Sketch for a Pirate Game

[Jeph]

So, I just watched Pirates of the Carribean again for like the zillionth time, and this time want to make a Pirates RPG. Not specifically aboutthe movie, but about pirates in general: guns, ships, and swords; hordes of gold and rum; arrogant British admirals and poor runaway cabin boys.

The game will be simple, and will use Everyone's Favorite Dice (tm).

ATTRIBUTES
Characters have three Attributes; Wit, Muscle, and Prowess. Attributes are rated either d20 (Fair), d10 (Strong), or d6 (Amazing). Players may choose one Amazing Attribute, one Strong, and one Fair. Alternatively, they may set them all at Strong.

TRADES
Trades are packages of abilities for a character, such as Pirate or Craftsman. A Trade is rated at either Apprentice (d20), Journeyman (d10), or Master (d6). Each character may have one Trade at Master and one at Journeyman, or two at Journeyman and one at Apprentice. Trades are player defined, but a few examples are given below:

Royal Navy Officer--Commanding others, sailing, fencing, cannon, muskets
Pirate--Saying "Yaaaarg!, me Matey!" drinking, fencing, pistols, cannon, swinging around on ropes
Craftsman--Making things, dismantling things, using the things you make
Governor--Politicking, sucking up, sounding Brittish, calling pirates Scum
Captain--Sailing, bullying others, fencing, pistols, cursing
Delletante--Buying stuff, sniffing, wishing you could lead a life of adventure
Etc Etc Etc

ADVANTAGES
Characters have two other stats, Fortune and Fortune. Uh, wait--change that to Wealth and Luck. ;-) Each is rated from nothing to any mass of various d20s, d6s, and d10s. To start off, divide one die of each type among your Advantages--thus you could have Wealth d20/d6 and Luck d10, or Wealth X and Luck d20/d6/d10, or anything of the sort. Both stats go up and down quite a bit during play.

MECHANICS
Whenever charactes wish to do something important, they will roll some dice. Choose the Attribute that best fits the situation, and a Trade if you have one, and roll the appropriate dice for each. Throw at anything that comes out a 6 or above, and for every "1" rolled toss another die of the same type what rolled it. Then, total up all the dice you haven't gotten rid of, and compare to either an opponant's total or a Difficulty Number (1 for Hard, 4 for Heroic, 7 for Legendary, 10 for Practically Impossible, 13 for Impractically Impossible). If you wish, you may add any or all of your Luck dice to the pool. However, once you've used them, they're gone forever.

Until, of course, the GM decides to give some more Luck dice to you. GMs should hand out Luck dice for being badass and doing swashbuckley stuff.

DUELS
These can be brawls, shootouts, naval combat, fencing matches, whatever--basically, this is just a souped up version of the resolution system. Go around the table from player to player. Everyone declares what they do. Then, everyone rolls at the same time. Each player then declares a target that logically would take the brunt of their exploits according to their former description scored lower than the attacker. That target takes a point of Ill.

For each point of Ill that a character has, their best die is worsened one step for the duration of the conflict. Thus, if a character had Prowess d10/Pirate d6 and had taken a point of Ill, they would roll 2d10. If they took another point, they'd roll d10/d20. A third they'd have d20/d20, a fourth just d20, and a fifth, no dice at all. When a character runs out of dice in such a fashion, they are out of the fight.

At the each scene, all characters are relieved of half their Ill, rounding up.

BOOTY!
Loot! Spend! Loot! Spend! Whenever a character wishes to buy something, they roll their Wealth dice against a difficulty set by the GM. If they succeed, they may purchase the object if they give up their worst Wealth die. If they fail, they may purchase the object if they give their two worst Wealth dice. Buying cheap objects does not require a roll or the loss of dice. Whenever characters find (or, in some very rare cases, earn) a large amount of money, this will be represented in the GM giving out bonus Wealth dice.

RUM
Is typically what characters will spend their Wealth on.

Well, that's all for now,
Jeff.

(ah yes, questions, comments, love letters, hate mail, etc: all welcome)[/list]

[Tony Irwin]

Whenever charactes wish to do something important, they will roll some dice. Choose the Attribute that best fits the situation, and a Trade if you have one, and roll the appropriate dice for each. Throw at anything that comes out a 6 or above, and for every "1" rolled toss another die of the same type what rolled it. Then, total up all the dice you haven't gotten rid of, and compare to either an opponant's total or a Difficulty Number (1 for Hard, 4 for Heroic, 7 for Legendary, 10 for Practically Impossible, 13 for Impractically Impossible). If you wish, you may add any or all of your Luck dice to the pool. However, once you've used them, they're gone forever.

Until, of course, the GM decides to give some more Luck dice to you. GMs should hand out Luck dice for being badass and doing swashbuckley stuff.

