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On reading through the Skull and Shackle AP, at least up through volume 5, one thing that I (and I think a lot of other people) noticed was that the AP doesn't really seem to push the idea of "being a pirate" all that much. Motivation is sorely lacking for the PCs to actually go to many of the set-pieces and do the adventures. It feels like it really calls for some kind of explore/resource sub-system.
So I decided to develop one.
Over the next few weeks, I'm going to try to lay out ideas and solicit feedback, starting with the basic, underlying principles in this post and going from there.
So, without further ado, here we go.
"So You Want To Be A Pirate - Core Principles behind 'Exploring the Shackles'
In thinking about this system, I decided I wanted to stick to three really core ideas to making the campaign more interesting.
1) A Living World. While most players should end up tackling many of the set-piece areas of the campaign, they won't necessarily go for all of them, and they won't do so in any particular order. Furthermore, NPCs are not static mission sources. If the PCs hole up in some dive tavern and tell stories, events can keep moving around them and eventually force them to act. These rules are not going to be for every party - successfully finishing the campaign will require players who are willing to take charge of their destiny.
2) Goals, not Adventures. The biggest weakness of the AP is that the writers have largely presumed that the PCs will be motivated by the mere presence of adventure spots and challenges. As carreer criminals, most pirates aren't going to be all that intrigued by island exploration when there's plunder and pillage to be had. Clear reasons for doing many of the set-pieces will be laid out and tied back into the new systems.
3) Simplicity. By its' nature, the modifications being made will be a huge complication to the AP. So, every new rule shall have a purpose, and I will be trying to keep added complexity to a minimum. The goal is not to detail every ship going over every shipping lane or track the opinions of every pirate lord in the Shackles. Instead, the overall goal is to allow the players to make meaningful contributions to the direction the story takes (I even intend to have minimal information on how the campaign can evolve to allow the PCs to side with Harrigan if that's their choice!)
Disclaimer: I've only done the first S&S adventure path so far.
Obviously the core motivation for a pirate is to acquire gold. the way they choose to accomplish this task is by raiding ships or towns. Pirates are also very prideful and desire to be the best at their "jobs."
Goal/adventure:
Drinking in a pub with a fellow pirate crew, the crew begins to argue about which capitan is the best. A challenge is made by the NPC capitan whoever can sack a town and return the most amount of treasure by the end of a month is the better capitan.
Reward:
Loser has to paint "Bested by <Capitan Name> on the bow of their ship for one year.
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Part 2 - Plunder and Infamy Revised
[ooc]There's going to be a google-doc version, but until that's ready for the public I'm just going to say that most of the Plunder and Infamy section is intact. The one exception is that I've excised the rules for Disrepute - some seem a bit silly, and the ones that don't give similar advantages to the Crew system from Part 4. Below are the additions.[/i]
Treasure: Plunder has its’ good points. It’s impressive looking, and gives a stronger impression of being a pirate. Reputation is an important currency in the world of the Shackles, as we’ll see below. But it takes up a great deal of room in a cargo hold. Treasure is a much more compact form of wealth. And there’s nothing quite like a hold full of gold to tell yourself that you’ve made it. Typically, 1 point of Plunder can be assumed to take up 10 tons of cargo room, where 1 point of Treasure only takes up 1 ton. The exchange can be made in any port.
Supplies: It takes more than an eyepatch and a ship to ply the sweet trade You’ll need food, water, lumber, and the like. Supplies cost 50 GP per day, and consist primarily of water and cheap foodstuffs. One unit of Supplies takes up one ton of cargo space. Supplies can be purchased in any port, or you can root through your plunder, effectively reducing the plunder total in your ship by half to get an equal number of supplies (the excess is destroyed and tossed overboard.
Design Note: At this phase, it may seem like splitting hairs. But, for story reasons later, I have good reason for keeping these two resources semi-separate. Allowing a conversion to Treasure also allows PCs to skip over some of the aspects of gaining a home port and pirate politics, at the cost of being far more vulnerable to having their ship or fleet attacked.
Part 3 - Part 3 - “Take What You Want, Give Nothing Back” - Movement, Exploration, and Piracy
Every day of being a pirate is a potential adventure waiting to happen. But most of the time, there isn’t much to it. Days and days of wandering the waterways, with nothing to do but keep the ship sailing. So, each day is abstracted out into a single turn. But first, you need to know where you are, and where you’re going.
