yup.
Heretic Apostate said:
Hopefully this is old enough not to be political, but one of the causes of the War of 1812 (don't know what the Brits call it...) was the fact that the British Navy would board American merchant ships, looking for AWOL British sailors. Or people the British fleet claimed were sailors. (Of course, the only reason we won the war of 1812 was that Napoleon was distracting the British, otherwise we'd either have ended back in the British Empire, or we'd be yet another third-world country. 
)
So, people could be pulled off from neutral ships that have the misfortune to come too close to a war zone.
Yup. The American ships were also running Britain's blockade around Napoleon-controlled Europe. The British Navy was desperately short of sailors to man their fleet (which was stretched pretty thin blockading all of Europe), so they were pretty loose in their definition of AWOL British Sailors. They'd blatantly shanghai Americans who they knew had never been in the British Navy, just to get more recruits.
Incidentally, the French did this too, but Napoleon shrewdly agreed to stop (and sell America the Louisiana Territories) to get the U.S. on his good side while making the British look bad. French ships still pressed American sailors into service, but it got blamed on the British because the U.S. didn't believe France would go against their treaty. Sneaky Napoleon.
Press ganging might be an issue in a D&D game, if the ships require lots of men. Napoleonic-Era ships needed huge crews because you needed a lot of guys just to manhandle and load the heavy iron guns on each broadside--about 6-8 per gun. A typical 74-gun battleship needed a crew of at least 500! Despite citrus fruit rations to prevent scurvy, the hard life killed a lot of men. In a medieval ship, like a Viking Knarr or merchant Coaster/Cog, crews were small unless you needed troops for boarding actions. An oared galley needed lots of skilled rowers to maintain speed/maneuverability in battle, so press ganging or slavery on these ships was much more likely.
Other reasons for press ganging in a D&D setting might include:
If a ship had a reputation for being run by wretched scum, they might have to kidnap people to replace AWOL crew, especially if they need to get out of port quickly.
If slavery is practiced, being chained to the oars would be a good way to get rowers in an emergency. It was preferable to high professionals over slaves though. The ancient Athenian Navy relied on speed, endurance, maneuverability and ramming. Athens drew on a body of professional rowers on "naval reserve" status who always proved more effective in every category than slaves. The Ancient Romans used slave rowers, but weren't known for good seamanship. They just tried to board the enemy where their superior marines had the advantage.
Since D&D is fantasy, consider wierd reasons, like the crew shanghai's people because their living ship needs to slowly feed off the souls of the lesser crew members or something...
A couple press ganging techniques from history:
Send out a shore party with clubs and beat some drunks senseless, load them back onto the ship and head out to sea. Once stuck at sea, they have no choice but join the crew or die.
Find naive starstruck teenage fellow and have a worldly/fatherly type Petty Officer buy 'em a drink. Get the kid drunk while going on about how wonderful the navy is. Put a valuable coin in the bottom of the tankard, and when they chug a lug it by accident, threaten to put them in prison if they don't repay the "crown's" money. Since it will take awhile for the money to (ahem) become available--if it doesn't get stuck down there, the poor recruit had to work off his debt or else. The Petty Officer got a commission each time he successfully shanghaied somebody. Usually he got to deduct days remaining from his own "tour of duty". The British army did this a lot...
P.S.: Just cause i'm a snooty history geek...we actually didn't win the war of 1812. The U.S. invaded Canada, burned Toronto, and then got clobbered by the Canadian troops. Then the British invaded Maryland and burned Washington DC in retaliation. Napoleon distracted the British from committing to the war in America, which they didn't actually want to fight. It was pretty much a draw, except for some small U.S. naval victories and the Battle of New Orleans, which was fought several months after the peace treaty was already signed in Europe (due to the communications lag, doh)!
