Surrender the Booty!

Shortly after Gen Con and my last post, I kind of hit a point of physical and mental fatigue.  Progress on most projects stopped.  In fact, just about the only thing I managed to accomplish in the last month is some work on Pirates of Tortuga, my new weekly campaign.  In the last few days, I have started to come out of that malaise with a desire to get back to things.  First the blog here, and then perhaps more ambitious projects.

As Friday, September 19th is Talk Like a Pirate Day, and since my current weekly game is also pirate based, it seems only natural to cover that topic.  I collected a number of pirate themed game materials over the years.  Some of them were excellent.  Below are five of the most useful I have found.  Since my current campaign is historically based, I am limiting myself to games set in our own past.  Green Ronin's Freeport, Frog God Games' Razor Coast, and of course my old favorite Alderac Entertainment Group's 7th Sea are all excellent games with pirate themes set elsewhere,  If you need a little more fantasy in your pirate games, I urge you to look to them.  For gaming on the Spanish Main, I present these gems:

GURPS Swashbucklers

This book went through three editions.  This is not
 the last, but it is by far the best cover.

For gamers who cut their teeth in the late 1980s and early 1990s, GURPS sourcebooks were the best place to go to get information about any genre,  Even if you did not like the GURPS system, their books were packed with setting details you could use.  GURPS authors did their research and the content was of superior quality even if their production values were somewhat austere.  One of the best of these sourcebooks was GURPS Swashbucklers by Steffan O'Sullivan.  As the name would suggest, it covers both pirate campaigns and continental European adventuring in the style of The Three Musketeers.  The main entries all contain solid coverage of the main themes of a swashbuckling campaign.  The real gems, as is the case in most of the best GURPS supplements, are the sidebars.  These small one or two paragraph treatments of the esoterica in the genre are where an enterprising GM can find details to make his game really sing.  Likewise, the details in the sidebars are just the right hooks to hang a character concept on.  I do not run many GURPS games any more, but my shelf of GURPS material still gets used in just about whatever game I am running and Swashbucklers shows exactly why.

Campaign Classics: Pirates

How dangerous can he be wearing
pantaloons like that?

Written in 1990 for a game system that nobody I know ever played (or at least talked about playing), Pirates a supplement for Rolemaster/Hero System still merits a mention nearly 25 years later.  This is largely for the same reason I mentioned GURPS Swashbicklers above: it is so full of useful campaign material that it doesn't matter whether you use the system or not.  Pirates is a far more focused sourcebook than its GURPS counterpart.  As a result, it delves deeper into the world of pirates.  The real strengths of the book are twofold.  First is the amount of information it gives about the various locations in the Caribbean.  Later pirate games do this, but no one does it quite as well.  Each entry about an island or town is just a paragraph or two (Except for major locations like Port Royal and Tortuga which are necessarily longer), yet gives a good feel for how to make that location different from the others.  The second strength is the maps. Using a combination of historical maps and more modern cartography, Pirates has the best and most comprehensive maps of any pirate genre role-playing supplement ever.

Skull & Bones

 Skull & Bones  is my favorite of the more modern pirate based games.  A d20 supplement, Skull & Bones adds elements of horror and supernatural to the Spanish Main.  This has some intriguing implications since the work introduces the concept that both voodoo traditions and Christian relics can have power in the Caribbean.  As a student of history, I tend to prefer historical campaigns that do not incorporate the mystical, but I do appreciate what the authors are trying to convey.  Where I find Skull & Bones most useful, however, is in its organization.  Gaming material has undergone a lot of changes since the first two entries were produced, and not always for the better.  One of the real leaps forward between the old school and more modern efforts is in the presentation of material.  Skull & Bones adds considerable new information to the genre, but it really shines at presenting the material in such a way that the game player can easily access it.  A thorough table of contents, index, and logical presentation of material may not seem like that big a deal, but every GM who has ever spent time at the table thumbing through a rule book looking for some obscure rule or table can attest to how useful these things can be.

The Pirate GM's Right Fist

Not as fancy as the other entries, but just as
useful.

