Yarr! What be yer' favorite system for runnin' a Pirate game?!

[barsoomcore]

Me own pirate game I ran using Skull and Bones with a little d20 Modern thrown in. She were a fine time, that she were.

Next year I wager me favourite pirate game will be DINO-PIRATES OF NINJA ISLAND, however. Now THERE be some pirate fun! Arrrr!

 

[Aus_Snow]

For the system, Iron Heroes. WIth some tweaks, maybe.

The setting's another thing, of course.


edit --- for the swashbuckley goodness, is what I meant. For grim n' gritty, I'd have to choose something all over again. . . meh, too much effort.

 

[The Pope]

Seventh Sea. What the heck's wrong with you people?

 

[Aeric]

Seventh Sea. What the heck's wrong with you people?

Thank you! I was just about to post that myself!

The only thing that bugs me about 7th Sea is that there really isn't a reason for all that sailing. There's no Africa, no Australia, no New World, no Triangle Trade, Cathay isn't accessible by sea, and there are perfectly good land routes for trade between the "European" nations. The islands with the Syrneth ruins on them seem to have been thrown in as an afterthought. Personally, I never use any of the Syrneth stuff; it doesn't fit with the rest of the world, and just seems like something for the fans of D&D-style dungeon crawling.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

Ah, 7th Sea... a very fun game. I have been considering crossing Swashbuckling Adventures with Spycraft 2.0 - believe it or not, Alderac's spy game is closer in feel and flavor to the original 7th Sea than their D20 Swashbuckling Adventures was. (Action Dice, Action Dice I tell you!)

Skull & Bones is also good, more salty dog than swashbuckler though.

And, for a brief time, I once ran a Steampunk Pirates game using Steam and Steel from E.N. Publishing and Sorcery & Steam from Fantasy Flight. It was a lot of fun, more beer and pretzels than a serious campaign. (I was using it as a filler for my usual game group while I was too busy to do much work on my normal campaign.) In a lot of ways it was a really dumb game. (Pirates in ships suspended from derigibles, powered by steam engines....)

The Auld Grump

 

[scourger]

I ran a very fun pirate D&D game using the core rules with gunpowder weapons from the DMG and the free Skull & Bones downloads found at the Green Ronin web site:

http://www.greenronin.com/catalog/grr1018

There are some great maps of the Caribbean islands and a very fun intro adventure at that site. I bought the book later, but I only used the setting onformation (about 10% of the book). The main PCs were fighters and thieves, so it worked very well. I would do it again.

I would also like to run 50 Fathoms for Savage Worlds, but it has variant races that my players don't like. It would be great as an all-human game, though.

WFRP is a good rules set. I'm running a game of it now. I made all the mooks have zero wounds and subject to sudden death criticals to make it less bookkeeping for me and to make the PCs more powerful. It's been working fine, and the players have been in mortal fear every session.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Iron Kingdoms would work, too.

 

[The Cardinal]

GURPS4e
Argh Thar Be Zombies!

 

[jinx crossbow]

Seventh Sea. What the heck's wrong with you people?

This man talks wise!

Seventh Sea is the only priate RPG, all other are pale imitations.

Or was it furry pirates.

Jinx

 

[dpmcalister]

I don't know. 7th Sea is an excellent swashbuckling RPG, but pirates? I don't think so.