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Message: <blockquote data-quote="CarlZog" data-source="post: 3021114" data-attributes="member: 11716">I've posted this before, but I'll say it again.Naval combat should NOT be tedious. Too many GMs gloss over ship-to-ship battles because they're not sure how to handle the mechanics and keep the players involved at the same time. So they just describe the ships approaching and firing broadsides, then skip to the boarding and revert to the usual man-to-man combat. That's missing out on half the reason to be at sea.Or they get caught up in extended miniatures maneuvering, and their RPG becomes a two-player wargame between the DM and whatever player is handling the maneuvering of the ship while the rest of the group takes a nap.I'm a big fan of miniatures wargaming and I've done a lot of age of sail wargaming, but I also recognize that when it comes to running an rpg, that's not always the best approach. So if you're willing to surrender some of the tactical detail, here's my thoughts on running RPG ship-to-ship combat.-- Ditch the minis. Keep rough track of the relative locations of the ships in your head, but DO keep track of it.Describe the approach of the other ship, and encourage your PC's -- particularly whoever the Capt or leader is -- to telll you what she wants to do. "I want to see if we can get up behind him." "I want to chase him down and ram him." "I want to try to lure him on that reef." We'll get to how you resolve these actions in a minute, but as the maneuvers unfold, just try to keep a rough idea of the relative positions of the ships in your head and describe it to the players. DON'T break out minis and start metagaming this by having players moving ships X number of hexes, etc. Keep everybody's imagination at deck level and in character.-- Organize the rest of the crew and the ship's actions.This is critical. A ship's crew should be broken down by its functions andeach group should be treated as an NPC with set skills, hit points etc.: the gunnery crew, the sailing crew, the damage control team, etc. So, when you fire a starbd broadsides, it's the starbd gun crew whose attack bonus, mods, etc is rolled. Let the players roll all this stuff too. As a functioning crew group loses "hit points", their ability to do their job should decline. Think of the "hit points" as being the individual crewmen in that group. The ship itself is just a vehicle and should be treated as such, but should be broken down into hull and rigging to reflect damage to speed and damage to guns and flotation.- Emphasize the PC's skills and their role in directing the rest of the ship.Part of what makes this kind of combat boring is that ship becomes the character and the PCs are shunted to the sidelines to wait for the end of the wargame. This is not necessary. Keep the focus on the action at deck level. If the Capt. wants to try to maneuver closer, the PCs with the sailing skills should be working with the rest of the crew to trim sails. You can treat a lot of this as series of crew skill checks with PC's using aid another or leadership. Again, don't get hung on the letter of the law. The goal here is that cinematic sense of Captain Jack shouting orders to the crew. If you're firing cannons, you're also leading the gun crew.Keep the players involved in the action from the initial sighting of an enemy all the way through the clash of spars and grappling hooks. Then the PC's can be engaged in battling the pivotal NPCs or the other crew mooks. But even then, you should be keeping track of the clash of the crew "groups" battling it out with each other, describe that aspect of the chaos to the players and give them a chance to influence that tide of battle. Whether you do a series of attack rolls, or just an occasional secret "tide of battle" roll modified by the crews' attributes is up to you, but keep the crews involved and give the players a chance to do heroic stuff while also leading the crew.</blockquote>

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