Regions
The Skull and Shackles campaign area is divided up into a number of game regions. While the specifics of these are hidden from the player, most are tied to a major port, and named after that port. There are also two special regions that lack a port, but may have better hunting or special locations.
When the players arrive in a region after taking the Traveling action, note their current Infamy score. This becomes both their Presence and needs to be tracked for purposes of their Infamy Threshold.
Presence: This score is a measure of other people’s awareness of the PC’s presence. The higher their presence score, the more likely other ships in the area are to know who they are, have made preparations for them, or even be actively hunting them. This has the greatest effect on random encounters.
Infamy Threshold: Every region has a certain tolerance for piracy. More infamous pirates are generally more skilled, and ships plying certain regions may simply surrender on encountering a sufficently infamous pirate. However, regions with a lower Infamy Threshold will usually also yield lesser amounts of plunder.
The regions are
Rickety’s Squibs
Bloodcove
Eleder
Sargava
The Fever Sea
Quent
Drenchmere
Port Peril
Hell’s Harbor
The Shackles
More information on these will be in Part 5.
Daily Actions
At the start of the day, the players need to decide what they’re going to do. Put simply, they have six choices:
Hunting: In the most straightforward choice, they simply sail around the trade routes of the area and take their chances. Roll for an extra chance of random encounter, and increase Presence by one.
Travel: At various times, the players may feel they’ve worn out their welcome in a particular Region. In this case, they can change regions. It’s assumed that, while they’ve been engaging in other actions they have also been traveling, so picking up and shifting from one region to another only costs one day. Once in the new region, reset the character’s Presence score to normal.
Pull Into Port: Spend a day traveling to the region’s major port. See Part 3 for more details on what you can do there.
Resupply: In addition to resupplying at a port, you can also spend a day to attempt replenish your ship’s stores along any coastline. Make either a Survival or Profession (Sailor) check of DC 10. Each player that succeeds adds one point of Supplies, plus an additional point for every 5 they exceed the DC.
Explore: If the PCs are aware of either an adventure site or have a tip, they can spend one day to pursue it. If their information is genuine, they can automatically either reach the adventure site, or attack the ship that they’ve been tipped off on. If they pursue a tip, increase their Presence by three points.
Raid: Finally, they can attack any number of seaside villages. This leads automatically to the Low Hanging Fruit encounter in Raiders of the Fever Sea and increases their Presence by 5 (no one likes a bully.)
Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
Hi Chris, I'm really liking what I'm seeing here. I was going to add some manner of Consumption mechanic but looks like you've beat me to the punch. The thing about Consumption is that it's a good tool to keep the PCs adventuring. Your crew need to be paid after all, so you can't just rest on your laurels. Can't wait to see the finished product.
Thanks. It might be a few days, but the next section is about what PCs can do with themselves when they're in port, including hiring (and rehiring) crew, selling plunder for gold, resupplying, and getting tips. After that is the more fiddly stuff of statting up the regions and ports, and constructing a timeline of events from the start of Raiders through From Hell's Heart. Those last two are the bits I'm dreading, but the eventual result should be worth it - a complete living campaign world for the players to explore and change around, rather than a series of barely-linked encounters.
Awesome. Hurry up and finish so that I can see about using it in my campaign!
Love it! Feels simplistic yet definitely captures the right vibe, to me. Love the Presence mechanic... sort of feels like it might work well as the Danger mechanic does in city stat blocks... being a plus on random encounter charts or something.
This looks great! I'm planning a S&S campaign and had some of the same concerns. Thanks for putting this together. Looking forward to following along!
Jeff...
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Part 4 - “Aye, We’ll Be Having Some Fun Tonight,” - Port Actions
Ports
The open seas are where piracy takes place, but the importance of friendly ports can’t be underestimated. Ports have three traits.
Sell Price/DC: This works identically to the rules from the Skull and Shackles player’s guide, except that it’s no longer dependent on the size of the port city. Some places have canny merchants, and some places may be desperate for any shipping (There are also a couple of changes in the Timeline of Events that can adjust this as events happen.)
Crew Quality: While most every port will have a competent sailor or three, and they will all have a few brigands looking to make a copper on the high seas, not every port has top-notch buccaneers chomping at the bit to hire on. See Part 5 for more details on Crew Quality and how it affects you.
Rumor Mill (DC): This is a refelction of just how good the city’s information is, and how easily they will spill that information.
Port Actions
When you first pull into a port, the first day is spent on a number of special actions.
