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Author Topic: Pirates!- (campaign available- page 9)  (Read 24560 times)

Offline matakishi

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Re: Pirates!- (new civilians page 7)
« Reply #105 on: September 21, 2018, 06:08:06 PM »
Hi Paul, I've just read through all 7 episodes of your pirate adventures and thoroughly enjoyed them.
I'm curious as to how you drive the storyline.  From your initial intro it sounded as if all the players were involved and you didn't have a G.M. I  can see how you could pre-construct a scenario but you seem to have lots of sub plots that are depending on other things happening, hence  the curiosity.
Anyway an all together marvellous project and that Celina is an amazing woman,  she's  worth all of the rest of the party put together, would your daughter be playing her?
Cheers
John

Hi John, The game is a standard tabletop RPG in style, I'm the GM and I've written the plots. The players collect rumours by talking to locals and can choose to act on them or not as they see fit. Their actions then generate reactions from the many factions and interested parties that inhabit the local area so everything is based on plots and characters rather than set adventures.

The luck of the dice during character creation meant that most of the fighting men in the party were a bit rubbish and it's taking some time for their skills to improve. Consequently, Celina (played by my daughter) is in the thick of the action as the party has to try and sneak around problems rather than attacking them head on and Celina is the only character who can sneak around with any certainty so she ends up leading the way or going it alone whilst the rest of the party look on willing her to succeed. They're getting better though. Panama Red's seamanship skills have allowed them to take on and capture ships that outgunned them substantially and Honest jake is raking in  money for them left and right. It's just the fighting they're a bit poor at.



​​Celina Merice. Panama Red. Captain Reginald Goodwood. Planchet. Lefty Hamish McTavish. Honest Jake Fluke. Professor Julius Arbuthnott. 'Colonel' Courtney Rice.
The crew: Wu Ma, cook's assistant. Bartholomew Stew, cook. John Oxenham, ship's carpenter. Nermal, ship's cat. JEREMY, a goat.
https://www.matakishi.net/pirate-rpg-hub.html

Offline War Monkey

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Re: Pirates!- (new civilians page 7)
« Reply #106 on: September 22, 2018, 05:41:59 AM »
I have time to read all your Pirate Gaming AAR on your site. Some great reading, I'm guessing you are using "The High Seas Hack" on your site. I've been looking for a set of RPG rules for Pirate Gaming how well would this rules work in 15mm scale?
Just remember "If the Enemy is in range, so are YOU!

http://silo1313.blogspot.com/

Offline Vagabond

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Re: Pirates!- (new civilians page 7)
« Reply #107 on: September 22, 2018, 07:05:52 AM »
Thanks for the info, the stories did read Iike a GM organised game, I play most of my games solo and so I'm always looking for plot devices that will drive my games in unexpected ways.
Your games appeared much more free form than anything I have come up with for a solo game. I obviously need to find a GM.

Honest Jake seems like a useful character to have in a group, finance is presumably covered in your rules.
Good luck to Celina.
Cheers

Offline matakishi

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Re: Pirates!- (new civilians page 7)
« Reply #108 on: September 22, 2018, 07:11:13 AM »
I have time to read all your Pirate Gaming AAR on your site. Some great reading, I'm guessing you are using "The High Seas Hack" on your site. I've been looking for a set of RPG rules for Pirate Gaming how well would this rules work in 15mm scale?

They're old school role-playing rules so they work with any miniatures or no miniatures depending on your play style. They're not skirmish rules so any distances are given in real world measurements (there are only three actual distances listed in the rules- close, near, far away) and you can decide yourself how these are to be represented on your tabletop if you're using miniatures.

Offline matakishi

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Re: Pirates!- (new civilians page 7)
« Reply #109 on: September 22, 2018, 07:22:14 AM »
Honest Jake seems like a useful character to have in a group, finance is presumably covered in your rules.
Good luck to Celina.
Cheers

Money is only covered in the loosest way and is measured in 'gold' (you could use 'doubloons' if you prefer) Since Jake is a merchant he always discovers twice as much gold as anyone else, he rolls 2 dice instead of one when searching for loot.

You will need a GM to play the High Seas Hack (as with most RPGs) to have the most fun with it. Personally, I have the most fun being the GM, others have different preferences of course :) A GM in the High Seas Hack doesn't roll any dice (except damage dealt) so you can have a relaxing time just watching the players mess things up.
I will be publishing my adventures so others can play them but not for some time so as to avoid spoilers for my players.

Celina doesn't really need luck but she could do with some more competent companions :) I'll pass on your good wishes.

Offline War Monkey

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Re: Pirates!- (new civilians page 7)
« Reply #110 on: September 22, 2018, 02:51:34 PM »
Sounds Great, Thanks for responding so quickly.

Vagabond, you could make a 4 sets of cards, plot driven cards, theft , robbery, kidnapping and more, then have a set of NPC cards as to who in involved, plus a set of rumor cards talking about treasures, places, ships, other pirates, then cards for objects involved. then you can just draw 4 cards and make your story from there. sometimes you may have to draw extra cards so the story flows better.

I solo game myself and it works for me just take time to make all the cards you feel you might need. then you find that you might need to make a few more.

