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Olga
2017-04-07, 11:52 AM
Hey everyone,

my group has requested a pirate themed game. So i've started them up and they are now level 5. But i'm totally stuk on ideas. Sure, there's the cthulumythos, but thats way overpowered, and even pirates of the carribean-esk shenannigens or story ideas from the liveship traders are. Does anyone have some ideas for me?

Yora
2017-04-07, 12:02 PM
Cthulhupriests can work at any level. They might have some special spells or could summon lesser demons, but with the weird old gods there is never any certainty that they will actually bother to help their priests if they are in trouble.

Are the players playing pirates or are they fighting them?

Olga
2017-04-07, 12:08 PM
They are playing them. But with their level they are not yet ready to really go out to the seas so I'm having them do a sort of delivery run now which isn't all that awesome.

Hopeless
2017-04-07, 12:27 PM
Have a rival betray them by joining the "Good guys" and leading them on a devastating attack on their home base barely escaping the resulting carnage?

So no home they've now got to find a safe port at the very least somewhere with potable water, food and maybe a safe harbour... think Star Wars except it's water navy based!

Olga
2017-04-07, 02:03 PM
Have a rival betray them by joining the "Good guys" and leading them on a devastating attack on their home base barely escaping the resulting carnage?

So no home they've now got to find a safe port at the very least somewhere with potable water, food and maybe a safe harbour... think Star Wars except it's water navy based!

Thank you :-)

Yora
2017-04-07, 02:50 PM
They are playing them. But with their level they are not yet ready to really go out to the seas so I'm having them do a sort of delivery run now which isn't all that awesome.

Piracy isn't really that much about hand to hand combat against overwhelming odds most of the time. It's about stealing stuff and if it's a fantasy campaign then also about exploring exotic magical places. The standard sailor or soldier should have the stats and abilities of the most basic low-level NPC with pretty much only a knife or a sword to fight with. In small numbers even low-level PCs should be able to handle them.

When you run a pirate campaign, the players need to get their hands on their own ship as soon as possible. Doesn't have to be a big one. Just a fast one. The most common pirate ships where bamuda sloops and brigantines, which are both much smaller than the ships seen in pirate movies. A total crew of 10 to 20 would be enough for those.

Beneath
2017-04-07, 07:58 PM
5th level is a great time in many systems to get their hands on their own ship and go to sea, or to start making moves toward that. Arguably, in a pirate-themed game, it's later than ideal for becoming captains of their own destiny in a lot of systems.

In D&D5 you've explicitly just passed the stage of being an apprentice adventurer, and therefore are very qualified to mark that by getting your own ship. In D&D3 or Pathfinder you're almost to the point where you can get the game system to hand you followers who are dedicated and loyal to you personally, which makes a lot of possible pirate adventures wrt working with crew loyalties potentially obsolete. In old-school D&D you're, one, halfway to name level where you outrank ship captains 'cause you have your own port to manage, and two, if you got most of your EXP for plunder, you certainly have the budget to buy a ship (and in B/X you're at the level where the rules to continue advancing your character are bundled with the rules for wilderness exploration anyway so you're expected to be able to handle* anything on a wilderness encounter table). In Dungeon World you're probably halfway through your campaign at minimum and if you're doing pirates you should have started with a ship at level 1 or 2. In Torchbearer you're at the end of the level scale included in the basic rulebook. If you're playing Donjon, color me impressed for keeping people intent on going pirate from getting their hands on a ship for four levels.

*"handle" may mean "run away from without losing too many NPC hirelings"

This is actually a problem I've had to overcome, being too conservative in what I'm willing to give my players.

Now, I mean, the ship they have doesn't have to be, like, new, or even, legally speaking, their property. It's probably better if it isn't and the rightful owner wants it back (picking a ship, infiltrating as either passengers, crew, or stowaways, and staging a mutiny/hijacking is a classic way of starting a pirate career. So is staging a mutiny when a ship you signed up for with no ulterior motives turns out to be incompetently run. A stolen ship someone wants back is a great adventure seed).