1) Pay Harbor Fees: This automatically costs 1000 GP or one point of Plunder or Treasure. Some ports don’t have these fees, and will be noted in individual descriptions.
2) Divvy up the loot: Typically, the crew will collectively want one point of plunder per week spent at sea. If the players don’t want to (or can’t) afford this, it takes a DC 15 Diplomacy, Bluff, or Intimidate check to get them to accept less. If the player makes the DC, reduce the plunder cost by one, and by an additional one for every five over the DC he rolled. Only one player may make this check.
3) Decide whether to re-hire the same crew: Typically, the crew will only sign on for one voyage. If you want to keep the same crew, you will need to use Diplomacy or Bluff (you can’t press-gang an existing crew) to keep them per the rules for hiring crew below.
Once you’ve done this, all the arrangements have been made and the ship can be left in the harbor for up to a week. If you want to stay longer, you’ll need to pay the harbor fee again.
Actions
Each PC may take one action per day. These represent a number of hours focused exclusively on a single activity, and trying to split your attention essentially means getting nothing done.
Resupply: You spend the day arranging for supplies to be delivered to and loaded on the ship. No check is required.
Boast: This works just like gathering Infamy in the Skull and Shackles Player’s Guide.
Hire Crew: You spend the time scouring the port looking for able-bodied humanoids to man the ship, and try to convince them to come along. More details in Part 5.
Rumor-Gather: You scour the taverns looking for information on incoming ships that you might attack. It takes a Gather Information check at the port’s Rumor DC to successfully get a rumor. Every rumor has a base chance of being accurate of 30%.
Verify Rumor: To get more reliable intel, a PC can attempt to get more solid information on a rumor they’ve heard. This requires a minimum bribe of 50 GP and another Gather Information check. A verified rumor reveals everything about the ship in question. Roll on the random encounter table and reveal the information to the PCs.The next time the PCs head out to sea, they can automatically choose to Explore to start the encounter. Or not, if they think it’s too tough.
Design Note: One thing I'd like to do, but I'm not 100% sure on how to handle, is to allow PCs to pick some aspects of a verified rumor (which then affect the random parts of other rolls.) This would represent picking through the sheer volume of information to find the perfect target.
Look forward to the Crew part and how you've replaced Disrepute
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Part 5 - “15 Men On A Dead Man’s Chest” - Crew and Mutiny
Not all crews are equal. Depending on the port you’re in, the abilities and quality of the crew can be quite different. Crews are measured in the following ways:
Crew Quality: This is the maximum level a crew hired from a particular port can perform at.
Crew Performance: This is the level a crew is currently performing at. Unlike Quality, this can fluctuate over the course of a sailing.
Perk: This is something a particular crew can manage to do that sets them apart from others. Perks can be selected from a list made available by the port, or can be applied with training from NPCs to any crew (See “Special Crew Members below.”)
Crew Quality
Consult the following chart to determine the effects of both Quality and Performance
Quality Level Sailing Check # of Perks Up-Front Pay Hire DC
Amazing +2 2 3 Plunder 25
Good +1 2 2 Plunder 20
Average +0 1 None 15
Poor -1 1 None 10
Terrible -2 0 None 0
Sailing Check: When Performance is at this level, apply this modifier to all Sailing Checks in ship-to-ship combat.
# of Perks: A crew can have this many perks active at one time, dependent on Quality
Hiring Crew
You have three options for gaining a crew.
Hire: To hire a new crew in a port, you need to make a Diplomacy check against the hiring DC. Crews of higher quality expect to be paid up front. They always start a voyage at their highest Performance level.
Trick: You can reduce the cost of hiring the crew by 1 plunder by tricking them, using a Bluff check equal to their hiring DC. Tricked crews start with a Performance level at one below their Quality, to a minimum of Poor.
Press Gang: Press Ganged crews require no pay, and doing it reduces the hire DC by 5. Press Ganged crews tend to be mutinous crews, however, and start at a Performance rating two below their quality.
Performance
Performance tends to degrade over the course of a sailing. Reduce performance level by one whenever the following happen:
Failed Raid: Whenever the PCs fail to capture a ship after spotting it, or the ship didn’t have any Plunder or Treasure
Attacked: Whenever the ship is attacked.
Treasure Hunting: Whenever the PCs explore a set-piece without a promise of treasure for the crew involved.
Time: Reduce Performance every time a week passes with no other actions.
