What would you want in a book of naval rules?

[Celebrim]

Not that I have a useful suggestion on how to accomplish it, but one of my disgruntled reactions to all RPG seafaring rules I have thus far encountered is that they fail to seriously take wind into account. I don't mind it being abstracted and/or stylised somewhat, but I very much want it to be present and affecting decisions--as explicitly wind.

If you have an abstract combat/chase system, you need to keep track not necessarily of the exact angle of the wind and position of the boats relative to each other, but simply which ship holds the 'weather gage', and how that effects the relative chances of succeeding in various tasks. Not holding the weather gage makes you relatively advantaged when evading or fleeing, while holding it makes you relatively advantaged when attacking with cannon and attempting to gain an advantageous tactical position (like 'crossing the t'). Presumably there would be some system for exchanging the weather gage if the vessels are at close range or have lost sight of each other.

(If you want to bundle things like choppy seas into a broader "wind conditions" I can see that working, too.)

In addition to effecting cannon fire, it is also good to know how heavy seas effect life aboard the ship. In game terms, how are my skills, ability to cast spells, and to hit dice effected by a roiling ship or waves coming across the desk?

 

[gamerprinter]

Rules on ghost ships.

 

[RangerWickett]

I don't see you how keep any fidelity to the romance of sailing fiction without keeping wind at the forefront.

I've heard play accounts of the Saganami Island Tactical Simulator -- Saganami Island Tactical Simulator -- Honorverse Ship to Ship Tactical Combat! -- a space combat ruleset that handles inertia in 3D vacuum for sci-fi combat. Very realistic, and slow, and punishing to people who don't grasp space combat as well as their PCs would. Great fun for tactical wargamers and physics enthusiasts, but not worth the hassle for a typical space-based adventure game.

I'm curious what aspect of wind's influence on naval combat you'd like to see forefronted? Something simple and generic, like "wind advantage" (similar to combat advantage in 4e) granting you a bonus to other rolls and maneuvers, and there being various ways to acquire wind advantage, would be easy. But if you try to add much more detail, you very quickly end up adding a lot of complexity.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

There is an old Mayfair space game that handled inertia in space very well and simply. It wasn't perfect, but it was close enough a physics enthusiast could play it without gagging. I forget the name of it, because someone "borrowed" it in high school, but it was available around 1984 or a bit earlier. So that kind of thing can be done.

As far as how to model it, I'd need to know more about how sailing actually works. Unfortunately, all my information is academic, and I know just how far that goes when doing this kind of thing.

However, the exact mechanic is less important than it providing key decisions for the players. With just what you listed, what Celebrim discussed on "weather gage" seems more likely to work for me than "wind advantage". The latter sounds like something you get or don't, and add to the roll. This puts the focus on the roll. Whereas, "weather gage" sounds like something you deliberately try to gain or lose, depending upon what your goals are, and then that decision affects several subsequent rolls, which in turns complicates your next decision about seeking or avoiding having it. That puts focus on the decision.

I'm aware that sometimes the players may find themselves on the open sea, being overtaken by a warship in a light breeze, and they are simply hosed. And certainly once a giant kraken gets ahold of you, the wind is the least of your worries. But somehow this doesn't do anything for me:

"Cool, I made a natural 20 on my seafaring skill check."
DM: "You cut across near the reef, in time, with the aid of a light breeze, forcing the enemy ship to break off before it crashes, then you get away into the fog before they can regain position."

I don't need your rules to do that. I can do that for myself already.

Edit: Of course, having just enough knowledge to be dangerous on this subject may put me safely outside the target audience.

 

[was]

rules on structural damage and subsequent effects on the vessel

 

[Celebrim]

I've heard play accounts of the Saganami Island Tactical Simulator -- Saganami Island Tactical Simulator -- Honorverse Ship to Ship Tactical Combat! -- a space combat ruleset that handles inertia in 3D vacuum for sci-fi combat. Very realistic, and slow, and punishing to people who don't grasp space combat as well as their PCs would. Great fun for tactical wargamers and physics enthusiasts, but not worth the hassle for a typical space-based adventure game.

Much as I love that traditional deep tactical wargaming, I'm pretty firmly convinced at this point that any rules/numbers heavy system like that is best faithly ported to the computer to let the computer do the heavy lifting for you. I don't think I'd ever get deep into one of those games with pen and paper again.

I'm curious what aspect of wind's influence on naval combat you'd like to see forefronted? Something simple and generic, like "wind advantage" (similar to combat advantage in 4e) granting you a bonus to other rolls and maneuvers, and there being various ways to acquire wind advantage, would be easy.

