Herding Cats or The Story of running a large pirate game at BLAM

[Andym]

I love the ghost ship! Brilliantly conceived! 

Jeff's Spanish are lovely too as is a lot of the painting

Darrell.

Thanks Atheling!

Theres details how it was  built and a few more pics here mate....

http://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=81143.45

[Andym]

BLAMMER (Blamee, Blamions, Blamites?.....)HELP REQUIRED!

Its been a couple of days now since the big pirate game. Colin and myself have been talking, and IF we were asked to run the "Big Pirate Game"tm that we'd be more than happy to do so. Working to that end we know there is definitely ways of making it better. What we're hoping to get from anybody that attended is what you thought of it and what can be changed.

NEGATIVE comments are more than welcome and will be taken as constructive criticism! 

Eg. On the day, a couple of people cane up with idea of having separate initiative for each of the 5 tables. We decided not to change that on the day. The thinking behind it was that if we let one table go on, it would be ahead in terms of everyone else. If we let that table go on then stop at the end of their turn, when an event card comes up  (fog for example) it'll come at the wrong time at thst table.

We have a lot of ideas, if we were ever asked again.....

1.Deployment- we thought that ships were able to start too close together. We're thinking of not letting ships deploy within 12" of each other. This means that the whole room will be spread out a bit more.

The other thought for this is to make shios deploy in the port they're affiliated with.

2.Missions-not knowing how the game was going to play out (and not being able to test it!) we decided to leave them out of our first game. We think, now, that they ciuld easily be fitted in and add a hell of a lot more interest. Eg. Pirates to kidnap the governor. Privateers to hunt down an enemy navy ship. A map that leads to treasure. So on and so forth...... Different for each ship.

3. Weapons- we kept it simples, but would it be more interesting (and not slow the game down any more) to have more than just pistols and muskets? Maybe just use whatever is on your models?

Cannons as well....do you want grape shot included?

4.Different Crews- what about having more choices for players? Merchantmen? Arabian pirates? Ghost ship?..... Kraken?

5. Table layout. Could the tables in the room be better laid out just for this game? Maybe a table in each if the four corners of the room and one right in the middle to represent open water?

These are just a few of our ideas. There is plenty more. We'd love to hear yours.....

Again, it was our first huge game and there was no way to playtest it, so it would be lovely if we could get some feedback so that in the future IF we're ever asked to do it again....we can do it better!

Thanks in advance,
                    Andy and Colin.

[OSHIROmodels]

I think the separate cards for each table is a good idea, when that table is done, it just waits for the others to catch up and if a ship moves between tables, it's card goes with it but at the bottom of the pile.

No shooting between tables, it's funny but can lead to confusion.

Maybe have the four tables with ports with a blank in the middle as you suggest and ships only start on the post tables but have to move through the blank to get to another board (does that make sense?). Also, an even distribution of ships over al the tables so a random draw of the cards but the placement is in sequence?

Keep the weapons simple but maybe have a difference in cannon, two extra cannon and the ship is slower and less manueverable two less cannon and the ship is quicker.

Grape shot for cannon? Fuck yeah!

Would the different crews have any benefits? Maybe one type of crew is better at shooting or sailing?

Wind. Everytime there is a wind change it moves one point around the compass instead of randomly?

Event cards are randomly determined for one table at a time?

 I think you should do it again but not next year 

Just a few thoughts 

cheers

James

[tomrommel1]

looks like you had a lot of fun

[Captain Blood]

Brave of you to ask, Andy

I think, considering it was quite an experiment, it worked pretty well on the whole.
The obvious drawback was that with 17 players and random card activation (meaning that for any individual it could be as much as 32 'other player turns' between moves), it took a long time between activations, with much hanging around.

My suggestions:

1. I think the biggest issue was simply that most people did not know the basic rule mechanics / stats / dice rolls required for movement / shooting cannon, muskets, and hand to hand combat. Once people started to get the hang of resolving these basic interactions for themselves, the whole game noticeably speeded up - although that was about 3 hours in!
The answer is probably having more games-masters. If we'd had a couple more umpires au fait with the rules (one per table ideally), and a couple less players overall, I think the whole thing would have sailed along very much faster ()
With the benefit of hindsight (that marvellous thing!) perhaps having sent out a basic 1 pager in advance of the movement / shooting / fighting rules would have been useful?

2. Get a megaphone (or a mic and mini amp/speaker). The acoustics of that room crammed with 25 grown men all laughing / talking / shouting at the tops of their voices, meant that half the changes of wind direction, random events and instructions went unheeded, unheard, and unimplemented in some cases. If we ever do it again, get a whistle (a bosun's whistle!). When the whistle goes, everyone has to shut up, pause what they're doing, and listen. Then, in the event of fog, becalmed (or similar afflictions where everyone has to do something in response to the event), instead of you and Colin having to go around 17 different players individually to resolve the action, people can just get on and do it for themselves, on their tables.

3. Again with hindsight, four larger tables would have been better than five slightly smaller ones. I don't know if we could have re-engineered the MDF board tabletops in time to do this, but the size of the tabletops and the sheer amount of ships on some of them, made manouvering very difficult.

