Have you ever played a pirate campaign? How did that go?
>>98705512No, just one shots. Pretti gud tough.
>>98705512Yes, about five IRL years of campaigning in an Age of Sail setting. Some piracy, but more often than not pirates were the enemy and the PCs were free traders.Went really well, probably my gaming magnum opus.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvUbbYX9BMs
>>98705704any stories you would care to share? Our group is in a pirate game but it moves at a somewhat glacial pace so not too much has occured.
>>98705710A lot happened, but not a lot that would make a good anecdote on a Finnish scrimshaw website. Let's see.>That one time the PCs started a fight with some rifle-wielding guys and nearly got TPKed>The one time when the PCs forgot which faction they were allying with and nearly caused a brushfire war>The minor loot table somehow only giving one particular PC jars of stuff as rewards, leading to him having a list of bizarre jars and people commenting on his cabin decor>Having to rework a lot of my adventure-writing skills when the players realised that nothing was stopping them from bringing a unit of marines with them wherever they went.>The time one PC accidentally became a devotee of a Norse god>Forgot my prep one week so just riffed on Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca and nobody else at the table had read it, so I briefly looked like a geniusThat's a whistlestop tour. Twas a fun time!
>>98705512I used space pirates as opponents in Traveller, does it count?players fucked up several times, effectively pirates from having conquered local medieval tier town in hard to reach "Tibet", will now be officially recognized as political entity after taking hostage fiancee with child of PC duke, that is daughter of local ruler of small few planet kingdom
>>98705512Yes. It was rather mediocre, very "railroaded" because we could only go where "weather and currents" allowed, most islands were uninhabited offering nothing but forage for food and water, and when we actually spotted a ship it was either too fast to catch or too heavily armed to engage.
>>98705512We pirate all of the books we use.
it was gay and lame because the X half of B/X is obsessed with minutiae that feels like it's a separate game, and even then that doesn't come close to the kind of autism people with an interest in ships or nautical history expect.>how can we fire the cannon (plural) if the wrightsmith didn't spool the mainbrace during the Warwick embarkments?it's all nonsense. every teenager has their "let's do a pirate campaign!" idea, but nobody actually WANTS hexcrawl D&D, so they definitely don't want "veered off course by poor weather conditions, and how's the larder doing?" D&D.you could do plot/set piece D&D with 4E skill challenges swinging and somersaulting around a ship, but then you aren't playing D&D, you're playing someone's story.
>>98705512Campaign died after the first session, wanted to be chief swabbie that leads the crew in shanties to raise morale, but it wasn't meant to be.I've also played a pirate captain through a full Strahd campaign. The Paladin was a morally bankrupt wuss, therefore despite being built for athletic, clambering skirmishes, he became the de facto frontline grappler and authority for everything short of negotiations. Even then he was still able to flex enough leadership charisma to convince Strahd's traitorous wife to leave the castle with the party rather than take the punishment for falling for his trap. Due to that, and his eloquent back-sass in the face of Strahd's facade of nobility, he was the only party member that died, twice, using up our campaign's only two means of resurrection magic.
Any suggestions for an EVIL pirate campaign? (Running it in Warhammer Fantasy 2e)I was thinking on the party being hired by a scholar/noble to help him make a run to Ind or Cathay through sea since, afair, in lore there hasn't been anyone who has (officially) made the run through the Horn of the Southlands and all commerce is usually made through land and since they are a bunch of bastards they are the most reliable option for protection at least in the noble's eyesSecond idea is the exact same one but like Treasure Planet, they are just waiting for an opportunity to strike since they were hired as "honest and Sigmar fearing sailors"That's my main idea, I mean sure I can have my players just pillaging, raping and killing everything in every port from Kislev to Araby but I feel it will get stale after a few sessions
Yeah ran one for about 70 sessions in Pathfinder 1e. Only one player made an actual pirate-themed character, with another one making a semi-pirate-themed one. Basically a bunch of ship boarding actions mixed with going to different islands and checking out dungeons. Advancement was based on the wealth by level table, which actually works pretty well except a lot of the time they wouldn't divide up treasure or put effort into selling it all for coin. It ended up with them just "claiming" large amounts of commodities and other shit they couldn't use, just to level up, then complaining they didn't hit wealth by level, when they had specifically chosen to level up faster without selling their loot to buy actual magic items first. However, it was Pathfinder, so they still obliterated everything because Pathfinder characters are overpowered. So basically a typical Pathfinder campaign, except I got to use the same battlemat a lot. So that was fun. I would definitely run it in B/X if I did it again. That has gold-for-XP too, except as a core feature of the game, and also doesn't have such an insane power curve that ships full of level 1 sailors don't become irrelevant by level 5.
>>98712211If you're going EVIL pirates, you need a semblance of infrastructure so Estalians/Tileans don't just blast the party in the months it takes them to learn someone touched their merchant vessels or the days after they assault someone. Sartosa is a fine spot to aim for fresh mutineers, but if they're not starting nearby they'll need (island) havens to moor at, wilderness camps to hide out in, and a healthy respect for Manann if they don't want to risk an encounter with off-brand Charybdis.For ideas when simple pillaging loses its luster, have rumors of a convict facing execution that knows where a wealth of treasure is hidden (and a prison to break him out from), or have them be approached by some minor noble to be hired as privateers (or revealed as a desperate target), or face a force of rival pirates or pirate hunters that don't much care for these upstarts, or come across (steal) some fraction of a powerful relic/set that needs to be identified as such and pieced back together so they can flex their tyranny, or woo the cruel Pirate Princess of Sartosa with atrocities. Basically, anything that appeals to sin and an "easy path" of evil to get there should last you an eternity.
>>98705512the fantasy AGE freeport pirates setting is essentially perfect for playing pirates. i mean really. also if you kind of like pathfinder, and kind of like 5ed and kind of like or want to like OSR stuff, you should be checking out fantasy AGE. my group played it at a gencon a couple years ago and we have agreed that it its the itch we all had, meanwhile we tried the pathfinder 2nd ed demo at this years gencon and couldnt stand it. what a fucking mess. I literally got up from the table mid session
>>98712211Run a Norscan campaign using Tome of Corruption. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIrFQuC4C50The Old World Armory may be useful for getting value on goods, but your main trade is probably humans for thralls and human sacrifices to the Dark Gods. Threats include druchii rivals, Kislevite, Marienburger, and Imperial ships, and of course sea monsters/rival tribes.You could do a druchii one, too. The retinue of a noble on his hakseer-cruise.
