This is not a playtest review.
Avalanche Press' "Black Flags" is an historical sourcebook for running an 18th-century campaign setting for pirates and privateers in the Caribbean.
Price: $16.95
Page Count: 64
Price per page: About 27 cents per page, fairly expensive.
Format: Softcover
External Artwork: Well, any of you who have bought Avalanche Press products before know that the artwork is closer to soft porn than roleplaying in thematic content, though there is a lame attempt to justify the picture within the module. With such excellent quality, its a shame they don't use the art to better represent the contents.
Additional Page Use: The back page features a decent picture of a pirate's treasure chest on a beach, and a brief overview of the module. The inside covers are both blank. The first three pages contain a mono copy of the cover, a small bit of OGC info, and contents. The last page has the OGL.
Internal Artwork: The art is 18th-century-style people and items. It is poor, but minimal in amount and size on the page.
Maps: There are several very basic maps of the islands and lands where piracy was common in the eighteenth century. There is no scale stated on any of the maps.
Page Layout: As usual with Avalanche products, the text density and margins are average and there is not too much white space, but the border round the sidebars (a shell design) takes up a lot of space. Chapter headings and titles are not well presented.
Writing Style: Half of the book is essentially a well-written and entertaining history of piracy in the Caribbean in the early 18th century. This engaging style flounders a bit when it comes to the rules sections. There are not many editing mistakes, but of those few, some are pretty bad (an incorrect title at one stage).
Whats Inside:
Part 1: The Caribbean In The Early 18th Century, gives a brief historical background, before explaining the political role of each of the major European powers in the Caribbean, with a particular focus on piracy. The main hooks here is the unspoken war between Spain and the other European powers - England, France, The Netherlands and Denmark. Spain is rich and vulnerable. The others have a wealth of ex-seamen, unemployed after the War of the Spanish Succession ended in 1713. Many of these seamen have taken to piracy for a living, particularly the English. There then follows a discussion of the various products that make the Caribbean such a rich area for pirates - silver and gold, silks and spices, sugar and rum, and agricultural products (such as tobacco and indigo). The issue of slavery has a very interesting section - reinforcing one's perception of the horror of the conditions but adding some detail (diet - rice only, hidden communities of escaped slaves whose culture is mixed with the native peoples of the Caribbean, and white slaves from convict ships which are free to slave owners and therefore more expendable than black slaves) which I personally had not known about before. The section ends with some information on faith, and deals mainly with the influence of the anti-Protestant Jesuits.
Part 2: All The Ships At Sea, looks at life aboard ship in the Caribbean. Four types of ship are first discussed - galleons, ships of the line, frigates and merchant vessels. The manufacture, maintenance and navigation of these ships is also discussed. The crew is then covered, with information on officers, able-bodied seamen (sailors), slaves, marines (soldiers kept aboard to suppress mutiny on warships), ship's boys, cook, gunner and armorer, surgeon, carpenter, purser (corrupt financial shipping agent), and sailing master (navigator). Gunnery (cannons) are covered next, with sections on cannon size, loading, firing, types of shot, and boarding (with the use of swivel guns which fire grapeshot). Firearms and blades are then discussed before ending with a section on food and rations aboard ship (including hauling turtles aboard for livestock).
Part 3: A Pirate's Life For Me, looks at pirates and how they lived. How pirates become pirates, why most pirates are English, and the role of the ship's captain in piracy are first discussed. The issue of class in relation to piracy, 'recruiting', and pirate officers and crews are also covered, including a sidebar on pirate oaths. The life of a pirate is broken down into such issues as written agreements about teasure sharing, types of ships preferred (fast), combat, plunder, food, slavery, and pirate havens, with a sidebar on clothing. Legalized piracy (privateering) is discussed next, where the government licensed pirates to attack enemy shipping during wartime (called a 'letter of marque'). Other issues discussed in this section include black flags (including the Jolly Roger), atrocities committed by pirates (including sewing a victim into a bag with a pig and throwing him overboard - the pig attacks the victim whilst they both drown), and punishment (usually hanging). The section concludes with some examples of female pirates, and a note on prostitution in ports.
Part 4: Character Classes, offers new classes to replace standard D&D classes for a Black Flags campaign. The classes are merchant, noble, priest, sailor, and soldier. There are also classes called class templates (escaped slave, carpenter, cook and officer) which are a little similar to NPC classes in comparative power to the PC classes, but are meant to be used as multiclass options to add a profession to an already existing class - the class template still takes up a class level and there are restrictions as to which classes class templates can be used to multiclass with. The section ends with some prestige classes - captain, cardinal, navigator, and physician.
Part 5: Outfitting The Character, looks at equipment suitable for this era, as well as Feats and Skills. The section begins with a large sidebar regarding alignment which discusses the ease and logic with which alignment can be dropped in a Black Flags setting, and advises doing this (there is no magic 'per se' to complicate this). New Feats follow, including Amputate, Firearms Proficiency, and Improvised Weapon Proficiency. It also adds a new feat type: Panache, which is covered later in the book. New skills include bribe, navigation, and piloting. Types of equipment (musket, cutlass, borading pike, compass, cannonballs, powder horn, etc.) and ships (merchant brig, sloop, Indiaman, etc.) are briefly introduced and statistics given.
Part 6: Setting Sail, looks at ship-to-ship combat, firearms, and swashbuckling. Rules for grievous damage from firearms, gangrene, misfire and accuracy of firearms, and reloading are give, These are followed by rules details for cannon - size, damage, types of shot, rate of fire, and breech burst (your own cannon exploding). Ships' AC/Damage Resistance is also covered. The section ends with the Panache system, which introduces some swashbuckling rules - Panache is an ability, a points system to add flair to actions, at a penalty (a bit like Force Points in Star Wars), and a feat type (where certain feats can be temporarily bought with Panache points to achieve a swashbuckling action).
The High Points: I found the first half of the book a fascinating insight into piracy, with plenty of detail in each section to add flavour to any pirate-based campaign. The style was intelligent yet down-to-earth, and the setting itself seems to have plenty of potential for adventures, political maneuvering, and swashbuckling.
The Low Points: But it all fell sadly apart in the second half of the book. The PC Classes were just plain boring and under-powered: Merchant (with the ability to Haggle and bribe being their most powerful aspect), Noble (with the facility to gain paramours and favours). This theme goes on. The badly flawed Class Template system, where you effectively add on NPC classes at the cost of a PC class level, is ludicrous on a system level (though it possesses a certain internal logic). The Prestige Classes are similarly flawed. I found the firearms combat rules too realistic and against the concept of d20, which is to keep the rules simple and playable. The Panache system, though the concept of swashbuckling actions is a pervasive one, seems complex and unbalanced - its not a set of rules that was appealing to me, and would have been more easily solved by a single feat, or set of feats to represent swashbuckling actions. The lack of an adventure added to my disappointment and my suspicion that the major rules changes and complex systems would be hard to implement with no significant return.
Conclusion: Like some of Avalanche's previous offerings, this sourcebook provides some sound and interesting historical background, with detail and ideas that can be plucked for use in another campaign. Also like some of Avalanche's previous offerings, the rules sections are clunky, unbalanced, overly-complex and make a lot of unnecessary hard work for a GM. Where previous product was somewhat saved was an adventure with an interesting storyline, expounding the historical information in the rest of the sourcebook. Black Flags lacks this feature and suffers all the more for it. For me, though the first half was very interesting, it was only half a book, and an expensive one at that.
