What Would You Like to See in a Pirate Campaign Setting

[Orius]

I want:

• Ninjas walking the plank
• Ninjas getting keelhauled
• Ninjas hanging from the yardarm
• Ninjas getting sent to Davy Jones' Locker
• Pirate wench vs. kunoichi catfights

That's all I can think of for now. Go Pirates!

Three words...

Random. Booty. Tables.

And I mean that in a Grandma-friendly way.

Arr, mateys it truely be a pirate campaign when ye be laden with booty.

 

[humble minion]

Don't mess around. The D&D sacred cows don't necessarily jibe with the pirate-y sacred cows. Go with the latter at all times.

There will be gunpowder, and cannons, and pistols. Shipboards catapaults and ballistas (ballistae?) just don't cut the mustard by comparison. If the system/setting can't mechanically cope with unarmoured fighter-types as a reasonably optimal choice, then it's deeply, deeply wrong pirate-wise.

Know how you're going to handle ship-to-ship combat so that more than the 'ship captain' PC can usefully contribute without being bored witless.

Setting-wise you probably want 2-3 major 'European' powers to plunder, ally with or otherwise. Then there should be a more savage 'native' empire or two for variety. Cliches are good - junks and ninjas, sea monsters, Aztecs and blood sacrifice, voodoo and zombies, headhunters and cannibals, etc, etc. Probably very humancentric, to be honest. The less standard-issue fantasy stuff that's routine in the world leaves more *fantastic* stuff to be happening at and beyond the fringes of the known map where pirates should be hanging around. Here Be Monsters and all that...

 

[Relique du Madde]

Guns. Cannons. Rum. Blasphemous sea horrors. Ancient Curses. Cannibalistic Natives. Gold. Plunder. Booty. Buxom Wenches. Diseases. The word "Arrrrr!." Ships. Naval based Torture.

What else can you ask for?

 

[Shades of Green]

A lot of islands, some uncharted, some well-known; some inhabited, some not; each with cool adventure locations. After all, you need ports of call, places to bury treasure, places to explore and places to maroon people on.

And yes, canons and flintlocks are probably quite important for a proper pirate atmosphere.

 

[1Mac]

Reaffirming the call for swashbuckling, ships, gunpowder, treasure. Think hard on naval combat rules. People playing pirate games want something that feels like naval combat but doesn't get bogged down in detailed subsystems. I'd say the same thing about weather, come to think of it.*

Islands with varying degrees of civilization and mystery, with pithy adventure hooks. Room to add other islands as the Gamemaster sees fit. A random island generator?

For my tastes, humans only, or at least avoid the archetypal fantasy races for something more nautical.

If you make a "sailor" class, don't make the mistake of just borrowing a bunch of rogue powers, or creating a swashbuckler that doesn't necessarily belong in a nautical milieu. Think about what sailors do, and how they actually fight (at least in popular media). If you wind up making a swashbuckler by mistake, call it what it is, instead of shoehorning it into a nautical theme.**

*Off and on, I'm actually running a pirate game with a lot of 4e rules, and I made a pretty good, simple random weather generator. I also made a 4e-style "Nautica" skill that I think works very well. Let me know if you are interested by PM.

**The new 4e Freeport book by Expeditious Retreat has a Corsair class, but I haven't checked it out.

 

[sellars]

swashbuckling, muskets, acrobatics, witty oneliners, and ofcourse Pirates!

 

[Voadam]

With 4e GSL in mind:

Psitols and cannons. Perhaps make them encounter based weapons.

Terrain/combat rules for swinging on ropes, fighting on masts, slippery wet decks (from water or blood), rolling decks, grape shot or cannonballs flying in the middle of combat, splintering wood from cannon shot.

Sample skill challenges. Storms, short rations, fixing damaged boats, taking/resist losing command, big picture sea battle, sailing to the right place, chasing/escaping from other boats, extracting treasure secrets from prisoners, recruiting pirates from surrendered ships, selling loot, etc.

Sample monster style NPCs.

A few notable pirate captains.

Ship deck maps.

Do not make new sailoring/captaining skills.

 

[Janx]

If I were doing a pirate campaign (and I have done a nautical one, just on the other side...)

make fireams be like crossbows. The game rules are already balanced...so take all the crossbows and make firearm analogs.

If somebody quibbles, point out that all the weapons are unrealistic in D&D. And that Blackpowder has a different explosive traits in this world.

Watch some pirate movies AND Master and Commander. M&C is a great example of sailing and ship combat.

One thing to note, is "real" ships carried more cannons. You'll need to tone them down in D&D terms, so you can have lots of guns, and still get a good ship battle. You may want to run a few test battles for like versus like, and big versus small.

Weather rules. Weather is a big deal in sailing movies. Plus it changes a lot.

Ship combat and sailing simulation. Like somebody else said, simplify it, and make it such that the whole party has "duties" to influence the battle. Since there's only 1 ship and several players, you've got to give everybody a fun way to bring success to the ship, yet not bog down in a lot of die rolls per round.

Thats all just mechanical stuff. Ranger Wickett had a bunch of other good ideas (so did some other folks)...

 

[Orius]

Guns. Cannons. Rum. Blasphemous sea horrors. Ancient Curses. Cannibalistic Natives. Gold. Plunder. Booty. Buxom Wenches. Diseases. The word "Arrrrr!." Ships. Naval based Torture.

What else can you ask for?

Treasure maps, where "X" markes the spot. Lots of stuff like skulls and cryptic clues too.

 

[weem]

Having/maintaining a (pirate) ship and crew for the most part.

Yea, that would be fun