D&D General What's your view on a pirate-driven campaign?

[S3PTI4N77]

I began a new game with four players, and the main theme is : Pirates!
My goal in this campaign is to focus on rp, exploration and giving the players more agency than ever (a sandbox, if you will). I'm looking for ideas of sea-based adventures for my players; do you have any ? I'm also curious on what is your view of a campaign where the players are pirates. I already have in mind the inclusion of a few adventures (re-worked for the world of the campaign) of Ghosts of Saltmarsh in mind, but I search more.

(For more context : The campaign sets on the Nomad Lands, an archipelago. At the center of it, the religious captial of Toram extends it's dominion over the Nomad Lands, but not entirely. I suppose the main interest of the players will be the the lands outside the dominion, where tales & legends of the people come to life.)

 

[AlViking]

Aargh, pirates are a scurvy lot of no-good scum who deserve to walk the plank or hang from the yardarm!

A true pirate is going to be evil, something I'd be cautious of. It's certainly going to work for some people of course, but be sure to ask your players. Personally I would twist things around a little bit and make them privateers, people who hunt down pirates. You aren't exactly the royal navy, you get most of your gold from the pirate ships you defeat. In many ways it gives you more options - you aren't just looking for any ship on a trade route that might be carrying riches, you're hunting down Smokebeard the Black.

Some random ideas

• Smokebeard the Black ran into trouble a little while back and had to bury his treasure to lighten the load. Can you get to it before he has a chance to get his ship fixed? Is there something on the island preventing people from retrieving the treasure?
• You're hunting for a ship reputed to be haunted, the figurehead contains the spirit of a ghost. It gives the ship a significant advantage that no ship can stand against. So if you see the ship, the best option is to run. But how did it come to be haunted? Is the ghost there of their own will or trapped in which case perhaps you can set the spirit free? Now you've got a mystery to be solved and adventure(s) to free the ghost? But will she happily pass on to the other side? Who knows!
• Barnacle Billy escaped the noose, there's a generous reward for his return. Plot twist is that he really was framed and the magistrate that was going to hang him is corrupt, the only reward you'll see is a watery grave.
• A conch shell washes up onto the beach whispering something in a language no one can understand, so the islander who found it is happy to get rid of it for a few gold. You manage to interpret the message via comprehend language or some other option and it's coordinates to a sunken prison. Can you find the prison and release what's trapped inside? Should you?
• A fog shrouded island only appears when the moon is full and the planets are aligned. It's said to hold the wreckage of a legendary fleet (you aren't above going after a bit of salvage). Unfortunately the undead crew has other ideas and the characters soon realize they'll also be trapped if they can't get out soon.

There are a lot of other options available of course, it depends on what kind of campaign you enjoy running. I tend to build in political entanglements and intrigue with different groups vying for power which could mean that you get hired to hunt down a rival pirate's ship, or there's conflict brewing between rival factions do you choose a side or try to broker peace?

 

[S3PTI4N77]

Aargh, pirates are a scurvy lot of no-good scum who deserve to walk the plank or hang from the yardarm!

A true pirate is going to be evil, something I'd be cautious of. It's certainly going to work for some people of course, but be sure to ask your players. Personally I would twist things around a little bit and make them privateers, people who hunt down pirates. You aren't exactly the royal navy, you get most of your gold from the pirate ships you defeat. In many ways it gives you more options - you aren't just looking for any ship on a trade route that might be carrying riches, you're hunting down Smokebeard the Black.

Some random ideas

• Smokebeard the Black ran into trouble a little while back and had to bury his treasure to lighten the load. Can you get to it before he has a chance to get his ship fixed? Is there something on the island preventing people from retrieving the treasure?
• You're hunting for a ship reputed to be haunted, the figurehead contains the spirit of a ghost. It gives the ship a significant advantage that no ship can stand against. So if you see the ship, the best option is to run. But how did it come to be haunted? Is the ghost there of their own will or trapped in which case perhaps you can set the spirit free? Now you've got a mystery to be solved and adventure(s) to free the ghost? But will she happily pass on to the other side? Who knows!
• Barnacle Billy escaped the noose, there's a generous reward for his return. Plot twist is that he really was framed and the magistrate that was going to hang him is corrupt, the only reward you'll see is a watery grave.
• A conch shell washes up onto the beach whispering something in a language no one can understand, so the islander who found it is happy to get rid of it for a few gold. You manage to interpret the message via comprehend language or some other option and it's coordinates to a sunken prison. Can you find the prison and release what's trapped inside? Should you?
• A fog shrouded island only appears when the moon is full and the planets are aligned. It's said to hold the wreckage of a legendary fleet (you aren't above going after a bit of salvage). Unfortunately the undead crew has other ideas and the characters soon realize they'll also be trapped if they can't get out soon.