DUELS
These can be brawls, shootouts, naval combat, fencing matches, whatever--basically, this is just a souped up version of the resolution system. Go around the table from player to player. Everyone declares what they do. Then, everyone rolls at the same time. Each player then declares a target that logically would take the brunt of their exploits according to their former description scored lower than the attacker. That target takes a point of Ill.

This sounds chaotic and fun, the thing I wonder about is that the GM will have to book-keep at least one opponent for every player present during the duel (pirate bad-ass that I am, I would be demanding that the GM give me three opponents of my own to fence simultaneously.) I like having everyone rolling dice at the same time but would that mean that in a four player game the GM has to roll four (or more if I'm playing) separate dice-pools at the same time as the players roll theirs?

Have you considered a scene resolution method like Wushu? The GM could quantify the threat of any encounter in terms of the number of successes needed to defeat it. Every success rolled whittles that number down by one. The specifics of the threat (how many guys, what they're packing, how damn ugly they are) are filled in as we go along.

You could use your discard-the-ones rule to create a sense of urgency. Every one that a player rolls, ups the threat of the duel by one. Some guy rolls 3 ones and the GM narrates "Ok your pistol blast hit a gun powder keg, now the docks are on fire and you can hear the militia's call-to-arms off in the distance."

Alternatively the GM could have just one dice pool that represents all the opponents in the duel. After everyone has rolled, the players (from worst roll to best roll) take turns to use their successes to cancel out GM successes or cause ill to the GM's dice, and accept as much ill as they wish from the GMs dice (last player has to accept everything that's left). Then you have a chaotic sense of interaction and cause and effect. Sure I dodge the guy with the musket which leaves you facing down its barrel (heh heh). Or I'll throw myself at the big guy so our Amazingly proficient Master gunman can prep the grape-shot cannister and do some real damage without his skills getting whittled away with ill. Even the most honour-among-theives kind of player is going to be tempted to screw his pirate buddies and save his own neck, now that's immersion ;-)

[MachMoth]

Two things.

First, I think he means to remove any dice above a 5, and if a 1 is rolled, you get to roll another die, not remove it.  So 1's are a chance for improved success.  Though I think the dramatic effects could still be used.  Maybe the extra die is a result of the powder keg blowing up, and taking three guys with it :)

Second, I like the abstraction of wealth, but maybe it could be adjusted, to let the successes rolled decide if an item is cheap enough not to require spending of dice.  

Oh, and every pirate knows that nothing is better at gettin' ridda Ill like good ol' Rum and Grog ;)

[Jeph]

Yes, it's discard all above 5, 1s give extra dice.

Good point about fighitng multiple opponants. How 'bout a Minor Character rules? Something along the lines of Feng Shui's mooks...

Minor Characters

Large groups of less important characters with identical characteristics can be described as a single entity. For instance, a rowboat full of Her Majesty's Royal Navy men could be described like this. If this is the case, the group of Minor Characters has one additional statistic: Mass. This represents the number of characters that form the group. For two to five characters, use a d20. six to fifteen is a d10. Sixteen to twenty five is a d6. A group can be no larger than 25 strong; if it would be, split it up into two smaller groups. A group of Minor Characters adds their Mass die to almost every roll (with logical exceptions).

Thatway everyone can have as many opponants as they want, and the GM only rolls once. For instance, if the PCs are fighting a horde of mooks with a Mass of d6, they could all aim their attacks against that same mass. Each would actually be going against different individuals; and the Gm would only have to roll one pool. :-)

On wealth...

Yeah, that's the part of the system I'm least satisfied with. Perhaps it could work like this: 1) the Gm sets the difficulty of the purchase. 2) The player rolls. If they meet/beat the Difficulty, they succeed without taking a real hit. 3) If they fail and really want what they're after, they can spend off points of Wealth to get it. spending a d20 effectively raises yoru roll by 1 point, a d10 by 2 points, and a d6 by three points. So:

You have a Wealth of d20/d10. You want to buy a small skiff, which has a Purchase Difficulty of 3. However, you roll a 13 on the d20 and a 1 on the d20: you're two points off. You can decide you don't acually need the skiff that much, or you could spend your d10 (two points) to effectively raise your total up to 3 and make the purchase.

And maybe a little optional bonus rule that you can spend off points of wealth for The Worldly Pleasures, recovering a point of Ill each time you do so. :-D

[iago]

A couple issues for me, here.

1) I'm not sure I really see the point of multiple Trades on a single character.  Hard to express the concern here exactly, beyond "they're so broad why would a trade other than my best one ever come into play".  An example here might help.

2) If you have multiple trades, and your die for that Trade gets worsened during a Duel, what stops you from switching to another trade...?  I think part of the answer here is "you're tracking Ill, not 'damage' to a particular trade", and that's fine, but in such a case, the trade-switching thing can still have some relevance (e.g., opening with using your d10 trade, but when that gets worsened to the point of going away, switching over to your d6 trade to stay in the fight for at least another round) -- and i'm not sure if that's "okay".