You can also increase current performance with the following acts:
Raid: By successfully attacking a ship and capturing it,
Bribery: Pay the crew’s hiring cost (Minimum 1) in plunder again.
(Planning to work on compiling a list of perks and where to get them tomorrow.)
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Some ideas for positive Crew performance perks :
"Pride of the Fleet" : Successfully pushing the crew to more daring and dashing exploits, causing them to take pride in their actions... (combone Prrofession sailor and Diplomacy/bluff into this; one for the actual sailing stuff, and one for making the crew feel proud of it, instead of having them call the captain mad. You can also have the watches perform against each other in friendly rivalry, and use this for performance drills.
"Extra Shares": Setting aside some extra shares to award to crewmen especially heroic in attacks or on duty. Officers (PCs) should not get access to the shares.
"Dashing and Capering" : Successfully engaging in some horrendously difficult act, with success and a chance for the crew to wildly laugh about it and tell tall tales. Sailing into Correntyn Harbour and having the port watch take a long drink in a harbourside tavern. Repainting the name of the Chelian flagship in port. Hoisting the Shackels Colours over the watchtowers of Rahadoum, Westcrown or Correntyn.
"Golden Cup" : Nasty idea my players came up with.... having taken the skull of old'Plugg, they made a mould from it (evil laughs all about) , and are now regularly casting a gold skull (worth about 250 dubloons, ahem gp) from it, as a reward for "Piracy Above and Beyond".
They have set up a monthly piracy challenge, the winner of which at the end of the month, will gain the skullcup. There is now a saying aboard that you aren't a true pirate unless you have been "cupped"....
as for Chris Kenneys ideas : overall very nice, but "Crew Quality" as being bound to a certain harbour seems.. odd. First you will always have mixed crews. Second, you will have travellers hiring on in a port where they were not born. Third, in any board there wil be lackadaisies one one hand , and the most able of seaman. Often enough in the same tavern.. I' rate any seaman hired with a quick 1-5 star rating, and take the crew average from that. Hence, the palyeers can actually bring their crew up to speed by getting rd of the lazy ones.
Honestly, my goal there was quick play - The crew quality is, more or less, an average of how good at being pirates as opposed to just being sailors a particular crowd is going to be. With the exception of the seaside villages, no harbor has a quality in my notes lower than "average," for example - most crews will be around there. Harbors in the Shackles have more "career pirates" on hand, and thus have higher quality crews overall, that can learn more tricks the PCs have picked up. The southern ports actually are intended to make up for this with unique perks - for example, you can hire a crew with a number of merchants mixed in so that, for the duration of your next stop in port you have bonuses to selling Plunder.
Chris Kenney wrote: Honestly, my goal there was quick play - The crew quality is, more or less, an average of how good at being pirates as opposed to just being sailors a particular crowd is going to be. With the exception of the seaside villages, no harbor has a quality in my notes lower than "average," for example - most crews will be around there. Harbors in the Shackles have more "career pirates" on hand, and thus have higher quality crews overall, that can learn more tricks the PCs have picked up. The southern ports actually are intended to make up for this with unique perks - for example, you can hire a crew with a number of merchants mixed in so that, for the duration of your next stop in port you have bonuses to selling Plunder. ok, another good way to run it
WOW!
Thanks to the OP for this, its fantastic. The job of making a sandbox for part 2 has been so easy and works very well. I divided the shackles map, the Mwangi expanse map and the map of the Saragan coast in to 100 mile squares and grouped the squares in to regions. Ship travel has been so easy as I can now tell how far they go per day making the daily tasks easy to deal with.
Random encounters I am using the tables from the Isles of the shackles guide as they are more specific along with a table of hazards and the ships form the backs of each book. (% chance per day, roll d10, 1-3 hazard, 4-8 ship, 9-10 monster). Im also utilizing a table of shipboard encounters from dead mans chest and some random rolls in the Pirate Isles book for Conan D20 for random settlements on the coast.
Mixed with the ship combat rules on the boards for the whole party and the crew morale rules there the game has become the players instead of mine. I have played 3 sessions of the sandbox and all have been very rewarding with some very interseting devlopments.
Chris:
Just wondering if you've done any more work on this Sandbox Subsystem. Everything so far looks amazing!
Dotting for my next running of Skull & Shackles.
Great stuff!
Dot for future use.
Hey Chris,
Did you ever finish this supplement info/system? If you have any of your working files you were using for this that would be great to take a look at.
Recent threads in Skull & Shackles
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