D&D General What's your view on a pirate-driven campaign?

[Ulorian - Agent of Chaos]

Well all I know about a pirate-driven game is that it's "drivin' me nuts!"

badum-ching...

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Oh, one fun bit from the mini-campaign I ran for my dad: I had an NPC from his past show up (I think he was the old quartermaster when the PC was just a young recruit), now all washed up. But, he had a treasure map tattooed on his beer rum belly, so he had to be dragged along until they figured out what location it was showing and protect the NPC from villains. This also meant I had a way to give info dumps about the region, the politics, etc. easily.

 

[aco175]

Oh, one fun bit from the mini-campaign I ran for my dad: I had an NPC from his past show up (I think he was the old quartermaster when the PC was just a young recruit), now all washed up. But, he had a treasure map tattooed on his beer rum belly, so he had to be dragged along until they figured out what location it was showing and protect the NPC from villains. This also meant I had a way to give info dumps about the region, the politics, etc. easily.

There was also the kid from the WaterWorld movie with the tattoo upside down on his back, if anyone has not still blocked that movie out.

I am running the after Icespire Peak series of adventures and in the Divine Contention module there is a quest with ships and they have each ship with game stats. There is also 3 actions it can do on each turn. They each have a minimum of crew needed to do things. One of the actions might be to row a certain speed, but it takes 20 crew leaving only 20 for firing the ballistae, which each need 3 crew.

 

[Gradine]

If'n ye be amenable to video games fer yer entertainment purposes, ye could do quite a load worse than givin' Uncharted Waters: New Horizons a gander. Twas a Super Nintendo game set in the groups age of exploration, where ye could choose t' engage in discovery, trade, and a even wee bit o piracy, if'n it suits yer fancy. It's sure to be a right fine source of inspiration for just such a campaign, indeed.

 

[Tonguez]

I began a new game with four players, and the main theme is : Pirates!
My goal in this campaign is to focus on rp, exploration and giving the players more agency than ever (a sandbox, if you will). I'm looking for ideas of sea-based adventures for my players; do you have any ? I'm also curious on what is your view of a campaign where the players are pirates. I already have in mind the inclusion of a few adventures (re-worked for the world of the campaign) of Ghosts of Saltmarsh in mind, but I search more.

(For more context : The campaign sets on the Nomad Lands, an archipelago. At the center of it, the religious captial of Toram extends it's dominion over the Nomad Lands, but not entirely. I suppose the main interest of the players will be the the lands outside the dominion, where tales & legends of the people come to life.)

1 Piracy is bad and pirates are criminals who do bad things
2 Fortunately a lot of Pirates were in fact Privateers, licenced by a government to harrass enemy shipping. They got labelled pirates by said 'enemy government' or when the missed the memo about which ships they should be targeting if circumstances changed.
3 Some Privateers did heroic stuff on land and sea

I suggest you make your PCs privateers so they at least can claim some ethical justification

 

[Micah Sweet]

D&D is mostly not about canons though so boarding actions often can fit really well with normal D&D.

The big issue I would say is you often have casters with fireballs a few times as you close from a few individuals on perhaps both sides, while archers do their thing as well before you get the classic boarding action for the fun melee with cutlasses. The same issue of starting at big range in D&D.

But it is generally not the same as the classic captains maneuvering their ships to set up broadsides with rows of canons where it is mostly one person on each side spotlighted in the ship to ship combat. I say lean in on the diverse party going into melee boarding action.

You can even do some world building to encourage this with say common magic in shipbuilding preventing long range spells so that you have to close and board to do a lot of fighting.

I would never run a pirate campaign without cannons. I'd see no point to it. I don't even run Spelljammer without them.

 

[Micah Sweet]

1 Piracy is bad and pirates are criminals who do bad things
2 Fortunately a lot of Pirates were in fact Privateers, licenced by a government to harrass enemy shipping. They got labelled pirates by said 'enemy government' or when the missed the memo about which ships they should be targeting if circumstances changed.
3 Some Privateers did heroic stuff on land and sea

I suggest you make your PCs privateers so they at least can claim some ethical justification

Is there a need for your RPG play to claim ethical justification? I don't recall that being in the OP.

 

[Voadam]

I would never run a pirate campaign without cannons. I'd see no point to it. I don't even run Spelljammer without them.

I would.

 

[payn]

A good way to get around the Pirates are bad people issue, is make them Robin Hood of the Seas.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I would.

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I can see an exception being made for antiquity.