They do need an enemy though. A mythos cult works if you want to go that way (at their level the cultists they run into probably don't have any mythos entities even answering their prayers, they just worship them because they were exposed to them tangentially because of machinations happening above their heads; as the PCs level they meet high priests and then ultimately mythos entities). So does a country, if you want something that's less, like, pirates vs cosmic horror. Jack Sparrow became a pirate, and an enemy of the British Crown, because he refused to be a slaver. Your pirates could also be sponsored by one country to attack ships belonging to one they're at war with (granted a letter of marque). There was also a story of Alexander the Great where a pirate he captured called him a hypocrite for denouncing him as a pirate while styling himself emperor, even though the pirate didn't do anything Alexander didn't do himself (also: going from pirate to emperor is a classic old-school D&D campaign).

Pirates vs Countries works great because an age of sail ship is law unto itself (because there's often nothing bigger even out to the horizon; you might fly a national flag, or not, but that doesn't mean there's any higher authority present than your captain), because you can just move anytime things get too dicey (since your home is a vehicle meant to travel distances comparable to the size of the entire world), because your ship has enormous endurance and doesn't have to be dependent on its home port as long as you're able to resupply provisions (food, canvas, rope, lumber; note that much of this can be done on a completely unpopulated tropical island, though preserving food might be challenging) and replace crew somewhere, and also because piracy (which has a whole host of legal definitions) is a crime for while any country that catches you will probably hang you (and if they won't, there's a good chance they'll hand you over to someone who will).

Another possibility that's good for sea games is if aquatic monsters are doing something. D&D has sahuagin and merfolk and locathah and tritons and ixitxachitl who can all fill this role, and sahuagin even might raid and threaten land-dwellers. The one downside to this is that being attacked by naturally-swimming humanoids below the waterline can be extremely dangerous to an unprepared ship, so you should probably figure out ship countermeasures unless they're, like, a new threat. Threats from the sea don't have to come from underwater, either. A dragon trying to accumulate a hoard in its new lair off a major shipping lane could put the squeeze on pirates and traders alike.

You don't even need, strictly speaking, a sea threat. A lich could be researching a spell to turn the sun inside out and make it shed darkness over the earth to heal undead and burn the living, and you find out about this because the lich's errand-vampire was in a port you're trying to rob. Or maybe the lich has a puppet with an interest in a merchant company and it was their ship you decided to mutiny on. You could also replace the lich/lich puppet with pretty much anything that can blend in to human society (yuan-ti, devil, generic evil wizard, whatever)

Or fire giants might be trying to erupt a supervolcano or pour lava over all the sea or do something else inconvenient, again on an island that puts you in their way. Maybe you get caught in the crossfire between fire giants trying to bury the sea under magma rocks and sahuagin trying to sink the world.

Edit: All of this is assuming you're shy about going weird. Shuffling through various Alestorm songs gave me Magnetic North (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11CKOAQDsbg) (side-note: if you want to plan a pirate game, and don't mind theming your game after alcohol, Alestorm lyrics make a great source of inspiration), which reminded me of the Seeking Mr Eaten's Name plot in Fallen London. Specifically, at its conclusion, the one way NORTH (it's always emphasized in all caps) from the Unterzee is through the gate at the Avid Horizon, which leads to the realm of the Judgements from which none have returned, and at the end of the Seeking Mr Eaten's Name plot your doomed obsession leads you to pass through. People who have actually done it can tell you more than I can.

RazorChain
2017-04-07, 11:59 PM
They are playing them. But with their level they are not yet ready to really go out to the seas so I'm having them do a sort of delivery run now which isn't all that awesome.

Wait? What? At level 5 they should be at high seas!

I assume you are playing D&D then the usual murder progression is like
Level 1: Rats in the basement
Level 2: goblin mines
Level 3: Orcs and spiders
Level 4: Ghouls
Level 5 Something bigger!