There are a lot of other options available of course, it depends on what kind of campaign you enjoy running. I tend to build in political entanglements and intrigue with different groups vying for power which could mean that you get hired to hunt down a rival pirate's ship, or there's conflict brewing between rival factions do you choose a side or try to broker peace?

I appreciate your ideas and the details ! Thank you for your time, I'll definitely consider them!

 

[Misanthrope Prime]

I once played a pirate wizard who was trying to create a decentralized peer to peer magical network that allowed people to copy a little bit of a spell from thousands of spell books around the world so that wizards could have access to all spells at free or no cost.

 

[Voadam]

For a good guy/heroic pirate campaign have a bad guy nation/organization for them to raid.

I played a good viking pirate in a campaign where I had a background of having raided a tiefling nation of slavers who traded their orc slaves to a lich emperor who needed sacrificial souls to keep him going and power his super magics.

Fighting ships of bad guys to rescue slaves, take the bad guys' gold, and deny resources to an evil spellcaster was great.

 

[aco175]

I always found the problem was the ship. At low levels are the PCs the main people on the ship or are they just crew. If they are crew, then the players have less agency to sandbox. If one is the captain, then there is ship stuff to deal with which feels a bit like having animals in the party. In the way that some things that happen would get handwaved like a fireball destroying them/it.

They could be a strike force with a smaller ship or start the campaign with everyone just surviving a massive attack from the local guards. Maybe just escaping from prison and everyone fleeing on whatever ship they found. Maybe they are looking for a ship to start and need to go on several smaller quests for the NPC to gain enough favor/gold/reputation.

Destroy the ship. This is also a problem. It becomes more like a pet or NPC to the campaign, unless it never has a chance to get cool upgrades or a name. See Pirates of the Caribbean or Battlestar Galactica, or even the A-Team or Knight Rider. If it is a rental you can drive it like it is stolen and have cool NPCs on board to quest give and replace the linkboy and such.

A ship could be a bastion though and have cool upgrades like increased speed or auto load cannons and such. Depends on your game.

 

[payn]

I think a good way to get over "pirates are pure scum" problem that arises is to have a good reason for pirates to exist. Often, pirates were creations of nations to terrorize their enemies which they conveniently disavowed when the time was right. So, political intrigue is a good option for a metagoal for the PCs. The Black Sails series is a good source of inspiration. Traveller's Pirates of Drinax sandbox campaign is chock full of good ideas that could easily be ported over to fantasy.

 

[JamesLFlowers]

"A true pirate is going to be evil". This one I am going to have to disagree with. Look at the history of piracy in the Caribbean and you see that many pirates ended up pirates because of politics. Take Captain Kidd. He set out on a legally financed and supported privateering mission. He was hunting pirates. When he refused to attack a ship that was not covered under his privateering letter, his crew got mad at him. Then he attacked the Quedagh Merchant, an Indian Ship captained by a Englishman, sailing under French sea passes. It was sailing under French colors and should have been a legit prize, but the owners had politic pull and suddenly Kidd found himself destined for the gallows as a pirate.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

All true pirates have revolving door alignments.

 

[jmartkdr2]

One thing I haven’t figured out how to do is make certain kinds of ship-to-ship combat engaging for everyone. If the pc’s ship is in a cannon fight with another ship, it’s going to have an unequal distribution of agency, since the captain (or whoever is deciding where the ship goes) is the only one making real decisions.

There’s a few ways to work around this, but the classic ship-to-ship standoff doesn’t fit well. Some options:

1. Don’t make ranged weapons better than boarding actions. If the best tactics is “get my people on their deck” you can use the full range of DnD options

2. Give everyone their own way of moving around (flying mounts, their own ships, swim speeds) so everyone is free to act as tey like

3. Just don’t do ship-to-ship combat (not very pirate-y)

4. Own it and let one character have the spotlight during these scenes. (Just make sure other pcs get their own scenes)

I do think “ship as bastion” is the way to go if there’s one main ship. Ships almost always become their own character in Age of Sail stories.