If you want to run a pirate game, but you are cheap, then have I got a deal for you.  At a paltry $1.99, The Pirate GM's Righ Fist is just the ticket.  Black Shark Enterprises is a new, independent producer of (thusfar) exclusively generic pirate based gaming materials.  Right Fist was their first entry on DrivethruRPG.  Fourteen pages of tables and a short essay that are worth every penny.  Designed for the GM who is either running a game on the fly or just needs a little inspiration between sessions, the tables cover most of the things that GM could need fast.  Quick random encounters on land and at sea.  What is that merchant ship carrying?  Need a ship name fast?  Where is that ship headed?  Roll some dice and there is the info right at your fingertips.  In general, I am not a fan of the whole random table for a dollar part of the field.  The amount of thought that went into these tables, however, is enough to change that opinion.  Also, the number of interesting details about pirate life that Mark S. Cookman, the author squeezes into the two pages at the end of the supplement make this one of the most useful pirate supplements to be had at any price.  He has advertised a product for ship to ship combat to be released later this year.  I anxiously anticipate it.


 Buccaneers & Bokor, Issue One

Did I mention it is free?

If $1.99 is too steep for your wallet, how does free grab you?  Buccaneers & Bokor was a short lived emagazine in support of Skull & Bones.  They are all still available on DrivethruRPG cheaply.  Each of the issues was worthy of mention and has information useful to the pirate GM.  The first issue, however, has two things going for it that the others do not.  First, it is free.  It is hard to beat free.  Second, it contains a set of tables for random adventure generation that are hard to beat.  Gareth-Michael Skarka has created a system of table that he has adapted in various Adamant Entertainment products across genres.  At their base, they emulate a screenwriters pitch (and frankly Mad Libs) where the tables insert random elements into the following sentence: "The main characters must [DO] [SOMETHING]  at [LOCATION] but have to contend with [COMPLICATIONS] while being confronted by [OPPOSITION]." The sentences when filled in can usually make an interesting plot.  Even without using the sentence structure, looking over the table of random words can get ideas flowing.  It helps that some of his words are not always typical for the genre.  Used this way, they are a bit of a word association brainstorming exercise.  The rest of the issue is worthwhile as well, with a glossary of pirate lingo, a brief adventure, and a mythical pirate island all rounding out the offering.

These are some of the most useful items in my treasure chest.  Got any treasures I missed?

Brethren of the Coast

So, you say you like Pirates and all, but you do not want your scurvy sea dogs mixed with your orcs and elves like they do it in Freeport?  Razor Coast seems mildly appealing, but you have no use for weresharks?  What I am hearing is that you are a pirate purist?  Hmm, well let me reach into my bag of tricks and see what I can come up with...

For most of the 17th century some combination of England, France, Spain, and Holland were at war with one another.  Who was at war with whom, and who was allied changed seemingly at the drop of a hat.  When looking at the history of that era, war seems to have been the end and not the means.  Often these wars and alliances spilled over into the western hemisphere, both in North America and in the Caribbean.  This was sometimes very confusing for the parties involved, as the enemy you just attacked is likely to be your friend next week.  As anyone who has studied both history and gaming can tell you, those are the perfect conditions for a campaign.

With such a long time period to cover, how does one narrow down the focus?  As I get older, I realize that every time I run a game just might be the last time I ever run that game.  If I am only going to get one more shot at an Earthbound pirate campaign, then I have to look to my favorite source material:  the movie The Black Swan.  The one based on the book by Rafael Sabatini, not the one with the lesbian ballerinas.  Although...  No.  Stay focused.  I mean this one:

"Yes, my dear.  All the combs in the Caribbean are on that
ship.  Prepare to Board!"

Unlike many pirate movies of this era, The Black Swan is readily located in real history.  Commercial rivalry between Spain and Cromwell's England led to the war between those nations beginning in 1654. The French allied with Cromwell while loyalists to the Royal Crown of England sided with the Spanish.  In 1655, the English captured the island of Jamaica and established a center of government in Port Royal.  Soon, the English governor realized his capitol had very little protection and invited the Brethren of the Coast to make Port Royal their home as well.  Pirates throughout the Caribbean flocked to the city as it was more centrally located near Spanish territories than the French pirate stronghold of Tortuga.  Eventually, many of the pirates earn the (relatively) more legitimate status of English Privateers.

I think they just recycled this ensemble
from his role in Zorro.  Shame he did
not keep the mask.

