It's a Pirate's life for me! Arrrrrr - Need help with a Pirate themed Campaign

[Vemynal]

Hey yall, I've been running Adventure League for some new players for the last 7 months. We were doing the Season 1 Adventure League campaigns but they stole a pirate ship, I rolled with it, and honestly they seem much more excited to be Pirates in a D&D world than to continue the AL stuff so I've decided to 'jump ship'.


For this Sunday I've decided to have the Green Dragon attack Phlan as part of the typical campaign. But instead of rescuing the Lord Regent, I'm going to have other characters they've met rescue him and try and solicit the Crew to provide him and civilians with safe passage. I've also decided to have the main combat of the session be Cult of the Dragon forces, led by the man they stole the Pirate ship from, attempt to retake the ship.

Ideas for future sessions:
A Cult of the Dragon Assassin is hiding as one of the citizens and attempting to murder Lord Regent, or failing that the crew. The crew has a couple NPCs they've become attached to that I think I could use to keep them engaged.

There are some ghost pirates from the literal Hells that when they got their ship they ran away from instead of fighting. I figure they could return as a menace.

Other than that though I'm sorta at a loss for what to do with these characters. Any ideas/advice?

Party are all lvl 4 and consist of a:
Human Cleric of Life,
Tabaxi Arcane Trickster,
Half-Orc Barbarian,
Wood Elf Wild Sorcerer,
Wood Elf Ranger,
Forest Gnome Wizard

[ImproperJustice]

Some possible sources of inspiration:

Green Ronin Press has a setting called Freeport that is all about seafaring and pirate type adventures.

Savage Worlds has a setting book called 40 Fathoms I think which is a pirate based campaign that you could steal ideas from.

You could go old school, get some OSR material like Labyrinth Lord, pull out some hex paper (or use a computer program) and generate a sandbox of dungeons, sea cities, shipwrecks, and so forth.
Let them enjoy the freedom of a game where they go wherever they wish, and set their own story.

Then slowly drop some other plot hooks of you want to pull them back into the mainland.

[username1]

Let them have a hex based romp over the ocean. After that gets old crash their boat on a island that turns out to be the dragon cults Outpost. It then becomes sneaky bsurgival as the try to find the sinister plot this base is setting in motion, and how do they stop it?

[Vogie]

Picking up some tokens from the Magic: The Gathering expansion Ixalan and the Pirates of the Caribbean series are probably the easiest-accessible pop culture sources to grab from. This could include

Magic maps that take you to mythical places, or ways to sail into other planes
A magical trident, which can control curses
An enchanted compass that acts as the ultimate McGuffin.
Warlocks of the Kraken (from Mike Mearl's twitter stream)
Vampire conquistadors
Mesoamerican-esque Dinosaur riders
A magical cutlass, which can manipulate the rigging of a ship, that allows a single person to control all aspects of a ship, for good or ill.


If their current ship isn't much, plan to have them uncover a ship that will eventually be their 'guildhall', allowing them to upgrade it as they play. That way you can also give crewmembers as a sort of quest/encounter reward - enchanters, smiths & other gearcrafters, storm clerics for healing and blessings, a seafaring druid who acts as a chef & shipwright, et cetera. Once they accrue enough crew (heyo) there's a potential for a mutiny encounter waiting in the wings.

[samcifer]

I'd recommend gunsmith artificer. The gun-proficiency will help when you have a shootout with the authorities when you're caught and articifers seem the most 'tech-savvy' class in 5e which will help you in running the computers you'll be using to make all of those illegal movie downloads.

[Asmotherion]

Fallen Aasimar Hexblade would make quite a thematic Pirate. Think Blackbeard from Pirates of the Carabean, but with Wings. Get Unseen Servant, Mage Hand and Repelling Blast for the Telekinesis Effects. Agonising for a bit of extra Damage. Hex obviously. And Armor of Agathys for when they Hit you.

[ImproperJustice]

Huh.
I think people are telling you how to build a pirate PC now, even though that wasn’t asked for in the OP.

[Asmotherion]

Huh.
I think people are telling you how to build a pirate PC now, even though that wasn’t asked for in the OP.
Huh, I think nobody asked you what you think.

[Diego2112]

DM's Guild has some nice pirate stuff, some free, some not. I use the Buccaneer's Bestiary frequently in my more nautical related games. There's also an expanded ruleset for sailing, and a few "Expanded" travel options.

As to actual stuff for the characters, races and classes are all well and good, but I generally pull hooks from the backstories. Or try to.

Good luck, and if you find any particularly useful pirate source PDFs, please do let me know!

