Running a pirate campaign

[ddude987]

So for my college dorm I am running a campaign and I casually suggested a pirate campaign and some of them being One Piece fans, they were immediately on board (no pun intended). I have not DMed a lot, and never DMed anything like this before. So I have a few questions:
1. I've been told to avoid Stormwrack like the plague. Why?
2. What kind of plot hooks are there? Treasure seems to be purely greed based. Any other reasons to seek treasure?
3. What kind of kingdoms/empires etc would an archipelago based world form?
Also just any ideas anybody has about the seas, pirates, or DMing in general is appreciated.

Also, I know nothing about One Piece in the slightest.

[Krobar]

We use Stormwrack a lot. I don't know why people would recommend avoiding it like the plague. I think it's one of the better splatbooks out there, possibly only second to Frostburn.

I started my pirate campaign with everyone at 3rd level. They were all convicted of various crimes and were sentenced to a life of slavery on an island chain halfway across the known world. See the movie Captain Blood - I loosely based the intro to the campaign on that movie. You can have everyone roll up a couple of different characters in case their main character doesn't survive, and this is easily explained by them not being the only slaves aboard the ship.

Treasure is definitely greed-based. Unless they plan to give it all away, of course. Or unless they're actually privateers with a Letter of Marque from their king, in which case they have to give any treasure over to the kingdom and they get to keep a percentage. If they go this route they definitely don't want to attack their own country's ships.

[Fouredged Sword]

1 - Stormwrack is a great book, but I would recommend not using the ship to ship combat rules. They tend to put characters in a situation that has one person (the captain) making all the rolls and decisions, and that isn't fun for a group. Do a quick couple of broadsides, then get to boarding where everyone can contribute.

2
- Storms wash them close to an uncharted island, what could be there?
- Someone has a map leading to treasure and danger?
- Pirate hunters came to attack you?
- You have a bounty on your head now, what do you do?
- KRAKEN!!!!
- There is a shipment of gold headed through the channel soon.

3 - I would recommend an archipelago area with a distant motherland that is trying to expand into the area. It creates the expansion and movement of great wealth that spawned the pirate era. You have one big dominant culture pushing in (IRL the spanish) and several less powerful groups (England, France, The Dutch, Portugal) encouraging piracy to help turn the tides VS the richer and more powerful group.

[Krobar]

1 - Stormwrack is a great book, but I would recommend not using the ship to ship combat rules. They tend to put characters in a situation that has one person (the captain) making all the rolls and decisions, and that isn't fun for a group. Do a quick couple of broadsides, then get to boarding where everyone can contribute.

2
- Storms wash them close to an uncharted island, what could be there?
- Someone has a map leading to treasure and danger?
- Pirate hunters came to attack you?
- You have a bounty on your head now, what do you do?
- KRAKEN!!!!
- There is a shipment of gold headed through the channel soon.

3 - I would recommend an archipelago area with a distant motherland that is trying to expand into the area. It creates the expansion and movement of great wealth that spawned the pirate era. You have one big dominant culture pushing in (IRL the spanish) and several less powerful groups (England, France, The Dutch, Portugal) encouraging piracy to help turn the tides VS the richer and more powerful group.

Yup. Get to the boarding as soon as possible so everyone gets to participate. Either have the enemy ship faster and closing, or have it slower and your party closes, then just skip to the chase with something like <die rolls for effect> "After a bit of maneuvering, you manage to close to within 200' of your adversary, and he turns hard to port..." or vice versa if they're pursuing your party. Or something like that. That's the easiest way to do it.

We use a hex grid mat for movement. The Chessex Mondo Mat is a great one - 1" squares on one side, 1" hexes on the other. For game purposes each hex is about 50' from edge to edge. When two ships occupy the same hex, boarding can take place.

[ddude987]

We have a chessex mat with both hexes and squares. I always run a campaign in hexes.

Thanks for all the great ideas so far. Everyone, including me, is really stoked about this campaign. I've decided the starting level will be 3. I'm still playing with a few starts for the game.
-Everyone is on an island with low resources and a ruined boat, they have to get out some how (Fire signal, repair the boat etc)
-Everyone is aboard a slave ship
-The players simply start out being pirates who know each other and already own a small ship.

[HylianKnight]

Just anecdotal reporting, but my college friends and I ran a short pirate campaign for half a semester last year.

The 5 of us in the game took the pirate thing as an excuse to play even more chaotically and amorally than normal. Instead of following our GM's major plot-starting hook involving the port-city's LG knightly authority attempt to seize our ship (that we weren't suppose to own, but had successfully seized in a coup attempt in the intro. We were suppose to be outmatched at the time, but one very nearly PC-lethal combat later and we had our own blood-soaked vessel) and give us a new one to go investigate something. We instead took offense to his actions and over two-sessions set about driving him insane/framing for some despicable kidnapping plot in front of the city magistrates and getting him committed.

It was all kinda downhill from there plot wise, but we had great fun.

[ddude987]

That sounds like great fun. I hope my group doesn't troll me that hard. I haven't really thought of a plot so far, I think aside from the beginning, creating a world and just letting them wreak havoc as pirates are wont to do seems like a good idea. Of course there will be legends of cursed treasure, lost cities, etc and those are good adventure hooks.