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Love Pratchett, but Pratchett, while written in fantasy, is far, far more satire than actual fantasy. You are, of course, right that exceptions exist. But, that's the problem. They're the exceptions. Fantasy is inherently nostalgic. It has to be. It's a romanticization of the past, which...

And, there is another point. When the game isn't designed for people who optimize, it means that the rest of us can pick it up and play without having to constantly deal with it. Optimization results in narrower and narrower choices to make. That was the problem with 3e. Yup, you had a...

Reading this, and I can't really disagree with the interpretation, does rather clearly define why I don't like fantasy as a genre. The navel-gazing of nostalgia - things were better in the past but the present is a pale shadow and the future is nothing but dissolution - of fantasy as a genre is...

Why are you insisting on "realistic" naval combat? You appear to be the only one who needs this in order to differentiate from pirate genre movies. I do seem to recall a rather large number of pirate movies where you have crews fighting other crews on ships. Doesn't need to be realistic...

Sorry, but Treasure Island is hardly the be all and end all of the pirate genre. After all, Pirates of the Carribean is obviously Piratey. As is Sinbad. Conan does piracy quite well in a number of stories. I would argue that the Pirate genre is slightly broader than a single novel.

I elevator pitched a campaign a while ago based on The Wandering Village, if you’ve played that game. The village of the PCs is on the back of a massive creature created by the dying planet to destroy the cancerous dungeon growths that are killing the planet. The players asked how they could...

@Remathilis - I feel much the same as you do. So, when I'm running my game, I want it to be a lot more hopeful to be honest. I'm rather tired of all the negativity I see and unabashedly want my pretend elf game to be a source of happy thoughts. I mean, good grief, I'm running Out of the Abyss...

For me, this is rather the point. If all you're doing is boarding actions and no actual ship combat, why bother with ships at all? If you're just going to skip over all the elements of actually BEING on a ship - skipping over the upkeep of the ship, living on the ship, carrying freight, all...

But, again, this is the problem with trying to use D&D for this. You're pretty much given zero guidance as to how to hand wave this sort of stuff in D&D. D&D doesn't do this very well. Like I've been saying all along, as soon as you have about 30+ combatants to a side, D&D stops helping you...

Not really since, by RAW, any attempt to find secret doors, traps or anything "hidden" comes under Perception. Investigation only comes into play if there is something tricky about how to open/disarm/somehow monkey with whatever it was that you perceived in the first place. IOW, you will...

Giving it a bit of thought, I would rule it something like this: Action - Force Morale. Make an Intimidate check DC=8+ the CR of bloodied opponents. If successful, opponents have the Frightened condition. If opponents are already Frightened, they surrender/flee (DM's option). Or, you...

All I can say is more power to you. I've tried it. I've tried it in D&D repeatedly and failed. The amount of work that is required to do that sort of thing in D&D is too much for me. Sure, I suppose I could hand wave it, but, then, if I'm doing that, why bother using D&D? If I'm ignoring so...

No they aren't. A sailing ship in the standard D&D list is a single masted cog. 20 crew. The point here is to KEEP THINGS SIMPLE. If you keep trying to add anachronistic ships it's only going to make things more complicated. So, don't do that. Think far less Master and Commander and far...

Actually, there is a very easy way to keep it that way. History. Three masts? Sorry, you're about three hundred years too early. They don't have three masted ships yet. Schooner? What's that cap'n? Some sort of shoe? Sloops? That's something you feed pigs right? :D My point being...

Just to go back to the point I was (badly) trying to make. By keeping your ships and whatnot smaller, it makes running the game a thousand times easier than trying to juggle the massive numbers when you get into really big ships. The grunt work of tracking cargo, food, water, that sort of...

Sorry, but, P 379 in the PHB is the index. Not sure what you're pointing to.

And this plays pretty much straight into @Benjamin Olson's point. Because, as a player, you never really know if THIS encounter is DM proof or not. It might be, it might not be. But, why waste the action on pointless attempts. The fact that the DM is invested in making this encounter a...

I find that this is pretty much the standard line. There's not much point in even making the attempt because, again IME, it's just not going to work.

Sorry, hunting for it, but, can you point me to a page number?