[ImproperJustice]

Huh, I think nobody asked you what you think.

I’m sorry for embarrassing you by pointing out that you failed to read the OP, before typing a response.

It’s understandable that would make you angry.

In a way, I was trying to keep the thread on track for those who might be interested in the original post and seeking ideas for a seafaring campaign.

Also, this is a public forum where anyone can express their ideas, so no one needs your permission to post what they think.

[opaopajr]

You should let them play in the Moonsea area! :smallsmile: It's a delightful place of ruthless competing city-states, villainy, and opportunity! :smallbiggrin: Phlan just plays habitual victim matchstick-city since the game Pool of Radiance series.

It's where Zhentil's Keep is (home of the Zhentarim,) where Melvaunt (strict magitocracy city, next to threatening glacier of the white worm,) Hillsfar (human-supremacist city-state,) and Mulmaster (industrial pollution metal foundry cartel city,) are! They love slaves, wage-slaves, market exploitation, and merchant espionage and sabotage! And they are habitually raided by orc & ogre terrors from Thar, barbarian humans from The Ride, & annoying forest do-gooders from Cormanthyr! :smalltongue:

Imagine the Baltic Sea, but it's a massive freshwater lake, surrounded by EEEVIL! (tm) and ruled by cruel Finnish gods. It's a Scandinavian Death Metal campaign! :smallcool: Your party being pirates is merely sensible opportunism, and any of their cruelty is probably already being done worse by the neighbors! :smalltongue:

Go! Go have fun! Just think of vikings and metal music and bastardry! It all works! :smallcool:

[Asmotherion]

I’m sorry for embarrassing you by pointing out that you failed to read the OP, before typing a response.

It’s understandable that would make you angry.

In a way, I was trying to keep the thread on track for those who might be interested in the original post and seeking ideas for a seafaring campaign.

Also, this is a public forum where anyone can express their ideas, so no one needs your permission to post what they think.
I'm sorry to calling you out as a hypocrit for doing exactly what you critisise others on doing. GG.

[samcifer]

I remember back when this thread was about pirates, not arguing online. :(

[Asmotherion]

I remember back when this thread was about pirates, not arguing online. :(
It's cool I'm done here. I rest my case.

[Inchoroi]

Some possible sources of inspiration:

Green Ronin Press has a setting called Freeport that is all about seafaring and pirate type adventures.

Savage Worlds has a setting book called 40 Fathoms I think which is a pirate based campaign that you could steal ideas from.

You could go old school, get some OSR material like Labyrinth Lord, pull out some hex paper (or use a computer program) and generate a sandbox of dungeons, sea cities, shipwrecks, and so forth.
Let them enjoy the freedom of a game where they go wherever they wish, and set their own story.

Then slowly drop some other plot hooks of you want to pull them back into the mainland.

I believes its actually 50 Fathoms (https://www.peginc.com/product-category/50fathoms/).

In addition, Middle Finger of Vecna has a High Seas (https://www.patreon.com/posts/high-seas-update-15895685) pdf that's very good (although default to more 17th-18th century than FR's standard).

I'm actually building a Pirate campaign myself, as that's what my players voted for! Kinda disappointed, but Pirate games are fun, too; I just wanted to work on something I'd get paid for, eventually...

I'm actually considering stealing the plot from Rise of the Runelords, Shattered Star, and the upcoming Return of the Runelords into a series of complete campaigns set in a custom pirate world that I keep thinking about, even though I shouldn't.

[Delicious Taffy]

I recommend having an NPC quartermaster, so you can keep the ship relatively organised. Don't need petty squabbles between the crewmates.

[ImproperJustice]

I'm sorry to calling you out as a hypocrit for doing exactly what you critisise others on doing. GG.

Except that I did post something in response to the OP.
However, that would have required you to read the actual thread and OP that you have posted in.

Clearly, reading is difficult for you.
I won’t bother you any further.
Please continue in your behavior of of reading topic titles and posting information not relevant to the topic or thread at large.

To the others in this thread, I apologize for diverting from the main topic.

Back on track:
Goblinoid Games put out a product called Starships and Spacemen which is an OSR Star Trek clone.
It has some very detailed rules on hex crawling through space with a starship.

I remember it had a great number of encounters that needed “Role-Playing” and problem solving to resolve correctly. The 1st edition might be free online, and the 2nd edition is pretty cheap. I think you could easily adapt the encounters there to a sea faring campaign or adventure. Again, the nice thing about OSR stuff is that it converts well to 5th edition.

At the very least, you might be able to whip up a few encounters to give yourself more time to design the type of game you want.