Now just throw them on the Good ship Venus and head for high adventure

Olga
2017-04-08, 06:25 AM
Piracy isn't really that much about hand to hand combat against overwhelming odds most of the time. It's about stealing stuff and if it's a fantasy campaign then also about exploring exotic magical places. The standard sailor or soldier should have the stats and abilities of the most basic low-level NPC with pretty much only a knife or a sword to fight with. In small numbers even low-level PCs should be able to handle them.

When you run a pirate campaign, the players need to get their hands on their own ship as soon as possible. Doesn't have to be a big one. Just a fast one. The most common pirate ships where bamuda sloops and brigantines, which are both much smaller than the ships seen in pirate movies. A total crew of 10 to 20 would be enough for those.


Thank you! Yes i started them of with al 5 level quest so they now have their own ship ^^

Olga
2017-04-08, 06:30 AM
wauw thank you! I'll be thaking my time reading all this, but when i scan it i already see some good stuff here :-D The reason they are not on high seas yet is because they still run a high risk of failing seafaring rolls. But ofcourse i can make sure they don't run into those problems just yet.... @beneath

Bohandas
2017-04-08, 10:45 AM
Bermuda Triangle-esque area filled with every weird creature or location that's ever been part of a rumor or legend about the Bermuda Triangle (which ranges from sea monsters to aliens to Atlantis to underwater pyramids to mundane lodestone deposits that screw up magnetic compasses)

Beneath
2017-04-08, 11:48 AM
What system are you in and what specifically is the risk of failing seafaring rolls?

Depending on the system, I'd say that having some risk of failure is the point of rolling for something, and a failed seafaring roll doesn't mean "you wreck your ship, everyone dies"; it means the adventure goes in a shipwreck-y direction. Those things happen.

Algeh
2017-04-10, 07:45 PM
Without knowing the specifics of the system, here are some other "failure seeds" for something at sea if a relevant blown roll is missed that lets the adventure itself move forward (rather than a single failed roll being "and now the adventure is over because you all suck at seafaring"):


Blown slightly off course, may take an extra day or two to get wherever you're going (this is a nice, minor consequence as long as the characters have a reasonable amount of extra provisions)
Ended up WAY off course, discover The Island Of Interesting Side-Quests
Something about the ships breaks, now figure out how to repair it (possibly with improvised parts)
Something about the ship breaks/fails/is lost and cannot be repaired out of existing resources, will have to do without until you can get to a port or somewhere else that has stuff to fix it (maybe a ship's boat wasn't properly secured and was lost overboard, you're now down a small boat until you find a new one)
Something about the ship is ruined, and now you get to try to barter with and/or intimidate other ships into giving you that thing
(Those last three are basically the same one GM-wise, it just depends on how your players decide to handle it, but you can steer them in likely directions depending on what breaks and whether or not they see another ship go by and such things)


I'm sure other people will have more suggestions. If you have some ideas for ways that failed seafaring rolls lead to interesting stories, then failed rolls are still fun for the players.

Herobizkit
2017-04-12, 04:16 AM
Nothing says 'adventure' like 'small island chain with an imposing tower for no (apparent) reason'.

* Maybe it's a lighthouse... but what is it warning people about? Does it still work?
* Maybe it's a telegraph that harnesses the sun and "can send out a message or burn with its beam"
* Maybe it's home to some guy who ate some bad magic fruit and now can't live as a solid being for more than a couple of hours a day.
* Maybe it's an Aerie for Sea Hags, or Harpies, or Griffons, or...
* Maybe it's the "air tower" for an underwater structure.
* Maybe it's Crenshinibon. (and can you believed I typed it right from memory, first try?)

So many options...

Nupo
2017-04-12, 09:29 AM
The players in a campaign I'm DM'ing just acquired a small ship (a Caravel), so I will be watching this thread as well. They are only 2nd level and acquired the ship from hobgoblin pirates. One potential plot hook I have sowed some seeds for is a kind of an Island of Dr. Moreau sort of thing, where the Dr. Moreau character is a Zern. The Zern used his Shifting Guise to appear as human and attended a slave auction that the players were at recently. All the players know, for now, is an unusual human was buying up lots of low cost slaves, mostly young children and older individuals. I just dropped it in amongst a lot of other things happening at the auction. A while back they found a map that showed several hobgoblin pirate bases and they have been taking them out the last few sessions. That's how they acquired the ship. It sailed up as they were leaving the last base. They have a few more hobgoblin bases they want to take out that will occupy us for at least the next few sessions, so the Zern thing is for down the road. That is if the players even decide to bite on it. I always like to have lots of potential hooks dangling out there and see which one the players bite on.

