Fabian Benavente |
I know it depends heavily on PC's actions but...
How often do you have a sandbox event (raid a merchant ship, meet another pirate in open waters, etc.) happen?
Is this once a week? once a month?
I just want to hear what other people have done and what has worked/hasn't worked for their campaigns.
What if the PCs are actively looking for a particular event (raid an Aspis Consortium ship, raid a slaver, etc.)?
And what would this 'look like'? Going to different ports and talking to other pirates/merchants?
Thanks,
Game on!
BzAli |
I run raiding events whenever the players ask for it. If the say "we go hunting", I usually let them run into a generic merchant after 2-3 days. Off course, I try to vary these encounters, so some merchants will be escorted, some will be Aspis Consortium (which they don't raid, since they rely heavily on Bloodcove as sellingpoint), some will be Free Captains or unrecognised pirates, etc. In short, I give them something to interact with after 2-3 days at open sea.
If the players are seeking plot, I usually don't bother with sandbox. If they're seeking sandbox, I don't bother with plot.
Shaun |
I was really disappointed that with all the work that clearly went into this AP, no guidance was given for encounter frequency (nor is there any guidance in the CRB or the GMG).
I roll all of my random encounters and weather outcomes pre-game so I ended up consulting my D&D 3.0 DMG and saw that in a wasteland there was an 8% chance of a random encounter per/hour, so I used that standard and rolled on a d100 each hour then if I got an encounter I'd roll on a couple different tables in the AP books themselves, Isles of the Shackles and the Bestiary. A decent number of these encounters were with things that won't or couldn't attack them, such as dolphins, sharks, reefclaws, jellyfish, etc. If eveything I rolled was lame or I couldn't think of a good way to use it, I'd put in a ship encounter. As a general rule of thumb, unless they were doing something on land, I tried to have at least one ship encounter per session for game-flow purposes.
simon hacker |
I roll a random encounter check 33% once per day and once per night. I have tables for ships, hazards, monsters and shipbordrd events so if an encounters happens I roll 1d8 to see what event it is.
1-2 monster, 3-4 ship board, 5-6 Ship, 7-8 hazard.
I alter it as well depending on whether the players are hunting for prey ships, in which case I give a higher number on the encounter check and if they do they meet something it will be a ship.
Seems to work fine for us.
Shaun |
I roll a random encounter check 33% once per day and once per night. I have tables for ships, hazards, monsters and shipbordrd events so if an encounters happens I roll 1d8 to see what event it is.
1-2 monster, 3-4 ship board, 5-6 Ship, 7-8 hazard.
I alter it as well depending on whether the players are hunting for prey ships, in which case I give a higher number on the encounter check and if they do they meet something it will be a ship.
Seems to work fine for us.
Did you homebrew these tables? Can you define "ship board event" and "hazard"? I'd be interested in seeing what you're doing.
simon hacker |
shipboard events: Im using the ones from dead mans chest although wilderness dressing sea voyages has some too that are just as good. There are some good tables in that PDF too for omens etc, if you are using crew morale you could raise or lower it using these.
Hazards I home brewed, reef, sand banks, kelp forest, sargasum weed bed, st elmo's fire etc.
My guys also tend to fish especaily the cook so I made up a table of 10 fishes and got them to roll a survival check, if they succeed I get them to roll a d10 to find out what they caught.
Robert Cameron |
I do a base 15% chance four times a day (morning, noon, evening, night), then I roll a d6 to determine which hour of the time period the event occurs in. From there it's basically a coin toss as to whether I use a monster or a ship. However, I do like simon hacker's idea for hazards and ship board encounters. I'll have to make up a table for those.
KarlBob |
Conan: The Pirate Isles has really nice charts for shipboard events and weather hazards. Both tables include suggested skill rolls to mitigate the situations.
It also has a good system for individualizing what it calls "prey settlements," with complications like "village leader is using fishing boats to smuggle illicit goods," or "local pirates use this village as a base of operations." This prevents raids from becoming repetitious and boring.
TritonOne |
Conan: The Pirate Isles has really nice charts for shipboard events and weather hazards. Both tables include suggested skill rolls to mitigate the situations.
It also has a good system for individualizing what it calls "prey settlements," with complications like "village leader is using fishing boats to smuggle illicit goods," or "local pirates use this village as a base of operations." This prevents raids from becoming repetitious and boring.
Thank you for the suggestion, Karlbob.
KarlBob |
KarlBob wrote:Thank you for the suggestion, Karlbob.Conan: The Pirate Isles has really nice charts for shipboard events and weather hazards. Both tables include suggested skill rolls to mitigate the situations.
It also has a good system for individualizing what it calls "prey settlements," with complications like "village leader is using fishing boats to smuggle illicit goods," or "local pirates use this village as a base of operations." This prevents raids from becoming repetitious and boring.
You're welcome.
Fabian Benavente |
TritonOne wrote:You're welcome.KarlBob wrote:Thank you for the suggestion, Karlbob.Conan: The Pirate Isles has really nice charts for shipboard events and weather hazards. Both tables include suggested skill rolls to mitigate the situations.
It also has a good system for individualizing what it calls "prey settlements," with complications like "village leader is using fishing boats to smuggle illicit goods," or "local pirates use this village as a base of operations." This prevents raids from becoming repetitious and boring.
I just found that resource and it looks pretty good. Coupled with my admiration for 'Conan world', it will make a great addition to my campaign.
Thanks!