D&D General Talking to Players

[Paul Farquhar]

Oh, come on now. You listed a tone of pirate genre fiction you’ve consumed, when did the protagonists of any of those films and books ever attack a merchant vessel to steal their pickled fish?

I think even real life pirates would be pretty annoyed by a cargo of pickled fish!

 

[Charlaquin]

Typically, pirates are chaotic neutral, and steel from everyone, but especially the bad guys, who are often the navy, who are lawful evil.

Exactly! And often there are also supernatural pirates - perhaps ghosts or skeletons or cursed to be fish people - who are chaotic evil.

 

[BookTenTiger]

I wonder if it would be useful to write out some scenarios that might happen in a Secret Agent or Pirate game and then ask the players how they would react? Don't even roll up characters, just have them imagine.

For example:

"You have taken a fat merchant vessel. After a brief fight, the crew surrenders. All you find in the hold are barrels of pickled fish. What do you do?"

If they answer take the fish and sell it at the highest price in the right market, run that kind of game! If they answer kill everyone and sink the vessel, run that kind of game! If they answer recruit the vessel as a new smuggler, run that kind of game!

To me it would be more important to know what kind of game the players are expecting than what kind of media that consume.

 

[Lord Shark]

For recent(ish) media about pirates, there's also One Piece. Which, again, is not about robbing ships, it's about roaming the seas in search of adventure.

 

[Charlaquin]

For recent(ish) media about pirates, there's also One Piece. Which, again, is not about robbing ships, it's about roaming the seas in search of adventure.

Oh, good point! Pretty sure that counts as recent, since it’s still ongoing. It’s also absurdly popular (albeit less so in the US than elsewhere). Worth pointing out though that it’s aesthetically pretty different than typical pirate media.

 

[MichaelSomething]

All right secret agents squad Zulu; your mission is to infiltrate this Adventurer Guild and gather information on them! So go join them and do any quests they tell you to in order to gain their trust.

 

[jasper]

Ask them about the shows or cartoons they watch about secret agents or pirates. Better yet. Take a bad movie night with them and have them stream their favorite secret agent or pirate show. Do buy the popcorn.

 

[Charlaquin]

Ask them about the shows or cartoons they watch about secret agents or pirates. Better yet. Take a bad movie night with them and have them stream their favorite secret agent or pirate show. Do buy the popcorn.

To be fair, bloodtide did say they asked the players this, and their answers were that they couldn’t think of anything, apart from confirming that they’d seen “some” 007 and Jason Borne, and Pirates of the Caribbean.

Which to me basically says they’re only very casually familiar with either genre, so your best bet is to go as trope-y as possible.

 

[bloodtide]

Yes, because that’s what happens in pirate media. “Pirate” might as well just mean “nautical swashbuckler,” but for the additional implication that they fly a Jolly Roger instead of any country’s colors.

Yes, it makes more sense they are saying “nautical swashbuckler,” and not "bloody pirate".

Oh, come on now. You listed a ton of pirate genre fiction you’ve consumed, when did the protagonists of any of those films and books ever attack a merchant vessel to steal their pickled fish?

Well, a "movie" is really just a short story often like "a day" of a single adventure. It's not a campaign. A movie is "find the lost treasure" but a campaign does not work as "find the lost treasure...again" everyday.

To me it would be more important to know what kind of game the players are expecting than what kind of media that consume.

This is the problem, though.

They say "We want to do a pirate adventure campaign!"

I say "Well, can you be more specific?"

They say "like fun, cool pirate stuff!"

 

[pukunui]

This is the problem, though.

They say "We want to do a pirate adventure campaign!"

I say "Well, can you be more specific?"

They say "like fun, cool pirate stuff!"

So do what @BookTenTiger suggested and give them some specific scenarios and then ask them how they would react. That should give you more useful feedback than what a bunch of strangers on an internet forum can provide.