Jay R
2017-04-12, 08:56 PM
You'll have to modify them to fit a game with magic, but there are several good ideas in the Flashing Blades supplement High Seas (http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/716/Flashing-Blades-High-Seas?it=1).

JBPuffin
2017-04-12, 09:11 PM
In our current campaign, we had a ship from the get go, and at hitting level 4 we have retrieved a second (our original) from counter-thieves (defectors from the theocratic dictatorship we're stuck serving for now). We've been at sea during every session for some duration of time, either commanding or simply boarded on a boat to reach our next destination. The only thing that's keeping them out of the sea, it seems, is the notion that there's a minimum level for ship ownership - and as a member of a party where a 1st-level barbarian was a moderately-renowned pirate captain, I can assure you, there needn't be one.

Olga
2017-04-15, 07:43 AM
Bermuda Triangle-esque area filled with every weird creature or location that's ever been part of a rumor or legend about the Bermuda Triangle (which ranges from sea monsters to aliens to Atlantis to underwater pyramids to mundane lodestone deposits that screw up magnetic compasses)

Thank you that is a great idea!

Olga
2017-04-15, 07:44 AM
What system are you in and what specifically is the risk of failing seafaring rolls?

Depending on the system, I'd say that having some risk of failure is the point of rolling for something, and a failed seafaring roll doesn't mean "you wreck your ship, everyone dies"; it means the adventure goes in a shipwreck-y direction. Those things happen.

About 50% chance. So that's still quit steep. However, one of them i now multiclassing so those odds are sure to improve.

Olga
2017-04-15, 07:45 AM
Without knowing the specifics of the system, here are some other "failure seeds" for something at sea if a relevant blown roll is missed that lets the adventure itself move forward (rather than a single failed roll being "and now the adventure is over because you all suck at seafaring"):


Blown slightly off course, may take an extra day or two to get wherever you're going (this is a nice, minor consequence as long as the characters have a reasonable amount of extra provisions)
Ended up WAY off course, discover The Island Of Interesting Side-Quests
Something about the ships breaks, now figure out how to repair it (possibly with improvised parts)
Something about the ship breaks/fails/is lost and cannot be repaired out of existing resources, will have to do without until you can get to a port or somewhere else that has stuff to fix it (maybe a ship's boat wasn't properly secured and was lost overboard, you're now down a small boat until you find a new one)
Something about the ship is ruined, and now you get to try to barter with and/or intimidate other ships into giving you that thing
(Those last three are basically the same one GM-wise, it just depends on how your players decide to handle it, but you can steer them in likely directions depending on what breaks and whether or not they see another ship go by and such things)


I'm sure other people will have more suggestions. If you have some ideas for ways that failed seafaring rolls lead to interesting stories, then failed rolls are still fun for the players.



Thank you! I can sure use some tof those ideas!

Olga
2017-04-15, 07:46 AM
Nothing says 'adventure' like 'small island chain with an imposing tower for no (apparent) reason'.

* Maybe it's a lighthouse... but what is it warning people about? Does it still work?
* Maybe it's a telegraph that harnesses the sun and "can send out a message or burn with its beam"
* Maybe it's home to some guy who ate some bad magic fruit and now can't live as a solid being for more than a couple of hours a day.
* Maybe it's an Aerie for Sea Hags, or Harpies, or Griffons, or...
* Maybe it's the "air tower" for an underwater structure.
* Maybe it's Crenshinibon. (and can you believed I typed it right from memory, first try?)

So many options...


