Never get on the boat.

[weem]

Yea I tend to let my players feel at peace on ships so I can pull out some craziness when I really think it fits. But in general I tend to do those kinds of things to throw the PC's off... when I know they expect X to be something really bad, I may make it a really good thing, etc.

 

[Derren]

Thing is, ships are swiming death traps when the DM plays aquatic monsters intelligently.

Why board the ship and attack the crew when you can simply attack the ship from below where it has absolutely no defences? And when you sink it you can take whatever you want from the wreck.

 

[Twowolves]

Never get on the boat? Hell most groups I know won't even go down to the docks! Apparently, no matter what game you are playing, the docks are ONLY used as a place to ambush the party and dump their bodies.

 

[Rel]

I ran an entire "Pirates of the Caribbean" game with WFRP, which was filled with every type of danger on the high seas that I could imagine. But there were also plenty of times that the PC's sailed from Point A to Point B without incident. And other times the reason there was trouble on the ocean was because the PC's were the ones starting it.

Fun game.

 

[JoeGKushner]

Depends on how dangerous ocean/sea/river travel is in the first place.

If the characters are hired for protection, they can expect trouble.

However, because I tend to enjoy games that are... longer in the character's life duration, I don't mind boats as they can be enormous time sinks and are part of many a fantasy epic.

Crown of Stars has a whole race of norseman like raiders and they make for some great sea battle inspirations.

 

[MarkB]

It's a fair point, but to some extent you might as well say "Never step out the gate." There's rarely a journey in D&D that isn't punctuated by some form of deadly random encounter along the way, whether it's a bustling trade route or the Dread Pass of Deadly Doom.