Tell Us About Your Pirate Campaign(s)

[Reynard]

At the suggestion of @Whizbang Dustyboots I am listening to the wonderful Empire of Blue Water, and (unsurprisingly) it has me thinking about TTRPG campaigns centered around pirates. So, tell us about yours!

What game system did you use?
Was it "realistic" from a logistics and sailing perspective?
Where and when was it set, and if totally fantastical, what piracy period or style did it hew closest to?

All are welcome: historical pirates, fantasy pirates, space pirates, modern pirates, even superhero pirates and cozy pirates! And all combinations.

 

[MGibster]

I ran Pirates of the Spanish Main which used the Savage Worlds rules and was based on the constructible collectible strategy game of the same name made by WizKids. The premise of the campaign was the PCs were privateers betrayed by their captain resulting in their imprisonment on a Spanish hulk for about ten years. With Queen Anne's War at an end, the PCs have their freedom and they're hellbent on revenge. But their former captain is now a wealthy, politically connected merchant in Port Royal. Getting revenge isn't going to be easy.

It's been more than a decade since I ran this game, so details are fuzzy. We had a great time. I did not add any supernatural elements to this game, but it was straight up pulp adventure from beginning to end and my house rule was PCs could not die. It's the only campaign I can remember where I didn't kill a single PC.

 

[Vael]

Hasn't happened yet, but I've wanted to run Savage Tide for awhile now. I debated running it in 4e, and have been in the planning stage of running it in 5e since the 2024 books came out

 

[Voadam]

I ran a Death in Freeport pbp game here with a big pirates theme. It was a heavily house ruled 3.5 with some of the house rules to make 3e more swashbucklerry and less plate armor tanky in incentives. The one I remember most was giving everybody their reflex saves as adding on to their dex bonus for AC, which armor limited the heavier the armor. The flip side was that natural armor did not stack with armor. This gave a mechanical incentive to play less armored characters and specifically pirate/rogue style good reflex save ones.

So high fantasy D&D, but Freeport with a mythos underbelly.

Style uhm 1950 Disney Treasure Island mythos investigation.

I loved it.

I ran the trilogy modules for my face to face group as well later and it went fantastically too.

 

[Voadam]

Hasn't happened yet, but I've wanted to run Savage Tide for awhile now. I debated running it in 4e, and have been in the planning stage of running it in 5e since the 2024 books came out

I played in a Savage Tide pbp game here, it was fun. 3.5 high fantasy pirates and demons.

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

First of all, in all my Pirate games, everyone's favorite letter is "R"

 

[aramis erak]

Hasn't happened yet; several traveller groups were well amused by Q-ship ops.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

My long-running Ptolus campaign forked early on, and the ne'er-do-wells ended up in Freeport.

They started off with Goodman Games' Tower of the Black Pearl, back when it was part of the Adventure Begins 3E anthology and then Atlas Games' Maiden Voyage (which was fantastic -- I need to bring back the villain from that some time).

Once in Freeport, they went through the Freeport Trilogy followed by Goodman Games' Bloody Jack's Gold and then Vengeance in Freeport. That branch started in 3E and ended in Castles & Crusades.

After saving Freeport -- again -- in Vengeance, they reunited with the rest of the crew and are all-in on the apocalyptic 5E Ptolus-set back half of the campaign. I used the systemless Pirates Guide to Freeport, which I strongly recommend. And Bloody Jack's Gold is fine, but not amazing -- very skippable, even independent of their weird behavior this year.

I haven't run a full Pirate Borg campaign yet, just one shots, but once the Dark Caribbean setting book is out, I'm planning on running a West Marches style game there, presumably starting in 2027.

 

[Reynard]

Has anyone run an actual piracy campaign -- that is, robbing merchant ships and holding nobles for ransom and other crimes?

 

[DEFCON 1]

I've played in three separate 7th Sea (1E) campaigns and have run a couple isolated adventures in Theah myself as well. While they have not all been focused on piracy, a couple have had the players owning a privateer ship and having it been used in many ocean adventures. I'm a very big fan of Theah and the world of 7th Sea.

As far as true piracy as the adventure focus of an entire campaign... none of the 7th Sea games have been primarily about that. Would happen on occasion if the story called for attacking another ship, but it wasn't the only thing the games were about.