Crenshinibon now that's a word that merits a google ^^

Olga
2017-04-15, 07:48 AM
The players in a campaign I'm DM'ing just acquired a small ship (a Caravel), so I will be watching this thread as well. They are only 2nd level and acquired the ship from hobgoblin pirates. One potential plot hook I have sowed some seeds for is a kind of an Island of Dr. Moreau sort of thing, where the Dr. Moreau character is a Zern. The Zern used his Shifting Guise to appear as human and attended a slave auction that the players were at recently. All the players know, for now, is an unusual human was buying up lots of low cost slaves, mostly young children and older individuals. I just dropped it in amongst a lot of other things happening at the auction. A while back they found a map that showed several hobgoblin pirate bases and they have been taking them out the last few sessions. That's how they acquired the ship. It sailed up as they were leaving the last base. They have a few more hobgoblin bases they want to take out that will occupy us for at least the next few sessions, so the Zern thing is for down the road. That is if the players even decide to bite on it. I always like to have lots of potential hooks dangling out there and see which one the players bite on.

Ah I love it!

Olga
2017-04-15, 07:49 AM
You'll have to modify them to fit a game with magic, but there are several good ideas in the Flashing Blades supplement High Seas (http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/716/Flashing-Blades-High-Seas?it=1).

Thank you! That is very helpfull ^^

Jay R
2017-04-15, 11:57 AM
I also recommend watching pirate movies. The recent Pirates of the Caribbean movies are magic-based, but all of your players are likely to have seen them, so they are lousy sources for plots. They are still excellent for getting you in the mood.

I also recommend Captain Blood, The Sea Hawk and Against All Flags (Errol Flynn), Cutthroat Island (Geena Davis), The Black Swan (Tyrone Power), and anything with Robert Newton (he invented the now-standard "arrr!" pirate voice).

2D8HP
2017-04-15, 03:17 PM
Against All Flags...


That's one I missed.

Thanks for the tip!

To the OP, try reading:

A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE GOLDEN AGE OF PIRACY (http://www.chaosium.com/blood-tide-brief-history-of-piracy/)

And you may want to check out the:

http://cdn4.bigcommerce.com/s-9zhx02uo/products/1714/images/1484/CHA2033a__56866.1406850887.500.659.gif?c=2

Blood Tide RPG (http://www.chaosium.com/blood-tide/)

Velaryon
2017-04-15, 04:57 PM
As others have said, you'll want the PC's to have their ship and therefore their independence ASAP. Sounds like you've got that covered. The question now is, where do they go?

If they're doing normal piracy, they have some options:

-raid coastal towns for riches
-attack other ships for riches, to add to their crew, or to gain another ship (either to replace or add to the one they have).
-become privateers (basically pirates in service to one country, who prey on ships from an enemy country)
-find lots of alcohol and drink it all

But to capture that High Seas Adventure feeling, they'll probably want to mix up the mundane pirate stuff with a few more things:

-find a map to buried treasure (the #1 pirate adventure trope) and race to find it before the other pirates, the royal navy, the sahaugin, etc.
-get blown off course by a storm and find a new and exotic land full of strange cultures they can interact with and steal from
-chase after a magical MacGuffin that's hidden in a temple on a far-off island that nobody knows the way to... yet
-find a floating bottle containing a message from a person in distress, then try to find that person and help/kidnap/steal from them.
-hunt an epic sea monster they wouldn't normally encounter in a standard D&D game, like a kraken or giant sea serpent or something
-get dragged into a merfolk civil war as mercenaries
-become the leaders of their own fleet of pirates

mikeejimbo
2017-04-15, 05:02 PM
They meet a ship of pirates who turn out to be werewolves. Their arch-enemies are a clan of ninjas who are also vampires.

Olga
2017-04-16, 08:11 AM
I also recommend watching pirate movies. The recent Pirates of the Caribbean movies are magic-based, but all of your players are likely to have seen them, so they are lousy sources for plots. They are still excellent for getting you in the mood.

I also recommend Captain Blood, The Sea Hawk and Against All Flags (Errol Flynn), Cutthroat Island (Geena Davis), The Black Swan (Tyrone Power), and anything with Robert Newton (he invented the now-standard "arrr!" pirate voice).

