Can I Make My Games More Like Pirates of the Carribean?

[Dragonbait]

I don't have any suggestions for the OP, beacuse I'm in same boat as them. I just wanted to say that this is a great thread with a lot of great ideas, and I, too, will need to impliment these ideas in my next campaign. Thanks guys!

 

[ruleslawyer]

Whilst in principle you are correct, you still need to say what game effects you are aiming for ("5 foot step and Whirlwind Attack...") for clarity. And the numbers have to be communicated some way too ("you take a resounding blow on the head from his mace, and for a moment the world swims out of focus and is filled with a roaring that turns out just to be the thumping of blood in your temples... 12 points of damage"), else the mechanics break down. The danger of padding out each attack and manoeuvre with lots of descriptive text is that the whole process slows down to a crawl and potentially becomes confusing.

I haven't found this to be the case; in fact, quite the opposite. Game play IMC has only run MORE smoothly since I instituted the "cinematic combat" rule among my group.

Of course you do need to say what you're doing mechanically... to a certain extent. For a lot of plain numbers mechanics (attack challenges, stunts, Power Attack, etc etc) it's not really necessary to concentrate on the mechanics. For special attacks, sure; but then, those are descriptive enough ("I make a whirlwind attack! I step up to him and sunder his puny bow! Etc.")

Also, keep in mind that I'm assuming here that the OP is doing this for his home group. IMC at least, there's a shared trust that people aren't going to exploit vagueness of description for mechanical benefit. Thus, a precise mechanical description of actions isn't necessarily crucial; just a precise resolution.

I tend to prefer to narrate first, and follow up with mechanics, as in your mace attack example. Also, I don't make my descriptions too florid, especially for normal attacks. However, so far in my IH game, there haven't been too many "normal" attacks; my players REALLY like to use the attack challenges and stunts unless making ranged attacks (since none of them is a dedicated ranged combatant).

ron Heroes (2005) is the one true ftr+rog game. All others are just imitations of the real thing.

Hey! I thought I said this was going to be my schtick!

 

[Remathilis]

EBERRON PIMP ALERT

Interesting Enemies - Don't make every combat against a particular type of enemy, but have them as a constant, palpable and thematic threat.

Eberron has evil cults (dragon below), daelkyr (abberations), sentient loyal golems (warfirge/lord of blades), undead (Vol), fanatics/nazis (Emerald claw), timeless schemers (dragons), fallen empires (giants), viscious canibals (drow), and political manipulators (alurum).

Interesting Places - Run-down windmills, a wicker ball hanging in a canyon, the deck of a ship, and so on.

Airships, Giant citadels, an impossibly tall city, psionic monoliths, lightning trains

Different Difficulties - Throw very weak and extremely powerful enemies at the PCs, allowing them to triumph absolutely against some creatures, and be forced to run and hide with others.

The warforged of the mournlands are nothing compared to the ragewalkers, living spells, corpse collectors, and the Lord of Blades himself

A Living World - Have changes in the world around the PCs affect them.

Anyone visit King Kaius III yet ;-) OR met Merrix d'Cannith? Or investigated Lake Dark? Or Travelled through the Mournlands?

A Sense of Time - Have situations where the PCs must act quickly.

Schemas need to be found before the Emerald Claw or the LoB does. A vampire escapes with a powerful sword free in the countryside, Xoriat is coming into alignment with Eberron

Description - Describe things in detail, both to immerse the PCs and allow them to use unconvential techniques to destory/defeat their foes.

The rain-slicked streets of Sharn, The crumbling walls of the Drow pyramids, the alien splendor the the Quori Monolith.

Moral Greyness - Have the PCs fight foes that are as good as they are.

Priests that don't match there deity in alignment. Dragons of any color being any alignment. Positive Energy Undead.

Use Interesting Magical Items - Sparrow's hat might be a hat of resistance +5 and protection +3, but no one really cares. It's his magical compass that affects the story.

Fantastic Machine Rules in the campaign setting. Default magic (rings, cloaks) are trival, mundane, and easy to explain. WONDEROUS items, like the Demon Orbs or the Schemas, are MAGIC.

Include the Unexplained

Warforged Origins. The fall of the Giants. Who the Lord of Blades is. The Draconic Prophecy. Daelkyr Magic. The 13th Dragonmark.

Recurring Villains

LoB, Vol, Emerald Claw, Cult of Dragon Below, Chamber, Alurum, Gath the Lich, The Dreaming Dark, Radiant Cults, Garrick, and those are just some from the books.

Does anyone have any more ideas?

ACTION PONTS! Want less arms-n-armor? Use defense bonus by level.

 

[Seeten]

EBERRON PIMP ALERT
and a whole lot of great stuff snipped

QFT.

I need a good Pirate/Swashbuckling game to join, and POTC: DMC has me stoked to play one. Who is pimping? =)

 

[JohnSnow]

Iron Heroes (2005) is the one true ftr+rog game. All others are just imitations of the real thing.

Hey! I thought I said this was going to be my schtick!

You're both wrong! It's mine! My own! My prec-ioussssssss!!

We wants it...*gollum*...we wants our Iron Heroesssssss.*gollum*

Err...I mean...


