Help: Ultimate Sailing Rules?

[Aaron2]

Ok, I've got Seas of Blood, Broadsides, Seafarer's Handbook, Arms & Equipment, and Heart of Oak (mini-rules) and I still haven't found a set of sailing rules that I've liked.

Are there any other web-based sailing rules besides Septentrionalis?

Here's what I want:

-Ship construction rules
-Ship movement based on point of sail
-Ship movement based on type of rigging
-Ship movment based on design of hull
-Rules for Tacking, Gybing, Wearing, Heaving To, Backsailing and other maneuvers
-Rules that make the amount of cargo and number of guns affect sailing performance.

And that's for starters.


Aaron

 

[Urklore]

Heart of Oak mini-rules? Where is that one, I have yet to see that!

 

[Aaron2]

Heart of Oak mini-rules? Where is that one, I have yet to see that!

Its an old set of rules put out by FGU in the 80s. Its got great rules for maneuvering but there is no rhyme or reason in their sailing speed chart AFAICT.

Aaron

 

[Blockader7]

There's an old game out there called "Wooden Ships And Iron Men" that seems to have a reasonable set of maneuvering rules that can be adapted to a d20 setting.

It's a strategy/wargame.

 

[Aaron2]

WSIM

I played Wooden Ships years ago but its still not what I need. What I want has to have nice ship construction rules. For example: The character decides what size hull he wants and whether the hull should be optomized for speed for cargo capacity. Then that makes a DC for his Knowledge (Ship Design) roll and determines the cost of the hull. Next the character decides what type of rigging he wants such as how many masts, what size of mast and whether his ship is square-rigged, fore-and-aft rigged, or lanteen rigged. That along with the size of the ship determines the amount of crew required, the ships sailing characteristics and cargo capacity. etc, etc

That's what I'm looking for. I assume that its not quite available. I guess I'll have to do it myself.


Aaron

 

[drnuncheon]

Ok, I've got Seas of Blood, Broadsides, Seafarer's Handbook, Arms & Equipment, and Heart of Oak (mini-rules) and I still haven't found a set of sailing rules that I've liked.

-Ship construction rules
-Ship movement based on point of sail
-Ship movement based on type of rigging
-Ship movment based on design of hull
-Rules for Tacking, Gybing, Wearing, Heaving To, Backsailing and other maneuvers
-Rules that make the amount of cargo and number of guns affect sailing performance.

Ironically, the supplement that's closest to what you want in terms of ship design is actually Bastion's Airships.

Just out of curiosity, since I don't have Broadsides, what of the above does it cover? It seems to me like you'd be better off starting with one of the above products and adding the detail.

I've just been reading the Aubrey/Maturin books by Patrick O'Brian, and I would love to see - or even get involved with writing - a set of really detailed tactical naval rules. Drop me a line if you're interested (email is in the profile).

J

 

[Aaron2]

Re: Re: Help: Ultimate Sailing Rules?

Ironically, the supplement that's closest to what you want in terms of ship design is actually Bastion's Airships.

I was thinking about getting that anyway. I'd like my rules to cover airships as well as land vehicles (war wagons etc).

Just out of curiosity, since I don't have Broadsides, what of the above does it cover? It seems to me like you'd be better off starting with one of the above products and adding the detail.

The sailing rules in Broadsides are fairly good. It has stats for about 36 ships plus the usual assortment of PrC, monsters and spells. It does include cannons so that's a plus. It uses a hex-based movement system that I'm not too fond of. While it has a large number of pre-made ships, including airships and subs, the ship stat sheet is fairly complicated. There is no construction rules or any other indication as to how the stats were derived. Just some rules on making modifications.

One problem I have is that I can't figure out what text is open content. Because of that, I've been mainly looking at the Seafarers Handbook.

I've just been reading the Aubrey/Maturin books by Patrick O'Brian, and I would love to see - or even get involved with writing - a set of really detailed tactical naval rules. Drop me a line if you're interested (email is in the profile).

I'm on book three at the moment. Its my main source of inspiration. I would like to, somehow, replicate, alot of what Aubrey does such as modifing a ship to sail closer to the wind or drop cannon overboard to gain a few knots.

I'll send you an email once I have a good outline of what I want covered. I'll get Airships in the meantime.


Aaron

 

[seasong]

GURPS Vehicles (Steve Jackson Games).
Vehicle Design System (Blacksburg Tactical Research Group).

Edit: Actually, I wish the people writing d20 supplements for sailing ships would at least READ one of these two books before doing their own thing. Neither is perfect, and the d20 rules shouldn't be as detailed or math-heavy, but some nod to real world results would be nice.

 

[Aaron2]

Edit: Actually, I wish the people writing d20 supplements for sailing ships would at least READ one of these two books before doing their own thing. Neither is perfect, and the d20 rules shouldn't be as detailed or math-heavy, but some nod to real world results would be nice.

I'm not sure what you mean by the last sentence. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't GURPS an effects based systems. I don't want the players designing a ship that goes 10 knots, I want them to design a ship and then hope it can go 10 knots.


Aaron

 

[seasong]

I'm not sure what you mean by the last sentence. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't GURPS an effects based systems. I don't want the players designing a ship that goes 10 knots, I want them to design a ship and then hope it can go 10 knots.

You are thinking of HERO System . With GURPS Vehicles, the design process takes into account slightly abstracted material weights, volume, mass/density (to float), mast design, how hydrodynamic the hull is, and so on, and then you use its hull type, mast type, wind speed, volume in contact with the water, and overall weight to calculate its maximum speed, accelleration/decelleration, ability to turn, etc.

The Vehicle Design System is very similar, but approaches some things differently (like how to calculate volume).

And like I said, it's likely too detailed for d20, but it makes a good reference when designing a simpler system.