I like your mechanics for play, however, and think you've got the right idea with the whole mook-rule thing.

[MachMoth]

My guess is that all trades that apply are used together.  Some trades are useful for purely non-combat means, while others could see little use out of combat.  One game to look at as far as this kind of "clishe" grouping would be Risus: The Anything RPG.  It involves using multiple clishes.  Damage in combat also reduces the power of a clishe, forcing you to rely on others.  The mechanics are different, but the concept is the same.  Have a look.  It's free:

http://www222.pair.com/sjohn/risus.htm

[iago]

My guess is that all trades that apply are used together.  Some trades are useful for purely non-combat means, while others could see little use out of combat.  One game to look at as far as this kind of "clishe" grouping would be Risus: The Anything RPG.  It involves using multiple clishes.  Damage in combat also reduces the power of a clishe, forcing you to rely on others.  The mechanics are different, but the concept is the same.  Have a look.  It's free:

http://www222.pair.com/sjohn/risus.htm

Yeah, I know from Risus.  It's been an influence on both Fate and Pace (see my sig).

This all said, I'm not sure you're supposed to end up with more than one type of die from your Trade -- I'd really like to hear Jeph's clarification here.

[Jeph]

Trades are, indeed, based upon Risus clichés. As Iago says, I did not intend to have trades stack with each other in rolls, although I considered it. I wanted to keep the die pools small (a maximum of three dice for starting characters--1 from the Attribute, one from Trade, one from Luck).

Now that I think about it, perhaps a Trade and a Knack would be best. For instance, you might have a Trade of Pirate, and a Knack of Bullying. Maybe Trade and Knack would stack, that doesn't seem too ungodly...

You know, a point-based chargen system might work. Somethign like, a d6 costs 3 points, a d10 2 points, and a d20 1 point. Trades and Attributes cost double, and you must have at least d20 in each Attribute. Starting characters may spend 26 points. (That's enough for d6/d10/d20 or d10/d10/d10 stats, a d6 Trade, a d10 Knack, and d6/d10/d20 or d10/d10/d10 Advantages.)


Also, I noticed a pretty horrid oversight on the exploding dice rule: they explode on ones. That means that, in order to get lucky huge numbers, you have to roll ones like ten times. EEK! I think exploding on fives would be better. :-)

[edit: 6 is NOT 10.]

[iago]

I like the new rules, Jeph -- I say run with those.

[Mike Holmes]

Very important question. Is the defaut assumption that the characters are, in fact, pirates on a pirate ship? This is how most pirate games work, and I can only suggest following this, unless you have some really interesting way to keep the PCs intersecting that doesn't involve this mechanism. The point is that Trades will be important in determining position on the ship...

Anyhow, I'm a big fan of the game Run Out the Guns. If you have a chance, take a look at how that for all sorts of inspiration.

Mike

[Jeph]

No, the game does not assume that everyone is on a pirate ship and is a pirate. I intend it to be more "general swashbuckling with a heavy emphasis on pirates" than "pirates, pirates, and MORE PIRATES!" And now, I present a revision that includes suggestions gathered her and RPGNet's TaoGD forum:

ATTRIBUTES
Characters have three Attributes; Wit, Muscle, and Prowess. Attributes are rated either d20 (Fair), d10 (Strong), or d6 (Amazing). Players may choose one Amazing Attribute, one Strong, and one Fair. Alternatively, they may set them all at Strong.

TRADES and KNACKS
Trades are packages of abilities for a character, such as Pirate or Craftsman. Knacks are more finite skills, such as sailing, bickering, and giving orders. A Trade or Knack is rated at either Apprentice (d20), Journeyman (d10), or Master (d6). Each character may have one Trade at Master and one Knack at Journeyman.

Example Trades:

Royal Navy Officer--Commanding others, sailing, fencing, cannon, muskets
Pirate--Saying "Yaaaarg!, me Matey!" drinking, fencing, pistols, cannon, swinging around on ropes
Craftsman--Making things, dismantling things, using the things you make
Governor--Politicking, sucking up, sounding Brittish, calling pirates Scum
Captain--Sailing, bullying others, fencing, pistols, cursing
Delletante--Buying stuff, sniffing, wishing you could lead a life of adventure
Etc Etc Etc

Example Knacks:

Fencing, Sailing, Mapping, Swimming, Leaping, Seducing, Climbing, Sneaking, Spotting, Dramatic Entrance (heh heh heh), Appearing Stylish, Making Others Really Confused, Sounding Holier Than Thou, Etc Etc Etc

ADVANTAGES
Characters have two other stats, Wealth and Luck. Each is rated from nothing to any mass of various d20s, d6s, and d10s. To start off, divide one die of each type among your Advantages--thus you could have Wealth d20/d6 and Luck d10, or Wealth X and Luck d20/d6/d10, or anything of the sort. Both stats go up and down quite a bit during play.

