advanced Dungeons & Dragons'', appeared from 1989 to 1995. Swan also wrote '' The Complete Guide to Role-Playing Games'' (1990), published by St. Martin' ...

thought that the character generation process was covered "in excruciating detail, with over thirty pages and dozens of charts devoted to every conceivable physical, mental and attitudinal characteristic ... Needless to say, a lot of this is unnecessary and much of it isn't particularly meaningful." Swan also found the game mechanics similarly complicated. Although Swan found that time spent wading through the rules would produce "surprisingly realistic results", he concluded by giving the game a rating of 2.5 out of 4, saying, "This is humorless, difficult material that would have benefited from a sharper focus and a skeptical editor with a big red pencil."

References

{{reflist Fantasy Games Unlimited games Military role-playing games Role-playing games introduced in 1986 Science fiction role-playing games