Tell Us About Your Pirate Campaign(s)

[John Dallman]

I have, a few times, been in parties that were travelling by sea and got attacked by pirates. This has never gone well for the pirates. On one occasion, in a party with a lot of wizards, an important question was raised "Do we want these pirates' ship?" Nobody did, so we set to work with Wall of Fire and Fear, and it was soon gone.

 

[Voadam]

I have played a pirate a couple times though not in a pirate campaign.

 

[DrunkonDuty]

How do you think they compare to dinosaur campaigns?

Oooh. That's a tough one. Obviously dinosaur campaigns are awesome.

But, given that pirates and dinosaurs tend to cohabit in similar locations (i.e.: tropical islands and seas) I think the only thing that can be done is to combine them.

 

[DrunkonDuty]

Find and read "A Merchant's Guide to Rokugan" - the title is a misleading one. It's about the Scorpion Clan's ninjas and their dark alliances...

So... no pirates?

 

[TheSword]

Pirate Campaign #2: Pathfinder 1e, Skull & Shackles. Fantastic opening setup for an adventure is ruined by really random difficulty curve and terrible "we know you don't really want to play pirates" overly simplified rules, poorly thought out ships, overly small setting for a sailing campaign, to say nothing of a lack of internal logic in the setting for even why there would be pirates there. The game tries to pretend it can do pirates as dungeon rooms and what you really want is just normal D&D with pirate things going on in the background. Covid interrupted the campaign but it was winding down anyway owing to the real lack of the game contemplating the need for mass combat or any internal logic.

I don’t know what do you mean by random difficulty curve?

Regarding ranges it is assumed that the pirates range outside of the shackles, and if they want to go pirate then they tackle merchant ships. Your own ship is a Rahadoumi merchantman taking by the Wormwood in the first ship combat. That voyage is about twenty days plenty of time to get down to the ports accessing the mwangi expanse or up to Rahadoum. Maybe your DM thought they had to stay in the shackles. Always difficult discussion the quality of an AP with the player rather than the DM. Even if they read it afterwards their own play experience always overshadows.

I think you’re doing the campaign a disservice in your description. The authors address up front and early that most players don’t want realistic extended ship to ship combat rules with multiple hours of chasing ships, helmsmen making all the checks, leaving everyone else twiddling their thumbs etc. considering that the ranged weapons are catapults and balistae they took the view that ship combat ultimately comes down to a boarding action and that’s what they focus on - combat against the officers of the ship and maybe a few of their handpicked crew. The rest are assumed to be fighting the rest of your men. This felt fine and sensible.m, but again, maybe it’s the setup.

I can recommend the 3pp supplement for Pathfinder - Fire As She Bears - which could be converted to 5e with ease. We used it for a couple of set piece battles to properly simulate the intricacies of ship combat. However with hindsight I agree with the pathfinder team. Even with this extended system it’s more fun and makes sense to just get across and take the helm.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/113418/razor-coast-fire-as-she-bears-pf

 

[Breaking Star Games]

What game system did you use?
Rapscallion (it's Powered by the Apocalypse), the game just recently had its retail release. I kickstarted it, so I’ve had the PDF for a while but only just ran it.

Was it "realistic" from a logistics and sailing perspective?
Almost the opposite. It has 3 simple stats on the ship’s toughness, maneuverability/speed and cargo size. A few simple Moves for things like engaging, outmaneuvering and running away, but realism is very much not the focus.

Where and when was it set, and if totally fantastical, what piracy period or style did it hew closest to?
Totally fantastic and especially weird. The resources provided on the setting are very much fantastical.

My overall takeaways:
Like most PbtA games, it is definitely the most fun with good players who can improvise some very interesting ideas and run straight ahead into the drama.

I've gotten to run a four-shot and a one-shot and I will definitely be keeping it in my back pocket as a backup session when we have too few players at my normal campaigns.

