Saturday, February 17, 2018

Revenge: A Pirate RPG

The Golden Age of Piracy is one of my all time favorite historical eras. A couple of friends suggested I start running a pirate tabletop campaign for fun and my mind accidentally went haywire with ideas and this happened:

Hexmap of the Spanish Main. Islands are spaced further apart for more wild encounters. 

In my game it is 1716, one year after the Wreck of the Spanish Treasure Fleet. Sailors from Cape Cod to London have heard of the tales of the immense amount of gold scattered on the sands of the Florida Keys, itching to be took. The bravest among them have abandoned being abused at sea by Spanish, French, or English captains for little to no pay in search of their own fortunes. More on this and how the supernatural effects this world a little later.

The character sheet

Like I said in a previous post, some of the mechanics are based on The Driftwood Verses, including Afflictions (like Sorrow and Doom) and Skills (like Seafaring and Reload). I took out the deathray style saves because I like using Abilities for that.

With Skills, I use Last Gasp's style of learning skills through usage, but only on the 2nd, 4th, and other even number levels they can roll to see if they gain another dot in that Skill. Players can also interact with NPCs that may know a thing or two about the Skill to gain tallies.

The ship sheet

Ships are almost characters themselves. There are three ship types: Sloop, Frigate, and Galleon, each with pros and cons in Cargo storage, Cannons firepower, and Speed. Combat works the same as Driftwood Verses with contesting Seafaring rolls to execute maneuvers. The Move maneuver uses Speed of the ship, which is based on Pirates of the Spanish Main's usage of measuring via Longways (L) or Shortways (S) of a playing card. I found this the easiest to translate since I use their minis for combat anyway.

Resources play a huge role in dictating what the players can/need to do. Using the Plunder System helps with randomizing loot for pillaged ships, but its always a risk because it may not carry what the players need. Each hex requires Provisions to travel to, Munitions to fight enemy ships or creatures, and Wood to recover from said battles. They can also find Treasures to trade in at outposts for gold/XP gain. This aspect of resource management really drives home that the PCs are scrappy survivalists and not just unstoppable forces at sea.

I will be posting some Session Notes from this in the near future as well as some tables I've made for pirate era Items, Wavecrawl Encounters, and Crew Morale. In the meantime if you are looking for similar inspiration checkout Zak's Wavecrawl post and Weird On the Waves which also have been a huge help. Cheers!

Tuesday, February 13, 2018

The Plunder System


After a ship is seized and raided, draw a hand of playing cards. Numbers are quantity of items found, the suit is the type. Usually, 1 "barrel" of plunder allows the crew to take the associated action. (ie 1 barrel of Gunpowder allows the ship to enter combat on that hex, 1 barrel of Provisions must be consumed each day for upkeep to the Crew Morale, etc)

Spades are Gunpowder and Cannonballs (for combat)
Clubs are Wood (for making ship repairs)
Hearts are Food and Provisions (to improve or maintain crew Morale)
Diamonds are Valuables (traded for gold)

Standard poker hands decipher what is earned. Always round down if the number is odd.

  • High card gets the half of the number of provisions of the highest card.
  • Two pair gets you half of the provisions of both cards in the pair.
  • Three of a kind gets you half of the provisions of all three cards.
  • Straight gets you half of the provisions of each card in the straight.
  • Flush gets you half of the provisions of each card in the flush.
  • Full House gets you half of the provisions of all of the cards.
  • Four of a Kind gets gets you the provisions of all four cards.
  • Straight Flush gets you the provisions of all the cards.
  • Royal Flush gets you the provisions of all the cards plus a powerful and unique magic item.

Obviously its not a perfect system, but its a fun way to randomize the loot and give the feel of taking ships being a gamble as it was back in the day. I usually reskin what they get each time too, like barrels of rum for Provisions or tobacco for Valuables, giving infinite combinations of what they can find and loot.

Monday, February 12, 2018

Back From The Dead

Hello! I'll be returning from my long hiatus from blogging with a few posts to keep my thoughts in order with some games I'm running. It's been a few years (like 3...whoops!) so here's what I am running:

-Revenge: A Pirate RPG: A hack of D&D Frankenstein'd together with elements of other systems. There's a decent draw from the upcoming Driftwood Verses and Weird on the Waves but set in 1716, the Golden Age of Piracy. It is low magic, with Witches being extremely rare and shunned from society. Skeletons, Dire Whales, and other supernatural creatures can be found however. I run this one weekly to bi-weekly.

-Raiders! Thrilling Tales of Fortune and Glory: A very light Story Game-esque system based on Apocalypse World and The Stolen Century from TAZ. Set in the 1930s, players take rolls as artifact hunters seeking to protect the world from evil. Almost like League of Extraordinary Gentleman meets Indiana Jones. I run this monthly with a rotating group. Each adventure is a one-shot.

There you have it. I'll probably post a bunch this week from the two games to mind dump everything I have been working on.  Stay tuned!