Tell Us About Your Pirate Campaign(s)

[Stormonu]

Ran a pirates game in Greyhawk during 3E. The party started upriver on the Selincan River where they booked passage on a boat, trying to eventually get to the Amedio Jungle - they had a treasure map to an old pirate's cache. They ended up taking control of the boat and coaxed into taking up pirating. However, their first target turned out to be a wedding barge, and they felt a little guilty after the boarding went south (and the groom was killed - who turned out to be a "prince" from Dyvers).

After several misadventures in various port towns on the way south (and a bounty put on them from Dyvers), the party reached their destination - but not the treasure (it had been unearthed and moved). The party ended up in contention with the Sea Princes in a hunt for the treasure, as well as the undead spirit of Captain Black Jack, the pirate who the treasure originally belonged to).

Luckily for them, a hurricane smashed the Sea Prince "fleet" sent after them, and they eventually tracked the treasure down in the Scarlett Brotherhood, where they defeated Captain Black Jack and retired back home with the treasure, using a small portion to pay a weregild to Dyvers to get the bounty hunters off their back (the money was used to resurrect the prince from earlier).

I've played in another one that used the Saltmarsh campaign as backdrop - in between the module's adventures (which were changed to occur in a Caribbean-like archipelago) we were fighting against a corrupt illuminati style governorship that had diabolical plans for the islands and their inhabitants. We used our "pirate" ship to raid and disrupt ships and plans aligned with the governorship.

 

[Desdichado]

Games that I've run:

Pirates of the Mezzovian Main - a campaign I ran during the 3e period... I think 3e was still the current version of the rules, but maybe it was when we were still playing 3e during the 4e era. It was less open piracy and more sailing around from port to port and dealing with cults and criminals while in town.

Curse of the Corsair Coast - another pirate game in my current iteration of "the setting" that is a heavily bowdlerized take on a mish-mash of Freeport and Five Fingers adventure elements, complete with starting like the first part of The Enemy Within (Mistaken Identity) but on a ship rather than on the road. Again; less "the PCs are pirates" and more "adventuring in a piratey-themed part of the campaign

Terror in Timischburg - a bit more overtly piratey while, ironically, being less in the pirate themed area; not-so-secretly-secret vampires who rule Timischburg have been taking prisoners on the coastlands near Rozovka, which is just a city-state and cannot go to open war against Timischburg; so they're issuing letters of marque to, among others, the PCs. Side angles included buried treasure on Nizrekh; the remains of Atlantis, but now inhabited by snake-cult undead-loving savages; the Orlok Marshes where Innsborough is, which was a hotbed of Dagon cultist activity, as you might guess from the similar name, gang wars in Port Liure with The Godfather-like vibes, and Tarush, the sealed charnel god under the streets of Grozavest was, of course, trying to break free and usher in the vampire apocalypse.

It was really as much about vampires as pirates, but it took place a lot on the seas and ships, and piracy was there. The last two were with my custom house-ruled rules-lite OSR adjacent pseudo-D&D system.

I've never really leaned too hard into the actual piracy. Like Freeport, it's more about some piratey atmosphere (mostly while in town), jungle adventuring, and cults of either undead or Lovecraftian nature (or both.)

 

[John Dallman]

I've been playing "Privateers of the Complications" under Honor & Intrigue fortnightly for three years. We started out from England in a fairly historical 1660 as "mundane" privateers (because we didn't know our ship's surgeon was a necromancer), but things got complicated quite fast.

The first Spanish ship we took had a cursed golden mask on board and the quest to get ourselves de-cursed took us high into the central mountains of Hispaniola, barely ahead of a party from the Inquisition who had come to stamp out heresy and native religions.

To dodge them, we were the first to cross the central mountain range of Hispaniola, into a part of the island which had been a Portuguese colony before the Spanish seized it. There we met a Portuguese diplomat (the political situation between Spain and Portugal is rather complicated, and the Spanish position would probably be that he was a valid diplomat when he was appointed, but not since the change of government in Portugal to one run by Spain), who wanted his ship back. The Spanish had seized it. We eventually managed that, after getting captured by the Spanish and sent to Cuba on the diplomat's ship, which we managed to take control of.