The Good:

• Compels (much like Fate) and especially Playbook-specifics Vices are exactly the kind of mechanic I love in narrative games where they make it properly optimal to charge straight into danger because the value of Bonds as a cost to stand their ground against them.
• Luck allows some spectacular moments that really feel exciting (it definitely helps having a good set of players for this) but I never worried how they'd get out of trouble when master assassins and man-o'wars could easily destroy them and their entire ship. That leaves a lot of room to have fun as the GM. It definitely can feel limited as early-on (assuming you don't invest in the Spitfire stat) you may only get some on lucky rolls, but it's very powerful allowing players to alter reality, so that makes sense.
• Bonds, although very limited, I think are thematically amazing. Using them as a resource to stand up to your Vice is amazing for that roleplay moment. I think the limitation is intentional for early-game and you can see them grow over a campaign as you gain new ones during Downtime.
  • I really like that there is a Bond-earning mechanic for being earnest and forthright when you use the Persuade Basic Move, Parley on a 10+. That is pretty interesting and leads to this incentive to have some honor
• Smart and intentional discussion around the genre and real world implications. How to work with your table to set the tone and what kind of focus you want for the world and gameplay
• Having Use a Clever Trick as the catch-all Basic Move is a lot more interesting than your typical Act Under Fire as the PCs are evoking how they act dirty like pirates to solve problems. There is no Basic Move to just jump a large distance, pirates have to be more cunning vinegar-y
• I think the world is wonderfully weird and they have a great section on locations and factions
• Playbook-Specific GM Moves are something I don't see how it hasn't caught for most other PbtA games on because Masks uses them so wonderfully. Rapscallion does a great job here (though I need them on my GM cheatsheet!) and really helps with my final point as it gives the GMs another huge tool in their arsenal
• Best for the last, the Playbooks are amazing. Every player I've run this for usually has several they are excited to try. They are highly evocative and have some great themes. Many of their Playbook Moves expand on this theme and their core mechanic to really hit on the theme, which is nice as many other PbtA Playbook Moves can feel a little generic to allow any other Playbook to take them.

The Not so Good: Most are more minor as it's easy to adjust or create your own, but editing and flavorful terms do make the initial parsing of the system take longer.

• Troubles are a neat mechanic but outside of the Troubles caused by the PCs' Vices, the generic ones provided in the game are pretty boring and around injury. EG Concussion: when you hear a loud noise or flinch, take 1-harm. Item tags often suffer from this issue of being a little boring. A few too many +1s and -1s that aren't making the narrative more interesting IMO. In another game, I ran, the PC basically has a +4 to their main stat from a tag that gives Aid +1.
• Editing (an index of only 20 items says a lot) but I saw unexplained mechanics or tags that I only saw in previous Quickstart editions. I still can't find the section on NPCs resisting compels.
  • Overly flavorful terms - the stats traits are definitely the most obvious - but this is definitely my own bias. If there is a pretty standard game mechanic term, I prefer for usability of the book to use that like Stats or PbtA Terms like GM Principles. One aspect was really bad, the term crewmates is the replacement for PCs. But throughout the book, it's also used for NPC crewmembers
• Awkward abstractions (this makes the logistical side even less logical): Crew Size grow somewhat geometrically, but your ship's size grows linearly, so it leads to the fact that as your crew gets bigger, they become more compact. Currency has a similar issue of no value between Pittance (PC pays nothing) and 1-Treasure (a large value to buy most quality gear), so how to handle minor bribes or other small taxing is left out.
• The game tells you to make the Pirates as the good guys but provides no redeeming qualities - you're sinful, lying, ruthless, mutinous killers (as pirates should be), but they don't want The Law to look good. So I made them basically stupid evil - religious fanatic slavers.
• I'm not a fan of a single stat that covers all of Charisma Polish functions - many PbtA games have Persuasion, Deception or Intimidation kind of Basic Moves broken into different stats, so everyone participates in this kind of social arena.
• I'd personally have liked to see a skill list for such an action-focused game like how Blades in the Dark or Root: The RPG handles them since it's such an action-adventure focused game. Use a Clever Trick becomes a bit too overused. Though the design of all the Basic Moves is great.

It is a PbtA through and through - mixed successes and no GM rolls. So, if that's not your style, I don't think this one will change your mind - it even has some of the more "controversial" conventions worn proudly on it's sleeves:

• Luck for PCs to reshape the world summoning NPCs, items or opportunities
• Shared worldbuilding built into the mechanics of the Map as players contribute and write on it
• Narrative scaffolding built around each of the Playbooks where they buy-in to fight some Vice and struggle against some core thematic issue.

But Compels are nice for people like me that want you to optimally be reckless - it reminds me of how Masks's Conditions or Monsterhearts's Strings work. It lets me fit the genre while staying in mostly Actor Stance performing what may be best in the long-term for my PC to save a Bond for future use.

But those that do like PbtA, you'll at the minimum find some thought-provoking design and some interesting core mechanics around each of the Playbooks. Or like me, you find your new favorite way you want to run a Pirate TTRPG with my Ironsworn: Sundered Isles and Pirate Borg tables at hand to help with prep and improv.

 

[Celebrim]

I don’t know what do you mean by random difficulty curve?