Yeah...Eberron flavor elements - magitech + Iron Heroes rules = Pirates of the Caribbean goodness.

Thinking about it, you could even run an Iron Heroes game in Eberron...no, wait...everyone says that's a bad idea...

But...why???

Where's that drool smilie when you want it??

 

[Seeten]

Sorry John, you cannot like Eberron. Its against the rules.

Anyone with an Aragorn Avatar must dislike Eberron.

Haven't you been paying attention??

 

[Gez]

One issue with a pirates campaign in particular is that DND rules blow chunks when it comes to ship to ship combat. I've got just about every ruleset out there and tried them all. None of them work worth a damn IMNSHO.

Really? Sure? Because:

B. I've been toying with this idea, but I have yet to make it work. Convert ships to a single monster type. Let's call it Ship. Calculate out the hit dice and the like based on the number of crew and the size of the ship. Run the combat as two Ships fighting, rather than breaking it down into individual battles. I'm not sure if this would work or not.

That's exactly Mongoose's Open Mass Combat System from Seas of Blood (and its update, Book of the Seas). Ships are run as special creatures. This same system is also used for group of people, so a fight between two armies is a fight between two creatures. The rules also support combat of single creature (hero, kraken, etc.) vs. "composite" creatures such as ships or armies.

 

[qstor]

Henry and the other posters made some interesting and good points, particularly about running a low magic game. Skull & Bones is great for pirate games too and its low magic.

If you're going to use 3.5 d20 rules, I'd sugguest adding action points, IIRC Skull & Bones has something similiar. There's aslo varying issues of Dragon magazine with swashbuckler feats in them. Some are a bit unbalenced but if you're running a fast moving game with the PC's are the focus, I think you can over look that.

Skull & Bones has some good ship to ship combat rules that are laid out in the supplement Corsair too.

Mike

 

[Chairman7w]

I'm with Hussar. I've ran a Pirate Campaign and every time Shipt-to-ship combat begins, the session grinds to a complete halt.

I ran a Pirate Campaign out of Freeport up to 10th level and the one main thing I learned is do NOT mess with ship-to-ship combat.

As the DM, just describe the ships trading shots as they close, dipping and rising over the waves as the shots fly over, the salt spray from the near misses, the crash of the timbers as they smash together, then draw out the ships and go with regular D&D combat on the ships.

NOTHING sucked the life out of my games more than trying to move little ships around with, or against, the wind, lining up shots, arguing over angles, etc., etc.... Do NOT do it, seriously.

Oh - and once the on-board fight starts, make sure to have lots of cool swinging from ropes and leaping from the Crow's Nest and swashbuckly things like that in the fights!

 

[CarlZog]

I've ran a Pirate Campaign and every time Shipt-to-ship combat begins, the session grinds to a complete halt.

There is no reason for this to have to happen, but if you just gloss over it, you're missing out on a lot of the fun.

First, you must be willing to de-emphasize the tactics of d20, and play a little fast and loose with the rules.

Second, there are a couple keys to making this work:
- Ditch the minis. Keep rough track of the relative locations of the ships in your head, but DO keep track of it.

Describe the approach of the other ship, and encourage your PC's -- particularly whoever the Capt or leader is -- to telll you what she wants to do. "I want to see if we can get up behind him." "I want to chase him down and ram him." "I want to try to lure him on that reef." We'll get to how you resolve these actions in a minute, but as the maneuvers unfold, just try to keep a rough idea of the relative positions of the ships in your head and describe it to the players. DON'T break out minis and start metagaming this by having players moving ships X number of hexes, etc. Keep everybody's imagination at deck level and in character.

-- Organize the rest of the crew and the ship's actions.
This is critical. A ship's crew should be broken down by its functions and each group should be treated as an NPC with set skills, hit points etc.: the gunnery crew, the sailing crew, the damage control team, etc. So, when you fire a starbd broadsides, it's the starbd gun crew whose attack bonus, mods, etc is rolled. Let the players roll all this stuff too. The ship itself is just a vehicle and should be treated as such, but should be broken down into hull and rigging to reflect damage to speed and damage to guns and flotation.

- Emphasize the PC's skills and their role in directing the rest of the ship.
Part of what makes this kind of combat boring is that ship becomes the character and the PCs are shunted to the sidelines to wait for the end of the wargame. This is not necessary. Keep the focus on the action at deck level. If the Capt. wants to try to maneuver closer, the PCs with the sailing skills should be working with the rest of the crew to trim sails. You can treat a lot of this as series of crew skill check with PC's using aid another or leadership. Again, don't get hung on the letter of the law. The goal here is that cinematic sense of Captain Jack shouting orders to the crew. If you're firing cannons, you're leading the gun crew.

Keep the players involved in the action from the initial sighting of an enemy all the way through the clash of spars and grappling hooks. Then the PC's can be engaged in battling the pivotal NPCs or the other crew mooks. But even then, you should be keeping track of the clash of the crew "groups" battling it out with each other, describe that aspect of the chaos to the players and give them a chance to influence that tide of battle. Whether you do a series of attack rolls, or just an occasional secret "tide of battle" roll modified by the crews' attributes is up to you, but keep the crews involved and give the players a chance to do heroic stuff while also leading the crew.

Carl