Offline matakishi

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Re: Pirates!- (new civilians page 7)
« Reply #111 on: September 22, 2018, 05:14:53 PM »
I hand my players little card when they collect a rumour. Here are some examples:


Offline War Monkey

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Re: Pirates!- (new civilians page 7)
« Reply #112 on: September 23, 2018, 04:59:08 AM »
Those are great! Just what I was talking about! Okay a little fancier then I would have made them with the background art and all, which now I will have to up my game! Great work again!
« Last Edit: September 23, 2018, 05:03:33 AM by War Monkey »

Offline matakishi

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Re: Pirates!- (new civilians page 7)
« Reply #113 on: September 23, 2018, 10:03:17 AM »
Last night's Pirates game added a postscript to the expedition to Porto Grande as the party's return celebrations were interrupted by a surprise attack and they found themselves heading off to Mexico on a quest to recover the second of the golden monkeys.







Full report here:
https://www.matakishi.net/caribbean-chronicles-5.html

Offline Vagabond

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Re: Pirates!- (new civilians page 7)
« Reply #114 on: September 23, 2018, 05:34:26 PM »
War Monkey - thanks for your thoughts, I understand how you do this and agree it's a good start to create a story/plot line but it's the cards that Paul is using that move the story in a certain direction. So for example one of them was "someone is living in the old fort" his players can go there or not, they will find something that Paul knows but they don't, this might help them or not. It is a typical D and D style GM directed game.
I tend to have a story line and then use encounter markers on the table, these might be things that help or not but they are relatively limited in their direction of the story on the broader scale. I recently posted a game on the Gothic Horror board that illustrates what I mean.
I'm intending to try some form of Pulp Noir Detective games, and I've bought the game Sherlock Homes to provide the clues and ultimate answer to the crime, but I will game it with miniatures and a sort of Pulp Alley style rule system. The Sherlock Homes game will be my GM and I will play the fighting, running, shooting etc as a solo game.

Paul sorry to go off post, one final question I can't figure out how to follow your posts on your site, I started my own blog this year so blogger could notify me of other people's posts but I don't seem to be able to do that with your site!
Any advice.
Cheers

Offline matakishi

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Re: Pirates!- (new civilians page 7)
« Reply #115 on: September 23, 2018, 07:01:17 PM »
Paul sorry to go off post, one final question I can't figure out how to follow your posts on your site, I started my own blog this year so blogger could notify me of other people's posts but I don't seem to be able to do that with your site!
Any advice.
Cheers

John,
My site isn't a blog, it doesn't use blog software so there's no unifying newsfeed you can subscribe to. I tend to update on Sundays, the front page shows all the new stuff by date so, if you check in each Sunday, you can see if there's anything new you'd be interested in. That's the best I can do, sorry :)
I also post updates to G+ and Facebook which you can get notifications for if you're that way inclined.

https://plus.google.com/+PaulWard
https://www.facebook.com/MatakishisTeaHouse/

Offline Vagabond

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Re: Pirates!- (new civilians page 7)
« Reply #116 on: September 23, 2018, 11:05:16 PM »
I thought that might be the case, I don't do Facebook, just have to resort to a failing memory. :'(
Cheers

Offline War Monkey

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Re: Pirates!- (new civilians page 7)
« Reply #117 on: September 24, 2018, 02:45:06 AM »
Nice report.

Quote
I hand my players little card when they collect a rumour. Here are some examples


Do the rules you have there, have a section for handing out a rumor card, or do you have a your own system and I'm going to guess for each of the rumor cards you have, you already have the story line for it written up just waiting for the players to go off in another direction.

I could make some "Red Herring" cards or "Wild Goose Chase" cards for side lining dead ends.
« Last Edit: September 24, 2018, 04:59:06 AM by War Monkey »

Offline matakishi

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Re: Pirates!- (new civilians page 7)
« Reply #118 on: September 24, 2018, 06:02:44 AM »
Do the rules you have there, have a section for handing out a rumor card, or do you have a your own system and I'm going to guess for each of the rumor cards you have, you already have the story line for it written up just waiting for the players to go off in another direction.

I could make some "Red Herring" cards or "Wild Goose Chase" cards for side lining dead ends.

The rules cover collecting rumours. How you get the rumours to your players is up to you. I like handing out the cards to the players because when their characters reconvene they can all compare notes and it's new to everyone. Nobody's had to sit there while I read stuff to other players.

Red Herrings are up to you but collecting rumours is a skill in the rules so players get useful information as a result of a success. Succeeding in an information gathering skill and getting no information is not a success.

All the plots are written beforehand. Location, NPCs, quick story overview- it's very fast to prepare. My players have now left Montserrat having only explored about a third of the possible stories there. Some will still be there if they return, some won't. When they get to Mexico there are another two pages of new rumours for them to start collecting.

Offline matakishi

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Re: Pirates!- (new civilians page 7)
« Reply #119 on: September 24, 2018, 06:03:37 AM »
I thought that might be the case, I don't do Facebook, just have to resort to a failing memory. :'(
Cheers

I post here when the pirates are updated, you'll get notifications of that :)

 

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