I mean that in both the first and second adventure booklets the are interludes with absurdly difficult combats that show up with swarms and combat in water and so forth that a non-optimized party of four could not realistically expect to survive.

Regarding ranges it is assumed that the pirates range outside of the shackles, and if they want to go pirate then they tackle merchant ships. Your own ship is a Rahadoumi merchantman taking by the Wormwood in the first ship combat. That voyage is about twenty days plenty of time to get down to the ports accessing the mwangi expanse or up to Rahadoum. Maybe your DM thought they had to stay in the shackles.

You probably shouldn't speculate too much on play that you weren't actually a party to. We did in fact sail outside of the Shackles, yet in fact in doing so the adventures don't really give the GM any guidance on that or how it is to be handled. It's really not the GMs fault that we were forcing him to make up so much stuff, especially when your answer seems to be "just make up some stuff".

I think you’re doing the campaign a disservice in your description. The authors address up front and early that most players don’t want realistic extended ship to ship combat rules with multiple hours of chasing ships, helmsmen making all the checks, leaving everyone else twiddling their thumbs etc. considering that the ranged weapons are catapults and balistae they took the view that ship combat ultimately comes down to a boarding action and that’s what they focus on - combat against the officers of the ship and maybe a few of their handpicked crew. The rest are assumed to be fighting the rest of your men. This felt fine and sensible, but again, maybe it’s the setup.

First of all, I think it's very much a disservice to players to assume that they don't want at least casual realism or at least something that plays a little bit like a famous pirate movie. One of the many problems with the adventure is that it has no sense at all of what a realistically sized crew of a pirate vessel or warship actually is, and it sort bakes in expectations that the players won't know, won't care, and will engage with the rules rather than the setting and that their engagement with the setting won't be informed by knowing something about how actual pirates behave.

So maybe what you say is applicable to someone whose only knowledge of pirates is "Pirates of the Carribean: Curse of the Black Pearl" but I've got like 8000 pages of reading on pirates and the great age of sail, and if something promises pirates then I expect pirates.

The crazy thing is that the setup of this whole thing is being supposedly abused by a cruel and vicious band of pirates that don't treat the crew fairly, and then arranging a mutiny against said pirate officers, and then the game hand waves the resulting contract into something that is grossly more unfair to the crew than the situation that they revolted against. Like the rules actually expect you to give smaller shares to the crew than the supposedly terrible officers you mutinied against, and they expect that you won't try to develop a pirate contract or a real rapport with that crew through roleplay.

None of the minigames really make sense and the cargo aboard the ships are worth so much vastly less than the ships that it's ridiculous to do anything but arrange prize crews to transport and sell the ships, and yet the rules don't expect you to do this even though that is the actual model by which you end up with your own ship.

Handwaving away the background action depends very heavily on assumptions that are readily violated. It's just a great idea for a game with some compelling NPCs and really novel potential escape scenario (sadly with too much of a railroad as written) that loses so much in the execution.

 

[TheSword]

I mean that in both the first and second adventure booklets the are interludes with absurdly difficult combats that show up with swarms and combat in water and so forth that a non-optimized party of four could not realistically expect to survive.

You probably shouldn't speculate too much on play that you weren't actually a party to. We did in fact sail outside of the Shackles, yet in fact in doing so the adventures don't really give the GM any guidance on that or how it is to be handled. It's really not the GMs fault that we were forcing him to make up so much stuff, especially when your answer seems to be "just make up some stuff".

First of all, I think it's very much a disservice to players to assume that they don't want at least casual realism or at least something that plays a little bit like a famous pirate movie. One of the many problems with the adventure is that it has no sense at all of what a realistically sized crew of a pirate vessel or warship actually is, and it sort bakes in expectations that the players won't know, won't care, and will engage with the rules rather than the setting and that their engagement with the setting won't be informed by knowing something about how actual pirates behave.

So maybe what you say is applicable to someone whose only knowledge of pirates is "Pirates of the Carribean: Curse of the Black Pearl" but I've got like 8000 pages of reading on pirates and the great age of sail, and if something promises pirates then I expect pirates.

The crazy thing is that the setup of this whole thing is being supposedly abused by a cruel and vicious band of pirates that don't treat the crew fairly, and then arranging a mutiny against said pirate officers, and then the game hand waves the resulting contract into something that is grossly more unfair to the crew than the situation that they revolted against. Like the rules actually expect you to give smaller shares to the crew than the supposedly terrible officers you mutinied against, and they expect that you won't try to develop a pirate contract or a real rapport with that crew through roleplay.