The movie takes place after peace is declared and one of the most successful English pirates, Henry Morgan, returns to Jamaica as governor with a mandate to clear the seas of his pirate pals.  Tyrone Power plays Jamie Waring, Morgan's right hand Captain who runs afoul of the pirates who were his former friends.  Waring has to deal with English noblemen in league with the pirates, rivals for the hand of Maureen O'Hara, privateers who are convinced he is still a pirate, and the actual pirates themselves.  Sadly, he is also forced to wear this unfortunate outfit when he tries to go legit.  Tyrone's only real defeat in the movie seems to have come at the hands of the costumer.  Mercifully, he quickly loses the hat and cape.

I cannot imagine Henry Morgan looking
like anyone other than Laird Cregar.

If I ran a game in this era, however, I would prefer to back the date up to 1657 when the Brethren are first invited to protect Port Royal.   The players would all play sea dogs ready to ply their trade in service of their flag.   In addition to fighting the Spanish, they players can become involved in hunting the pirates who insist on preying on the shipping of the English and their French allies, the machinations of the Royalists that threaten to undo the government, and perhaps even embark on secret diplomatic missions for the governor. This gives the players the opportunity to rub elbows with Henry Morgan before he becomes governor.  If they have acquitted themselves well, Morgan may ask them to come along on his next big expedition.  Morgan had a reputation for making everyone who sailed with him rich.

Roleplaying on the Razor's Edge

Some game masters like ninjas.  Some like robots.  I tend to prefer pirates and their landlubbing cousins bandits.  It is pretty easy to figure out that someone who is willing to kill you and take your stuff is probably the bad guy.  Let that sink in for a moment.

When a new, piratey RPG product comes out, I generally take note.  Many of the items either seem to be reworking familiar material or just jamming pirates into an otherwise standard fantasy adventure. Sometimes, the material rises above that level and I take notice.  Razor Coast is one such product.

 At Gencon last year, I spent a good chunk of the trip dithering over whether I would buy the Razor Coast book or not.  At $100 the price was steep!  I will admit that the product was packed with material.  It was also a huge book, 432 pages for the Swords and Wizardry version I bought (544 pages for the Pathfinder version of virtually the same material!) and full color throughout. It is equal parts source book, adventure source book, and game master guide.  Finally, on the last day with a matching donation from Eric, I went ahead and made the purchase.  In order to make it worthwhile, though, we will actually have to play the game.

It is interesting to compare this product with Freeport as they both nominally mine the same territory: a mashup of Pirates and Fantasy.  It is truly a credit to Razor Coast that it really has very little in common with Freeport.  Where the older product is set on a small island chain that is close enough to a home continent to prey on well established trade lanes on an existing continent, Razor Coast has a very different feel.  Port Shaw, the central location of the game is a colony port, far removed from the mainland.  To give it a buzzword tagline it feels like Fantasy Pirates of Polynesia.

To be sure, the colonizers fill some of the usual fantasy tropes, but the setting details feel very different.  The natives are of a Pacific tribal bent, hard pressed to reconcile their current oppressed status with their warrior past.  Meanwhile, there are threats and machinations from on land, under the sea, and even from within.  The local volcano god may very well be real, and if he is, he is pissed!  The local enemies are of an interesting stripe as well:  Alligator men in the swamps, Weresharks  ply the deep, and mutated cannibal pygmies await the unwary.  I cannot express how much I want to unleash mutant cannibal pygmies on my players!

Weresharks.  These aren't in your daddy's Monster Manual.

In his blog, Zak Sabbath posts a lot of things that I thoroughly agree with, a few things that I completely disagree with, and a disturbingly large number of things that I do not understand.  Recently in the post I like RPGs..., there was a LOT of the things I agree with.  One of the statements he made that I really agree with was this: "I almost even kinda like that published modules are almost uniformly an object lesson in how much worse published modules are than what you could invent at home." Fortunately, while there is much truth to this sentiment, a great deal of the adventure material for Razor Coast does not fit into that category.  While I would not wish to use everything as written, there are some plots and scenes within the material that I would want to use without wholesale changes.

My campaign idea for Razor Coast allows the players a lot of rope when creating characters.  A mix of natives, citizens of Port Shaw, and new arrivals would all fit for what I have in mind.  They will all begin the game in Port Shaw one personal business, but circumstances will cast them together and force some initial cooperation.  Afterward, the adventures will interweave the best elements of the "adventure path" from the original book, plot elements of my own device, and the usual ramifications of player actions into a singularly tasty seafood chowder.  With weresharks.  And mutant cannibal pygmies.