4. And finally - a criticism of the LOTHS rules themselves. Cannon proved woefully ineffective. Of the five ships that spent most of the game on the table I was on, all of us suffered multiple misfires and lost cannon and crew to this. With only four guns per ship to start with, after a few moves, most of us were down to just a couple of guns because of endless misfires. This then made attacking / sinking enemy ships with cannon fire very difficult indeed. It therefore became far more effective to shoot enemy crews with muskets, than to attempt to inflict damage on the ships themselves.
This may well be historically accurate, but slightly spoiled the effect of ships blasting away at each other - they just weren't able to.
My suggestion is that if there's a limit of only four guns per ship, then a D20 with a 1 in 20 chance of a misfire, or even a D10 (1 in 10) would be much better. A one in six chance of a misfire was just too harsh and the result (the inability to shoot at things) probably contributed to slowing down the game.
But yes, the ability to rake an enemy deck with grapeshot would certainly help 

[Atheling]

Thanks Atheling!

Theres details how it was  built and a few more pics here mate....

http://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=81143.45

Thanks for that. I wish i had more time to spend in the 'builds' section

I love the putty work on the model- highly impressive!! 

Darrell.

[Elk101]

BLAMMER (Blamee, Blamions, Blamites?.....)HELP REQUIRED!

Its been a couple of days now since the big pirate game. Colin and myself have been talking, and IF we were asked to run the "Big Pirate Game"tm that we'd be more than happy to do so. Working to that end we know there is definitely ways of making it better. What we're hoping to get from anybody that attended is what you thought of it and what can be changed.

NEGATIVE comments are more than welcome and will be taken as constructive criticism! 

1.Deployment- we thought that ships were able to start too close together. We're thinking of not letting ships deploy within 12" of each other. This means that the whole room will be spread out a bit more.

The other thought for this is to make shios deploy in the port they're affiliated with.

2.Missions-not knowing how the game was going to play out (and not being able to test it!) we decided to leave them out of our first game. We think, now, that they ciuld easily be fitted in and add a hell of a lot more interest. Eg. Pirates to kidnap the governor. Privateers to hunt down an enemy navy ship. A map that leads to treasure. So on and so forth...... Different for each ship.

3. Weapons- we kept it simples, but would it be more interesting (and not slow the game down any more) to have more than just pistols and muskets? Maybe just use whatever is on your models?

Cannons as well....do you want grape shot included?

4.Different Crews- what about having more choices for players? Merchantmen? Arabian pirates? Ghost ship?..... Kraken?

5. Table layout. Could the tables in the room be better laid out just for this game? Maybe a table in each if the four corners of the room and one right in the middle to represent open water?

These are just a few of our ideas. There is plenty more. We'd love to hear yours.....

A few resposes to your questions Andy:
The deployment suggestion and idea of starting at an affiliated base would probably encourage more movement.
Missions might focus people more, especially if some overlap and encourage different interaction.
I thought keeping the weapons simple was a good idea. Grape shot for cannon is a good idea. There did seem to be a lot of misfires! The estimating for firing cannon was fun, I'd keep that.
Perhaps a few crew options/skills/flaws would be fun but it'd probably be best to keep it simple. The idea of playing the Kraken could be fun!
I definitely liked the idea if moving between tables and it would be good to encourage that.

All in all I thought it was an impressive effort and I enjoyed myself. We started to pick the rules up later into the game but probably pestered you guys as bit much early on. A few more umpires would take some of the pressure off you.

Thanks for a great experience!

[manatic]

Really inspiring stuff. More pics wanted. More! MORE!

[NurgleHH]

From my view as a outside playing part of this game I have to say, that "Legends of the High Sea" is not the ruleset for such big games. After a while to long breaks between your action work against your concentration. It took very long to move a ship to an island, than fight for your treasure and bring it to the treasure island. So it would be nice to find a faster way to handle it.
The idea is great: Four tables, moving between the tables, different targets (pirates, british navy, spanish, etc), great events (the octupus, the ghost ship, etc.).
When you count all these things, andy, there is only one result for you: Make your own fast rules and let's do it then again.

I start my pirates in the time we wait.

[gamer Mac]

Dirk  I am sorry you got left on a table on your own. I am also afraid that they were our own fast play rules we used! We used LOTHS for the little extras.

[Dewbakuk]

Speed of ship movement could probably benefit from an increase. I think it took 5 turns before any of the Pirates made it to the Spanish docks. Combat etc I think worked fine once people had gotten a hang on the rules, unfortunately many of us had never played so didn't know them. Cannons did misfire rather a lot though.

While I liked the idea, the two pirate ports went unused the entire game I believe. Having them as alternate normal ports would have spread the players out more and eased some of the movement problems caused by many ships.

[NurgleHH]

Dirk  I am sorry you got left on a table on your own. I am also afraid that they were our own fast play rules we used! We used LOTHS for the little extras.

No, it was great for me, had more action than Schwarzenegger and Stalone in their movies (Octopussy, exploding gun, storm, merchantdesaster in the fog and finally the viking lord killing me -and all in few hours). But I think for you as the umpires it was very stressy and the flow was becoming slower at the ongoing game.

[War In 15MM]

Love the pictures... wonderful stuff, and that's from a guy who loves the stuff but doesn't game.  Looking forward to more pictures.  Richard

[gamer Mac]

Love the pictures... wonderful stuff, and that's from a guy who loves the stuff but doesn't game.  Looking forward to more pictures.  Richard

More Pictures I have. Not sure what's going on in most of them. If anyone can add some info please feel free

Setting up


the other end


my pirate port un-visited during the game


Hu Rue's port


The British Navy flotilla came about due to some bad rules that will be changed for the future. The poor single pirate ship was placed on the table first then pretty much surrounded by the navy.

Some of the pirate ships

[Patrice]

Very nice, and inspiring ideas...