D&D General Why Exploration Is the Worst Pillar

[The-Magic-Sword]

Heh, since sea campaigns are a bit of my thing, I'd point out that it's entirely plausible that the PC's ARE the crew. I mean, if you are doing historically accurate ships - as in around 15th maybe early 16th century ships, most of them would have crews of five or six. Ten at the most. The whole "hundreds of sailors", ship of the line, Pirates of the Caribbean is really, really anachronistic.

So, it's quite plausible that the PC's plus maybe one or two NPC's are the entire crew of a cog. If the PC's are just passengers, well, sure, leave it to the professionals. But, again, your crew is likely, maybe, a half dozen to a dozen NPC's. Losing one or two is a major deal. Those ships were SMALL.

Funny story. The Sea Ghost - the ship the PC's are supposed to get at the outset of Ghosts of Saltmarsh, is a very accurate Hansa Cog in all ways other than the fact that it is about twice the size of what it should be. A Hansa Cog is usually around 50 feet long and the Dutch used it to sail practically everywhere. The Sea Ghost is nearly a hundred feet long. It's freaking HUGE.

D&D sailing ships really are puny by modern standards. Heck, you don't even need a crew with a 50 foot boat in Canada. Two people can operate it. Not easily, but, it certainly can be done. Put an engine on it, and one person can operate it without too much difficulty. You don't even legally need a crew until 100 feet, IIRC.

Hey real quick, I'm in the middle of planning out a pirate hexcrawl west marches in PF2e, do you happen to have any resources for reading about ships and stuff? I'm trying to get a good handle on what classes of ship I'm writing up, speeds, and crew sizes. I was planning to let the players have access to hireling stuff for crews and get some larger ships later on (originally, because the base sailing ship in pf2e similarly takes too many people), but I'm hoping to get a handle on the smaller vessels.

I am shooting for Age of Sail incidentally and i'm happy to do some serious reading.

 

[Hussar]

Hey real quick, I'm in the middle of planning out a pirate hexcrawl west marches in PF2e, do you happen to have any resources for reading about ships and stuff? I'm trying to get a good handle on what classes of ship I'm writing up, speeds, and crew sizes. I was planning to let the players have access to hireling stuff for crews and get some larger ships later on (originally, because the base sailing ship in pf2e similarly takes too many people), but I'm hoping to get a handle on the smaller vessels.

I am shooting for Age of Sail incidentally and i'm happy to do some serious reading.

Hrm, it's been a while since I looked stuff up. One excellent 3e book was Broadsides! Naval Adventuring by Living Imagination. They're pretty encyclopedic. DM's Guild (or at least the 3pp stuff that I used to look at, again, it's been a while) usually does have some great stuff. Try searching on there using the Ghosts of Saltmarsh tag. You'll probably get everything you could need for 5e. There are people who are FAR more ... umm... detail oriented shall we say, than I ever am.

 

[The-Magic-Sword]

Hrm, it's been a while since I looked stuff up. One excellent 3e book was Broadsides! Naval Adventuring by Living Imagination. They're pretty encyclopedic. DM's Guild (or at least the 3pp stuff that I used to look at, again, it's been a while) usually does have some great stuff. Try searching on there using the Ghosts of Saltmarsh tag. You'll probably get everything you could need for 5e. There are people who are FAR more ... umm... detail oriented shall we say, than I ever am.

Appreciate!

 

[Nefermandias]

I'm not after story-driven, though, in that sense; nor am I all that concerned about speeding up play by skipping over details (some here seem to want to sacrifice half the game on the altar of speed). I'd rather see the story emerge from the detailed run of play.

Brilliantly put, friend. I unironically want to slap this on the front of my DM Screen now.

 

[Hussar]

Brilliantly put, friend. I unironically want to slap this on the front of my DM Screen now.

Oh, it's definitely a matter of taste.

I'm just not all that interested in that style of play anymore. Then again, I stopped reading door stopper Fantasy books and series years ago. By and large, the longest thing I read anymore for genre fiction is a novella. If it's more than about 100 pages, I'm just not interested.

Does go a long way as to why I don't really read fantasy very much anymore.

 

[Aldarc]

Oh, it's definitely a matter of taste.

I'm just not all that interested in that style of play anymore.

Agreed, though I think it also is a matter of WotC's own data. Gaming sessions are not as long as they once were. Some people have the 6+ hours several times per week, but some people only have about 2 hours a week, if they are lucky. So it's also a matter of people wanting to getting their values' worth of time in gaming.

Then again, I stopped reading door stopper Fantasy books and series years ago. By and large, the longest thing I read anymore for genre fiction is a novella. If it's more than about 100 pages, I'm just not interested.

Does go a long way as to why I don't really read fantasy very much anymore.

Thankfully, while the door-stopper mega-epics are still a thing, I do think that we are gradually seeing a return to the lost art of the self-contained fantasy novel.

 

[turnip_farmer]

Personally, I'm fine with having full-on Trafalgar-era ships of the line in my setting; only they use 'tween-deck-mounted ballistae instead of cannons for their armaments.

Whenever I try and run a naval battle, players are always asking about cannons. Doesn't matter how firmly medieval the setting is, or that there's been nary a hint of a mention of gunpowder anywhere else - ships are expected to have cannons.

I don't think I need to worry about any one spotting anachronisms in ship design.

 

[Nefermandias]

Whenever I try and run a naval battle, players are always asking about cannons. Doesn't matter how firmly medieval the setting is, or that there's been nary a hint of a mention of gunpowder anywhere else - ships are expected to have cannons.

I don't think I need to worry about any one spotting anachronisms in ship design.

I don't see the problem here? Gunpowder artillery have been in use in Europe since early 14th century and by the Mongols long before that.

Besides, hard disagree that D&D should be considered "medieval" at this point.

 

[tetrasodium]

Whenever I try and run a naval battle, players are always asking about cannons. Doesn't matter how firmly medieval the setting is, or that there's been nary a hint of a mention of gunpowder anywhere else - ships are expected to have cannons.

I don't think I need to worry about any one spotting anachronisms in ship design.

Siege staffs. I use those for tat kinda question

 

[Lanefan]

Whenever I try and run a naval battle, players are always asking about cannons. Doesn't matter how firmly medieval the setting is, or that there's been nary a hint of a mention of gunpowder anywhere else - ships are expected to have cannons.

I don't think I need to worry about any one spotting anachronisms in ship design.

I just replace cannons with ballistae and go from there. It works, sort of, and keeps the no-gunpowder idea intact.