One more picture of a wereshark.  Because I do not have any
good pictures of mutant cannibal pygmies. And because...
wereshark.

The Sea Lord is Dead! Long Live the Sea Lord!

One thing that role-playing game designers often do is a mashup of genres.  This has been a part of gaming for a LONG time.  As early as 1980, TSR was mixing science fiction with fantasy in Expedition to Barrier Peaks.  Want some horror mixed with your old west action?  Play some Deadlands.  Cyberpunk and Trolls more to your liking?  Try out some Shadowrun (but you will have to do it without me.  For the life of me, I could never figure out the magic system for that game.) 

Roleplaying at the turn of the 80s.
   Back when so much of the art was rubbish,
 but we didn't know any better.

Sometimes, the genre mixing goes so far that it is hard to tell where one genre ends and the other begins (Torg comes to mind).  One of the products that got the mix just right, however, is the Freeport setting by Green Ronin.  One of the original third party products released alongside Third Edition Dungeons and Dragons in 2000, Freeport is a world independent setting that mixes the trappings of the fantasy and pirate genres into a tasty grog of goodness.  In keeping with the independent nature of the setting, material has been created by GR and its affiliates for Freeport that span the fantasy rules gamut: 3^rd edition, True 20, Savage Worlds, Pathfinder, Castles and Crusades, and Fate all have conversion rules to adapt the setting.  There is even a 4^th Edition Dungeons and Dragons conversion, but I doubt even Freeport could salvage that train wreck.  A recent kickstarter is going to lead to an expanded edition of the Pirate's Guide going from systemless to a Pathfinder product.

The Pirate's Guide to Freeport strained the limits of
how  much awesome could be contained between
 two book covers.

The eponymous island is a fantasy pirate haven built to drop off the coast of any traditional fantasy campaign continent.  Most of the traditional fantasy races have a role to play on the island, but humans are clearly the biggest movers and shakers there.  Eventually in the pretty brilliant Pirates Guide to Freeport, they added some skeletal information for a fantasy continent to place the island near if you did not have a world in mind to use.  The beauty of the setting is that they layered a number of plots and schemes over one another and allowed the Game master to pick and choose which plots to use.  Need some horror?  Freeport has a little King in Yellow action going for you.  If secret societies are your bag (baby) the island was lousy with them all going about their nefarious way.  Want big pirate battles?  You could always tangle with the dreaded Orc Pirate Captain Scarbelly.  My players did, and paid the price for it.  Don’t necessarily want to use any of that?  Well, that is okay too.  Freeport has plenty of room to create your own material and just use the city as a piratey backdrop.

I have used Freeport on a number of occasions.  I filed off the fantasy serial numbers (made all the fantasy races human) and used it briefly in one of my 7^th Sea campaigns.  Freeport was the setting for abortive 3^rd Edition game I ran in 2007 as well.  My best use of the setting, however, was the 2012 Savage Worlds fantasy game I ran for my Sunday group.  The first half of that game was set directly in Freeport until the characters decided that killing the great Sea Lord Milton Drac was probably going to make them outlaw and they fled to the mainland.  Since Freeport was where I planned on running the whole game, I just cobbled together a combination of the continent provided in Pirates’s Guide with the caravan module from the GURPS basic rules and slapped Trobridge Inn from Harnmaster into the mix and we had a campaign that lasted another six months.  I think the players enjoyed it.  I know I did.

But this brings me to my campaign idea for the day:  What happened in Freeport after the Sea Lord’s demise?  The original players fled the city and left chaos in their wake.  Drac’s line of succession was unclear.  Will the great Sea Council make their move to expel the hated Drac family from the Sea Lord postion permanently?  Drac was insane, and probably a cultist, but Freeport was stable under his rule.  Will one of the rival cults be able to capitalize on the power vacuum to strengthen their position?  Will the remnants of the Brotherhood of the Yellow Sign regroup and try to reestablish themselves?  Will rogue pirate captains use the disorder to strike out and attack the very ships they were supposed to protect?  The answer of course is yes to all of these things and the players would be right in the middle of it, helping some factions (whether they know it or not) and fighting others.  And then there is always the matter of that skeletal dragon figure that was seen flying over the port a few months back. Surely that was an aberration that will never appear again.  I see this game as a haven for new characters with an opportunity to build on what has come before.

He's not evil.  He's just misunderstood.  And hungry.