Rules for a 17th century pirate-related game?

[Galethorn]

So, I'm working on a 17th century pirate-related game with a friend/player of mine who wants to GM it...however, we're at a loss as to what we should run it with. Grim Tales is currently at the top of our list, but we don't think it really has enough stuff involving the obligatory ships.

So, what I guess I'm looking for is rules for historical ships (and the associated ship-to-ship combat), which would preferably work with GT. Any ideas?

 

[Turanil]

Skull & Bones is the best book about d20 Carribean piracy out there. I guess it wouldn't require too much work to use it with grim tales. I mean: Grim tales classes are probably more interesting than their Buccaner core class (if I remember well), but you don't need to throw that class out of the game though. Grim tales has its own magic system, and Skull & Bones also proposes its own Vodoo-like magic system. Is it difficult to adapt one or the other? In any case, I don't think it would pose much problem to discard GT magic and keep the Vodoo (ot Bokor) magic of Skulls & bones.

 

[Turanil]

BTW: you can read this thread about Skulls & Bones

 

[drnuncheon]

If you wanted to go with the Grim Tales core ruleset, you can get the ship rules from Skull & Bones at RPGNow, along with advanced and optional ship rules - look for the PDF called Corsair.

J

 

[HeapThaumaturgist]

I bought "Corsair" from, um ... Adamant Entertainment, I think.

It's basically the Ship-to-Ship rules pulled from Skull and Bones, I think it is, and run up in a PDF with, it says, some additional rules and deck plans. I can't speak to which rules are additional, if any, but the "Deck Plans" are plans for a single ship. I was a little put out by that, as they advertise the addition of deck plans, it seems, as something above and beyond but there's only one ship in there.

On the whole, though, it's rules for ships, it's d20, and at 8 dollars it is cheaper and faster than buying a whole other RPG to get rules for Age of Sail ships. I'm running a pirate-style game, myself, with Grim Tales so I purchased this to base the ship rules on (though mine is with some tweaking, as I'm using AIRships.) It's pretty in-depth as far as that goes, with 50+ pages of rules on ships, crews, sailing, storms, and all that jazz.

I'd definately have liked to get some more deck plans in the package, as deck plans are somewhat hard to come by floating around on the internet. Most seem to be in library special collections (only LISTED online, not scanned in) or people want you to purchase historical plans for 30-40 dollars apiece for historical enjoyment.

--fje

 

[Galethorn]

Nabbed Corsair last night. Looks perfect to me, and the GM agrees.

Thanks for the suggestions!

 

[GMSkarka]

Nabbed Corsair last night. Looks perfect to me, and the GM agrees.

Thanks for the suggestions!

Thank YOU for your purchase, and thanks also to the folks who recommended it. (I'm the author)

Just FYI--Adamant Entertainment will be doing a "sequel" to CORSAIR in 2005. We're planning on giving more ship types, more ship feats...that kinda thing. We're also open to suggestions for further content (like the above request for more deckplans, which I'll make a note of). If there's something specific you'd like to see in the follow-up product, let me know.

 

[drnuncheon]

Adamant Entertainment will be doing a "sequel" to CORSAIR in 2005.

Excellent.

We're planning on giving more ship types, more ship feats...that kinda thing. We're also open to suggestions for further content (like the above request for more deckplans, which I'll make a note of). If there's something specific you'd like to see in the follow-up product, let me know.

You know what would truly rock? A three-way cooperation between you, Fiery Dragon, and Skeleton Key Games - deck plans, a sheet or two of pirate and sailor counters, and tiles to construct the ships at battlemat size.

J

 

[HeapThaumaturgist]

I'd like to see some other common ship plans, maybe selections from each class/type. The Brigantine is a Large Merchantman, maybe do a Sloop, because that's a popular ship, and a Galleon and a Frigate ... I don't think too many people will need deck plans for First Rates and the like because PCs will never/seldom own them, but I'm currently running the PCs on a Sloop and photoshopped the deck plan from the PDF and cut it down to represent the Maenad's Tear. The Brigantine was a good choice, because it is so common, but it's still a tad big for what I wanted to start at so it wasn't useful to me directly.

In OTHER news we ran the first session of our AIRSHIPS! campaign today with the Corsair rules ... ran very very well. The group absolutely loved the ship-to-ship combat rules. I had the small convoy they were with get attacked by some pirates and they loved opening up at 900 feet with the culvern. I had to house-rule some stuff on the fly ... round-by-round was waaaaaaaaay too slow with the movement rates and reload rates, so we moved to a 1-minute round for the battle. Also effecting repairs on the ship was WAAAAY too fast ... a carpenter with +5 ranks in carpentry and an Average crew could, apparently, repair a Sloop from 30% hp to full strength in less than ten minutes of work. We quartered the repair SP and raised the base time considerably. The players actually rebelled when their near-crippled ship was going to be fixed and ready to fly again in less than an hour. So they volunteered to house rule that out so they could have an adventure to go find some wood the carpenter could then use to form enough raw materials to get the 'Tear airworthy again.

Very sweet.

--fje

 

[Krieg]

I'd like to see some other common ship plans, maybe selections from each class/type. The Brigantine is a Large Merchantman, maybe do a Sloop, because that's a popular ship, and a Galleon and a Frigate ... I don't think too many people will need deck plans for First Rates and the like because PCs will never/seldom own them,

Yeah but a three deck ship of the line would be just too cool not to stat up!