That let us get back to a plot thread from the first session, the quest for El Dorado. After retrieving all three parts of a none-too-accurate map, while being forced to share them with a group of Dutchmen with a real warship, we started up the Orinoco river. We suspect the Dutchmen of working for the Spanish, but they have a much bigger ship and crew than us.

As we travelled upriver, deep into the jungle, things became more and more Ray Harryhausen, with cinematic piranha, giant spiders, and giant ants. We have made it into a clearly lost valley with Pteranodons, Velociraptors, and humans whose language we can understand, a bit. It is clear that we can't carry lots of gold back to civilisation, and we're about to meet the natives' king. Hopefully he'll tell us more about the situation.

 

[billd91]

Skull and Shackles AP for Pathfinder1. We had a lot of fun with it. The setting is pretty crowded with places to go and people to see, bases and quirks to investigate, and a ton of piratey tropes. There's a lot of potential to work with from mutiny, to working with a crew, conspiring against other pirate captains, undermining imperial naval power, and prizes to capture.

 

[Reynard]

I actually don't know that I have ever run or played in a "pirate campaign." We have had bits of campaign fall into the subgenre (either fighting pirates and/or PCs owning a ship; never PCs being honest to goodness pirates). I am not actually sure I would enjoy such a campaign -- except that, as Empire of Blue Water is teaching me, piracy also included lots of overland expeditions and warfare.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I actually don't know that I have ever run or played in a "pirate campaign." We have had bits of campaign fall into the subgenre (either fighting pirates and/or PCs owning a ship; never PCs being honest to goodness pirates). I am not actually sure I would enjoy such a campaign -- except that, as Empire of Blue Water is teaching me, piracy also included lots of overland expeditions and warfare.

Pirate Borg heavily leans on site-based adventures currently. Lots of raiding temples and pirate lairs. Once the campaign book is out, I'd expect more support for preying on the English, French and Spanish, as one prefers. (Not many Dutch or Portuguese in this version of the Caribbean.)

 

[payn]

I actually don't know that I have ever run or played in a "pirate campaign." We have had bits of campaign fall into the subgenre (either fighting pirates and/or PCs owning a ship; never PCs being honest to goodness pirates). I am not actually sure I would enjoy such a campaign -- except that, as Empire of Blue Water is teaching me, piracy also included lots of overland expeditions and warfare.

I think you need to split the difference between a massive campaign that includes nations and agendas and…

Pirate Borg heavily leans on site-based adventures currently. Lots of raiding temples and pirate lairs. Once the campaign book is out, I'd expect more support for preying on the English, French and Spanish, as one prefers. (Not many Dutch or Portuguese in this version of the Caribbean.)

Just random pirate adventures to see how long you can last.

I’m more of the former, but I’m an extensive world building all encompassing campaign weirdo compared to the average sandboxer.

 

[Tonguez]

I actually don't know that I have ever run or played in a "pirate campaign." We have had bits of campaign fall into the subgenre (either fighting pirates and/or PCs owning a ship; never PCs being honest to goodness pirates). I am not actually sure I would enjoy such a campaign -- except that, as Empire of Blue Water is teaching me, piracy also included lots of overland expeditions and warfare.

yeah when you learn that many pirates were infact Privateers employed by foreign governments and that they not only attacked ships but also besieged coastal ports and ventured up rivers and overland you see just how varied Pirate adventures can be and that Privateers and Freebooters can be heroic - Henry Morgan is a really fascinating character, in fact his life could make a cool adventure path

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

yeah when you learn that many pirates were infact Privateers employed by foreign governments and that they not only attacked ships but also besieged coastal ports and ventured up rivers and overland you see just how varied Pirate adventures can be and that Privateers and Freebooters can be heroic - Henry Morgan is a really fascinating character, in fact his life could make a cool adventure path

Anyone interested in a pirate campaign should find a copy of Sid Meier's Pirates! that will play on a device that they own.

It's not only a lot of fun, but also generally pretty good historically, down to when and where wealthy ships were in the Caribbean on any given date.

One of the things that becomes clear very quickly is that you want to be a privateer, not a pirate, because otherwise, finding a place to make port becomes extremely difficult. And you want to, because you'll need food and water, to repair your ship, to let your crew blow off steam and to get new recruits.