Pirate Setting? (Avalon and crew - OUT)

[Kashell]

I'm currently in the mist of making a new world, but I want pirates to play a large role in some parts of the world.

I've been looking at the swashbuckler and dread pirate classes and obviously will include them, but I'm dry on ideas of what to throw at my PC's. I'm going to eventually have them take part on running a good-aligned pirate ship...but besides whimsical ideas of fighting evil pirate ships I'm at a loss at what to do on the high seas so to speak.

Thanks in advance.

 

[conanb]

Well there are always the classics that I use when I do pirate stuff:

1) Try to pick up a crew in a pirate town. Think wild bar brawls, baudy tales, etc.

2) Rumors of treasure on a not so deserted isle. Think Treasure Island here. Come ashore to find a treasure, and there are still people on the island be they natives, shipwrecks, etc.

3) Mutiny. Pirate crews go bad. Players have to decide who's side they're on. Etc.

Seriously though, Treasure Island is a good source for inspiration. Also Pirates of the Caribeean. Just a great movie and a book to get you inspired.

 

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

Voodoo. Nothing like an entirely new form of magic to totally throw players for a loop, especially if they are experienced gamers and think they've seen everything.

Throw a peeved voodoo priest in as an enemy, and watch them freak.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

Rent and watch Captain Blood.

Other suggestions: make the pirates rebels against a tyranical government, choosing outlawry against an evil and sadistic regime. The pirates hold small islands, ready to flee at a moments notice. (Think Hoth from The Empire Strikes Back... with palm trees.) Rather than evil pirates have the bad guys be privateers financed by the Evil Empire (tm). Assaults against towns with corrupt governors who have beautiful, kind hearted daughters, fortified prisons, and well gunned Men o' War.

RPG wise both AEG's Swashbuckling Adventures and Adament's Skull & Bones are excellent, though very different in stance. (SA is very cinematic, while S&B is a lot more gritty, grotty, and dark.) I would be hard pressed to say which I consider better.

And if you are a modeller take a look at Maiden of the High Seas and Legend of Skull Cove. Both sets can form a great start to a seaborn/pirate campaign. (Especially The Maiden...) (warning, lot o' graphics on those pages. But the little movies are really neat.)

The Auld Grump, proud owner of an undead pirate paradise...

 

[Stormborn]

First, there are pleanty of Pirate themed books out there for you to plunder. Skull n Bones and all the Freeport books being some of the best, but there is alos Salt and Seadogs for Kalamar, the aforementioned AEG Swashbuckler, and some others. Really, any setting that has a detailed port will work, although some of these books will help with mechanics.
If you can find it read On Stranger Tides by Tim Powers, the inspiration for Skull n Bones.

However, I have a couple of suggestions if you want the PCs to run a good/neutral pirate ship.

1) Set up an area of the world where there is a great deal of wealth that needs to be transferred to another region.
2) Set up competing nations/factions for that wealth.
3) Make sure that the main strenght of these factions is in that far off region of the world where the wealth may be going.

Into this setting throw the PCs in a fairly prosperous but corrupt town ruled by a govenor appointed by a far off king. Said king wants the gold/source of wealth or knowledge/whatever that a rival king has been moving from this region to fund his own plans to expand back in the homelands. While piracy is frowned upon by any lawful nation, privateering can be another matter.
Privateers are basically naval mercenaries who recieve a letter of marque (mark) that gives them legal powers to stop and cease ships of a certain nationality or in a certain area. Perfect for your PCs. The question then becomes how closely do they fall the details of their letter, and do they attack other kinds of ships and engage in other possibly illegal activites?

Some ideas for adventures
- Have the PCs begin by proving themselves to the govenor/local official by rescuing his daughter (a cliched but classic example of swashbuckling, vary it by making it a court official come from the homelands to check up on things) or capturing a wanted criminal who has recently escaped hanging.
- Once they have leveled up a bit they can be rewarded with a Letter of Marque and start hunting the Dread Pirate X or harrasing the ships of Enemy Nations.
-Build up a main pirate bad guy. Have said pirate bad guy be in league with some native mystical powers who can field undead crewed ships, summon up sea monsters, and hunt for ancient artifacts in lost temples.

Whatever you do, be sure to encourage your players to build PCs that have skills that are useful on a SHIP! MAny will just focus on the combat aspect and you will have no logical reason to ever put them in command of a ship.

Oh, and buy a few packs of Pirates of the Spanish Main Cards ($4 each) for nifty ships and islands that you can use in your game.

 

[Krieg]

Once they have leveled up a bit they can be rewarded with a Letter of Marque and start hunting the Dread Pirate X or harrasing the ships of Enemy Nations.

Somebody beat me to it.

Having the players be "privateers" in the employ of a government at war is a great way to let them be pirates on the up and up.

Of course there is the little matter of what happens to them after the war ends...or if they find out that they are fighting for the wrong side!

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

"On Stranger Tides" is AMAZING, but bizarrely, it's out of print. It's well worth the effort to hunt down at a used book shop. I didn't know "Skull & Bones" was inspired by it -- you may have just sold me on "Skull & Bones."

I don't own it, but "Bloody Jack's Gold" from Goodman Games looks good, and I suspect you could adapt "Black Sails over Freeport" pretty easily, as much of it doesn't take place in Freeport itself.

I'd also pick up the new version of Sid Meier's "Pirates!" computer game. Not only is it one of the best computer games of all time (the original, that is), it's also set up very much like a freeform D&D campaign, with lots of options, all of which you can plunder mercilessly.

 

[Stormborn]

Slightly Off Topic

"On Stranger Tides" is AMAZING, but bizarrely, it's out of print. It's well worth the effort to hunt down at a used book shop. I didn't know "Skull & Bones" was inspired by it -- you may have just sold me on "Skull & Bones.".

Unfortunatelly you are right, Tim is working to have it and some of his other out of print works, like the excelent "Stress of Her Regard" reprinted by a small publisher next year, I haven't heard the most recent news in that regard, but maybe this time 2005 we will all have new copies.

 

[CarlZog]

I strongly second the suggestion to rent Captain Blood. Even though this movie was made in 1936, it remains the iconic good-guy pirate movie. Consider also the Count of Monte Cristo and, more recently, Cutthroat Island. Any of the old Sinbad movies from the '50s and '60s are also good inspiration involving magic and monsters -- albeit in an Arabian setting.

Living Imagination produces a campagin setting with a strong naval component. They've also produced an excellent book on running naval campaigns, Broadsides! and a book on Pirates!

A couple other thoughts:

-- Robin Hood. If the evil dictator king is building his castle on the sweat of coastal/island labor, it's probably time for the PCs to liberate his merchant vessels and rally the communities against him. And accepting a percentage for their effort, of course.

-- Magic. The only thing more alluring than gold is magic. Robin Hobb's liveship traders trilogy is rife with ideas about the mingling of magic and the sea: enchanted living ships; mysterious cultures living off the trade of their rare magical wares; and pirates craving all of it.

I heard about a campaign recently in which the PCs were struggling to find the source of fleet of pirate ships manned by the undead, raiding the kingdom's shipping. What kind of power could summon such a force of evil?

-- Salvage. Ships go down and they take their cargo with them. Owners usually want it back and are willing to pay to get it. But it's not easy or always safe to get to the bottom of the sea. And then, sometimes, owners and others may just want the ship to stay at the bottom....

 

[CarlZog]

... one other source: Space Opera.

A great deal of the ideas for adventures in far future sci-fi games like Traveller and Star Wars are easily adaptable to a nautical setting. After all, what is space but a huge sea, and planets but its islands, and spaceships...well, its ships?