PASSION
This is a character's drive, motivation, reason for existing. There are four wide possible Passions: Duty, Wonder, Malice, and Fame. Choose one for your character, and describe how it applies to them. For example, Duty may represent great love for another or loyalty to one's country. Wonder might manifest as a desire to explore, or to lead the exciting life of a pirate. Fame may be to grow incredibly rich, to be the scourge of the seas, to be a household name in half a millenium. Malice might be directed against one who killed a person close to you, or an entire empire. For now, mark your Passion down as d20.

ALTERNATE CHARACTER CREATION
Normally, you just follow the steps above to create your character. However, you may also choose to buy dice for each Attribute, Trade, Knack, and Advantage with points (passions always start at d20). You have 26 points to spend. A d6 costs 3 points, a d10 2 poitns, and a d20 1 point. Trades and Attributes cost double, and you must have at least d20 in each Attribute. A character may have only one Trade, but any number of Knacks.

MECHANICS
Whenever charactes wish to do something important, they will roll some dice. Choose the Attribute that best fits the situation, each a Trade and Knack and Passion if you've got one that's appropriate, and roll the corresponding dice for each. Ignore anything that comes out a 6 or above, and for every "5" rolled toss another die of the same type what rolled it. Then, total up all the dice you haven't gotten rid of and compare to either an opponant's total or a Difficulty Number (1 for Hard, 4 for Heroic, 7 for Legendary, 10 for Practically Impossible, 13 for Impractically Impossible). If you wish, you may add any or all of your Luck dice to the pool. However, once you've used them, they're gone forever.

Until, of course, the GM decides to give some more Luck dice to you. GMs should hand out Luck dice for being badass and doing swashbuckley stuff.

DUELS
These can be brawls, shootouts, naval combat, fencing matches, whatever--basically, this is just a souped up version of the resolution system. Go around the table from player to player. Everyone declares what they do. Then, everyone rolls at the same time. Each player then declares a target that logically would take the brunt of their exploits according to their former description scored lower than the attacker. That target takes a point of Ill.

For each point of Ill that a character has, their best die is worsened one step for the duration of the conflict. Thus, if a character had Prowess d10/Pirate d6 and had taken a point of Ill, they would roll 2d10. If they took another point, they'd roll d10/d20. A third they'd have d20/d20, a fourth just d20, and a fifth, no dice at all. When a character runs out of dice in such a fashion, they are out of the fight.

At the each scene, all characters are relieved of half their Ill, rounding up.

HOW PASSIONS WORK
Passions get bigger the more you use them. It's like a drug addiction. And ripped off of TROS wholesale, but that's only because they rock. Whenever a character takes actions to affirm a Passion, the GM will increase it one die. (which will make the character use it more which will make it increase more vicious cycle whee!) However, whenever the character goes against their Passion, it decreases one step (to a minimum of no dice). However, there is a point at which pasion becomes pain: once it would increase beyond d6, you stop getting better dice and begin getting points of Heartbreak. If a character with Heartbreak against their Passion would have it decreased a step, they immediately gain Ill equal to their Heartbreak, have their Passion reduced to d20, and lose all Heartbreak that they currently have.

A character may 'rewrite' their Passion at any time, either altering its description or choosing another of the four possiblities or both. When they do this, their Passion resets to d20, and they lose all Heartbreak without gaining Ill.

BOOTY!
Loot! Spend! Loot! Spend! Whenever a character wishes to buy something, they roll their Wealth dice against a difficulty set by the GM. If they succeed, they may purchase the object without taking a serious hit to their finances. If they fail the roll, they may still buy the object, but come away significantly poorer: they may permanently spend Wealth dice to effectively decrease the Difficulty until it is at the level of their total. Spending a d20 decreases it by one, a d10 by 2, and a d6 by 3.

When characters find (or, rarely, earn) large sums of money, the GM will give them some extra Wealth dice.

Players can also decide to blow large sums of cass on ale and whores. They may spend dice as if they were purchasing an expensive object. For point of Wealth spend in this manner, the character recovers a point of Ill.

OBLIGATORY MOOK RULE
This rule is for fighting off, like, half the Queen's Navy in one scene. If the GM wishes, they may stat up whole groups of identical characrers as a single entity: they just add on an extra statistic, Mass. Mass should be d20 for groups of up to 5, d10 for 6-15, and d6 for 16-25. You can't get better than d6; just add another group at d20 if you have more than 25 mooks. This Mass die is added to almost every roll.

RUM
Will play a large role in this game.