I noticed during play that the players wanted to know more about the officers. I was wondering how people managed the extraneous officers. I made Patch the nightwatch helms person. I got questions about Kipper and other officers.
Most of them turn up later in the AP, so if you have book five (I think?) you get more of what you need to know.
Or you can just pretend they're officers on a ship and have them treat the swabs and riggers and cook's assistants like the scum they are.
Yeah that is what I am doing. And yeah there is some in book five but, my pcs seem to want to impress the officers more than fellow crew. They have made friends of Rosie, and Scrimshaw. But they have also worked on Grok and Fishguts. They have also been trying to get Patch's attention because she is there. I picked her at random to be night navigator.
I am trying to avoid just railroading them into avoiding the officers.
the lack of development of the officers not named Harrigan, Scourge or Plugg is my only complaint for skull and shackles. if all else fails just use pirate stereotypes.
I may have drawn attention to them. I hunted for pcs of all the crew and officers. I found everyone that has art in the AP then just grabbed pcs I liked for the rest. I rolled them out slowly during the session at different times. I wanted to from day one make this a sand box. I just did not expect them to skip the crew and go for the officers. I don't want interaction on the ship to get formulaic and reducing the process to rolling.
I am debating either:
1- Making their notoriety with the officers effect them with the crew. Essentially making the choice to interact with the officers have consequences.
2- Making fraternization with the officers problematic.
1- Making their notoriety with the officers effect them with the crew. Essentially making the choice to interact with the officers have consequences.2- Making fraternization with the officers problematic.
make the officers hostile to the PCs diplomacy efforts ? basically because they are already loyal to Harrigan, or due to irreconcilable reaction ?
We actually had Kipper as Gunner's Mate (in charge of the armoury).
Patch was assistant bosun (she is noted as close to Scourge anyway), so basically Master Plugg was in charge of the crew, with Scourge and Patch as his assistants. Since Scourge actually got killed during the early storm (accidents happen), Patch took his place - just draw her up as a sadist litle gnome, that usually works fine. Possibly add some level-based equipment to either her equipment or her sea-chest
If there diplomacy was subversive I would definatly play up the distinntion. In fact the are activly trying to investigate the rift the believe exists between the officers and Grok and Fishguts.
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My PCs also wanted to impress the officers so they could move up in the ranks on the ship. I made the battle mage an a*$*$$%, and they never usually interact with them because they are not allowed on the deck where the officers are.
Kroop and Grok have been influenced, and they give out some helpful advice, but the PCs are starting to get curious about the habits of the officers so they can try and get them thrown off the ship or killed.
Luckily they are on day 13 or 14, so soon enough they will not need to worry about it any more. I think I might skip the next couple days so that they can move onto part 2. I feel like the ship gameplay is starting to get stale.
My gang also wanted to see what kind of rapport they could get with the officers. It may pay off later; there's certainly potential. They've worked very diligently at getting Kroop off the sauce and it is paying off big time. (After becoming addicted themselves no less. Heh-heh.)
If your PCs are burning all their ship actions on fraternizing with the officers and it's bugging you, you could play up that the PCs spend most of their days and all of their nights rubbing elbows with other crew rather than officers. Consequently, the PCs could develop increasingly vocalized reps as brown-nosers. Worse, the officers (or just some of them) can also make the same observations. Scourge can sour all of the officers against the PCs, not just Plugg. They might let the PCs overhear comments about it not being a wonder that Harrigan insists on a don't-talk-to-me rule with the scum. Have officers role their eyes, mutter "pathetic" and finally bring the matter up with Plugg who will resort to handing out Bloody Hour lashes for cumbersome fraternizing.
I've been tracking NPC attitudes individually. I'm curious how that will play out. They're on the cusp of mutiny now; day 3 on the Man's Promise. Kipper, now bo'sun, is partial to the sorceress but still hostile to the rest of the party. Depending on when they mutiny, Kipper might whisper warnings to the sorceress but cut down the rogue. Same with most of the crew: other than Sandara, none of them are friendly with the whole party, just with one/some of the PCs. So there are cliques. It will make a difference come go-time whether to support, oppose, or abstain from acting with the PCs. Conchobar might sit back if he's around when the cavalier is being attacked but might stir to action if the monk - who made him crucial money - looks like another hand would secure him victory. Looking forward to it.
I had the officers view the players as vermin, shouting at them, clipping them round the ear, telling them where to go. They soon got the message.
The way I see it is that the sailors having been bushwacked are just scum in the eyes of the officers so why would they even want to even look at them. They leave that up to Plugg and Scourge.
Grok and Fishguts are the exception, I guess as Grok is best buddies with Fishguts and Fishguts is out of favour with Harrigan it kind of stands to reason that Grok would be the way she is and feels sorry for the sailors.
Uri meca, Kipper on the man's promise? He turns up later in book 5 on the Wormwood when the players meet Harrigans fleet. Not a big problem but you may need to alter that role when you get to it. (always read ahead as some NPC's appear later in the books).
I know Kipper shows up latter but is also listed in among the officers in book one. (unless I mixed up what PDF I was looking at). Yeah distance is working I am trying keep Scourge and Plug primary jerks.
Uri meca, Kipper on the man's promise? He turns up later in book 5 on the Wormwood when the players meet Harrigans fleet. Not a big problem but you may need to alter that role when you get to it. (always read ahead as some NPC's appear later in the books).Hmm, bummer. You know, I did read ahead? I read the whole AP before starting. That detail eluded me. <checks book 5, p37> Would you look at that? Oh well, too late now. Hahaha,
Kipper is now the Wormwood's master gunner. ... Patch Patchsalt...has replace Cut-Throat Grok as the ship's quartermaster.
Patch too!? How did I miss that? I just hooked on to Kipper and Patch being Plugg's and Scourge's sycophants. Given that the PCs captured the Rahadoumi officer (barely) alive, Harrigan allowed Scourge to talk Plugg into requesting Kipper and Patch to go along they wouldn't have to bother removing their heads from their bottoms. I'm curious how Kipper will weave between loyalties to Plugg and the party sorceress. Patch will be a surprise. To date I've just played up her exceedingly annoying high nasal voice; the PCs don't really suspect levels in fighter/rogue. Could prove deadly. It's nice to note that both Kipper and Patch level up a few times between book 1 (lvl 6 ea) and book 5 (Kipper lvl 9, Patch lvl 8).
No probelm :).
I may have gone a bit OTT but on the 2nd or 3rd campaign redthrough I made notes on all the major NPC's and then combined all the parts together to give me a good heads up on what everyone was doing and why. The whole cheliax and Bonefist thing dons't make much sense until you read book 6 (still dons't realy, its a tad lame to be honest) and Harrigans motivations/alligenses/madness etc are not fully relised until book 5. It helped me a lot as I manged to swop/change a few things to make it feel better (Inkskin hired by Harriagn for instance giving the her attack on Tidewater more of a meaning, which in turn made me cahnge the cove at the end to a pirate treasure hunt on a hostile island).
Since Kipper and Patch only turn up as "minor boses" in AP#5 and - well get to be hacked to pieces by the players (most likely) - the sole interesting part for me seemed to be the fact that they do have some recognition factor for the players.
I had Patch tag along on the Man's Promise (five players) to raise the challenge, and along with Scourge and Plugg she died. Shouldn't break anyting in the later part of the AP