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c_olsen73
2007-07-20, 04:38 PM
I'm very excited. In one week, my group and I are leaving for vacation. The four of us are getting together one last time before we split up to go back to college. I'm DM'ing a campaign that we will focus on exclusively for the week. Aside from the fishing and hiking and such that you MUST do while in Colorado, We'll spend the week playing D&D and Gears of War. I'm very excited.

However, we tried to get this campaign off of the ground a few weeks ago by starting it early, and it failed miserably. My Dm'ing wasn't great (any references for "easy to avoid general DM mistakes?") And the group wasn't enthused about the whole "Save the world...again" thing. So for this campaign I wanted to try something radical and different.

Pirates.

I'm going to DM a pirate campaign. Pillaging. Plundering. Sea Battles. Sea Monsters. Sea Turtles strapped to your feet with back hair. Well, I may not rip off that much. Anyway, I wanted to ask the fine posters of this forum if they've tried it before, and any tips they may have.

I'm looking to avoid pitfalls. I'd like advice on what to bone up on before I start that I may not think of. Good sea monsters? Any compendiums or guides I should look at beforehand? Thanks so much for your time and help!

Talya
2007-07-20, 05:20 PM
If you don't have Stormwrack, get it.

Swordguy
2007-07-20, 05:30 PM
Use 7th Sea. The d10 R&K version, not Swashbuckling Adventures. It's specifically made from the ground up for it.

Inyssius Tor
2007-07-20, 05:39 PM
As Talya said: Stormwrack, man!

goken04
2007-07-20, 05:50 PM
I ran (well, twice) a pirate campaign last fall and Stormwrack really is invalueable. Casters are BIG in this campaign, and if you want to do ship to ship battles (lots of fun!) be sure to both equip the enemy ship with casters (I like to think of them as cannons...) and to know what spells have special effects on Pirate ships. Stormwrack has a list, but if you can't get it, think about what fire and electricity spells can and can't start fires on ships. How much will Mend fix a ship? How much does Gust of Wind effect the speed of ships? Stormwrack is great for this, but if you don't have it, you need to think about the answers to that. If you have a wizard/sorceror, know their spells (as per usual) and how they will effect things like that.

Sea monsters, again, are going to be very troublesome for the health of the ship if you don't have casters that can fix the ship. If you don't have some ship clerics for that, make sure you pick seamonsters that won't rip the ship apart.

It deserves to be said again, Stomwrack was invalueable for my pirate campaign!

deathbyhokie
2007-07-20, 06:32 PM
Use 7th Sea. The d10 R&K version, not Swashbuckling Adventures. It's specifically made from the ground up for it.

I'm gonna second this. It's a new system, yes, but it's is beautiful for running that sort of over the top kind of game. The kind of game where the Crescent (Arab) street magician can pick up a Castillian blade and hit the BBEG with a good 50 points of damage.

Mike_Lemmer
2007-07-20, 06:51 PM
Use 7th Sea. The d10 R&K version, not Swashbuckling Adventures. It's specifically made from the ground up for it.

The question is, can they learn it fast enough during vacation to get in a full week of gaming?

Zeta Kai
2007-07-20, 07:09 PM
1) Beg, borrow or steal; get you a copy of Stormwrack. I know some people don't like splatbooks, & some will say that they are usually just money-machine$ for WotC. But honestly, a d20 pirate campaign without this book is just reinventing the wheel: it's been done, & done well.

2) I recommend that you get several large sheets of paper. 11"x17"/A3 sheets are good, a big tablet of graph paper from Staples is better. On each sheet, draw a deck of your ship (to scale), & then cut out each drawing. That way, you can arrange miniatures on the ship & then move the whole deck over your gaming table as it moves in the game. You can even make enemy ships in the same way, which help with ship-to-ship battles.

3) Avoid monotony! Pirate games can get somewhat tedious if don't change things up regularly. The ocean rarely changes, so your scenery is somewhat static. If you just had a ship battle, don't put the PC's through another right away. Don't bore your players with the sea-monster-of-the-day. Sent them onto land for raiding parties every once in a while, or even extended land adventures. Variety is the spice of life.

4) Use nautical terms with authority, and don't overuse pirate slang. Look up nautical terminology on Wikipedia & learn how sailors actually talk; this will lend valuable flavor to your campaign. Also, use moderation when your NPC's talk. Not every pirate says "Yo ho ho!" & "Shiver me timbers!" every two minutes. If your players roll their eyes after a deckhand bellows "Aaaahhr!" for the umpteenth time, then they might soon get tired of the whole concept of pirates, so beware.

5) If your players are part of the crew of a pirate ship, make them all of equivalent rank. I don't care if you have 12 PC's; make them all swabbies. It's better than making one PC the captain. I've make that mistake before, in my first pirate campaign, & I had to blow up the ship before the captain started acting like a team player. Most true pirate ships were basically democracies anyway.

That's all I have for now. I may add more later.

horseboy
2007-07-20, 07:57 PM
1)
4) Use nautical terms with authority, and don't overuse pirate slang. Look up nautical terminology on Wikipedia & learn how sailors actually talk; this will lend valuable flavor to your campaign. Also, use moderation when your NPC's talk. Not every pirate says "Yo ho ho!" & "Shiver me timbers!" every two minutes. If your players roll their eyes after a deckhand bellows "Aaaahhr!" for the umpteenth time, then they might soon get tired of the whole concept of pirates, so beware.


http://www.talklikeapirate.com/howto.html
and
http://loadingreadyrun.com/videos/view/49/How+to+Talk+like+a+Pirate

If you need to know the lingo.

bosssmiley
2007-07-21, 07:22 AM
Get Dragon #318 from paizo.com for cool staging hints, a breakdown on the historical Port Royal and some historical pirates, and stats for piratey magic items (including a tentacled peg-leg graft).

Talya
2007-07-21, 08:27 AM
Since I don't know 7th Sea, let me restate my original post as: Get Stormwrack if you're using D20/D&D.