[samcifer]

you could create a series of islands to have adventures on. Make each island have a major quest and a few lesser quests. You could even make the major quests connected, say by a wide-spread criminal organization and each island is run by a lieutenant who works for the big boss on the final island.

[Asmotherion]

Except that I did post something in response to the OP.
However, that would have required you to read the actual thread and OP that you have posted in.

Clearly, reading is difficult for you.
I won’t bother you any further.
Please continue in your behavior of of reading topic titles and posting information not relevant to the topic or thread at large.

To the others in this thread, I apologize for diverting from the main topic.

Back on track:
Goblinoid Games put out a product called Starships and Spacemen which is an OSR Star Trek clone.
It has some very detailed rules on hex crawling through space with a starship.

I remember it had a great number of encounters that needed “Role-Playing” and problem solving to resolve correctly. The 1st edition might be free online, and the 2nd edition is pretty cheap. I think you could easily adapt the encounters there to a sea faring campaign or adventure. Again, the nice thing about OSR stuff is that it converts well to 5th edition.

At the very least, you might be able to whip up a few encounters to give yourself more time to design the type of game you want.
As I said, I'm done here.

You have issues. I won't be your flame-war buddy. Grow Up.

[Diego2112]

You could run a session where they're actually fighting the sea itself. Have ability checks and whatnot to keep the ship on course, keep the ship intact, and basically weather the storm.

If they fail too many of the checks, you could have them stranded on an island trying to find bits to patch the damaged ship.

If they pass by and large, you could have them spot an island, and either have friendly/hostile natives, a buried treasure, or be a wretched hive of scum and villainy they shouldn'ae have come across, and now they find what REAL pirates are like.

For homework, I'd suggest Cutthroat Island, any variant of Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island (personal preference here, but Muppet Treasure Island and Treasure Planet rank pretty high on my list), and of course, any of the Pirates of the Caribbean films are a wellspring of information and inspiration (well, the first three, at any rate).

Just reading up about pirates and how they functioned can be a great inspiration (I spent some summers near where the Notorious Edward Thatch (Teach) sailed about).

Also +1 to Delicious Taffy's idea of an NPC Quartermaster, on account of seriously, you're gonna need one.

OH OH! You can have a sidequest about them building the perfect crew! And there's all kinds of NPC and PC generators online you can use to quickly bash up some options for them. I just built my group a crew of 15 Neutral/Good leaning characters for a crew, they've everything but the Captain. First mate is a Circle Land (Coastal) Druid Triton. Course, they're not pirates... They're soon to get a Letter of Marque and Reprisal, though they don't know it yet.

Sorry, bit of a ramble there. I uh, I tend to do that.

[MagneticKitty]

Check out planeshift ixalan
https://www.google.com/url?q=https://media.wizards.com/2018/downloads/magic/plane-shift_ixalan.pdf&sa=U&ved=0ahUKEwjl-82u9ercAhXE5IMKHanyDpMQFggNMAA&usg=AOvVaw2ajyFdEuw6aC7wu-o40xYQ

[Vogie]

You could run a session where they're actually fighting the sea itself. Have ability checks and whatnot to keep the ship on course, keep the ship intact, and basically weather the storm.

If they fail too many of the checks, you could have them stranded on an island trying to find bits to patch the damaged ship.


I really like this - you can have the characters trying to make it through a storm, using the 4e Skill Challenge Mechanic. Set a DC, They have to get X number of successes before they get Y number of fails, to decide whether they weather (ha!) the storm.

If you don't want to stat out the individual crew, make a character sheet for the boat/crew as a whole - I saw this mechanic while listening to a Skies Of Glass real play podcast. Basically, you have a single PC-esque character sheet that represents the boat and crew.

You pick up some real meatheads, and your crew will have high strength (for boarding and cargo), but low everything else. You pick up a couple professional sailors, and that may increase the ships dexterity (AC and ability to maneuver) and wisdom (increased perception). A Good captain boosts wisdom and charisma (morale) while a bad one may actually decrease it; a good shipwright will keep the constitution (HP of ship & crew, endurance of the ship and ease of repair) and intelligence high, or increase the AC of the ship, et cetera. Investing XP and gold in the boat also allows your party to shore up their weaknesses - a party with no wisdom casters may dump funds into hiring a medic for the boat, giving bonuses to Medicine checks while onboard. Rescuing an old wizard and having him join the crew may give bonuses to Arcana checks and give your crew the ability to cast things like Identify for the party

That'll also be a great way to keep all of the communal stuff that is on the ship in one spot rather than split across a myriad of character sheets.