None of the minigames really make sense and the cargo aboard the ships are worth so much vastly less than the ships that it's ridiculous to do anything but arrange prize crews to transport and sell the ships, and yet the rules don't expect you to do this even though that is the actual model by which you end up with your own ship.

Handwaving away the background action depends very heavily on assumptions that are readily violated. It's just a great idea for a game with some compelling NPCs and really novel potential escape scenario (sadly with too much of a railroad as written) that loses so much in the execution.

8,000 pages of reading. I see you have mentioned this before in other posts. You’re obviously very proud of it. There are plenty of us who have consumed the wide range of fiction, read up on the history and immersed ourselves in the genre beyond Disney. I never counted the pages though. We still enjoyed Skull and Shackles for what it was. It sounds like you’re looking for a campaign that maps to your precise idea of the age of sail and what you think a pirate campaign should look like though and anything that doesn’t fit that prickles like a burr. That has always been a painful way to approach published campaigns.

As I said, let’s be fair to Paizo (and I’m by no means a Paizo fanboy) they were very up front about what Skull and Shackles was… it was Pathfinder in a pirate setting. Not a pirate simulation game. The books are really explicit about why they made certain choices. Not least the assumed absence of cannons which kind of invalidates a lot of the age of sail assumptions. There are conventions about treasure shares, hirelings, sailing and the reality of combat in Pathfinder that just don’t work in a 1-15 campaign. Even the act of chasing ships and raiding villages is a side hustle not the main event of the book. Part of the campaign but not repetitively. Instead the campaign is built around other more interesting aspects. After all in three seasons of Black Sails how much screen time was taken up by piracy against merchant vessels? 30 minutes? An hour?

The balance between verisimilitude and playability at the table, selling ships as prizes, sharing plunder with hirelings and much more are all detailed in the books. The random encounters in chapter 2 make it clear that you are expected to range outside of the shackles themselves - particularly events 7, 8 and 9. It specifically references heading out to the Fever Sea and even lists some of the specific areas you might range at this early point - the coasts of Mwangi and Sargava and which ports are too big a mouthful. I mean the book is called Raiders of the Fever Sea right? As I said I think you do the campaign a disservice suggesting these things aren’t addressed. Though it’s totally fine not liking the suggestions.

Difficulty, that’s a trickier one. I ran it for three players and they coped fine but they were very experienced players that were expecting a certain amount of water combat (piercing weapons and could all swim well etc) and of course different groups will fare differently. If you entered riptide cove at high tide, after a few other encounters instead of going in fresh across rocks and relatively shallow water then I can see that being pretty damn tough. I don’t get the issue with swarms though, by that point you’re at least level 3 a CR 3 swarm should be a relatively easy challenge. Either way, a DM needs to judge difficulty and signpost / pace the game accordingly. One groups impossible is another groups easy.

All that said though. I find that when an AP doesn’t match your expectations the solution is one of four things.

• Change the AP
• Change your expectations
• Be unhappy
• Don’t play

There is a ton of advice out there for folks with your concerns with suggestions for adaptions. If you’re not the DM though then you don’t have much say on that. It sounds like you’ve opted for the third or fourth options. Which is a shame because time and time again I see Skull and Shackles recommended as great fun not just by myself. Just maybe not the fun you’re looking for.

Perhaps give Razor Coast a go? I don’t think it will be the perfect campaign or system you’re looking for but again we had a lot of fun with it. Particularly the more simulationist approach taken in Fire as She Bears - the author of which seems to have similar passions and feelings to yourself.

Or one better, write your own. If it’s as good or better than Skull and Shackles I’d definitely buy it!

 

[TheSword]

On a side note, I think the bastion rules would be an awesome way to run a pirate ship long term.

• Use bastion orders to cover things like shoreleave, making repairs, pirating the seas and abstract all that stuff.
• Use random events to cover things like freak weather, damage to the ship, mutinous behavior etc.
• Add ons for upgrades to the ship.

Then use a more detailed ship combat system for combats that matter, like enemy pirates or warships.

 

[Reynard]

On a side note, I think the bastion rules would be an awesome way to run a pirate ship long term.

• Use bastion orders to cover things like shoreleave, making repairs, pirating the seas and abstract all that stuff.
• Use random events to cover things like freak weather, damage to the ship, mutinous behavior etc.
• Add ons for upgrades to the ship.

Then use a more detailed ship combat system for combats that matter, like enemy pirates or warships.

If only the Bastion rules were in the SRD,a 3PP could do that...