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Message: <blockquote data-quote="SiderisAnon" data-source="post: 5112692" data-attributes="member: 44949">I've run several shipboard campaigns.  There are a number of things I was always looking for in gaming books, but really never found.Where pirating is actually represented in an economic way.  First, there should be actual cargo items rather than just "500 gold worth of goodies."  Second, there should be differences in the cargo depending on where you sail and who you attack.  (So, if you attack the French near their colony that produces clothing, you're likely to get a cargo full of either the cloth and clothing they are producing or cotton, wool, and dye along with the various supplies the colony is importing.Third, factors like ship maintenance, food and supplies, crew pay, bribes to wherever you're offloading cargo, and other expenses.Finally, this all needs to be wrapped up in a decent system that DMs can use which both makes basic economic sense and which can be used within whatever game system you're writing this for.You also need detailed information on ships since most modern gamers haven't the slightest furry clue how sailing ships work.  How big are they?  How fast do they go?  How expensive are they to buy?  How many crew do they have?  How much cargo can they carry and how does that effect their movement?  What weapons do they carry?  What ships are used by pirates?  (Hint: Fast, maneuverable, good for boarding.)  What ships are used by the navies?  Make sure you include some sample deck plans.Include in your navigation rules something about using favorable currents and winds.  Captains of the era could shave significant time off of their travel in various regions if they knew where the currents and the winds were.Maps are precious and guarded like treasure.Though I have to say that you're probably reinventing the wheel unless you can come up with something really new and unique.  There are so many pirate and ship settings and sourcebooks out there that trying to pick one is already kind of silly.Edit:  One more thing, spend some time in the library and research real ships and how they worked historically.  Some of the supplements out there were painful to read because they clearly had either no or completely wrong understanding of how ships worked.</blockquote>

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