[DitV] The Pirate Game

[Filip Luszczyk]

An idea for a pirate mod came to my mind today. Dunno if I run it, but might just as well share.

There are no Dogs as in "we go from town to town and pass our righteous judgment". PCs are pirate crew instead, and seek gold.

There are no faith issues. The Big Question is "How greedy are you? How far are you willing to go to get what you want?"

Instead of towns, there are islands, or maybe more general "treasure maps". Normal town creation rules do not apply in any way, obviously. The GM thinks up five "treasures" and places them on the map, then thinks up some obstacles. Possibly, every PC has his personal reason to go after one of the "treasures", and there's one major "treasure" that everyone wants.

"Treasures" can be literal treasures, or simply "things the characters want to get". A governor's daughter or a secret from the past of the PC's ancestor could be a treasure, for example.

Instead of Demonic Influence, there's Risk. Every time the PCs learn about the location of one of the "treasures", Risk rises by 1d10. Or, maybe it rises by 1d10 every time they manage to get a "treasure"? Dunno yet.

Instead of Sorcerers and possessed people there are Guardians who, as the name implies, guard the "treasures". These can be monsters, natives, rival pirates, Crown's armada, whatever. Most probably, their "Relationship with Demon" becomes "Relationship with the treasure", as they are blindly overcome by greed.

I'm not sure if free Blood Relationship fits well. Maybe substituting it with free Crew Relationship would work better.

Now, if I wanted to make it somewhat competitive (fits the theme of greed, what to say), I could rule that every player gets one Reflection Fallout for each "treasure" he claims for himself. You finish the adventure with no "treasure", you finish it with no Reflection Fallout. Are you willing to share the loot evenly, or will you steal the "treasure" for yourself and hide it from the rest of the crew? I'm not sure if I'd like such level of competition between the players, however. At the same time, there's nothing that forces the players not to share more or less evenly, there's only the temptation.

Escalations look like this:

-Wits: Acuity + Heart, d4 Fallout (non-physical)
-Athletics (Stunts?): Body + Heart, d6 Fallout (physical, non-combat)
-Combat: Body + Will, d8 Fallout (non-lethal)
-Blades (or maybe, Pirate Tricks?): Acuity + Will, d10 Fallout (deadly)

Now, I've discussed the idea with one of my players, and he sees some problems with Escalations (i.e. Raises and Escalations are not fueled by the situation strong enough to result in powerful drama). On the other hand, it's moving into the action-adventure area anyway, and I think I'd prefer to use DitV than 7th Sea or Wushu for such a game, if only for conflict resolution and advancement mechanics. Hmm...

[lumpley]

Oh dude. I've got your game right here on my hard drive, 80% written. To be an ashcan for GenCon.

Its dice rules play a little faster than Dogs' but I bet you'll dig 'em.

Go to Playcollective and scroll down to Poison'd for a teaser.

[Filip Luszczyk]

Now, that's a surprise!

I won't be on GenCon, however, so I suppose I'll stay with DitV for now as far as my pirate needs go.

[zornwil]

Sounds like a fun game idea, and looking forward to seeing it at GenCon!

[Archer5280]

As soon as Poison'd becomes a PDF, it will be mine. Sounds awesome. Thanks for the heads-up, Vincent!