Thank you! I will do just that!

Olga
2017-04-16, 08:12 AM
That's one I missed.

Thanks for the tip!

To the OP, try reading:

A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE GOLDEN AGE OF PIRACY (http://www.chaosium.com/blood-tide-brief-history-of-piracy/)

And you may want to check out the:

http://cdn4.bigcommerce.com/s-9zhx02uo/products/1714/images/1484/CHA2033a__56866.1406850887.500.659.gif?c=2

Blood Tide RPG (http://www.chaosium.com/blood-tide/)


Thank you, this is absolutely helpfull!

Olga
2017-04-16, 08:14 AM
As others have said, you'll want the PC's to have their ship and therefore their independence ASAP. Sounds like you've got that covered. The question now is, where do they go?

If they're doing normal piracy, they have some options:

-raid coastal towns for riches
-attack other ships for riches, to add to their crew, or to gain another ship (either to replace or add to the one they have).
-become privateers (basically pirates in service to one country, who prey on ships from an enemy country)
-find lots of alcohol and drink it all

But to capture that High Seas Adventure feeling, they'll probably want to mix up the mundane pirate stuff with a few more things:

-find a map to buried treasure (the #1 pirate adventure trope) and race to find it before the other pirates, the royal navy, the sahaugin, etc.
-get blown off course by a storm and find a new and exotic land full of strange cultures they can interact with and steal from
-chase after a magical MacGuffin that's hidden in a temple on a far-off island that nobody knows the way to... yet
-find a floating bottle containing a message from a person in distress, then try to find that person and help/kidnap/steal from them.
-hunt an epic sea monster they wouldn't normally encounter in a standard D&D game, like a kraken or giant sea serpent or something
-get dragged into a merfolk civil war as mercenaries
-become the leaders of their own fleet of pirates


Thank you I like the floating bottle especially

NeXeH
2017-04-18, 02:36 PM
I may be a little late to the conversation but how about a simple escort mission. They party has to escort a dignitary back to their homeland safely which would be a two or more week voyage. Little do the players know pirates plan to take the ship and ransom the dignitary.

I can imagine the players trying to fight off the pirates and eventually losing their ship and being force to take another ship on the high seas.

Anyway those are just my thoughts ;)

Velaryon
2017-04-18, 04:25 PM
Thank you I like the floating bottle especially

You're welcome. :smallsmile:

Basically, what I was suggesting is to take any and every high seas adventure and pirate story trope you can think of, and find a place to throw them in there. Those are the things that will make it feel like a pirate game, as much as the actual act of piracy.

TeeHee
2017-04-27, 05:15 PM
Privateering (piracy that is legalalized by ine nation in exchange that the pirates attack only the enemies of that nation) is always an interesting angle. Perhaps they receive an offer to become privateers in a war, and then if they choose to play along or betray you have many plots and enemies branching off of that.

Perhaps they have become so prominent that they have to contend with certain pirate-hunting commanders of ships who are equipped especially to hunt them down.

Smuggling was also a common occupation of pirates, so if they want a break from violence and raiding they can transport something secret, like a diplomat or a historic object, and must get it through customs. This adds stealth and intrigue to the game.

Perhaps they discover a new island or new continent with never-before-encountered peoples in it, a race of pygmies or something. They could be hostile or helpful to the players or the other nations of the world.

Lvl 2 Expert
2017-05-01, 02:20 AM
Privateering (piracy that is legalalized by ine nation in exchange that the pirates attack only the enemies of that nation) is always an interesting angle.

Especially since it offers yet another way of interacting with all sorts of exotic locales. Get some colonial governors in there, or some 1001 nights, or some "eager to learn about the seafaring ways of your people", or just a plain fantasy thing with no relation to real life, getting hired by the elves to raid the dwarfish coast. Selling out to the dwarves for an even higher sum optional. Some of the Dutch Barbary pirates (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Janszoon) for instance might give you some inspiration. You can sell out and be a free spirit, it just means having more money to fund your lifestyle with.