I think 'easy' is a relative term here. Doing a system like that well would be a major accomplishment.

To me, for the purposes of most things that come up in a roleplaying game, there are two major considerations. First, it has to narrate well. As the GM, the system has to lend itself to translating back and forth between the story elements so that whatever the mechanics say you can describe to the PC's in a logical manner. Conversely, whatever you want to narrate has to translate to the system in a straight forward manner. So, if I find myself in game in a situation where with light fog and moderate wind from the southwest, two ships sight each other after coming around a point of land at a distance of 2 miles where one is a barque and its beating to windward, while the other is a ship with a crew of 90 that holds the weather gage, is running free, and is currently due south of the barque, then what I want is for that to easily translate in its essential elements into the game system. Likewise, if the PC's are on the barque, then I want whatever course of action the PC's state - "We turn into the wind and try to run", "We tack east towards land as close to the wind as possible", ect. - to translate readily into the game system.

Secondly, and perhaps related to that last desire, from the standpoint of being a PC the system has to offer regular and meaningful choices to me so that I feel like I have some control over the outcome of the situation and I'm not on the one hand simply following a script, or on the other hand simply allowing dice to determine a wholly random outcome in which I took no part. This requirement is actually somewhat in tension with the first, because regular actions require frequent narrations. And the more often you have actions, the more frequently the DM is required to invent narrations. The real problem that you run into in most abstract game systems is that you more quickly run short of interesting narration than you run out of choices. This is why most combat in D&D ends up being narrated solely in the metagame language of, "I roll to hit. I got a 17. You hit. etc.", and why an abstact combat system risks the same monotony compared to well - something like Saganami Island Tactical Simulation where the players can see the results of choices directly. There is only so often you can narrate, "You get a little bit closer.", or "You get a little bit farther away." in an interesting fashion. That the system is an abstraction of combat that usually occurs in a space that lacks any sort of terrain only makes things more difficult.

Which is why I think that if you are going to pay attention to anything, it better be the wind. You might also want to think about relative facing as something worth tracking and the ways in which it might transition, though that one might get to be a problem when having more than two engaged combatants. Which speaking of, I didn't bring it up, but during that long running naval campaign we were in, eventually the ship counts started reaching the fleet scale. There is only so long one ship versus one other ship combat remains 'epic'.

 

[Morrus]

There's always going to be a distance between the simulationist crowd and the gamist crowd, and the gritty reality crowd and the fantasy crowd. Master & Commander and Pirates of the Carribean are different for a reason. And D&D has a higher fantasy high end than PotC ever came close to approaching.

One boom won't please everyone. Trying to do so results in a watered down committee design. Pick a vision, stick to it, be honest what that vision is, and sell to those whose preferences match it. I'm a firm believer that the best creative results come from a single vision, not a democratic decision. It's OK to be polarising - there will always be other supplements for those who like something else.

I'm totally not in the "I want to simulate wind in my D&D game" crowd, BTW. But that's just me.

I can see a general environment template applied to encounters. Stormy, whirlpool, reefs, etc.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

I'm totally not in the "I want to simulate wind in my D&D game" crowd, BTW. But that's just me.

Just to be clear, I'm not in that crowd either. I don't like a lot of fiddly simulation in my D&D. I do want wind to matter, as wind. That is not the same thing as simulation.

Another possible, useful technique to keep things relatively brief might be to design the system with deliberately variable time increments. That way, you won't run into some of those narration issues that Celebrim raised.

 

[Celebrim]

Just to be clear, I'm not in that crowd either. I don't like a lot of fiddly simulation in my D&D.

Keep in mind my preface as well; I also think direct simulation is not the way to go. I've been there, and its fun, but its also not something I foresee myself ever having the time to repeat, nor do I see it as something with mass appeal.

Another possible, useful technique to keep things relatively brief might be to design the system with deliberately variable time increments.

In general I agree, but the big problem you'll run into here is how episodic time interacts with PC actions like spellcasting, combat, etc. You run into similar problems with abstract distance. At some point the PC says, "How many range increments away is it for my longbow?" I'm not saying that you necessarily need to get away from the idea of abstract simplified combat, but these are issues that should be considered in the design and text of the supplement.

 

[Rogue Agent]

I'm totally not in the "I want to simulate wind in my D&D game" crowd, BTW. But that's just me.

Which is an interesting position to take. On the high seas, wind offers the same tactical advantage as, say, flanking does in a melee.

The real key question is this: Are you designing a set of rules for meaningful roleplaying, combat, and decision-making on the high seas? Or are you looking to provide some light window-dressing for the voyage between the two points you're actually interested in?